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.