Operation gluttony

With the holiday season upon me, all of my favorite sweet and savory foods come racing to the forefront of most family, work, and holiday social functions. And I am a social girl! I love a party. And even more than the party, I love party food.

When I go to a party with a buffet-style spread of foods, I always pretend not to notice the food...at first. I move around the room, meet and greet old friends and new, and then I casually make my way to the refreshments. No don't think for even one second that the food isn't my primary focus from the second I walked in the door because it was and is but, just as any good food addict, I need the few minutes of meet and greet time to plan out my strategy. "How could I make as many trips as possible to the buffet to get as much of the best food as possible without drawing attention to myself?"

Now to everyone in the room it looks like I really care about my fellow guests and the kind party hosts who are most likely my friends. But the reality is I am multi-tasking. I might be talking to you and pretending to give you my undivided attention but in reality you are a part of my cover.

Now after a few minutes I have assessed from a distance the tasty tidbits present, looked at the plates of my fellow guests and listened to their comments about said tidbits and I have a plan in mind. I then make my way very casually over to the buffet and make some comment like, "well, I was going to be good tonight but who can resist all of these wonderful treats!"

Then I casually put at least one of each tasty items on my plate and eat them. At this point I don't move very far away from the buffet. As soon as I finish the first plate, I seek out and comment to the hostess* about her "wonderful, homemade goodies". And they are wonderful.
I then make a follow up comment about my favorite items and all more of those specific items to my plate. This process continues until I am very full of food and beverages.

And then, and only then, will I relax enough to truly enjoy the company, some of whom I only see once a year at this particular party. The food is more important that my friend relationships and everything else. The food calls me from the moment I walk in the door and it has my full attention.

This scenario describes how my holiday season was one year ago. But today, I have almost 7 months of abstinance from flour, sugar and mass quantities of food marked off on the calendar. All of the food named above is not my food anymore.

Homemade pan caramels, and her evil bars, fudge, peanut and pecan brittle, Hershey's kiss peanut butter cookies, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, gingerbread cookies, rice krispy treats, sugar cookies slathered with frosting, cornbread dressing, gravy, potatoes mashed with cream and butter, green bean casserole, yams swimming in butter and brown sugar and topped with marshmallows, chocolate truffles, buckeyes, pita chips and many, many other holiday goodies are all examples of what is NOT MY FOOD.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. Many of my ex-boyfriends are named in the list above and came to the party. But instead of answering the siren call of those lost loves, I changed up the routine. I started out my day by spending over an hour on the phone with other food addicts talking about all the reasons we are thankful. Then I ditched my family and had my Thanksgiving meal with seven other food addicts where every bite was weighed, measured and abstinant. After dinner, even though it was a holiday, I made a couple of outreach calls to fellow food addicts.

AND, BY THE GRACE AND PROTECTION FROM GOD, I MADE IT THROUGH! I went to work, the day after Thanksgiving, wearing baggy pants and thinking with a clear mind. No headache, no bloating and no hangover from the excess from the day before. In past years I have often planned ahead and taken the day after holidays off because of how sick I knew I would be. But not this year.

With a sincere heart, I can honestly say that I am finally beginning to experience what it means to be a greatful food addict. My recovery is not easy and the program is tough but the rewards make all the difference. This is best summed up by a quote from my favorite poet in my favorite poem:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, And that has made
all the difference," as written by Robert Frost in The Road Not Taken.

Why I like being fat

Sometimes I like being fat. I'm sure that may be surprising to some but it's true. When a person lives their whole life a certain way it is hard to change. Even when the change is good. With a almost seven months of abtinance from flour, sugar and quantities of food, I find that I am being pulled outside of my comfort zone, or as I like to call it "the fat zone." My pants are baggy, even my shoes are smaller. I tried on a pair of winter gloves that I couldn't wear last year and they were lose on my hands. I even dropped two sizes in my underwear. I am losing weight in the strangest places. I have saggy skin on my fingers. Weird, right?

In the past when I successfully dropped pounds, I always had a magic "number" on the scale that caused me to freak out. About 12 years ago it was 352. I never dropped below that. Then when I had my weightloss surgery, I never dropped below 389. Now, I find myself obsessing at 424. I've lost 60 pounds since I committed myself to my addiction recovery program and more and more people have noticed the changes and are making encouraging comments. This "positive attention" is part of what freaks me out.

I am used to comments from people about my weight but not the nice comments. I am used to stares from people in public but not the good kind of stares. Now, with my recent success, I receive much positive feedback AND IT BOTHERS ME. I've really been thinking about this and I have a few fledgling conclusions: First, I don't feel worthy of the positive attention, second, if you could see the real me on the inside you would not feel the same about me and third, I really believe deep down that this "diet" will turn out like every other diet and I will gain back all the weigh plus more and then all of the negatives will be true again.

What I describe above is the root of my addiction...the root of any addiction in my humble opinion...and that is fear, doubt and insecurity. Fear that I'm not worthy of love, care and concern, doubt that my lack of worthiness will ever change and the insecurity that even though I have friends and family who love me, if they new the real me they would do a 180 and go the other direction.

I ate to numb the feelings that "we" had. By "we" I mean me and all the voices in my head that tell me over and over and over why I deserve to be fat and disgusting and miserable.

As I got the poisons of flour, sugar, alcohol and mass quantities of food out of my system, I began to hear the voices louder and clearer. At times I was tempted to go back to the food but I knew that it would not work. Right before committing to my recovery program, the food wasn't "doin' it for me anymore." My quantities were going up, the combinations of foods were becoming more bizarre and I was adding in alcohol on a pretty consistent basis. The disease of food addiction was progressing and it became harder and harder to find the high. I was at my rock bottom. I couldn't walk, my clothes were the largest size and getting tighter and tighters and I could barely breath.

So I took one small step of faith, a step toward my "higher power" and He met me, took my hand, and held me up when I couldn't stand on my own anymore. I realized that what Christ wanted from me, needed from me, was for me to put down my pride and come to HIM.

The words of a worship chorus that we sing at church comes to mind...and I would site the source if I could remember more that just a few lines...but here goes:

Brokeness, brokeness is what I long for
Brokeness is what I need
Brokeness is what You want from me

Take my heart and form it
Take my mind, transform it
Take my will, conform it
To Yours, to Yours, oh Lord

I can't say it better than that!