I’m fat. I made a deal with my wife when we got together that I would stay under 80kg and she would stay under 50. She’s 48 (and pregnant) and I’m 85. I will find a way to lose it, I keep telling myself. I have lost weight before. But I can’t seem to get any traction on any diet. I might be able to do it for a few days, but slip and then go back to my old ways.
My most recent one was no snacks after dinner. That was a time when I would consume almost a third of my daily calories in crappy snacks. It was really quite easy. Sorted, I thought, and then less than a week later I was back to my wicked ways.
Over the last few weeks, it’s been getting quite uncomfortable. I’m only 7kg overweight, yet this padding around my gut is really annoying. And it’s hard and solid. I read that’s the dangerous fat that is underneath the stomach muscles. I prayed to God for a few days. God, please help me stop overeating. That helped for a few days, but then I had a cheat day. I think I have put on weight, not lost any.
I think about a more extreme diet, but lack the motivation. I figure it will be hard work and then I will put it all back on again in 6 months. What to do? As I pondered on what I had done in the past and what I could do in the future to arrest this issue, and lose some goddamn weight so I don’t feel so goddamn fat.
I recognized my sensitivity and dependence on sugar in my first years of sobriety back in 2000. I tried to stop and then went through a pattern of stopping and binging. There were parallels to alcohol abuse, but still reasonably manageable. I ended up trying OA and was able to get almost 12 months abstinence from sugar. In that time I decided I wasn’t an over-eater so much as a sugar addict.
Since then I have tried stopping sugar on multiple occasions (some successfully) but there was this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that extremes of total abstinence over sugar were too extreme and may even cause the compulsive behaviour around it. To be fair I haven’t had any decent sugar binges like I did in my youth for years. I don’t binge, I just overeat.
The words repeated in my mind. “I just overeat”. Damn, by definition I am an overeater. I can stop overeating, but I can’t stay stopped. I always return to a calorie surplus. By definition that makes me powerless over it too. This is so similar to substances. Not alcohol as much where I really do experience the phenomenon of craving, but more like weed, where I don’t really abuse it as much as moderately use it against my will.
Only an addict could describe moderately using something against their will. LOL
Ok. So I pony up the $12 for the OA book from Amazon, start reading, and then do an online OA meeting. I am welcomed and feel a relief at once by seeing a Zoom meeting full of men with smiles and most of them slim. They identified as being overeaters and they were slim. They said they were free from the obsessive thoughts and actions around food. That sounded good to me.
As much as I enjoyed the meetings and learnt a lot from the men sharing, their opinions are just that. Their programs are theirs. I will discover mine. At the risk of being an arrogant, wilful, heretic I am going to do it fucking my way. If I fail I’ll go back to meetings with my tail between my legs. I am going to work the OA program between me and God. I am not going to take any advice from anyone. I will listen to their experience and take things I identify with, but blind obedience is for the vaccinated.
I have done so many diets and calorie counting I am confident I have a good understanding of nutrition. I know exactly what I should be eating and how much. I might need to weigh it and re-check my calorie figures on Google, but this is not rocket science. I consider the other fellowships I have had success in. SLAA, DA, WA. I have such a good relationship with sex, love, debt, money, and work these days.
I went through my entire history on these topics and saw the relationship I had with them, exposed the light to my vice, then basically failed at controlling them while I healed and changed my habits for about 3 years, and then they ceased to be a problem. Better than that. Not only did they cease to be a problem, but sex, work, and money have become rich parts of my life. I was totally re-wired around these issues in the space of about 3 years. And I maintain that sanity with only AA meetings.
Except food. But I haven’t done the rigorous house cleaning around food yet. I will explore my past and how I used and abused food for all the wrong reasons – for reasons other than nourishment. I will expose the truth to my darkness, my sad reality around food. The 5-year-old who had lost his daddy and was ignored by all the other adults, but was given a safe back room with a TV to watch Happy Days and access to the cupboards in the kitchen that had all the crisps, lemonade and lollies I could want. My happy place.
I will then do the rest of the steps and fail OA for about 3 years. Then I will succeed. Then I will have recovered around food and never need to diet again. I will have been restored to sanity around food. I probably won’t even need to do OA, maybe a refresher course every decade. I can then just put it on the AA program.
You know what else I’m not doing. I’m not giving up sugar, or fats, or anything. At least to begin with. Through the help of God and the program of OA – through the literature and the meetings, I will simply attempt to not overeat – not consume more than 2500 calories per day – I will actually aim for 2000 to try and lose a bit. I will make a food plan that is 2000 cal and try and stick to it.
I did read something in the literature that was like a lightbulb and that was about abstinence. Abstinence is not eating outside of my food plan. Not just thoughtlessly eating a lolly as I pass the fridge, not eating between approved meals and snack times. The best thing is I can have a lot of meals and snacks if I plan for them and I keep under 2500 cal per day.
I was a little shocked by some of the members’ bottom lines. One guy said he had to swear off sugar, salt, and refined flour. I hoped I didn’t have to go that far. There was a personal story in the OA basic text I read where she said she didn’t have any bottom lines around particular foods and more around behaviours. This sounded more my style.
I did the steps on SLAA in 2004 and changed a lot from that process. I went back in 2015 and did their HOW program where I partnered up with another guy and we would call each other every day on the phone for 30 days and answer a question from this booklet. At the end of the 30 days you were meant to set your bottom lines.
I had a resistance to this. I hadn’t done anything in that 30 days I hadn’t wanted to do. I felt I didn’t need any bottom lines – I had been restored to sanity instead. Almost 10 years later I feel very free from sex and love obsession. I would hope that recovery in OA would be similar and I would have freedom from the obsession with food rather than a white-knuckled abstinence.
A recurring theme in the meetings that I have really been drawn to is people sharing that it’s not as much about the food and even weight, as it is about the freedom from the obsession over it. Even at a week into the program I am starting to see a glimpse of what that could be like. I have set loose boundaries around my meals and snacks – not too big and not too much sugar or processed flour, and committed to not eating between these meals unless I am genuinely hungry.
This structure has already reduced the cravings and obsession a lot. And I don’t feel overly hungry all the time. If I am hungry I know my next meal or snack is not that far away and I can have a coffee. Not sure how healthy the coffee is since I use it as an appetite suppressant – more will be revealed on that one. And I think food already tastes better. I think I have experienced this before on a lower calorie, lower sugar diet. I am looking forward to a rich and satisfying relationship with food where I am free of the obsession over it.
Red Pill Recovery 