Happy All Hallows Eve!
I hope everyone is out having a grand time at dances, parties, and/or trick or treating with your little ones.
So I was sick this weekend. Means I missed Yaoi Con and tonight's dance in Santa Cruz, but all in all I don't mind much. I lit a candle in the window next to the pumpkins and had a nice, quiet weekend with Robert, and I loved it.
As for what I have been up to: I had a very brief temp job doing data entry, which was nice while it lasted and I already miss the routine it gave me every day.
I've been going to OverEaters Anonymous for the past three Mondays now. It's a great group of folks who actually understand the problems of compulsive overeating and all the damage it does to our bodies, our self esteem, and our everyday lives. I have never seen or been in a group quite like this before. For one, I am no longer the biggest person in the group. Many of us weigh about the same, and its a shocking contrast to my everyday life surrounded by beautiful, fit people. Nothing against all you lovelies in shape, mind! But it made me realize that it was one of the many triggers and blinders I have been using to not deal with my problem. But I'll get to that later.
OA is based on AA's Twelve Step Program, with somethings tweaked in order for it to make sense to our "fellowship". Obviously the very essence of the word "Abstinence" had to be altered in order for it to make sense. You can abstain from from all alcohol, but obviously not from all food. From what I have read and what I can understand, the program is about abstaining from compulsive and binge eating. The Fellowship is forbidden to suggest specific diets or methods, no eating plan beyond sticking to three meals a day and not eating in between. And even then this is not a hard and fast rule, as folks with different medical issues may have different dietary needs.
The point is that they don't set up a food plan because every single one of our food preferences is different. Compulsive eating does not begin with the taste of a single set of food for everyone. Everyone has a different past, a different reason, and a different food that they go to when things get too scary, or too hard, or too overwhelming. Everyone who joins this group knows that their emotional reaction to boredom, or loneliness, or anger is unhealthily connected to food and has made their lives unmanageable. It is up to that individual, once they have made the first step to go to a meeting, to soul search and figure out what food seems to initiate a binge session.
This I have done. I realized that for me, my trigger food is potatoes, but the whole realm of starch (pasta, rice, corn, etc) is a patch of food that I easily eat too much of. I have been incredibly successful in keeping potatoes out of my diet, even going so far as to eat around the servings found in soup! Yet I am still struggling with the correct way to address things like bread, sushi, rice bowls, chicken parmigiana, etc. How much, or what kinds of starch, should I actively avoid? What should I simply measure by by?
One of their well used sayings for just such problems is "Just for Today". This is another revelation that I found incredibly different from my dieting attempts in the past: not to think beyond the meal in front of you. Looking at your progress day by day, rather than what you accomplish over the long term. In a nutshell:
"Just for Today: I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle my whole life problem at once. I can do something for one day that would appall me if I felt that I had to keep it up for a lifetime."
Finally, the last thing I am really struggling with right now is the Twelve Steps. Step One was fairly easy for me: We admitted we were powerless over food- that our lives had become unmanagable. I am on step two, which is that we "Came to believe that a Power Greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."
I haven't practiced any real concrete form of deity worship in years. But in reading the literature and talking about it to the group, the "Higher Power" could be any force from Judeo-Christian Jehovah, or an embodiment of Love, or even, very simply, the OA group. The point, I believe, is to take the pressure out of your hand and head to be perfect. When you are feeling too weak to resist the temptation of overeating, you have something to put between you and it that is stronger than you, alone. This is also the reason why they encourage people to call other members, to find a sponsor you can talk to, etc. Its just another brick in the wall, so to speak. I find some measure of comfort of thinking on the group's strength and love during meetings, but I may yet do some more soul searching and see if, perhaps as I have often wondered, the need for a more spiritually led life has directed me here, and now I may do something about it!
So that's it for now. I am going to enjoy the rest of my Shamain with my boyfriend. Sweet dreams, all!
So I was sick this weekend. Means I missed Yaoi Con and tonight's dance in Santa Cruz, but all in all I don't mind much. I lit a candle in the window next to the pumpkins and had a nice, quiet weekend with Robert, and I loved it.
As for what I have been up to: I had a very brief temp job doing data entry, which was nice while it lasted and I already miss the routine it gave me every day.
I've been going to OverEaters Anonymous for the past three Mondays now. It's a great group of folks who actually understand the problems of compulsive overeating and all the damage it does to our bodies, our self esteem, and our everyday lives. I have never seen or been in a group quite like this before. For one, I am no longer the biggest person in the group. Many of us weigh about the same, and its a shocking contrast to my everyday life surrounded by beautiful, fit people. Nothing against all you lovelies in shape, mind! But it made me realize that it was one of the many triggers and blinders I have been using to not deal with my problem. But I'll get to that later.
OA is based on AA's Twelve Step Program, with somethings tweaked in order for it to make sense to our "fellowship". Obviously the very essence of the word "Abstinence" had to be altered in order for it to make sense. You can abstain from from all alcohol, but obviously not from all food. From what I have read and what I can understand, the program is about abstaining from compulsive and binge eating. The Fellowship is forbidden to suggest specific diets or methods, no eating plan beyond sticking to three meals a day and not eating in between. And even then this is not a hard and fast rule, as folks with different medical issues may have different dietary needs.
The point is that they don't set up a food plan because every single one of our food preferences is different. Compulsive eating does not begin with the taste of a single set of food for everyone. Everyone has a different past, a different reason, and a different food that they go to when things get too scary, or too hard, or too overwhelming. Everyone who joins this group knows that their emotional reaction to boredom, or loneliness, or anger is unhealthily connected to food and has made their lives unmanageable. It is up to that individual, once they have made the first step to go to a meeting, to soul search and figure out what food seems to initiate a binge session.
This I have done. I realized that for me, my trigger food is potatoes, but the whole realm of starch (pasta, rice, corn, etc) is a patch of food that I easily eat too much of. I have been incredibly successful in keeping potatoes out of my diet, even going so far as to eat around the servings found in soup! Yet I am still struggling with the correct way to address things like bread, sushi, rice bowls, chicken parmigiana, etc. How much, or what kinds of starch, should I actively avoid? What should I simply measure by by?
One of their well used sayings for just such problems is "Just for Today". This is another revelation that I found incredibly different from my dieting attempts in the past: not to think beyond the meal in front of you. Looking at your progress day by day, rather than what you accomplish over the long term. In a nutshell:
"Just for Today: I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle my whole life problem at once. I can do something for one day that would appall me if I felt that I had to keep it up for a lifetime."
Finally, the last thing I am really struggling with right now is the Twelve Steps. Step One was fairly easy for me: We admitted we were powerless over food- that our lives had become unmanagable. I am on step two, which is that we "Came to believe that a Power Greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."
I haven't practiced any real concrete form of deity worship in years. But in reading the literature and talking about it to the group, the "Higher Power" could be any force from Judeo-Christian Jehovah, or an embodiment of Love, or even, very simply, the OA group. The point, I believe, is to take the pressure out of your hand and head to be perfect. When you are feeling too weak to resist the temptation of overeating, you have something to put between you and it that is stronger than you, alone. This is also the reason why they encourage people to call other members, to find a sponsor you can talk to, etc. Its just another brick in the wall, so to speak. I find some measure of comfort of thinking on the group's strength and love during meetings, but I may yet do some more soul searching and see if, perhaps as I have often wondered, the need for a more spiritually led life has directed me here, and now I may do something about it!
So that's it for now. I am going to enjoy the rest of my Shamain with my boyfriend. Sweet dreams, all!