Food soothed an ache she couldn't name, a pain she couldn't describe. In this memoir, Dr. Hilda Lee shares the story of her unhealthy relationship with food, and offers strategies for recovery to others lost in the same maze in which she wandered for so many years. Hilda was a powerful professional woman seemingly in complete control of her destiny-but she harbored a shameful secret: she was a compulsive, out-of-control binge eater. She secretly consumed massive amounts of food, sometimes unable to stop until she fell into a deep, almost coma-like sleep. Filled with shame and self-loathing, she fruitlessly sought a solution to her compulsive eating problem in diet plans and weight-loss books, thinking she simply needed to find the right diet and exert stronger will-power. Tragically, each diet led her deeper into the darkness and shame of binge eating. Then everything changed. In 1998, at over 300 pounds, Hilda was diagnosed with an eating disorder more common than anorexia and bulimia combined, affecting more than eight million Americans: BINGE EATING DISORDER. Confronting this diagnosis, she started on a journey toward healing and health. She sold her beloved dental practice and returned to graduate school in search of a deeper understanding of the causes and possible solutions to this destructive pattern of eating. Hilda's healing and transformation allowed her to shed emotional burdens far heavier than the weight she once carried. Now, her deepest desire is that her book, In the Labyrinth of Binge Eating, will serve as a guide to help others who suffer as she did.
About the Author: Hilda Dulin Lee, a dentist and writer, calls both North Alabama and Western North Carolina home. She attended the University of Alabama in Huntsville where she received her BA degree in literature and did post-graduate work in the sciences. She then attended dental school and received her Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) degree. She owned and managed a successful dental practice, taught at her dental school, and conducted seminars and private consultations on practice management. After practicing dentistry for many years, she made a decision that would alter the direction of her life: she sold her dental practice and enrolled in graduate school at the University of North Carolina in Asheville. There she received a Master of Liberal Arts degree in which she combined the study of creative writing and binge eating disorder. In the Labyrinth of Binge Eating is her first full-length book. Hilda was selected as a national finalist in Sequestrum's 2015 New Writers Award. Her cottage in Western North Carolina is her favorite place to write. She shares life with her husband, Glenn, who has been the abiding love of her life for more than fifty years. They have two children and eight grandchildren. Her hobbies include genealogy, bridge, and of course reading and writing.