The Eating-When-Hungry Journal :)

[roundcoconut]

So, I just wanna do a quick check-in about how things are going for me!

So, I am at the three and a half week mark, of being on OA phone meetings every day, and that is something that I very much intend to continue. People who have tendencies toward being a food addict, or a compulsive overeater, or whatever you wanna call it -- we really seem to do best with a LOT of support for getting through the withdrawal process. I believe it takes a fairly large amount of attention and intention, to begin to set aside binge behaviors, binge quantities, binge responses, and binge thinking.

Anyways, three and a half weeks in, and things are well. It feels much easier over time.

I will mention that I in no way feel like an obvious candidate for any 12-step program, as my view of Source is very, very different from the one taken by some people in the program. I just don't see this god-figure who wants to humble me and take me down and wants to run the show against my wishes. I think that kind of Divine would suck, and I wouldn't ask such a figure to be a part of my life.

My personal view of source, is that if I want to experience joy and happiness at work, that Spirit is like, "OK, let's show you how you can work that!" Or if I want to feel pretty in a pair of leggings, that Source is like, "Great! I'm on board. Let's help you feel hot in those butterfly-print leggings!"

As such, I'm also not on board with taking a sponsor. And the way that OA is structured, they receite at every meeting the 9 tools, and one of them is sponsorship. They say that tools only work if you use them, but it is also true that not everyone uses every tool available to them. I don't even think I'll bother with that tool, as I tend to be a simple person. I am making heavy use of other tools (meetings, phone contact with other members, writing, literature, etc) and I honestly don't want anyone else giving me direction right now!

Anyways, I'm off to work. That's the update for now!

[roundcoconut]

Part of what has been really unusual for me as I look at forming new patterns of eating and more functional manners of coping is this:

I found myself saying yesterday, "But I'm such a FUNCTIONAL binge eater!" When I binge, I do it so that it leaves no trace of illness or disease; I do it skillfully enough that my weight remains low; and it really is tempting to excuse and rationalize the binge eating I HAVE been doing all these years.

And someone offered the concept to me yesterday: When you notice that you sometimes eat, when you would do best to refrain from eating, or eat foods you would do best to refrain from eating, then you are doing EXACTLY what all the other addicts do.

Someone who wishes to drink only after 5pm, sometimes finds themselves finding a strong drive to have a drink at noon. Someone who drinks hard liquor when they think, I would feel OK about drinking a glass of wine, but I don't think I should be drinking whisky. Those are things that addicts do.

So, it's NICE that I have success in curtailing most of the obvious forms of binge eating. I mean, I DO think I get credt for this. I will -- just because it is worth mentioning the obvious successes -- point out that the REASONS I am such a functional binge eater are because:

1. I haven't bought products containing sugar in months or maybe years. I don't have any sugars in the house, and I don't eat sweets. I understand the danger of sugar addictions, and the sloppiest I've gotten is, I was putting some sugar in my coffee (at my local coffee shop), back in maybe November or December or so. I wasn't doing that previously, and it wasn't a great detour into sugar-land.
2. I haven't bought flour products in probably a few years. I have periodically gone through periods where I eat toast at work, but that wasn't the brightest idea. So over the last year, I've had probably three separate weeks of relapsing into bread, but then I've somehow reclaimed my sanity. So, maybe my last year has been 95% of days, where I am free from flour products.
3. I haven't had a tub of peanut butter in the house in at least a year and a half. That stuff is a disaster! As with bread, I've gone through probably three different weeks of having peanut butter at work (eaten guiltily with a spoon, like any food addict), and escalating from one spoonful to several, before I was able to reclaim sanity and abstinence.

So my scale weight is 102 at last weigh-in, and that's a really nice weight on me, but I only feel a sense of sanity when I eat as I had previously decided to eat. So, if I buy three bell peppers, four beets, and a bag of brown lentils, and say to myself, "One bell pepper and two beets and half the lentils, are for today's lunch." Then, if I notice that I am going back to polish off the rest of it for an afternoon snack, then that is just plain addiction. I mean, it's cute that I do not manifest as other addicts manifest, but this is largely a point of pride that can easily become an avenue of rationalization.

I honestly believe that the biggest lie people tell themselves, is that something is "not that bad" when in fact it is a bona fide act of addiction.

So, eating food that you do not wish to eat, is giving in to your addiction. And when one says, "Well, I was planning on eating one bell pepper and two beets and half the lentils, but HONESTLY! It'll be fine if I polish off the other two bell peppers and the other two beets!" -- That's the thinking I'm up against, is starting down the slippery slope, of if I allow myself two bowls of something, to bargain for a third. And if I allow myself three bowls of something (even if it is broccoli), to bargain for a fourth. That is how addiction/compulsion WORKS.

So getting a handle on things has not been easy or perfect by any stretch!

I will mention, honestly, that I have portioned my starches and eaten the portion I wished to eat, for 26 out of the 27 days I've been doing this. This is a HUGE success.

I've also followed my personal plan of eating with regard to fruit -- it's just easier for me to make a food plan that doesn't include fruit (during winter anyways), and I haven't wavered from that.

But I still have had this tendency to have a big free-for-all with raw and cooked vegetables -- the urge to compulsively eat outside of meal times. Like, if I have a large lunch at 11:30AM, then who in their right mind needs to compulsively eat a head of cauliflower and two bell peppers, at 12:30???? Remnants of insanity!

So OK, that is crazy-rambly, but that is where I'm at. A lot of behaviors I feel good about and wish to continue, but a few remaining acts of nonsense.

I probably will work with someone in OA to get a grip!

[roundcoconut]

I am at the one month mark of my time in OA. I am glad I am there, and find that the parts of my experience that are not supported here, are supported there. And vice versa! So the two programs seem to be an excellent combination.

A couple random comments:
One of the philosophies of 12-step programs, is to allow people to share within the context of meetings. There is no IQ test to be able to share, and so you get used to listening to people tell you where they are at, and what they are doing and how they are feeling AND you get used to listening without injecting any thoughts of your own.

One really positive thing is that i've found it useful to take what is practiced there, and spread it around to different areas of life. So, I've found it useful to allow people to share without giving them any thoughts or ideas of my own in return -- not just in meetings, but on these boards and in real life. Just allowing them to share their experience and their ideas, whether that be thoughts of self-pity, or plans to eat plant-based versions of their favorite trigger foods, or really ANYTHING.

Letting people row their own boat, is turning out to be a smart practice! People who have priorities that are different from mine, have every right to live according to those priorities, and when they decide to reprioritize, then great. Seriously, I could spend time on these boards running around from post to post, pointing out every single time someone is setting up shop in feelings of failure, and strategies of self-sabotage and food plans that will not lead them to the outcomes they say they want. I've pretty much resigned from that role! If you don't believe me, look at my posting history.

So that is one little shift that's taken place in me!

[roundcoconut]

More comments about what I am doing to support a healthy, well-boundaried relationship with food and with food triggers:

I agree with the belief that food addictions are partially physical (a history of seeking the physiological feeling that overeating gives me) and partially psychological (a history of using food to avoid doing or feeling something else).

Well, I tend to be pretty inconsistent about taking care of day-do-day things in life, and then using eating, to avoid doing those day-to-day things, or thinking about these day-to-day things. Like, seriously, I clean out the car one week, and then the next week, it looks like a homeless person has been living in it. (Here is where I rationalize: I am planning and packing my food every day, and so of COURSE there are tupperwares with remnants of lentil soup all over my car, and I have been working two jobs, so of COURSE I have work clothes all over my back seat, and I mean, I'll also offer the "don't judge me, man!", because nobody likes to own up to being inconsistent and keeping a trashy car!)

So, one of the patterns with me, that both drives me to the food, and keeps me in the food, is that I generally haven't practiced good day-to-day self-care. The car is a mess, so it is tempting to just go hide in the food. And then I just ate way too much, and now I DEFINITELY don't have the self-esteem or the physical energy to clean the car.

So -- taking care of day-to-day tasks (such as cleaning the car) is part of my general plan of action. If the car is clean, life doesn't feel so unmanageable. And if life doesn't feel unmanageable, I don't need to hide in the food.

And that is my sharing for today! Doing houseworky stuff, is one of the things that I am practicing, to keep me sane and to keep life manageable (and HAPPY!).

[roundcoconut]

I have so many more thoughts to share today!

First, there are a lot of little adjustments to be made, to make a twelve-step program feel free-thinking and hospitable to me. Because really, the view of spirituality held by some people, that there is a single being in the Universe, who plays puppet-master in our lives, and really kinda doesn't take our input very seriously or share with us what's going on.

So, the dude that people talk about in meetings, is like a daddy with poor parenting skills who doesn't tell his kids when he's taken a job in Idaho and is moving the family cross-country. He just starts packing the boxes and one day the kids are on a plane to somewhere else, without ever having had a conversation about dad getting a job offer, or a conversation about having a going away party and getting to say good-bye to my elementary school friends.

And on top of that, the dialogue in meetings often touches on the idea of "character defects", which is just the word "sin" wearing a thin disguise. And we "surrender" our will to "god" because we're "sinners", right?

So yick!

Well, for my personal purposes, I feel that I am the only one who gets to decide what aspects of my personality I'd like to be different and also HOW i'd like them to be different. There will be no inventory in which I give a list of things that OTHER people want to change about me, or don't like about me. I mean, a lot of my uniqueness is fun, and I want to keep it! If you let my mother or someone like that, take my inventory, then yes, it would definitely say, "Traci's too this" and "Traci's too that", but I kinda feel like when there are qualities I'd like to embody, then I can but them on the list and say, "I've tended to be too chaotic and unstructured, and I'd like to have a little more order and structure and peace in my day-to-day life.

So anyways, that is one aspect of twelve step programs that is generally too couched in a disempowering and demeaning world view for me, and one that I'm kinda restructuring for myself.

Just wanted to put that out there, because it would probably be in poor taste to tell the people themselves, that I think they're setting up shop in a shitty world view.

[roundcoconut]

Another thing that I've been thinking about is this:

With formulating a plan of eating for myself, the idea is that I decide how I can eat sanely and sensibly, and then I try that out for a bit, and see how it goes. And adjust if I have to.

The thing I want to get out of my plan of eating, is that I envision one that keeps my intake very, very steady from one day to the next, and keeps massive fluctuations of intake in check.

Also, I would like my food plan to guard me against bunching all my intake into one humongous eating session. That would bring me back to just rubber stamping binge tendencies.

So one thing that is said among some people, is that each meal now has a beginning, middle and end. Meals are not indefinite, and they do not continue out into infinity, based on whim or based on when all the food in the house is gone and the stores are closed.

In my own experimentation over the last couple of weeks, I've been eating the raw food first (about the amount that fits into my fave green bowl -- so about one celery heart (the ones that are sold in packs of two) fills this bowl if it's heaped, which is fine with me. And two big commercial bell peppers also are about the right portion.

And the "middle" is cooked veg, which is often cauliflower or broccoli, or sometimes cabbage. I DO genuinely enjoy this.

And then "end" is a measured portion of something starchy -- 1 cup of dry rolled oats cooked up, or 1/2 cup of dry lentils (which are then cooked, but they have been measured while dry, because that seems most accurate), or beans or whatever.

Doing this, I've mostly been able to end the meal there, and not go piling more food on top of that. Which keeps me feeling that life is manageable and that my food is sane and sensible.

I actually HAVE gone back to the idea of not buying extra food one day, to pack for the next day. Having all that food in the house just wasn't something I was used to, and I have an easier go of it, if i buy my dinner food but no extra; and then stop at the store the next morning on the way to work, to make sure I have stuff I can eat for my first meal of the next day. On days when I had a two pound bag of carrots around "so that I have something to pack for work tomorrow" just wasn't easy for me. I either went back and ate the carrots, or I experienced too much dis-ease having them on the kitchen counter, but not in my mouth.

So that's a minor update. So tedious and dull, but I just want to get my experiences down, and if anyone is willing to listen to my progression, then I totally appreciate that!

[roundcoconut]

Also, I started with the ideas of delineating specific meal times, and wound up finding that more rigid than it could be.

So, on days when I leave the house at 6am, holding off till 9:30AM to eat my first intake of the idea, seemed to require a lot of emotional energy, and seemed oddly illogical. Instead, it seems like, on days that I wake early and work early, that I can allow my eating to begin early as well, provided that meal 1 does not run into meal 2 and turn into some kind of free-for-all.

So for yesterday (which was actually a late day at work, not an early-wake-early-work day, I delineated my food plan by saying, "I'll consume my food between 10am and 10pm -- three meals at a max".

I'm also realizing that I don't need to establish any mandatory food times for myself -- I'm an adult and I'm not prone to overrestricting. So occasionally, I eat two real meals throughout the day (beginning, middle and end), and then I eat a "snack" which is the raw veg and then the cooked veg, and then I'm satisfied.

So the end result is, if I allow myself between two and three meals a day, my weight still remains really steady and I still feel sane and sensible about my food choices.

Well, i say this because I think there is a lot of hysteria about "restricting". People who have anorexia or bulimia in their past (which I don't), may have to say to themselves "You will eat three meals, not four, not two, because you've lost the privilege of deciding that for yourself.

But I HAVEN'T lost that privilege, and it IS still OK for me to say, "Eat two or three meals, depending on how busy you are and how much time you have."

Because one of the variables in my life is that some days I have a ton of time on my hands, and I DO want to eat three full meals, and some days I work long shifts and would have to eat hurriedly or without chewing well, if I were to force a meal at a time that wasn't convenient or workable in any real way.

Well, that's just more information! On the whole, this is going very, very well, and I do feel sane and sensible FINALLY for several days at a time.

[roundcoconut]

I want to mention another of the clichees of twelve-step programs, which is "One day at a time".

And the thing that's been helpful about how I've implemented that clichee, is that I consider my plan of eating as subject to change, but with a safety barrier -- so i've made an agreement with myself that if I ever want to include different foods or want to go out to eat, then I can build that into tomorrow's plan of eating or Tuesday's plan of eating. But for today, I adhere to the plan of eating that I made up for today.

So for me personally, nuts and avocados aren't ever something that has gotten out of control. I don't need to exclude nuts or avocados the way I would need to exclude foods that HAVE been binge triggers for me. I can include nuts and avocados if I wish. Also, I can eat at restaurants if I wish, because that's not something that gets out of hand -- I don't even like eating at restaurants, except that occasionally I need to get out and be among people.

But to keep things feeling predictable, sane and manageable, I've decided that I follow today's plan of eating, as written. And I can make a special eating plan for tomorrow, if I decide to put a portion of nuts or avocado or restaurant food into the mix.

And same goes for fruit. If/when I decide that I'd like to eat fruit (because there will come a time of the year when I can just pick apples off the trees, or plums), I can decide how many pieces at which meal. But I don't ever have to decide anything about today, because that's been locked in. And that actually feels good!

[amandamechele]

I am at the one month mark of my time in OA. I am glad I am there, and find that the parts of my experience that are not supported here, are supported there. And vice versa! So the two programs seem to be an excellent combination.

Hearing your experiences with this group is very interesting and entertaining.

So that's a minor update. So tedious and dull, but I just want to get my experiences down, and if anyone is willing to listen to my progression, then I totally appreciate that!

Well, that's just more information! On the whole, this is going very, very well, and I do feel sane and sensible FINALLY for several days at a time.

I'm glad to hear things are going so well.

[roundcoconut]

Lots of quick comments and updates:

I've heard people say (and I agree) that there is not one perfect plan of eating for any given person -- there just isn't such a thing, and so you just try to arrive at the set of rules, boundaries and ideas that can keep you safeguarded from the biggest triggers. But no plan of eating can set you totally and perfectly free of temptation, so you just do the best you can under the circumstances.

What I'm saying is that there's been a bit of trial and error as I try to fnd the plan of eating that safeguards me best, against my biggest weaknesses. The thing I'd like to guard against the most and the strongest, is the "quantity binge" -- so that means that I am better off having zero food in the house, and having to wait a little longer for my first meal the next day, than to have food for tomorrow all prepped and ready to eat tonight. The latter is very unpleasant for me, and I tend to want to chow down on ready-to-eat foods!

So yesterday was a day where I intentionally bought extra food in order to have stuff that I would then take with me to work for today, but what actually HAPPENED, was that I ate the extra food last night after my dinner. I mean, it was broccoli and tomatoes and a portion of oatmeal, so I never really have the damage of a binge, like some people do. But all the same, it was a real and legit binge, because for me the definition of binge is that I eat a massively disproportionate amount of food and then I kinda can't sit up straight comfortably. And the amount of food I include in one meal is pretty big, so the quantity in two meals is ridiculous and you almost gotta sleep it off.

Well, the big adjustment is that I do best when I only keep one meal worth of ready-to-eat food, going forward.

I actually seem to be OK having volumes of dried starches around (like dry lentils or kidney beans, or even brown rice), because it wouldn't really occur to me to cook up an extra portion in the evening. It would occur to me that I was doing something foolish, and so that binge wouldn't even get to fruition.

I don't quite know right now whether I do best when rolled oats are around, or not. They are almost instant to prepare, and pack a moderate calorie punch. I dunno.

It HAS helped immensely to have my plan of eating written down for each day, so that I can't get any bright ideas in my head. Today I hadn't packed any food to bring with me to work (because I ate it all yesterday!), and it occurred to me, "Maybe I'll just get a salad at work", and since my agreement with myself tells me so, I was able to say to myself, "If you want a salad tomorrow, you can put in on your plan of eating for tomorrow. But it's not on your plan of eating for today, so you can wait!"

Well, thats the scoop!

[roundcoconut]

There is one more concept that I wanna write down here:

It is said that the greatest gift you can give to others, is your abstinence. ("Abstnence" meaning your own act of back-to-back days of abstaining from your binge triggers and binge behaviors as you personally define them). Because you can't show the way or lead the way or give anyone hope that success is possible, if you don't personally walk the path, or build any success for yourself.

I love that idea.

So I'm going to work like fuck to string together 90 days of back-to-back abstinence. That is what I want!

Pretty crazy of me to state my intention aloud, but that's what I just did, so there!

[roundcoconut]

Here's my thought for the day:

I find that no matter where I go, it is up to me to decide to make a place for myself and make connections and put down roots. And I feel this is something I'm allowed to do, no matter what workplace I enter, no matter what town I move to, no matter what discussion board I post on, and no matter what program of binge recovery I enter into.

So I don't know why, but for some reason yesterday, I was like "nevermind!" -- I decided not to call into a meeting at all yesterday. I mean, I am usually pretty confident and pretty willing to make space for myself wherever I go, and willing to self-express authentically. But yesterday, I was like, "Nope! Gonna take a nap. Gonna waste my whole evening."

There is a paradigm of christianity that OA-ers very much abide by -- where "I am so small and stupid and only God can save me". Where I believe my difficulties are because I am so "selfish" and so "willful". And surrender, surrender, surrender. And blah blah blah.

I am SOOOOOO the opposite of all those beliefs!

I want to embody and live my life, rather than surrender it and turn it over. I believe there are forms of self-expression that are creative and wonderful and joyful -- ways of connecting with people that I do in my own personal ways, and ways of forging a path forward that is an expression of who I am individually.

The concept of service is one that can fit into even a free-thinking, new agey sprituality! If I want to share kindness and joy and beauty by seeing how people are doing in their journey, then YES, I think that's wonderful.

But I don't recover on anyone else's terms, or demote myself in submission to an authoritarian God.

That is my lovely idea for the day. I am ready to go back to a meeting tonight after work, but it was nice having a break from the Dark Ages notion of higher power that is being practiced by so many!

[roundcoconut]

There are bits of internal (and external) dialogue that I see in myself and in others, that I think are super-useful on this journey.

One thing that OA-ers typically say often and out loud, is that they're "gratefully in recovery" or "grateful for their x days of abstinence" or "gratefully in program since Year Z" -- and that is so frigging refreshing, because it is just so easy to find people in regular life who are resentful that they can't eat SAD foods (and be healthy), that they can't eat foods they're allergic to (and be painfree), that they can't eat sweets (and stay sane).

And one thing that I just naturally say to myself when I see people eating, is, "I'm so glad I don't eat like that!" and "I'm so glad I don't drink" and "I'm so glad I'm not caught in that cycle."

I'm not entirely sure if this line of thinking is accessible to everyone, or if you gotta reach some state of no longer wanting to keep getting what you been getting. That part's not really clear to me.

But it's pretty clear to me that the thought pattern of wanting to eat this way (not HAVING to eat this way) is present in the people who find (create) success with this!

[roundcoconut]

I'm a big believer that we're co-creators together with all the other beings and forces in the universe.

As such, I feel that each of us is determining our path, as we walk it. Sure, I tend to buy the notion that we've planned and agreed to certain events and circumstances in our lives, but what I do next about any given situation is up to me.

So I had this moment last night of kinda wondering if I even wanted to bother with the OA crowd at all. Like, what is the story I want to be telling about my life three or four years from now?

But I actually think that OA has a lot to offer, as does the plant-based community, so I'm just going to construct my path in that direction.

In any group there are gonna be some people you're not going to particularly vibe with, and I always hope that people who come to these boards realize this! You're not going to have a connection with everyone here, but you decide to make yourself at home anyways.

There are many safeguards in OA to ensure that people don't feel alienated by the goddiness, or turfed out by long-timers, but I can nevertheless see how someone could feel that they aren't a good fit there.

Anyways, that's my commentary for right now!

I had my small head of cauliflower (barely cooked) earlier today, along with a bowl of oatmeal, and am just leaving work. So I'm pretty well on track! . That's all outta me.

[roundcoconut]

The thing that I began using the OA phone meetings for, is to give myself something to do when I get home from work.

Honestly, I have zero difficulties buying healthful foods to bring with me to work. I have zero difficulties finding some time to eat healthful foods before, during or after my shift at work. That part is all working wonderfullly still. It was just that what I used to do, was buy big quantities of food on my way home from work, and then EAT all that food in one long sequence in the evenings.

So calling into OA meetings has provided an extremely useful and functional substitute pattern.

It is not as though it has been perfect. Good lord, even the night before last was an eating session of portions that I don't feel right about. I would say, "portions that got away from me", but that is such a weird passive voice. Mostly, I had too much food in the house, and then made some decisions that I later had to dig out of. But I did! Yesterday, I was on track again.

One concept that people talk about is "finding an abstinence you can live with".

So, if I define my plan of eating as "eating three meals a day, at 10:30, 2:30 and 6:30", and find that those times are shackling me rather than setting me free from food obsessions -- then I adjust.

At the moment, I'm not entirely sure WHAT my plan of eating is -- not sure how I am defining it right now. I think that eating twice a day makes sense. And eating pretty large portions makes sense. But not buying more food in the evening, than I can eat (and still stay sane) that evening.

I guess that is my def of abstinence right now: "Eat two large meals a day. Don't bring extra food home."

Yesterday, I ate a really large dinner, but when it was over, it was over. And I didn't feel like the amount I had eaten was a binge, because it didn't keep going and going.

What I ate in the evening was to be truthful a LOT -- I seriously ate three bell peppers, and then a package of celery. And then I ate a pretty big thing of broccoli (cooked). And then I ate a portion (measured) of beans. I mean, I honestly probably ate four pounds of vegetables -- I just enjoy doing that -- and for now I'm going to go on the notion that it's not unhealthful to eat four pounds of vegetables.

That's my contribution for right now!

For some reason, there are a lot of us who have journals up right now, and we are all kinda getting at the heart of our food addictions and such! It's fascinating to read -- almost like me and a couple of others are having parallel experiences and walking down different alternative paths! Those of you who have journals up, keep going! It's a delight to read and to know we are on similar paths!