by medamoso » Fri Jan 03, 2020 11:07 am Starting a new food journal. I also just started OA (Overeaters Anonymous.) I've never been a 12 step person but I finally had to admit there was something hugely amiss about the way I ate. Or to be more specific, couldn't stop eating. I knew exactly how I wanted to eat and then not do it. I'd take the fact that McDougall had said sugar is not a problem, and some original doctor fed his patients white sugar and they got well, as permission to eat sugar...dark chocolate bar after dark chocolate bar. Then milk chocolate if that's all there was. Then anything I could get my hands on. I tried the potato cleanse and I did not stop eating potatoes all day long. When I went off it I simply did not stop eating all day long - I guess I was in a binge that didn't stop. Potatoes, beans, oatmeal, salad, it didn't matter. I've heard people say they never met anyone who overate Brussels sprouts - I could eat Brussels sprouts til I was in pain, and when they were gone I'd look for something else to eat. I didn't use oil in cooking or dressings, but I gained and gained and gained weight, and my eating would not normalize.
I've also had a tough year: my husband died suddenly and unexpectedly in January, 2019. I'm coming up on the one year anniversary of his death (January 7.) Then in June we learned he had killed himself, which shocked me completely because though I knew he was depressed it never even occurred to me that's how he had died. In fact, my journal was full of pages of, "So, people just die of nothing now?" Yes he was depressed and yes he had confided in me that he thought of killing himself, but I thought that was just his way of stressing that he was more depressed than he was letting on. As in, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse," you never think someone is actually considering eating a horse. Now I know how absolutely serious it is when someone says they are suicidal - never ever dismiss it.
In the first step of OA they say to admit your life has become unmanageable. My life is totally unmanageable. I was going to say I don't have a job, which I don't (even though I have sent out scores of resumes, cover letters, emails, even went to a walk in interview), but I do massage and acupuncture and I have one or two clients who I see each week, usually. Hardly a living though, especially with a teenage daughter to raise. But my parents have been helping me out which at 51 is probably pretty pathetic. My house is a disaster: totally cluttered, messy, unclean. I don't know how to begin. I've been a slob my whole life. I wish there were a 12 step program for that. Maybe there is. Maybe this one will help in that area of life as well.
I went to my first OA meeting Monday. I asked someone there how to start and she said, "Plan what you eat, eat what you plan, and you won't be eating compulsively." I've been planning three healthy big meals. Big so I don't get hungry between them, so I'm not tempted to snack because if I only start eating three times a day I only have to stop three times a day. Which seems like nothing but to me it's EVERYTHING and in fact almost seems insurmountable. I did not want to stop eating after my bowl of oatmeal and fruit this morning. I was still sort of hungry (but was I really? It was A LOT of oatmeal!) and all I could think of was what else to eat. I almost steamed some potatoes for a later meal but I knew not to...I find I cannot meal prep because I will EAT ALL THE PREPPED FOOD. It's pathetic and embarrassing, but I knew if I steamed the potatoes for later there was a huge change I would eat the potatoes now. Does anyone else have this problem? So many people doing whole food plant based McDougal-type programs are so fond of meal prep...and I have tried it but I can eat a week's worth of meals in one sitting. I am not even exaggerating.
I looked through the boards to see if there was a topic on 12 step or compulsive overeating but I didn't find it. I've mentioned my overeating of potatoes in a facebook group and was told I could it as many potatoes as I wanted, it was impossible to eat too many, even if I thought I was. I think if people don't have a problem with food they don't get it. Also I've heard no one gains weight on a potato cleanse or a Mary's mini but I did. Well, to be fair I binged myself off the Mary's mini in a very short time. That's part of my problem though: I know what I want to eat, I resolve every night that tomorrow I will stick with it and eat a specific way, I'll journal about it, and then I get up and eat compulsively and binge.
I am not a Christian, not a religious person at all. I have an ashram I love to go to (Yogaville) and when I do yoga and meditate I feel great. They also offer the best vegetarian food there, three meals a day - whole, delicious food. It's the ashram of the guru who Dean Ornish learned all his information from and based his whole program on, which he talks about it "Undo It" - the title of which came from something the guru used to say: when asked if he was a Hindu he replied, "I'm an Undo."
In this 12 step program I need to ask for help from a Higher Power (whatever that means to me) and I am ready to do that, because nothing else has worked for me. I'm 51, I've been a raw foodist, a juice feaster, a McDougaller, a Nutritarian....I've lost weight on all programs only to gain it back by binging and compulsive overeating, so I am ready for something. I need help. I do believe that whole food plant based is the right, most healthy diet, so that is the meal plan I am following. On 12-step, you choose your own foods, there is no meal plan per se. They say talk to a dietician/nutritionist. The whole food plant based doctors like McDougal are my guides...unless of course my pain and fatigue doesn't go away, then I'll probably have to see a doctor face to face, which I haven't done in decades.
Today my food plan:
I had a grapefruit early in the morning, before dropping my daughter off at the bus and going to do an early morning massage at 7:30. At 10:15 I had my bowl of oatmeal with some flax seeds, walnuts, bananas, raisins, blueberries, and grapes.
Lunch will be baked potato fry nachos with the bean chili I made last night and a little homemade vegan cheese sauce, and a big salad with tahini dressing.
Dinner: steamed potatoes and broccoli, smashed, seasoned and baked, chili, and a cabbage salad.
At this point in the day (noon) I am biding the time until I can eat again, because all I want to do today is EAT. I was going to try to wait until one...so I guess at 12:30 I'll start to prepare the food, since the sliced potatoes will take 1/2 hour to bake. Then I won't be home for dinner until about 5:30, so lunch has to hold me.
I think now I'm going to listen to a podcast from the oa website about step one.
Cheers!
