Checking in

This will be pretty short.  (Yeah yeah, she says that all the time..)  If you've read my last couple of posts, you know that I'm at a pretty serious point in my weight loss journey, having hit some kind of new low emotionally juxtaposed to (and likely resulting from) a new high at the scale, at least a new high since last summer.  I simply can no longer deny that I really am a food addict, and have been in relapse mode for awhile.  I've hit this place before over the years and sort of slammed through 12 step food programs for a few weeks - finding fast relief and weight loss by following strict and austere food plans.  But the way I've always used those programs is for the addict's most highly coveted commodity...the quick fix.  But for true recovery and healing from an addictive process, there just is no quick fix.

My new "bottom" has awakened me to some realities about how I've been operating lately when it comes to weight loss.  First, I've gained weight. 'Nuff said.  Can I be a weight loss blogger and gain weight?  Obviously I can, but I prefer to not be the poster child for "Don't let this happen to you."  Second, I've used the scale as my barometer of what kind of eating I can do on any given day.   Also the scale determines my mood.  Down a few pounds - happy happy joy joy.  Up a few - foul and irritable, and jolted into cleaned up eating.  This cycle has been going on for months.  (I almost said weeks, but that would have been a Leslie Lie.)  Third, and this starts to get a little deeper into the nature of addiction, I've had food on my mind almost continually.  Events, such as a party at work, or a celebration, or a meal out - is about food before anything else.  It's hard to admit that.  True obsession of the mind.  And once I feed the obsession, the compulsion insists I continue until I'm "done", whatever that means.

An example: I had a clean food day on Wednesday and woke Thursday already churned up because I had an anniversary party for an AA meeting that night.  This annual event always has a huge tantalizing spread of food.  I wanted to go, but knew if I went I probably couldn't abstain from "tying on the feed bag", so to speak.  I decided to take it one minute of the time over the course of the day and keep my food on plan, exercise, all the usual good choices.  But my mind was obsessed all day to where I finally ended up having just a handful of nuts at work.  This could be a benign and even healthy choice...except that my frame of mind was in food obsessed mode. The handful became another, which morphed into a "couple of cookies", and the rest is not worth repeating.  As this was unfolding, I was thinking, "Now I can just eat what I want at the party tonight, since I've already blown it, and begin again tomorrow.  Turns out that was the evening we had the bad storms and I ended up not going, but I did continue to overeat at home.  A lot.

That is a terribly embarrassing story to recount, and there will be readers who have weight problems but aren't food addicts who won't get it.  I may lose followers.  I've already lost one in the last 2 days as I've begun to get honest about all this.  So be it.  Hopefully this will help someone who's like me at the other end of the weight spectrum and can't get a handle on the eating.

I'm at a place right now where I feel ready to accept this and deal with it once and for all.  And not in quick fix mode.  It will be a gradual and probably long process.  The weight loss may happen a lot faster than the emotional and spiritual healing does.  But the emotional and spiritual maladies I have as an addict are at the core of my eating, and if left untended, relapse will continue to be a frequent visitor.  What I'm reflecting on now as I face this revolting state of affairs is whether I want to return to a food 12 step program or use the principles I've learned from them in the past and try to do it by blogging as the means of not doing it alone.  Addiction can't be addressed in isolation.  I've learned that well in AA.  I can't do it alone.  I need others to help me, and I need to help others who also suffer.  In order to keep recovery, I've got to give it away.  But first I've got to get it for myself.  Talk about paradox.  Anyway - I know the rigidity of food 12 step programs is profound - nothing like AA.  I know myself and that I can't sustain absolute rigidity over the long haul.  So starting going back to their meetings would be a temporary measure that I'm not sure I want to do.  Meetings are for support - giving and getting.  And for learning.  Can I find those aspects of meetings through blogging and talking to close friends?

I have several friends in real life (as opposed to virtual) who have similar issues with whom I can and do talk about difficult stuff.  I have a therapist I trust, love and who knows me well.  And I have every book ever written on the subject.  So - to cut this off sort of abruptly due to time constraints, I think I have what I need to succeed.  The key factor is me staying honest.  No more half-truths.  No more trying to sound better than I am.

That's where I am for today.  I have 2 clean days behind me and am in process for a third.  I am literally scared of  "offending foods" for now.  I have no morsel of denial left regarding my ability to have one compulsive bite of anything and thinking it won't send me off to the races.  I'm grateful for that today.