Sorta hangin in there - day 11

so i counted up the days and it looks like i've got 11 days without sugar or artificial sweetners! I am sure there have been accidental inclusions in some of my meals, especially since I have gone out to eat, but my main focus right now is to avoid, the real sweets: cookies, cakes, cupcakes, pies, ice cream, pastries, etc. I was also trying to stay on a 3 meal a day plan, but real life has definitely taken its course and i've found myself breaking up my meals more throughout the day. I know this puts me in contact with my addiction more often, but it's just so hard sometimes to eat a full meal when i'm busy and i do get hungry every couple of hours and if i dont' eat something, even just a piece of fruit i just feel so anxious sometimes I cant' focus on anything besides the growl in my stomach.

I do feel like i'm in a decent place right now, but I know that i'm not going to lose a bunch of weight by the way i'm eating now, so i am workign really hard to find ways to work out more. ugh, i forgot the other reason i loved controlling what i ate was that i wouldn't have to work out in gyms, which are just so obnoxious sometimes. i hate feeling like i'm in forced, organized physical activity, but if left up to me, i know i'd just veg on the couch every night.

so i am committing just for today to eat right, avoid sugar and no matter what no desserts or junk food and be sane with my food.

Barely making it to day 5

ugh, i did NOT think i would to day 5. i got home from work last night and had part of my dinner immediately, half a cantelope and cottage cheese. So the only items left would be a starch, veggies and salad, but i just wanted something more substantial so i ate the hamburger helper that my boyfriend made. Flour and wheat are not on the abstinent food plan prescribed by my books, but at this point, i dont' feel willing and i dont' really believe that i'm affected by wheat and flour in the same way that i am sugar. i also feel WAY to constricted as to what i can eat without at least some pasta or bread occasionatly. I want to stay away from refined carb food items but i just dont' see how i can live on such a restriced plan.

So I ate my dinner and then I noticed that my bf had bought a bag of hershey's miniatures and he made careful effort to just eat a couple on the sly and then bring the bag to work, but even the very mention of the existence of chocolate within my reach made my mind go into hyperdrive with thoughts of stealing and binging and eating in secret. But I managed not to partake of this and i didn't eat anything else for the night.

This morning i woke up and had the cereal part of my breakfast straight away and i packed the protein and fruit for when i got to work. I didn't have time to pack a lunch, so i'm hoping that i can find something filling and abstinent. I should probably replace the word hoping with "i know" so that i believe it more completely and i commit myself eating abstinently no matter what. I just still find it hard to really accept that i can no longer have all those sugary wonderful treats that are just friggen everywhere. this feels so unfair.....

Recover from relapse - day 4

i thought i would be okay today since I packed a very nice breakfast and lunch so I didn't have to worry about what to eat and I got to go to my regular OA meeting, but it's around 4 p.m. and i have already eaten a snack of pack of Planters peanuts in the middle of day which is not on my meal plan. My food plan consists of 3 abstinent meals not containing sugar or flour and a snack after dinnner. Well, I enjoyed my lunch around 1:00 but by 3:00 I was hungry again. I know that part of my hunger is related to the fact that i do not want to be at work anymore today and I am very stressed when i think about some of the assignments that I am behind on. And part of my hunger is feeling deprived, I am sitting in this office all day with the sun shining outside and i just want a little something sweet in my life right now.

I think as long as I dont' convince myself that i've already failed by eating the peanuts I can stay on course. The peanuts won't trigger my sugar craving, just the desire to graze and graze and graze. Tonight I am supposed to go to a pilates class but i just feel like it's all too much. I just want to do something fun and relaxing, but I feel like I will feel so much better about my body if I do some more working out. It's only 45 minutes and then I'll feel so good about myself.

15 minutes later...okay the urge to binge is passing and I think I can make it to the end of the work day without a problem. The afternoon of a workday is pretty much my worst time ever, that's when the day just feels like it will never end, and my job will never be fun and I'll just keep having to do this every day forever. But I can't take on my whole life's problems every second of the day, that will never make me feel good.

Right now I"m grateful the feeling has passed and I feel like writing in the blog really helped slow be down before I just ran right out of this office to curl up with some food for a second.

Recovery from relapse - day 3

well, i entered the fog of food addiction once more and i am really feeling the after effects. I had about a week on my new food plan and i was starting to feel cranky and angry that i couldn't partake in all the sweets i was around all week and then bam! I ended up binging for about a week before I could lift myself out of it. It all started with a lunch i had last sat. and i accidently drank a very sugary drink that i thought was artifically sweetened low cal and i immediately started craving sweets. I was out walking around trying to buy some literature on overeating, particularly a good memoir about someone's struggle with the issue and i just started seeing the food everywhere so i headed back home for a nap. A phone call from my bf woke me up and he asked me to meet him and his friends for dinner and i just couldnt' face a big meal with other people in my condition and i think my bf was disappointed by my declination. And basically as soon as i got off the phone i ran to the kitchen and started to robotically pour sugary granola in a bowl. i ended up pouring 3 bowls full and then ate some grapes, some cheese and crackers and some bread with jam.

I felt terrible after this binge and i even tried to throw up but i couldn't get much up. I hoped that i could turn this around the following day, but i was now officially obsessed with food and craving more sugar. The next day i kept telling myself, i can't screw up, but i also started having the creeping disease ridden thought that well, if i'm already off the wagon, i might as well partake in a couple of my favorite desserts before i officially "get back on track". By Monday, I was so freaked out about food that i had to take the afternoon off and i took off of work on Tuesday because i was so depressed and still craving time alone to eat all the food i could get. But whenever i did eat the food it just wasn't even that good and it never lasted long enough. I bought a pack of 6 donuts on Tuesday, cheaply from my local grocery and thought, well this should tide me over for the day. Well i was done with them in about 10 minutes and they were stale and not that tasty so i was left feeling like i still need more. And that's after consuing 1400 calores in 10 minutes!!!

Well it definitely took me some more time to get back on track, but i was committed to getting on the right path this Sat. and so far it's been working. But i have been extremely emotional and cranky especially when i feel the need to eat more or to get that sweet sugary fix. What makes this really stressful is that i live with my boyfriend so he's watching my every emotional rollercoaster and it's got to be difficult for him to have to deal with me when i freak out because i'm hungry and want sweets all the time. I cry about this alot and talk about my problems and that is just not a fun way to spend your weekend.

But i'm feeling okay today so far and i'm committing to an eating plan of 3 meals a day plus a snack all without sugar and flour. The book I'm using now seems to have very full meals so i'm hoping that i can make this work. I know i can't stay in the food, but it's just still so hard thinking i can't have this cookie or that piece of chocolate ever again!

no more desserts - day 6

so today is the 6th day of my abstinence from desserts - no more cakes, cookies, brownies, chocoate, pies, pastries, puddings, or sugary sweets of any kind. And even further than that - i am abstaining for anything that i think may trigger my compulsive eating - like corn bread, certain bready things, diet sodas, and artificial sweetners. I am working to eat 3 abstinent meals daily and if need be an abstinent snack mid-afternoon or after dinner. I am trying to apply what seemed to work for me in AA - "dont' take the first drink" to my food addiction. At first I didn't figure out how i could apply this model which worked so well for me to food since i have to eat everyday, but now that i've gained true awareness about what triggers my obsession/binge eating and now that i'm ready to be really honest about what my body can't seem to handle, i finally see how i can apply the don't take the first bite to my food plan.

i'm feeling good with this new plan in place - very free - now that i have real concrete boundaries that i can work on just for today that make sense. yes, i am definitely sad and frustrated that i will never again be able to have a warm chocolate chip cookie or a slice of birthday cake, but i just can't think of it that way, i just need to stay focused on today and how i know this method works from my recovery from alchohol. i don't need desserts, they serve no nutritional value and i cannot handle foods that purely contain an emotional value and tend to trigger physiological cravings like a drug.

The one obsession i need to focus on letting go of now is weighing myself, expecting some huge weight loss just because i let go of a piece of cake! i am taking things one at time and i haven't been doing any physical activity other than the regular walking that i get to do since i live in brooklyn, so i need to keep that i mind and remember that first and foremost i am giving up desserts to: 1)free my mind of the obsession and2) free my body of the cravings, so I need to stop expecting that number to drop on the scale. Weight loss is not my reward for not eating a donut! I promised myself i wouldnt' weigh myself until sunday (once a week) and of course like a sleepy robot i got on that scale this morning to see that i'm the exact same weight i was on monday when i checked. this sort of compulsive weighing can only derail my current positive outlook.

Easy does it, but do it! thank you oa for exisiting today, being able to say my day count today has infinitely helped me keep this all in perspective and keep on going with it!

i heart oa

Overeaters Anonymous is a truly wonderful tool and program for recovery from food issues. i had gone to some AA meetings when battling my issues with alchohol, so i knew the basic premise, but i just never felt like this group was for me. i have been in therapy for depression since last sept. and my therapist kept saying that you gain so much insight and support from a 12 step program. when i told her i didn't think i needed to be in AA anymore (its been a full year since my last drink) she said, take your pick - overeaters, shoppers, alanon, sex, just get yourself in one of those rooms! and she was right, oa has made all the difference.

what i get most from oa is hearing the stories of others out there like me - with thoughts of cakes and chocolate consuming their minds until there is little room for anything else! i thought i must be the only person who thinks about food like this, none of my friends seem to feel food is that big of a deal to them and noone i knew had eaten a container of cool whip! i feel so wonderful just knowing there is a place where i can share my potentially embarassing and private thoughts, feeligns and struggles with food.

i am currently the literature person at one of my meetings and i had to go in late today because of last minute work meeting. well i have never done well with changed plans and i thought for sure this meant i was gonna miss the meeting, fall through on my commitment and miss another day of the support i desperately need from being in that room. but after my work meeting ended, i decided that even though i had missed the first half of the oa meeting, i would go anyway. I have always had an all or nothing approach to life - but the idea that i should just work on doing what i can is such a relief. well needless to say noone gave me dirty looks coming in half way late (others even came in later) and i was able to still service the group by offering the oa literature to anyone who wanted it. these are the goals and progress that i focus on now. staying committed to recovery in everyday life - with last minute meetings, changes in plans, and anything else that i have used as an excuse to give in to the pressure to just eat it all away.

thank you oa!

Honest to blog..

hi there! my name is kerry and i have been struggling with food addiction my whole life. my earliest memories of compulsive overeating date back to middle school, when i was the first to get home in the early afternoon. In my infinite boredom, i would watch game shows and munch on melba toast, ice cream sandwiches, and those marshmellow icing entemann's cakes. i would pretty much consume anything in the house that wasn't nailed down or glued shut, alternating between the sweet, salty and chocolatey until i had to wear stove-piped jenko jeans all through junior high. at 5 ft, i have gone back and forth on the scale -- weighing as much as 160 lbs at my highest in my freshman year of college -- down to 99 lbs earlier this year during a post-breakup depression. I thought my post-breakup diet would be a cure-all - one for the books (i could see the book deal now!) - but alas and also fortunately, my depression did not last and my appetite returned...with avengence!

The only thing that has been a constant in my weight struggle has been that unrelenting compulsion to eat, binge, restrict. and obsess about food (eaten or uneaten) until I am so exhausted i inevitabley give in to the obsession and eat!

i am a food addict and this is my first journal entry. i hope other food-aholics out there like me find this blog and help me shed some light on this struggle to the food obsessed community at large. i have been on the road to awareness and recovery of this food addiction for the past couple months and in that time i have gone to OA meetings, read some really informative literature, and googled for hours. i will be sharing the information i've learned in this journal and if anyone out there has other resources, information or an inspiring story to share --please do, i look forward to hearing from you....