Recovery Meditations: March 3rd

A DISEASE?

"Doc! What do you mean-nothing! What? An incurable disease?
Doc, you're kidding me! You're trying to scare me into stopping!
What's that you say? You wish you were?
What are those tears in your eyes Doc?"

The Big Book, The Believer


For a very long time I scoffed at those who said my overweight was because I had a disease. Yes, my body had doubled in size ... but it was because I ate more calories than my body burned. My doctor said so ... he didn't say I had a disease. His "treatment" was to tell me to go on a diet and join a gym. The diet lasted for a few months and I believe I used the gym about six or seven times. I know now without a single doubt that I have a disease ... a serious one. I know that it is incurable and that I will have to live with this disease for the rest of my life. Dieting made me fat. Somewhere along the way I didn't "get it."

One day at a time...
I will resist thinking that being a compulsive eater is not a disease. I will aggressively and tenaciously do the footwork necessarily to combat it.

~ Mari ~

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  Food for Thought

Precision

For the success of our program, many of us have found that it is important to be precise when we weigh and measure our food. It has been our experience that carelessness and sloppiness lead to cheating and bingeing.

An extra spoonful or ounce here and there may not seem important, but it can soon become an extra portion. Then it is easy to think that since we have not followed our plan exactly, we might as well go ahead and really indulge.

There are circumstances when weighing and measuring is impossible; then we estimate as best we can. However, for most of us, most of the time, precise measurements are possible and are a valuable aid in maintaining abstinence. Each time we put back the extra spoonful of carrots and cut away the extra ounce of meat, we are stronger. It is always the first extra bite that is the downfall of the compulsive overeater. If we are careful and precise in our measurements, we will not take it.

Accuracy is honesty.

Make me honest with myself, Lord.


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Dieting made me fat. Diets last X amount of time and when they're finished, we go hog wild bingeing and eating everything in sight.  Then we cross a line..........and we can't come back.............back to 'the diet' and the excruciating pain of restriction.  We forget, of course, the TRUE excruciating pain of obesity..............


Abstinence means I follow a precise Food Plan.................some may call it a 'diet'.............because truly, there is no 'easy' way.  Trigger foods are not part of my Food Plan, so, I may sometimes feel 'deprived'.............which is the DEFINITION of 'dieting'.  But, what is the alternative? The alternative is a black hole of excess, where, no matter HOW much I eat, it is STILL not 'enough'!  The six donuts progresses into 12 and then 18, and still I go back for more more more.


Compulsive overeating *and addiction in general* is a disease of More.  One's too many & a million's not enough..


Why get started eating when I KNOW I can never FEEL satisfied?  There is no point in doing that, period.


For today, I will stick to my Food Plan and not consider it a 'diet'.  For today, I will stay sane as a result.


For today, I say NO to CHAOS.