The summer after 11th grade, as I swam in the backyard pool, my mind was swimming with visions of a thin senior year.  As was my custom, I vowed some time during the last week of school to stick to a strict diet of carrot sticks and water for the entire summer and return to school 3 months later magically transformed into a raving beauty.  But it would all be to no avail once week two of summer vacation arrived.  However, what made The Great Summer Diet Attempt of 1984 so different from all the others was the new low I hit in binge-control (or lack-there-of).

I started-off with the usual enthusiasm.  (Back then, I was young and foolish, not yet jaded by four decades of unsuccessful weight-loss attempts.  In my forties, I barely had the energy left to put-up a fight at all.)  I was going to only eat 800 calories per day.  Where I came-up with that figure, I have no clue.  I started out doing it in a healthy way (or, I should say, in as healthy a way as an 800-calorie-per-day diet can be), by spreading out my food consumption evenly throughout the day.  I basically ate fruits, veges, and one thin tuna sandwich on wheat bread daily.  By the fourth day, that ice cream in the freezer was calling my name.  By the fifth, it was screaming at me.  By the sixth, I had the measuring cups out and came to the wise decision that I could eat 400 calories of “real food” and still have 400 calories left to “spend ” on ice cream.  Ingenious!

That brilliant plan lasted about two days.

7 days after I had started, the idea came to me that the ice cream would be much better if I added a half-cup of unsalted peanuts to it.  (Doesn’t that sound sickeningly like the guy in The Big Book who decides that a shot of whiskey would taste great in his milk?!)  Peanuts are healthy, I reasoned.  Especially unsalted ones.  Yes, they are high in calories, but I could just take off some more calories from my “healthy” food list and use them for that…so now I was eating a cup of ice cream, a half cup of peanuts and 3 fruits every day.

That lasted about 3 days.

Then the REAL insanity kicked-in.

For the next week I lived-off little else but ice cream and unsalted peanuts.  But here was the kicker! – – I did it one half-cup at a time!  I ACTUALLY went through the trouble of measuring-out the ice cream in one-half cup servings, even if I ate TEN of them, just so I could feel like I was in control and be able to write down the amounts and figure out the calories!  Needless to say, I barely left the house that entire time!  I felt like I was chained to the freezer!  (AND the calculator!)  Finally, after 2 weeks of white-knuckling it, I gave-up.  Whatever few pounds I had lost were re-gained within a week.  Then I spent the rest of the summer bingeing and then starving and basically managing to stay the same weight as when I started, but continuing to mentally abuse myself for not being able to lose all the weight I thought I needed to lose.

Not exactly the type of summer a sixteen-year-old should be having.

The plan called for exercising rigorously and following a strict food plan all week.  Then you were “rewarded” by having one day to eat whatever you wanted.  The problem was that my food-addicted mind interpreted this to mean that on that “free day,” I could eat as MUCH as I wanted.  Even though the book outlining this plan gave clear examples of eating “normal” amounts of fattening foods at each meal on that day, I somehow was able to filter out that crucial part of the plan and simply began to see Sunday as “My Pig-Out Day,” as I WAY too affectionately called it.  (I suppose that name alone should have alerted me to the danger that lay ahead, but all I could see was a license to eat.)

Even as I write this, I can feel that sick part of my addiction that will always be alive to some degree in the back of my mind stirring and saying, “Oh, yeah!  Remember how in control you were?  That was a GREAT plan for you!  You were getting really thin and in shape…AND you could eat whatever you wanted!  Nothing like this unrealistic plan you’re on now!  You’ve only lost five pounds this year!  Lame!  If you go back on THAT plan, you’ll be thin by Memorial Day!”

Too bad none of that is true.  Not to mention the fact that I was a complete LOON through the entire 2 months I was on that diet!!   Here’s what happened:

Every Monday-Saturday morning I would get up early and follow the exercise routine I made for myself (using the book I mentioned earlier).  This included weight training as well as cardio.  Each day I would eat 6 moderate protein-packed “meals” (I put that word in quotes because calorie-wise I am sure they would be considered meals, but they felt more like snacks because the portions felt small to me.)  As with all my dieting attempts, I had little trouble staying the course Monday through Wednesday.  By Thursday I was bored.  By Friday I was ravenous.  By Saturday I was down-right deranged, thinking of little-else but the mounds of food that would be mine on Sunday morning.  I would have already been working-on the shopping list, secretly, in my mind, all week.

I think this was the only time I ever went on any type of weight-loss plan with my husband.  Of course, our favorite part was going shopping together on Saturday night for binge foods.  It became our date-night activity.  We would actually sit at the kitchen table together and write down all the restaurants we would hit the following day, make a junk food shopping list, and then off we’d go to the store like giddy school kids, loading our shopping cart with foods our moms used to tell us were not good for us.  That part was definately fun, in an immature, silly way.  When we got home, we’d even line-up all our treats on the counter and make jokes about who would get to what first (even though I already knew that he was nothing but an amateur, bless his heart.)  My husband is not a true food addict, and did not share in my passion for the supermarket “hunt” – – I could sense it.  But there were times he came close!  At the very least, for those few weeks he was definitely transformed into my eating buddy.

All Saturday night in bed I would toss and turn, knowing that these foods I had been craving all week were just a few feet away from me in the next room.  So close and yet so far!  It would take all the mental energy I had to keep myself from bounding out of bed and ripping into the bags at midnight.

Midnight.

The witching hour.

That was the time limit I gave myself.  “My Pig-out Day” officially went from midnight to midnight.  But I would force myself not to start eating until I was up for the day.  I was an old pro and knew that if I pigged-out and went back to bed, it would sour my stomach…and I had to keep it in top working condition if I was going to get-in all there was to get-in, if you know what I mean (wink, wink)!!  Sometimes I made it all the way ’til 6 a.m.  Usually, however, the latest I could hold-out ’til was 4 a.m.  (My non-addicted husband, on the other had, would wake-up at his regular time and have his usual cup of coffee, seemingly oblivious to the food-fest going-on around him.  In fact, he usually had no interest in any of our goodies until lunchtime.  (Told you he was an amateur!)

When it finally got to the point when I knew sleep was impossible, I would be out of bed like a kid on Christmas morning making a bee-line for the presents.  I didn’t want to wake-up my husband, so I would suddenly have to switch into slow-motion mode, so as not to rattle too much cellophane or crinkle too much plastic wrap.  Then I would bring whatever food I had been craving the most with me to the living room, turn on the TV, and dive-in.  I suppose that the first few bites were great, since I could supposedly eat without guilt…after all, hadn’t I earned it?  But all I seem to remember were the days of relentless obsession leading up to that moment, followed by the compulsion to keep eating, pretty-much non-stop, throughout the entire free-day.  Again, as I write this, there is a familiar longing that I feel deep inside myself, tugging at me to go back to doing all that kind of dysfunctional stuff I did with with food.  But if I am honest at the reality of what it was actually like, it was no fun at all.  I mainly remember a strange mixture of feeling insanely out-of-control and desperately ashamed at the same time.  But it was so enticing…so easy to believe that this lie – – that I had finally found a way to eat as much as I wanted while avoiding the consequences – – was true!.  But even while I was eating the very things I supposedly wanted, I never felt “good” about doing it.  In fact, I felt really bad about it.

By the time Sunday night rolled around, I had had it.   I was feeling bloated, strung-out on sugar, and at around 8 p.m., I’d started getting anxiety attacks while sitting on the toilet with severe bouts of constipation.  And yet, even while these distasteful “side effects” were taking place, my sick mind kept trying to figure out how I could get-in just one more bite of this, that or the other.  After all, it was going to be six long days before I would “get” to do this all over again.

What is that if not complete and utter insanity?!

Monday morning I would be dutifully back on the hamster wheel, still nursing a sugar hangover, but wondering what was so hard about this whole dieting thing.  This was easy!  I had absolutely no cravings for ANYthing!  It was a MIRACLE!  And there were even leftovers!  I would congratulate myself on how much willpower it took for that to happen while, at the same time, I would “forget” how physically sick I was just a few short hours earlier.  Just the mere mention of the foods I’d eaten on Sunday would make me nauseous…for a day or two.  But by Wednesday, that flimsy motivation would fade away, as it always did, and once again I would start to write a new shopping list…secretly…in my mind.

Twenty-four years after my first OA meeting, I was at an AA meeting and someone shared about how he’d had another “drunk dream.”  He said that when he woke-up, he was actually sweating from fear and that it took a few seconds for him to realize that he had not really “slipped.”  He then thanked God because he said that he saw each time that he had one of these dreams as a gift from God because it allowed him to get drunk, feel the misery of what that would be like, and then wake-up with a renewed sense of gratitude for another day of sobriety.  Ever since then, whenever I have a “food dream,” I shake-it-off and thank my Higher Power for reminding me just how precious my abstinence is.

For whatever reason, my entire life was spent cowering beneath the shadow of the belief that I was a “bad” person because I could not control the amount of food I ate.  It shaped my personality, formed my behavior patterns, dictated what I could and could not do, strangled my sense of self, and stripped away my self-esteem.  I come from a loving family, I never wanted for anything, and I always felt loved and supported by my parents and relatives, so what was the problem?  In the end, my sense of self-loathing was so bad that I actually convinced myself that the only reason why my parents “acted” like they loved me was because they “had to,” since they were my parents.  Same with relatives.  And friends?  Well, surely they felt sorry for me and were just being “nice.”

What a sad way to live.  Sometimes even now when I look back on all those wasted years I feel sad, but the good news is that I have finally escaped it all.  Some people (MANY people) never get that far.  It may have taken me until the age of 42, but at least I got out!

What is extremely important to take away from this post is the idea that compulsive overeating is a legitimate disease that has three components: a physical allergy, a mental obsession, and a spiritual sickness.  You can read all about this in The Big Book (see the “12-Step Links” at the top of this page if interested), but the bottom line is that it is not your fault that you have this disease, any more than it would be your fault had you been born deaf or if you were diagnosed with cancer.  The sooner you can accept this fact, the better off you will be.

I once had a sponsor who told me that if I did not break-up with my boyfriend the following day, she would have to “left me go.”  This sponsor was over-stepping her boundaries, but I didn’t know  it.  NO sponsor has the right to tell you how to live your life or to make major decisions for you.  All they are supposed to do is to refer you back to the Big Book and your Higher Power for inspiration and share what has worked for them.  But I was new to program, had just lost a ton of weight, and had this particular sponsor on the highest pedestal ever created.  In reality, it was my Higher Power who was giving me the power to recover, not her.  But you couldn’t tell ME that!  I should have simply changed sponsors and moved-on.  Instead, I got off the phone, cried hysterically, and left program for 2 years, gaining back, not only the 75 pounds I had just lost, but another 30 pounds on top of that!  (We won’t mention the fact that the boyfriend was long gone by that point, but that’s a whole other story!)

Another time I had a male sponsor.  Not a good idea.  Why?  Because he made comments like, “There’s no such thing as PMS.  That’s just an excuse women use to eat,” and, “You need to start wearing tighter clothes now and showing off your body.”  In that fragile state of “newcomer,” it was hard enough dealing with food withdrawals, never mind getting-up the nerve to tell an “old-timer” that he was way out of line!  I’ve also heard lots of stories about people who end-up dating their sponsors.  Talk about complicating things!  Again, in general (and there are always exceptions to every rule), NOT a good idea to choose a member of the opposite sex as your sponsor, and NOT a good idea to date your sponsor, regardless of gender.

This last example is probably the hardest one to take.  Over the years, I’ve had several sponsors lie to me about their own program.  This is a complete breach of trust and of the spiritual principles of the program.  I’ve had sponsors tell me they are abstinent but they are not, or say they did x,y, & z in recovery but they didn’t…  Here I am being completely honest with them, ASSUMING they are being completely honest with me, but then I find out that the whole relationship is based on a lie!  It can be DEVASTATING!  But only IF you are putting your sponsor above your Higher Power!  For even this type of betrayal can be worked-out through mature communication, as long as both parties are willing to be completely honest with each other.  Again, we are dealing with fellow addicts here.  We MUST, at all times, keep in mind that sponsors are just human beings who have been in program a little longer than we have.

If, after you have spoken to some fellow OA’s and your Higher Power, you come to the conclusion that the relationship with this particular sponsor is beyond repair, tell her/him that you have decided that the relationship is not working out and then move on.  There are SO many good sponsors out there!  Honest, caring, people who would LOVE to work with someone who is serious about recovery!  Remember, the sponsor gets just as much out of this relationship as the sponsee does.  And don’t ever forget the most important sponsorship rule of all:  You can change sponsors AT WILL!  NEVER feel that you MUST stay with a sponsor who is not right for you, or worse, one who is using their position of “authority” to manipulate you or make you feel worse than you did when you started!  You should ALWAYS come away from interactions with your sponsor feeling BETTER than you did when you started!  If that is not the case, something is very wrong.

For me, the most shocking part of this little self-appraisal has been noticing how many times I allow myself to get too tired or too anxious (or a combination of these two, which I describe as a feeling of being “overwhelmed”).  I was never one to nap, but now I do if I need to.  Same with taking time-out for deep breathing or meditation when I am feeling especially anxious.  And who would have thought that taking a drink, either of water or of a low-cal drink, would actually take away cravings?  Not me, that’s for sure!  But now I keep plenty of decaf coffee and ice on hand for iced coffee and I actually look forward to having it.

So the next time you are being nagged by one of those pesky food thoughts, think “Hat-Blat” and take the time to fix the real issue rather than eating.  By that time, the craving will have passed – – or at the very least, it will probably be time to eat your next abstinent meal!

Although there are obviously many different types of food plans, there are a few things that most of the good ones have in common:

A list of “binge foods” to avoid.  In my opinion, this is the most important part of your food plan.  It also is the most difficult to come to terms with, IF you are trying to do it without the help of your Higher Power. (Luckily, in program, this is not the case).  Unfortunately, unless you are on a food plan for medical reasons, it will take some time for you to experiment in order to find what works for you, but it is well-worth the time and effort.  For example, in the beginning, because I knew I could not control the amount of chocolate I ate, I knew had to give it up.  But did that mean I couldn’t have anything that was chocolate flavored?  How about sugar-free chocolate?  Over the years I have learned that, for me, it is just so much easier to eliminate all forms of chocolate.  But that’s just me.  Another example is potato chips.  I have never been able to eat “just one.”  But what about popcorn?  Or nuts?  They’re healthy, right?  Not if you eat the whole jar or can, they’re not!  Through trial, error, a whole-lot of praying, and a whole-lot of pig-headedness, I came to the same conclusion with all of these…for me, it is just easier not to eat any salty snacks or any nuts at all.  You will also hear many people in OA talk about how they have given-up sugar and flour.  At first glance, this may seem like an impossible tasks, since that would eliminate almost every form of bread, pasta, cereal, and dessert.  But again, if you seek the help of your Higher Power, you just may discover (as I did) that, once you get through the withdrawal symptoms (which last about 2 weeks), you no longer have any physical cravings for these things, which makes staying abstinent a whole lot easier.  There are also degrees of “no sugar/no flour” eating.  Some people read the labels of every single bite they put into their mouths, never putting any form of these two things into their systems.  At restaurants they make sure these items are not in the ingredient lists.  They may even call ahead when dining out to be sure sugar/flour-free foods are available.  Personally, I don’t do any of that.  In fact, I allow myself to eat “breaded” items and some salad dressings that contain sugar, even though I do consider myself to be on a no sugar/no flour plan.  My rule of thumb is this: if I can’t stop eating it, I can’t have it.  So far, so good on these two items.  Other than that, I have not eaten bread or pasta in over 2 years and I don’t miss them at all.  And YOU can do the same, if that appeals to you!  But you need to go slow, and you need the help of your Higher Power in order to do it.  Ask Him/Her/It for help, and then get rid of the one food item that you have the most difficulty controlling and see what happens.  Try not having it for JUST ONE DAY.  Commit to your sponsor (or someone else in program if you don’t have one yet) what you are doing – this will make you accountable.  Then try another day.  And another…  See if you can make it to two weeks, if for no other reason than to see if you can feel a difference in the intensity of your cravings after the withdrawal period has passed.  (Reminds me of a program saying that goes something like this: “If you are not completely satisfied with recovery, you can always have your misery back.”)  Then, if you want to try eating a controlled amount of that food, go ahead and try it.  Do you start obsessing over eating it all over again?  Do you binge on it right away?  If so, this is probably something you would be better-off eliminating entirely.  If not, it can probably stay, in controlled amounts.  Ask your Higher Power what He/She/It thinks.  You WILL get an answer.

A list of eating behaviors to avoid.  As all food addicts are well-aware, there are certain behaviors that just “set-us-off.”  For example, maybe eating fast food triggers you to eat too much.  Maybe eating in your car does.  (For me it was both.)  How about waking up in the middle of the night to eat?  (I think that was the absolute worst one for me!)  Or hiding food around the house?  Or eating items out of the freezer that were not meant to be eaten frozen?  Or eating out of the garbage?  Or vomiting, using laxatives, or over-exercising to compensate for bingeing?  Or, or, OR!  You get the idea.  All good food addicts have a few (if not all) of these skeletons in their closets.  Make a list  of these behaviors and take a good, hard look at all of them.  Then, with he help of your Higher Power, eliminate that one, most-bothersome behavior, JUST FOR TODAY, the same way you did with that one food item.  Again, commit this decision to someone in program.  For me, I had to give-up eating in my car and all fast food drive-thrus for quite some time.  Now, however, I am able to do those things occasionally, but I have a list of specific items that I can order and I now recognize that there is something very unsatisfying about not eating at a table.  It is a true miracle…I actually RATHER NOT eat in the car nowadays, whereas before, I couldn’t stop!  And that horrible night-eating thing is gone, too!  I will NEVER miss the nightmares and the early morning indigestion THAT would cause!

A description of the portion sizes you are allowing yourself.  Whether you use measuring cups, a food scale, “scoops”, “bags,” “half-a can,” “one piece,” the amount that fits on your plate, or the serving you are given at a restaurant, you are going to need some guidelines here, since most compulsive overeaters have problems with quantity.  As with all the other topics listed above, there are those who are loose about measuring, and those who take it to the extreme.  Some OA’s bring their measuring cups to restaurants with them.  Others refuse to go out to eat at all because serving sizes in restaurants are almost always bigger than what a measured portion would be at home.  Still others ask their waiters to split the meal in half before it comes out (so they are not tempted to keep eating) and take the rest home in a doggie bag for another meal.  For me, if I am at home, I use measuring cups (but not a food scale – – too many bad memories!).  When I am at a restaurant, I allow myself to eat the amount that is put in front of me.  (Ironically, since I have given myself permission to do that, there have been many times in the past 2 years that I have decided NOT to finish it!  Now if THAT’S not a miracle, I don’t know WHAT is!).  But when I am eating at someone else’s house or at family-style/buffet-type restaurant, I don’t measure with cups, but I do try to eye-ball what looks “right.”  I have actually started to develop a “gut-feeling” about what that amount is for me.  If I get a twinge of a sick feeling inside, I put some back.  That feeling usually gives me just enough time to remind myself that the extra mouthful or two is no longer worth my peace of mind.

A statement of how many times per day you can eat.  Many people in program follow the “old-school” approach of eating “three balanced, moderate meals a day with nothing in-between except coffee, tea, or low-cal drinks.”  The latest OA view on food plans, however, leaves them up to the individual.  Personally, I need the flexibility to eat snacks.  Besides a greater emphasis on spirituality, this was probably the most important difference in my recovery this time around.  And it is no coincidence that this is the time that I have been able to, not only maintain a 75 pound weight loss, but to do so for a year…even though I am not at my goal weight! That means that I have been following a food plan for over a YEAR even though I have not lost any more weight!  That is HUGE for me!  In the past, why would I even BOTHER?!  But this time, because I stay connected to my Higher Power, and because my snacks take away that feeling of deprivation/punishment that I always associated with “dieting,” I have been able to stay on my plan, “one day at a time”…for over 2 YEARS!  I eat every 3 to 4 hours and I never get hungry!

A plan of action for the times you go off track.  The best piece of advice I ever got in Overeaters Anonymous came from my latest sponsor.  Back in 2009, when I was just starting out on my current food plan, I overate at a meal and called her in a panic.  She said, “The first 24 hours are the most important.  The first thing you need to do is continue on your food plan.  Do NOT cut out any food that you still have left to eat for today.  That just starts-up that whole cycle of feeling deprived and punishing yourself.   The second is to call me or another person in program when you are done eating for the day and commit to not eating anything else until breakfast tomorrow.  Then, call me tomorrow and commit to me what you will be eating for the entire day.  By the following day, you will feel better.  For whatever reason, as soon as you get-in one really ‘squeaky-clean’ day of abstinence, you will feel better and be able to leave it behind you and move forward.”  As I have said before, I have been around OA since 1988, but I had never heard anything so powerful.  An actual WAY OUT!  And it worked EXACTLY like she said!  Ever since then, whenever I eat too much (and it DOES happen!), I follow this advice just the way it is written here and I am able to continue-on!  Remember: it is WAY more important that your abstinence be long-term rather than perfect!

What happened?  Well, I was being bullied by the teacher.  He hated me.  Why?  Because I had a weight problem.  Think I am exaggerating?  Read on…

Every Friday, during that “free” silent reading hour, this teacher would lean over my desk and give me what he wanted me to read.  Now you have to picture what this was like for me.  I was a very sensitive, shy kid, my desk was wedged between the back wall and the wall of windows, and he was leaning over me, his body over my head, and each of his hands grasping a side of my desktop.  I was literally surrounded.  He would whisper that he had found another diet that I might want to read-up on because I was “getting really big now.”  The one that always sticks out in my mind is “the hot dog diet.”  It was in a magazine that he flipped through to find the right page for me, and I was forced to allow this to go on, as I had no where to go.  All the while I wanted to run away, fearing that all the kids in the room could hear what he was saying or see what he was giving me.   After he left, I felt obligated to read it – like he was going to be watching to make sure that I did.  That particular article talked about replacing all your main meals with 2 hot dogs.  That was pretty much it.  Can you imagine?  Giving an 11-year-old the advice to eat nothing but hot dogs, of all things?!

Another day, my class was playing a game of kickball against his class, which was something I feared with every fiber of my being.  I was a slow runner, a clumsy kicker, and was never able to make a single catch, not to mention the fact that I was always, always, ALWAYS picked last.  It was an all-around horrible experience.  I must’ve been the only kid in the entire history of my elementary school to hope that my fellow students would act so badly all week that this Friday afternoon ritual would get cancelled.  (P.S. – wishing for rain never worked because we would just switch to a game of indoor volleyball, which was the only thing I dreaded more than kickball!)  Anyway, one day, as I walked up to the plate to kick the ball, this teacher yells-out, “If you put all your weight into it, it’ll go right over the fence!”  Of course, everyone had a really good laugh at my expense.  The saddest part of all was that my teacher never said a word.  He just allowed this jerk to bully me in front of everyone.  (Gee, I wonder what kind of message this was sending?!)  That was the last time I ever played that game.  Somehow I managed to get up the nerve to tell my teacher that I refused to play anymore.  I assume that at that moment, the pain of humiliation out-weighed my usually paralytic shyness.  My teacher reluctantly gave me permission to bring my markers and paper outside so I could draw pictures rather than play that stupid game.  At the time, I thought this arrangement was the greatest thing that could happen to me.  But looking back, I know that deep down inside, I hated myself for quitting, I hated myself for being fat and uncoordinated, and I hated myself for being afraid.