Progress not Perfection

Ok so it has been a fair bit longer than a week since I committed to writing once a week, but at least it hasn't been a month or anything. That's progress. If there's one thing I've learned from this program it's to focus on progress and not perfection. I am the world's worst perfectionist (ok that's a bit of an arrogant claim, perhaps there are others out there who are worse perfectionists than me....nah....impossible)

Trip Away:

Trip away started out very well, and overall I can say that I noticed definite progress, both in comparison to my last few trips away (both pre-program and during recovery) and in my program overall. I managed to stick to my plan for more than half of the conference, which is a huge improvement. I also took a lot of steps to work my program while I was away that I would have thought unthinkable just a month or two ago. Perhaps the most striking were, finding the catering staff at the conference, telling them I had an "eating disorder" and asking them to give me the menu plan for the next few days, and going to a lot of trouble to track down adn attend a face to face meeting in the city where the conference was held.

But towards the end I found myself in a H A L T position (that is I was often hungry due to poor meal routines, I was angry at the people around me coz I'd been with them too long, I was lonely because a lot of people at the conference knew each other better than I did and because I'd met up wtih an old friend at the first half of the conference and then had to say goodbye to her all over again, and I was absolutely and completely dog tired) so things went downhill. This downhill stretch continue until my meeting this Tuesday, and I'm only just getting back on track now. Still, the sorts of "downhill stretches" I'm having these days are not nearly as bad or as long as they used to be, and getting so far through the conference was an achievement.

I'm really learning not to beat myself up these days aren' t I? It's nice... this serenity.

Upcoming:
Well we all know what's coming up...or what's upon us in fact: it's that diet-deadly season of Christmas and New Years. I go away to my grandmother's for a week starting on the 22nd of December. Between now and then I have at least one Christmas party, perhaps two. I am trying to remain abstinent at least until I arrive at my grandma's house. After I get to my grandma's house the odds of me staying abstinent are slim...but that's tomorrow's worry and this program is all about living "One Day at a Time". I will work on having plenty of non-food activities at my Christmas party on Wednesday, and focus on offering the food-plan acceptable Christmas treats I do like (fruit, cold ham, baked vegetables) and the unhealthy ones I don't like (anythign containing raisins/currants/sultanas, pudding, fruit mince pies). Anyway hope to update you guys soon (ok well nobody is reading me anymore, but hey, a girl can pretend) See you all later

Conference eating

Hello everybody. Yes I know I haven't been around much lately. I am such a procrastinator. I commit to you guys I will write in my blog once a week from now on, even if it's just one line.

I also wanna publicly commit to the following goals. I am going away on a conference for 8 days. The conference is catered. Every time I've been on this (annual) conference before I've put on like 1-2kg in 8 days! This sort of thing is a major trigger for me. I'm really nervous. I've taken the following steps:
1. Start each day with program for 5 minutes
2. Tell billet family I can't have added sugar
3. Follow these rules for my eating:
-Eat only 3 times a day
*If I can't sleep so that I"m up past midnight one glass of milk or piece of fruit is ok
-At each meal eat only what I can put on one plate (that means only one course, no seconds, and no loading up two plates at once at the buffet)
-No added sugar. (that means no biscuits, no cake, no chocolate, no ice cream. It also means sweetener in coffee etc.)
-Go to at least one meeting in the area where i'll be staying.

God help me!

Check it out!!!

Hi all, It's exam time here in Oz so i'm just a teeny bit busy. But I HAVE to post these pictures here. I'll do some more OA and step-related posts later. How slim do i look?!!!....he he he i am buying clothes at ordinary shops...I can go in and find someting to fit!!!

I write too much!!!

I’m too sexy for this bandage!
Yes I’m still wearing bandages on my hand and my ankle. I’ve looked into elasticated braces but they cost $AU30-$70 each. I am walking again now, with difficulty, but with two feet nonetheless, and I am gradually getting more movement and less pain. It will be at least 3 more weeks, probably four, before I’m back to normal there. As for my wrist, it’s getting better, but because I can’t walk I want to sit around and do a lot of typing, which is, of course not good. The bandage is a little embarrassing, but nowhere near as bad as the crutches. My mother is also improving. For the first few days after she broke her ribs she couldn’t even go to the toilet on her own because it was too painful for her to get up and down off the seat. Now, although she is still on pain killers and can’t bend over or reach up high, she’s managing do get around the house and do most things herself.

I am really starting to reap the physical results of weight loss these days. Just before my bike accident i went to the shop and bought a navy blue sports track suit that looked like something Gabrielle Solice would wear out exercising. I no longer had to search for the large sizes, and it looked so slim on me. And here is the amazing part: I took a size L off the rack (not a size XL like before) and I had to change if for a size M!!!!! (Ok so it was very stretchy material and it’s a little tight, but I’m still wearing an M!!) I was over the moon!!! I walked straight up to the shop assistant and said “Excuse me, I would just like to inform you that I have lost 20kg and am buying a size M.” I don’t know whether she thought I was a complete nutcase, but she was polite and congratulatory to my face, and I was just so happy.

Another benefit is that I am getting just a little more attention from boys. I am 22 years old and I have never had a guy so much as hit on me at a bar, let alone ask me on a date. Well that’s not strictly true, a guy in high school asked me out...as a joke. Twice in the past few weeks, however, I have had stupid teenage boys call out to me “you’re hot” or “you’re sexy” as I was out riding/walking. Better yet, the other day I got on the bus, and two boys were on the bus with me. The bus driver told me he thought my hair was better blonde (he knows me) and one of these (male) total strangers piped up and said “it looks ok to me.” Moreover, even though he had a book to read, he made an effort to talk to me, ask me my name, and spend the 30 minute trip chatting to me. Maybe I’m reading too much into it...and I know I have serious problems with depending on boys approval for my self esteem, but it really was the highlight of my week!!!!

Progress but not perfection:
My program is plodding along slowly, 2 steps forward, and one step back, but I can’t complain:

I’m still not putting together days and days of back to back abstinence. But I’ve read in the OA Brown Book that perfect abstinence is uncommon among compulsive eaters. I”m getting a clearer idea of what actually constitutes abstinence. I’ve realised it’s not so much about what I’m eating as why. If I were marooned on a desert island with a broken back with only chocolate to eat, then abstinence would be sitting around eating chocolate all day. But if I go to a buffet and load my plate sky high with meat and vegetables because I’m nervous about being around other people or I just can’t bear to not to have “all you can eat”, then I am not being abstinent. Moreover, these two scenarios are not “either/or” but ends of a continuum. Recently I’ve been moving further towards the abstinence end of that continuum, but I am far from what I would like to be. I long ago stopped my abstinence count. It just makes me anxious and competitive. I feel I have to focus on perfection and not progress, and can no longer live one day at a time.

Perhaps the worst breach of abstinence recently was when I was at a low point from being stuck in the house for two weeks. I was angry with my HP and isolated from others so I went on a binge shop. I haven’t done that in a long time. I bought a massive box of Ferrero Rocher chocolate, 2 packs of fun size cadbury chocolates, 2 litres of ice cream, a packet of choc chip cookies, nutella spread and crumpets (perhaps a bit more, I can’t remember) I planned (unrealistically of course) to eat all this in one night and then go back to abstinence the next day. Once upon a time I would have begun bingeing as soon as I got home, soon got sick of the chocolate, but continued to eat it on and off for the rest of the night until I was feeling a little queasy. Then, since I couldn’t possibly eat all of what I’d bought in one night, I would have let my binge go on into the next day, and then, since I had started that day badly, allow the whole day to be written off, maybe even go buy some more binge food and start the cycle again. This time, however, I realised I wasn’t enjoying it and I shouldn’t be eating it. I kept eating for a little while, but stopped, and before the night was over I threw out all the leftovers (half the Ferrero Rochers, most of the cadbury, the nutella, and ¾ of hte cookies. Admittedly I didn’t throw out the ice cream, but finished all of that off that night. Then I went back to abstinence. I even had less guilt and anxiety after my binge (certainly I wasn’t anxiety free, but I wasn’t shattered. If I had an abstinence count it owuld have made things worse because I would have had to start counting again. ). Now because I was able to limit the size of my bine and go straight back to abstinence it really hasn’t become a big deal.

I’ve continued to lose weight, mcuh more slowly, but that’s not at all surprising. The great news on that front is that my BMI has crossed that wonderful line so that it now starts with a 2 instead of a 3, meaning I am no longer be obese!!!!! Thank God for my fellow compulsive eaters, the only people who can understand what an achievement that is. I haven’t been overweight since I was about 12 or 13 years old. When I cam to OA I was severely obese, and only a few weeks of bingeing away from being morbidly obese. I did a bit of digging and I found out that the BMI labels for the various weight levels are as follows:
25-29.9="overweight"

30-34.9=" obese"

35-39.9=" severely obese

40+= morbidly obese

Ok well that’s enough time spent on this blog. As a perfectionist I always want to write everything every time I post, whereas it would be much better if I posted regularly in small amounts. But that’s life.

Bye from Foodfairy (a compulsive eater and food addict)

Still here...well half of me is

Yes I'm still here everybody. I know I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. There are lots of reasons. One being that I'd forgotten just how much time and effort is involved in keeping up with some of The Recovery Group mailing lists. I mean some of them generate less email than others, but I joined a new one recently and it generates like 20 emails a day. I need to work out how to change my subscription on that loop to a daily digest subscription. I love these loops and they are the core of my recovery. I always prioritise keeping up with loop email before other recovery activities. Perhaps it's not the best program, but it's working ok so far. I've lost 20kg so I can't complain.

The Worst Luck In History (well almost):
Ok so another reason I've been away is that I've had an incredible string of bad luck.
1. First off, I got a bad cold/flu off my mum.

(She's a casual teacher in primary schools around the district so she's got a different bunch of 30 kids every day to catch nasty bugs off.) That took me two weeks to get over properly. After I got better my parents (whom I live with) went away for a week and left me in charge of the house. I had about a week of good health and then....
...Near the end of my week in charge of the house. I was riding from the university to the local train station (doing my exercise like a good girl) and
2. I crashed my bike. If I had simply damaged the bike this would have been inconvenient, since I was at least 15km from home and in a rather deserted place. Fortunately, my bike was not damaged. However I was not so lucky

3. When I got up, my left hand was bruised and grazed where I had used it to break my fall, and my left foot was letting me know that it did not appreciate being squashed under my fat bum and my bike at the same time. It felt like it had been fractured or sprained, and I didn't think I'd be able to walk back to the campus on it. Two not-too-harsh-on-the-eye medical students were driving past and stopped to help me.

4.But I was too focussed on my injuries to make a play for my eligible rescuers. They locked my bike up to a nearby fence, while I took out my mobile phone, wondering who to call. Unbelievably...

5. My mobile phone battery was flat! Of all the times to be flat!! I was pretty annoyed. This meant, of course, that not only could I not call anyone from the crash site, but I couldn't call anyone whose number was stored in the mobile phone and not my head. When the medical students offered me a lift back to campus I thought that if I could get to the Chaplain's office I might be able to get some help.It was about 4:45, and there are sometimes people there until all hours. I thought that there would probably be at least one person there whom I knew, and they would be able to look up some friends on their database and get me some help to get home. I hobbled/hopped the 200 metres or so from teh nearest parking spot to the Chaplain's office only to find that in keeping with the way my day was going....

6. There was no one at the Chaplain's office. Breathe deeply...! I sank into a nearby chair. In my head I went through the numbers I knew off by heart...my parents (both 1000km away), my home (no one there) the university switchboard...Ah yes, my sister works on campus as a trainee receptionist...if I could call the switchboard they could put me through to her. Only problem is that my sister is not the sort of person whom you call for help unless you are desperate. But I had no choice. I couldn't face moving again, so I hailed someone walking by and asked to use their mobile phone.

7.The reply came back "Sorry, I don't have any credit in my phone"! With no alternative I made my way to the nearest payphone by hopping, thereby doing my best impression of a flee-bitten amputee on speed. I did finally get through to my sister's office. Too bad that

8. on Wednesdays she does a technical college course and doesn't go to work. I'd forgotten that...and I'd forgotten her mobile number since she'd changed it recently. Resisting the urge to smash the phone to smithereens, I decided to call my parents and ask them what my sister's new mobile number was. I started with my mother's phone.

9. My mother's phone wasn't answering. So I called my father's phone

10. My father's phone wasn't answering. My parents are always pulling that trick, they're just so technologically backward that the idea of being available via mobile phone just doesn't seem to be a part of their paradigm. My next move was to hop/hobble down to university security. There they were able to put ice on my ankle and charge my phone up enough to get my sister's number out. I had hoped that she would be able to simply take me with her on her way home, but

11.My sister was already at home. This meant she had to drive all the way from my suburb to the uni and back again. She and her brother in law did do it, because they realised I was in a bind and couldn't get around it. They arrived ready to take me home, but I asked them to help me secure my bike. At first I hoped that, with the quick release front wheel removed, it would fit in their car

12. It wouldn't fit in my sister's car. So I had no way of getting it home. I asked my brother-in-law to ride it over to the campus, where I would be able to put it in a safe place.

13. My brother-in-law was wearing thongs (US english= flip flops) so he couldn't ride. I was very reluctant to leave it there, in the open, but I had no choice. We took off the front wheel so that people would be discouraged from breaking the lock and taking the bike. I just had to hope it wouldn't rain. My sister and her husband drove me to the medical centre in my suburb. Now these places are good because they offer free medical care after office hours, but on a weeknight you have to wait FOREVER. But I wanted to get my foot looked at asap. I knew I needed to see a doctor and get an x-ray. Unfortunately, by the time we got there it was about 6pm

14. The x-ray machine closes at 5:30pm!! So I had no choice but to come back the next day! I asked my sister to take me round to the pharmacy to hire some crutches so I could get around until then, but my sister, being my sister, refused. So there I was at home, alone, unable to walk

15. It did rain that night on my lovely bike. My sister didn't offer to help me get to the medical centre in the morning. I woke up early and booked myself a taxi there. I hadn't slept much the night before, and it took me longer than usual to get ready on account of my inability to walk. So, of course, I was rushing to get the taxi on time. When I've had little sleep and I'm in a hurry, I always forget something...


16. I left the housekeys inside! I was locked out! My parents weren't getting home until 8pm that night so I had 12 hours to wait and it was cold and raining and I had nowhere to sit. I managed to find somewhere safe and dry to wait, but the problem was

17.I had left all the housework till the last minute. Being locked out, I couldn't do it. So now the house was a total shambles. My parents were furious when they got home. But they were more forgiving when I explained everything that had happened. The next day they took me to get my bike. THe bike hadn't been stolen but

18. Somebody stole the seat off the bike!!! I mean can you believe it? Is nothing safe unless it's nailed to the ground?

My ankle wasn't broken, just sprained. I'm still not walking on it.

19. However, my wrist turned out to be quite damaged as well, so now I have bandages on my left wrist and my left foot! Now this has turned out to be an even bigger problem than you might expect, because another disaster happened this Wednesday

20.My mum fell over and broke her ribs. She's in heaps of pain and can hardly do anything. I'm doing what I can around the place, but I'm limited. My dad has had to take time off work to care for us.

So as things stand, my wrist and ankle are feeling better, but I'm still not walking. I'll let you know when I am

Return of the Jelly-belly:
Hello everybody. Yes I’m back. I know it’s been a looooooooong time. But I sort of relapsed/went into a depressed period and I’ve been hiding from everything to do with OA. I was having some troubles with uni stuff and things went downhill from there. I know that hiding from the cure and isolating oneself is not the most sensible solution when life gets out of control, but who said that COE’s were sensible?

I’ve been coming back to the program in stages., starting with just trying to keep in regular contact with my sponsor. It’s so easy for me to take on too much and then give up. But this blog really has to be an important part of my program. It’s where I use the writing tool. Being an incorrigible approval-seeking, people-pleaser the idea of other people reading this gives me the incentive to write that an ordinary journal wouldn’t.

Thank you and big hugs to all who expressed concern for me while I was away.

Where it’s at now:
In terms of my program. I’m still on step 2, but I’m seeing some progress there. I’m praying more and I’m also starting to honestly face up to some of the big spiritual questions that have been bothering me lately but which I've been sweeping under the carpet. I know that being on step two after 6 months seems like very slow progress. But I’ve never been the type to do things by halves. I always do things slowly and thoroughly.

With regards to weight, I shot back up from 83kg to 86kg, but as I’ve gradually started to embrace the program again the weight has been dropping off again. As a result I am now 80.2kg! I am over the moon about that. I don’t even remember when I was last down that far. For years I’ve been dreaming of being 80…and now I’m there. But the fact I started to put back on should be a warning to me that it is only with the program that I can do this. I still need to lose an absolute minimum of 12kg, preferably 20kg just to be safe, so what with maintaining my loss so far and getting almost as far again it is going to be an uhphill Still 80.2kg!!!!

Once again, a big thankyou to Christine and Sober Chick for checking up on me. I'll try not to disappear again

Patience is a virtue (Happy Post)

Hey guys. Sunday night is my weigh in night and last night I was 1kg lighter than my last recorded weight!!!! I know I've been whingeing and all, and that a lot of the loss may be muscle mass because I haven't been exercising due to illness but hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Isn't it funny at the beginning of this week I was going on about how I couldn't lose weight and therefore justifying an ice cream binge. It's so stupid. All the time I spend whining about how hard it is to lose weight would have me skinny by now. And yes, I know I haven't kept to my commitment to stay off the scales. I'm gonna try to keep off them for one week at a time. I think a month just isn't going to happen at this stage.

The amazing thing is that this is the lowest I have been since my last big diet. This is the threshold. 84kg was "around" the lowest, but 83kg is it. I made that a few years ago and bounced straight back up to 88kg. God please keep me from doing that again. So lets celebrate and be patient

Meetings, Laryngitis, and a scale that just won't move

On Tuesday this week I went to my first face to face meeting in a long time. I'm very proud of myself because it is very difficult for me to get there.

It was pouring rain,
there was a storm warning,
I needed to take a 1 hour bus ride
and then call a taxi to get there,
and I was pretty angry at the local leader...

so I had lots of excuses not to go. But I did go, God rewarded me by making sure that there was actually someone there who could offer me a lift to the next one. That means I might actually be able to go to face to face meetings regularly. Yeah! The face to face leader knew that there were people who came from my direction, and I knew there were too. But she didn't think it would be fitting to give them my phone number and ask them to give me a lift. In any case, the meeting was good.

I personally, find online meetings just aren't the same. I get distracted so that I can't really find peace and serenity, and there's no real sense of community that develops.

But I am angry at God, because now I have laryngitis. My mother took the opportunity to tell me about five times within one hour that I shouldn't have gone out at night. I asked her if she was purposely trying to annoy me for her own enjoyment. She acted all righteous and wounded. Well...it seemed like a logical explanation to me.

Honestly, I have been working so hard and trying my level best at this program, and how does God reward me? With about 3 weeks of cold/flu/laryngitis. I was just getting over one bad cold, and next but I got laryngitis. I've lost heaps of muscle tone because I haven't been able to exercise and I haven't lost any weight because I've been sucking on sugary cough lollies. But what am I supposed to do?

On the bright side, I went to see my doctor for the first time in two months. Didn't he get a pleasant surprise! I had lost 9kg since I last saw him. I took an OA pamphlet and gave it to him and he was interested. So hopefully he'll be able to recommend it to future patients.

The problem is that 84kg is about the lowest I've been since high school, and 16kg is the most I've ever lost. Now my brain just has erected a huge psychic barrier that I've got to get past.

Pictures of Compulsive Eating: The Early Years

Ever since I read in the Brown Book about someone collecting pictures to document their history of compulsive overeating, and since I got up to this in the 30 questions I have wanted to post a photographic history on my blog. With everything else that has been happening I haven't had the chance to do it yet. But here's the first installment.


I don't remember much about those early years. I do know that I my birth weight was birth weight of 3260g or 7lb 30 oz. This is not particularly high in a normal birth, but it is very high for a twin, and was considerably larger than my sisters 3150g or 6lb 15ozs, despite the fact that I was 1.5cm taller than her. This might not seem important, but there is data linking high birth weight to obesity later in life. I have also always carried around guilt about being the "dominant twin" and starving my sister in the womb, and stopping us from being born so that she was in trouble before the birth. I know this is irrational, but that's how I feel.

Most importantly, it shows how from the very beginning my identity as the "chubby one" was established. That is what I always was. My twin sister was always incredibly skinny and petite, bordering on underweight, and I was bordering on overweight. I can't ever remember being made to feel bad about my weight at this time. Most of the time I was proud of the fact that I was in bigger sizes in clothes and shoes.But it doesn't really go with the fairy princess image that you want at that age. I always felt like a clumsy oaf. This was partly due to my undiagnosed neurological disabilities. But that doesn't change my experiences.


There were all the usual things that can set us up for a bad relationship with food: food being associated with good times at grandma's and my birthday, going out to eat nice food being a very special treat because we were poor and couldn't afford it, My Mum always going on about not having enough food to eat. I did the naughty things that today would be associated wtih a compulsive eater: pinching a treat here or there, looking forward to eating at parties and at my grandma's house, etc. These are all things kids normally do. In fact, my mother tried her best to help us develop healthy habits. We were never rewarded with lollies, instead we were rewarded with dried fruit, but still the assocation was set up. I can't say that I had an early childhood particularly conducive to compulsive eating.

But there were warning signs of a genetic predisposition even at that age. One thing that I loved and was play dough. They put salt in home made play dough to make it distasteful to children but it wasn't distasteful enough to me. I used to regularly eat play dough, even when we were out at Sunday School or Play group. Even this could pass as normal, but what was not normal was the lengths i went to to get my salt fix. I would eat play dough even if the other kids were watching and laughing at me; I would sneak play dough to my room and keep it in the drawers for later. I even went through my drawers after months and months, found stale play dough, and proceeded to eat it.

Someone in the Brown Book said that they were born a COE, and it looks like I was too. Whenever I don't feel powerless I think I should just think about playdough.

Parents part 2

Ok I just went to apologise but it didn't work out. The issues with my parents are HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. I blame them for the way I am now. I know I shouldn't but I do. My mother is so hurtful and annoying. My sister hardly speaks to her these days. But according to her, everything is always everyone else's fault. The fact my sister doesn't speak to her is my Grandma's fault. The fact that I am screwed up is my school's fault. She is the queen of guilt trips and emotional blackmail. Of course she has a wonderful side but I don't really feel like writing about it right now. Now she's going to be moody all night and I just want to crawl into a hole and hide. But I have work to do. So I'm gonna have to dry my eyes and get on with things. It's not fair!!!

Parents and Guilt

My parents drive me crazy sometimes! I feel guilty anyway about still living with them. I'm 22 I should be out of their house. I will be soon. I sure hope I will. Not only that, but they are impossible to communicate with. Here are few things that my parents have done to annoy me today
1. My dad was on the phone to my grandma in hospital and he hung up the phone before I got a chance to talk to her. He said that he didn't know I wanted to talk to her. I mean has he no common sense?
2. My parents always make empty the cat litter. It's not my cat. It's my sister's cat, but when she got married and moved into a flat it stayed with us. Now it has become my job to clean up any gross messes that the cat makes. I don't know how it became my job. It just did. it doesn't seem to matter that I might not want to do it.
3. My mother will never admit that she is wrong.
4. My mother always yells at me like I'm a dog and I've asked her not to do that over and over again, but she doesn't stop.
5. There are never enough sheets to fit my bed. So today I pulled all the sheets out and left them on the floor in protest.
6. Mum always calls me from the other end of the house when I'm in the middle of something else. Today when I was getting dressed she called me out of my room at least 3, I think maybe five, times! I have no peace. Sometiems I just need peace to concentrate on stuff.

I admit that I have been annoying and incredibly grumpy today. But I don't want to admit that to them because they'll take it as a vindication of all their own meanness towards me. If I apologise then they won't be forced to think through their own behaviour. Does that make sense. I sooooo don't wanna do steps 4-9

ADHD is a REAL and ....(rest of sentence deleted due to offensive language)

Oh I am soooooo frustrated right now! I left my wallet in my study room and then I wanted to go home and I got to the bus stop and found that I didn't have my wallet. And of course at this time of night during exams on a Friday, the building is well and truly locked, so I had to trudge back and call security and get them to open the building and let me in to get my wallet back. But, by the time they arrived I had missed my bus, so I had to call my parents and get them to pick me up. It wouldn't matter so much if it didn't happen to me on a regular basis. But it does happen to me on a regular basis. By regular I mean I leave my wallet behind at least once a month. It is so humiliating but no matter how hard I try I just can't keep it safe. I'm just so worried about my life. How will I ever manage in the real world with this problem. Oh yeah...and any **&(#*$()#*$()# who says ADHD isn't real should come and live in my life for a little while and then they can #*($)#($*#() go on TV and say all their (#()#$*)(#$*() about people who take medication being druggies or something #()*$)#($*()#*90 you all! And as for you, God, where were you? You want me to trust you with my life? Well then how about showing me you can fix it? Ok you guys probably think I'm flipping out over nothing. But believe me, this is not nothing!!!! It's nothing when it happens to someone once a year. The whole reason I came up to uni today was because I left my mobile phone there on Tuesday night. It is just so embarassing. Ever since I was a little girl I have been in trouble for losing everyhting. Now I'm an adult it should stop. I just hate it sooooo much. It's not fair! How humiliating do you think it is not to be able to look after your own things? Its even more humiliating when people don't believe there is anything wrong with you. God what are you doing? I swear you hide my stuff on purpose!!!!!

Welcome back me.

Yes I was sick with a cold and lazy the last week or so and that's why you haven't heard from me. I'm still very busy with uni. But I know I need to work the program or I will get sick again. I will write more from now on. But first things first. In answer to the question as to how I got my blog to look pretty (and thanks for asking I'm kinda proud of my pretty blog)

It's actually quite difficult to do, but here are the basics:
1. Sing into your blog and go to the "Template" section
2. The easiest way to change the appearance of your blog is to use the "page elements" section. You can add a lot of pictures and links and things here. You can also change the picture behind Your heading (ie. I have a picture of footprints in the sand behind "Foodfairy's Journey to Freedom".
- simply click on the word "edit" and you will see a place to put the image. Images are relatively easy to find. Personally, what I do, is find free images, save them, then upload them to "Photobucket", which is a free image hosting site. I'm a bit nervous about uploading them straight from the computer. You usen't to be able to do that on blogger, but I think you can now.
3. If you want to change anything else, then it gets tricky.
-First find the picture you want to use, and upload it to a free web hosting site. You will not be able to use pictures which are simply in your computer.
-Second, Go to "template" then to "edit html"
- SAVE YOUR TEMPLATE in case you make any mistakes
-Scroll down until you come to the section that says "global".
-In this section of the template code, there will be little sets of code for each of the sections of the blog. In each of these sections there will be a line saying "background url", followed by some brackets.
- Insert the full web address of the picture that you want into these brackets. For example, the code for the glitter background behind my posts is this:

background: url(http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x67/loginless/glitter_background_12-1.gif)

-After this you may need to play around with the code to get things exactly the way you want and this is quite easy using preview. I had to change the margin and "repeat" settings in mine. I hope this helps guys

In Search of the Endless Summer

Congratulations to all my northern hemisphere readers on the beginning of your summer. Unfortunately, that means that all the lovely warmth and sunshine that we had down here in Australia has now fled north...and I want it back!!!. I am especially annoyed because my body appears to be doing it's level best to give the winter a proper welcome by coming down with a cold. I try to be good when I feel myself coming down with something, you know, go to bed, get plenty of rest, vitamins, echinacea herbs, water and citrus fruit. But I wonder how good that really is, because it often tends to mean that the "beginnings" of the cold hang around for ages without going anywhere. I wonder whether I should just plunge into things and then if I am getting a cold I'll know it and I can get it over with!

I am one of those unfortunate people who does NOT lose weight when I am sick. I didn't even lose weight when I had four wisdom teeth out! Oh no...I fell for the age old fallacy that "if I'm just eating fluids then I won't put on weight"...hmmm a litre of fruit juice, litres and litres of ice cream, jelly (US jello)..all those don't have any calories in them, do they?. Plus, being sick means no exercise. That makes sense of course, since my body needs rest. But it's a pain. I really don't know how to solve this problem, since I really think that if I am trying to fight off a bug I should be making sure my body gets as much nutrition and rest as possible.

Now...for those of you who actually follow the weight count etc, you may have noticed that, despite my well-intentioned pledges, my weight loss counter did move this week. That's right, I did weigh myself, even though I said I wouldn't for a month. In all fairness to me, I did go a whole week without weighing myself which is the longest I've done whilst following the program. So I have made progress. I am gradually learning to trust God and not the scales or the food, but it's much much harder than I thought.

Anyway...enough moping, because if you noticed that the loss counter had moved you may have noticed that it moved in the RIGHT DIRECTION!. I've lost another half kg (1lb)! Ok, so it's not as much as I would like, but considering that I ate off plan a little and tha I haven't been able to exercise, and that 0.5kg weight loss per week is considered a very healthy target by nutritionists, I think I'm doing well. I'm into record territory now! The most weight I've ever lost is 13kg...that is, the most weight I've ever lost before is 13...now I'm up to 14!

So I think now I'll try for 2weeks instead of a month between weigh ins. That is easier.

Pop Pscyhology and Abstinence

I think our disease is very much psychological. As the Brown Book puts it, it is a "disease of mind" as well as a disease of body and spirit.But everyone knows that. Pop psychology and calorie counting are the two big "tools" of the conventional diet. Today I began thinking about how I have set myself up to associate positive things with food. I plan my breaks from study and work around meals and, consequently, today, when I found myself struggling with my study and I began to fantasize and obsess over the small tub of yoghurt I was going to allow myself to eat in my next break. This then led me to think how all this study deserved more than just one little tub of yoghurt and, that it wouldn't hurt to have a couple , maybe something a bit "naughty" as well...you guys get the picture.

Now, in my education course, I've been learning about "behaviourist psychology". Basically this is the idea of learning through association and reinforcement. So, the more times we experience X and something positive together, the more we will associate X with positive things and thus react positively to X, and vice versa. It's sound theory and it's used by teachers the world over. So I decided then and there that I would exercise in my break and eat my yoghurt at the computer after I finished my break. That worked fairly well today, so I think there is some merit in using psychology to help ourselves. I am particularly interested in Sociocultural psychology, which talks about how we use the mental and emotional tools provided to us by the people around us.

But I also realised that one of the other common diet recommendations is not to eat whilst doing something else. So in a way it's a vicious cycle. That's why the simple fixes are doomed to failure, because they will soon stop working, and then we will be in a worse situation than before and have to try some marvelous new idea.

When I think about it, is the problem that I associate food with the positive experience of having a break, or is the problem that I have an unhealthy attitude to life that makes breaks such a powerful incentive for me?. The rest of the world plan's their lives breaks around meals without any trouble, so it certainly isn't that. It must be the deeper problem: that I cannot live in the present, that I cannot enjoy my work, that I cannot enjoy life. Admittedly the inability to live in the present probably has something to do with my ADHD and thus my inability to focus on the task at hand, but I think it goes deeper than that. Psychology is important but it's not the only answer.

Ok so I was writing this stuff coz I was "hungry" (read obsessing about eating) so if it doesnt' make sense who cares.

Scales don't make a good Higher Power

A few weeks ago my sponsor told me that she only weighs herself once a month or when she visits the doctor. Up until that point I didn't realise how important the scales had been in my dieting, but the idea of weighing myself only once a month sounded to me like jumping off a cliff and hoping there was a trampoline at the bottom. I don't weigh myself when I'm bingeing, but if I'm dieting then I weigh every day. I associate the scales with good dieting. I agreed to only weigh myself once a week, since that's what all the diet magazines recommend, but so far I haven't even managed to make it seven days.

When I did go a couple of days without weighing in I found out just how much of a trigger it is. As soon as I jump on the scales my thoughts are either a) I haven't lost enough with all this hard work, might as well binge b)I've lost heaps! now I can binge!!!. My pattern was always to binge after weigh day.

This week I weighed in on Saturday to only lose 300g. I was so disappointed! I wrote to my sponsor and she once again urged me to do the once a month thing. So I've decided to give it a go. I weighed in yesterday and I was down to 86.5kg (190.5lb) That's a weight loss of 1.5kg! Just goes to show how stupid the scales can be! So, as you may notice, I've changed the stats on my blog....

...And this is where they'll stay (if God gives me grace) until the 27th of June. I'm going to try not to weigh myself for a whole month.

The thing is I've been treating the scales like a Higher Power. It is their will and approval I am seeking when I diet, and I rely on their affirmation to validate me, and their support to motivate me. But the scales are just a replacement for my obsession with food. They are also just another way of measuring myself. I have a lot of "measuring" Higher Powers in my life. My marks, my friends, my scales. How about some enabling ones?


Warning: Bible quote
"It is God who works in you to will and to work his good purpose" Philippians 2:13

Alright God...i'm giving you a go.

Does anyone know what day it is?

Yes that's right! it's weigh day! and i payed the price for yesterday. only 300g loss (a bit over half a pound). I neeeeeeeeed to lose weight faster than this. I am SICK of being fat. All I want is to be skinny like the pretty little girls in Dance Club. I also want to be free from food obsession. Neither of those things happened for me today. I desperately wanted to eat all day. (I didn't overeat but that's not the point...I've been reading in the Brown Book all about food obsession. How what really comes after us is the day in and day out obsession with food....I know that and I want to be free of it.)

A bad zero

Well so much for my victory last night:( This morning I had 10 of those evil weetbix I wrote about before, and then the day hasn't gotten much better. I went to the uni bar tonight and bought a serve of pasta and a banana bread on top of the salad I already had to tide me over. It's not tooo bad i suppose, but it's still definitely beyond normal eating. Anyway I feel bad at the moment and I can't get into the meetings because the server at uni doesn't support those kind of things. I think this is a fairly negative blog because I always write here when I feel bad. But I guess people need to see that.
Weetbix, Pizza and Subway
Ok so not only did I have 10 weetbix, but I also had my normal porridge as well. Whoa that's insane. I really know what they mean about insane obsessive compulsive eating. It was so much like the compulsion to do other irrational things, just that constant nagging to binge. I just couldn't shake it. I got rid of it with the Pizza last night but it came back. The GOOD news (yes there is some) is that I have now thrown all my weetbix in the bin. My sponsor told me to get rid of them but I wasn't sure how that would go down with the people I live with. But it's done now. Ahhhh will I ever have abstinence? Why can't I do a simple thing like going without binging for more than 4 days?
Ok so here are the nutrition facts on Pizza, Weetbix and subway:
1. One slice of average Pizza Hut average-crust pizza:
*830kj or 200cal
*3 grams fat
*25grams carbohydrate

2. 1 subway 6 inch club sandwich:
* 1210kj or 290 cal
*5.4g fat
*41g carbohydrate

3. 2 weetbix (not including milk)
*492kj/120cal
*0.5g fat
*22g carbohydrate

4. 1 cup of skim milk
*360 kj or 86 cal
*0.4g fat
*11.9g carbohydrate

So...
1 subway 6 inch= 1.5 slices of Pizza (way to go me)
10 weetbix with milk= 6.5 slices of Pizza in terms of calories, and less than 2 in terms of fat

Weetbix seem like the stupidest food to binge on in history. But somebody said that with trigger foods you need to look at the ingredients rather than the foods themselves. When I think of it that way I can see that a bowl of weetbix contains lots and lots of my two favourite things: carbohydrate and dairy foods. But I don't know what that means in terms of eliminating triggers. Quite clearly I can't eliminate all carbohydrates and dairy foods. That would be unhealthy.

Other stuff
More good news is that I haven't had chocolate, another big trigger food for a while and I haven't had ice cream for a week or two.

I am also gradually learning to be powerless. The fact is that, as a younger compulsive eater, I like to think I can do it myself and it's easy to convince myself it's true. Sure I've tried diets etc on my own and they haven't worked. In fact nothing has worked for years. But I just don't have those extra 20 years of experience that other compulsive eaters have to draw on when they start to get cocky.

Pizza count: ZERO!

Yes that's right. I had NOOOOOOOO pizza tonight!!!! I went to subway before the party and i bought a 6-inch sub club and i ate it when everyone else was eating Pizza. The problem was that the unfinished Pizzas sat in their boxes on the counter for most of the night so it wasn't a case of refusing once. It was a case of refusing every few minutes for 3 hours. But praying did give me a real sense of peace. i was really anxious about it before. I just had no self confidence...and that leads to bingeing. But when I was able to trust God it really did help. I felt like I didn't have to give in because it was possible to get through this. And I did. whooo hooo

What a day!

Right now 'm nervous and hungry because I am going to a dance club party and they will have FREE PIZZA. I feel a real compulsion to overeat. I am taking the following steps:
1. I am posting on my blog about it
2. I am going ot buy something to eat before i get there...perhaps something from subway
3. I am not going to ahve even one slice of Pizza. I'm not sure that Pizza is a major trigger food for me, but I know that this situaiton is a major trigger for me
4. I've gone online to chat with someone
5. I am going to pray. This will be a big step forward for me, because it will mean I am finally turnign to a HP, which is something I haven't been willing to do so far. Well I am going to hope so.

I have always justified my overeating in financial terms. For example, I always used to buy a whole family-sized block of chocolate instead of a single bar because it was just so much better value for money to pay $3 for 500g than to pay $2 for a hundred grams. But if food is being offered for free, as it usually is at parties, where it is acceptable to eat larger amouts for pleasure, I feel a serious compulsion to binge which I can rarely resist. This is exacerbated by the fact taht I am feeling arrogant at the moment because I lost 12 kg, and sad as well because I embarssed myself publicly today. I think it is a cross between feeling like I have a right to binge and a responsibility to...because hey, free food doesn't come along eveyr day. For some reason it never occurs to me that by feeding my disease I was eventually going to cost myself even more money. And it doesn't occur to me that it's my responsibiltiy not to deplete the communal pool. It's

By the way, . Today I went to Dance Club and performed in front of heaps of people at the uni bar! Yesterday I had rehearsal and I danced for 4 1/2 hours (including very long warm up/down sessions) I haven't performed dancing in public since I was a little girl going through my ballet phase (that ended about the age of 8 or 9)

Gotta keep it real!

Ok I'm not even sure what that means. It's something Americans say on television when they are trying to be cool. I'll have to find out. I'm writing this as I've just spent half an hour choosing pictures for this blog instead of doing an overdue assignment. Is that wierd or what? Now I'm upset and freaked out. They say you should use the OA program to replace your need for food, but I'm not sure if this is exaclty what they meant. It's true I do usually eat to avoid scary and distressing realities, or just to procrastinate, and this is a healthier way to do that. The problem is that none of those activities were healthy to start with. I guess that's why they say getting to the root of the disease is sometimes more important than physical recovery. This sort of behaviour costs me just as dearly as overeating does in many ways. Ok new rule: have to stay on task for at least one hour at a time. NO EXCEPTIONS!

Forty Reasons to Fight for Freedom

Today I started answering the "Thirty Questions" on The Recovery Group website that are supposed to take you through steps one to three.
Question 1 a was:
Why do you need to stop overeating in your life right now?
I sat down to answer it and BOY was it an eye opener! They have example answers on the website and the answer to this first one was a paragraph. My answer was about 2 pages!!!! Anyway I'm going to blog a version of my answers in the form of a 40 reason list, so I can review it easily, and because other people might identify. I'm also interested in comments. I am well aware that some of these reasons are the "wrong reasons" but I'm just being honest about my motivations. I've organised them according to type of reason, but of course the types overlap:

Health reasons:
1. Both being overweight and bingeing severely exacerbate my gastric reflux
2. I didn't have sleep apnoea until I became obese and it robs me of my sleep, my money (to pay for my sleep machine) and dignity and convenience
3. I was born with a tendency towards generalised poor muscle tone. Being overweight and not exercising make this worse. It results in severe back pain, neck pain (and resulting migraines) and poor posture
4. I don't give my body proper nutrition when I am eating compulsively, instead I put junk into it that may actually harm it, and most likely exacerbates my tendencies to become moody, impulsive and hyperactive
5. My mental health is already precarious due to tendencies towards anxiety, depression and obsessive behaviour. When I am overeating I am only giving in to these tendencies and making them worse, instead of learning to channel them in productive ways.
6. Being overweight and unfit lowers my immune system
7. Being overweight and unfit puts me at greater risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer
8. Being overweight and unfit reduces my energy levels

Cosmetic reasons:
9. I hate having a double chin
10. I hate having huge big flab hanging down from my arms
11.I hate having a pot belly
12. I hate having no bum to speak of, just massive thighs the size of pillars in a Greek temple
13. I hate having stretch marks all over my body when I'm just 22 and never been pregnant
14. When I am eating right my acne clears up
15. I still believe at times that when I lose weight I will be pretty
16. I want to enjoy being young and pretty
17. I want to get attention and affirmation from other people, especially boys, and to have them tell me I'm pretty
18. I want to be able to buy pretty clothes
Moral reasons:
19. Overeating is an act of greed and selfishness and on that basis alone it is wrong
20. When I overeat I harm the body that God has given me and that is wrong
21. My addiction robs me of time and health and causes me to spend the time and energy I do have on the wrong things, making me less useful to the world.
22. My addiction causes me to do other immoral things like pinching food from the people I live with.
23 The emotional consequences of overeating cause me to hurt others.
24. I want to please my boyfriend
25. My overeating sends a bad message to the people for whom I am a teacher and role model

Emotional reasons:
26. Overeating causes extreme guilt
27. Overeating causes self-hatred
28. Being overweight destroys my natural confidence and gregariousness and turns me into a shy person
29. Because I lack confidence in my appearance and feel guilt and self-hatred, I look to for validation in all the wrong places and end up with a skewed and fragile understanding of my own self-worth
30. Overeating gives me a low self-esteem
31 Being overweight makes me feel insecure
32. Overeating stops me from confronting my problems and emotions properly
33. There are many things which I no longer enjoy because I am freaked out by my weight
34. I already have difficulty with social skills due to other diseases, this just makes it even harder to overcome these problems

Practical reasons:
35. Overeating costs me a lot of money. Not only because I spend heaps on food, but because I withdraw from the world and completely ignore my bank statements
36. I don't have enough energy to do all the things I want to do anyway, without being overweight.
37. Lots of things I want to do require physical fitness, including playing sports with my friends , dancing and travelling on the cheap
38. Overeating, dieting, exercising and obsessing about food all take my time and energy away from getting things done
39. Insecurity and nervousness affect my ability to function to the best of my ability, turning me instead into a nervous fumbling wreck who forgets everything.
40. Pretty people are treated better by society.

Can you guys add more?

THAT day again!

That's right. Today is weigh in day ("not like I wasn't weighing myself every other day" I whisper guiltily). Anyway GREAT NEWS! I lost almost 2kg (about 4lb) this week! That's so amazing, especially considering I wasn't exactly eating for 2kg weight loss (more like a half kg weight loss). That really is encouraging.

Or it would be encouraging if I wasn't so sick. Unfortunately, the thinking has started that tells me I can binge now because I've got 2kg worth of leeway (yeah right...forget the 8kg I still have to go before I can even consider myself "overweight" as opposed to "obese"). Fortunately for me it is very very late so I can go to bed and forget about it. But tomorrow morning will be a test. This is when I stuffed up last time. I've put weetbix on my forbidden list and I'm having porridge so that should help.

I think that the thought of the Dance Club recital really threw me this week. I couldn't help but look at myself in the mirror there and compare myself with all those thin little girls (Asian too...ok no offense to Asian people...but you guys do appear to have some sort of magic slim formula in your DNA..mind if I borrow some sometime?) and worry how I"m going to look on Thursday. That got me thinking about how I need to lose weight QUICK for the performance, and I slipped out of the "One Day at a Time" mode into "diet for that magical future day" mode.

Anyway...I'm really ok. I'm very happy. 88kg is the weight I hovered around before my last binge took me up to the 100kg mark.

Sleeeeeeeeep is calling ZZZZZZ

Dance Club

It's really really late here (actually read early) so this post may be incoherent and short...but I really did want to post about two things.

Firstly, I went to Dance Club today and we had 3 hours of rehearsals. I've agreed to perform with them next week in the Uni Bar! Arrrgh what was I thinking????? In fact, what is a fat slob like me, with coordination impaired by a genuine neurological disability, and years of underexercising and overeating to make up for doing in dance club anyway???!!! The answer is that my own ability differences are a cocktail of labels that make me impossible to box. I may be insecure, anxious, clumsy and forgetful...but I am also a nerdy valedictorian who has absolutely no qualms about making a fool of herself in public. I have no real sense of inhibition like other people. I think this is a real advantage to a certain extent. My motto is to never let embarrassment or social convention give you unnecessary trouble. It can be a very good one to have. However, it's a difficult motto to live by when you are also insecure. I know that won't make any sense to most of you, but I reckon there'll be a few people out there that will get it.

Anyway, our costume includes a skirt about half the length of any I have ever worn before...and I have to squeeeeeeeze into a medium size!!!! Or perhaps, rather, I have to stretch the medium into an extra large and spill out under and over it. I really want to look nice in the dance but I want to keep living one day at a time. For me I think that means no crazy diets seeking to lose 3kg in one week. But I really really want to go on one right now. I've planned a day tomorrow where food is pretty scarce. But I'm going to try and stay off the scales this week and not overexercise to the detriment of the rest of my life. (Yes I've been known to do that...it's a relatively recent manifestation of this disease...and it does have it's benefits...but not when you are exercising for 3 hours a day in exam week!)

I am really trying to get to our local face to face meeting. I know I'm really privileged to have one within travelling distance, but the only way at the moment is to ask my housemates to drive me all the way there and then wait for me, then drive me all the way back. So I've been trying to organise a lift with someone for whom it is on the way. I feel frustrated with the way my requests have been rebuffed. What happened to all that generous selflessness and sharing with strangers I've been reading about in the Big Book? On the other hand I feel like I am perhaps being rude and demanding. Why should I expect these people to help me? The thing is, if I were them I'd feel obligated to help. Perhaps the problem is with me and my perverted conception of service. I know that's screwed up. Ok bed time

No perfect recovery?

Well today I was on plan. Yeahhhh me! Although I'm not sure if I should say "yeahhhh God". It is still very discouraging tho to see that abstinence count go down...and so close to a record too. :(. Oh well...that's life. ODAT has to work backwards as well as forwards I suppose.


I think I might finally be ready to move on to step 2. Wow after how many months? I read about all these people who do steps 1-3 in one night etc etc. What the????? I don't know about the "giving yourself over to God" thing. I don't know how that's going to change things. I know plenty of fat people who pray that.

Hmm that's about it for now. I really need some sleep.

Made It Through Today

Good news. I did manage to get pas the Weetbix mini binge and have a relatively normal eating day. I know you guys are probably all thinking that it was only 3 weetbix, and that I shouldn't even have cared.

Well yes and no. It was still definitely beyond a normal breakfast. But, more importantly, in the past it would not have ended there. Today it did end there and that is amazing! Thankyou God.

But I'm scared to celebrate anything that happens in OA. I'm so frightened this could be a short-lived victory. I've had those in the past. One Day at a Time.

*Warning the next section mentions the Christian church and the Bible.*

My spiritual life is very mixed up right now and I am a fair way off completing steps two and three. Whilst I once would have been sure, I now no longer know who the God of my understanding is, or whether I want to give my life over to him.

But I did go to church today. I'm not sure whether this breaks the OA traditions to talk about it. But there were some passages in the Bible reading that I thought were interesting. I decided to share them in an edited version to show how they are relevant to whatever God (meaning God of one's own understanding) people believe in. If you want to read the original click here:

"the former spread the message about God out of selfish ambition.... supposing that they can stir up trouble for me... But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, God's message is spread. And because of this I rejoice."

I know that people say addiction is a disease of self-centredness and our recovery relies on becoming other-people-centred and God-centred. I thought this was an amazing example of selflessness. The speaker said that we would all expect the writer to criticise and rail against these people who were knifing him in the back while he was in jail for his beliefs and I knew that I would certainly have gloried in doing so. I would have become eaten up with hatred and felt really angry. But the writer of this passage is so focussed on being of service to his Higher Power that their cruelty rolls off him like water off a duck's back. I thought this was a great example of how selflessness can lead to a wonderful serenity. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to say, "This person is doing an unspeakably cruel thing to me when I can least defend myself...but what does it matter in the end? I have better things to worry about"


"so that through my being with you again your joy in God will overflow on account of me."

I thought that this was a beautiful thing to aim for. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be a person who's presence brings people closer to God and gives them overflowing joy?

I hope one day to have the serenity of this person. It seems like an incredibly distant hope now. But one day at a time, one step at a time.

I would really appreciate comments from people about whether they thought it was OK to quote the Bible.

Weetbix are Evil!!

I am writing this post to inform the world of the discovery I have just made: Weetbix are part of an evil goblin conspiracy!!!!!. On Sundays I'm supposed to have Weetbix instead of porridge (I hate porridge). Now two weetbix is considered a standard serve...but do you think I was happy with that? Oh no! No I had to go back after I had my two weetbix with plenty of bran to fill me up, and have another 3!.

Arrgh! I think that this means I've finally broken abstinence. That really sucks. I know how my old thinking would go. I would think to myself You've screwed up now. You should just eat for all it's worth today. After all now you've got to go for two weeks before you can get your abstinence back to where it was. You're a failure. You can't beat this thing.

BUT I'M NOT GOING TO THINK LIKE THAT!!!!!
Here's five reasons why:
1. It was just 3 weetbix. That's NOT a big deal. I can still be below my daily calorie intake by following your foodplan. It could have been much worse. In fact, it has been much worse. I've eaten a lot more of them in the past, and Weetbix are even supposed to be healthy ceral (although I wonder if this is merely misinformaiton from the Goblin Propaganda Bureau)
2. I have just made progress. I didn't stay in that old line of thinking. Instead, I went and read some of the AA Big Book and I came down here and starting reading emails and doing my blog. Yeah for me.
3. I can't beat this thing ALONE. I have got to start realising that. But that doesn't mean I am doomed. I've got the Fairy King on my side and He has helped thousands of people to overcome this
4. Now that I am aware of the true evil enchantment surround this breakfast cereal I can avoid it in future.
5. I know some special spells to help restore me to sanity. I know that I need to tell myself Progress not perfection (and this is pretty good progress when you think about it) and one minute at a time
6. I can petition the Fairy King and throw myself on His mercy. This has reminded me that I need to do that if I am ever going to make it. I will throw myself on his mercy now and ask for his serenity and courage. If you are reading this please join me

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference
Amen

Thanks for the reads

Thank you to all the people who posted comments to my blog or who told me they were reading it. That was so encouraging. It will keep me going with my blogging. My non-OA blog just annoyed me because it took me ages to write it and nobody read it.

But I've been thinking how I shouldn't care about that. I am an absolute prisoner of what other people think. Why should I care whether anybody reads this blog? If it's helping me recover that should be enough. On the other hand, people naturally care about what other people think, and I like to be useful and helpful to other people. Isn't it a good thing to care about whether what you do helps others? Or is it just self-centredness in disguise? I don't know yet. But please keep commenting because I'm definitely going to need the encouragement for the foreseeable future.

Weigh in

Well today is weigh in day! My sponsor said that she weighs herself once a month! Only once a month! I could never do that! I haven't even gotten through a whole week without weighing myself yet. But I made it through till Thursday this week. That's five days. The week before that it was only 2 or 3. Now I know I'm supposed to weigh myself at the same time of day...and for me the most convenient time is just after I shower at night. I have it down to a fine art. First I go to the toilet...even twice if I think it might help. Then I have a shower and make sure I'm nice and dry so that those little droplets of water don't bump my weight up. But I don't put on any clothes of course. Then I line up the scales with the exact same bathroom tiles as they were the last time i weighed myself. Then step on the first analogue scale (the one which I don't rely on but which takes about a half to one kilo off the other scales). Then I turn the digital scales on with my left foot, and step on, left foot first, as far forward as I can. Then I turn them on with my left foot and step on again as far forward as I can but this time with my right foot first. I repeat this process until I have covered all possible weights (my bathroom floor isn't flat) then I take the average of the highest and lowest weight and that is my weight. Oh, and of course I weighed myself about 6 times at different times throughout the day today.

Whew! and I thought I wasn't obsessed with my weight! I used to rely on the scales to keep me going with dieting...but if they don't go far down enough then it triggers me to eat. Surely this should prove my insanity to me.

Anyway...I know what I care about...how much I've lost. Well good news! I'VE LOST 1KG/2LB! Well there abouts. And, that puts me UNDER 200lb!!! That is a relief. For you US people it's hard to understand what pounds do to you. When I got to 100kg I freaked out...but to be over 200lb...arrrrgh! Here is the trick for making the most of the metric/US lingo difference:
1. Measure your current weight in KG
2.Measure your weight loss in LB
3. Measure what you actually ate in calories
4. Measure how much you can eat during the day and how much you burned off at the gym in Kilojoules.

Anyway...that is definitely exciting. Of course I wanted more. I wanted 1.5kg loss. But I know that's not healthy weight loss anyway...It's just my grandma is coming down in July and she's one of those "you need to lose weight but I'll take you to McDonalds and cook cakes for you anyway" grandmothers. I just wish the weight would all go away. I want it gone!!! Yes I know it's impatient...but I don't care. Where's my fairy godmother to turn this pumpkin into a beanstalk?

But don't get me wrong...I'm happy...it's just every time I weigh myself I see how much I've lost but also how far I have to go. Still you can feel quite free to congratulate me!!!

Upside of moodswings and a little victory.

Moodswings have a great upside...the down moods don't last forever. Of course I do wish that the happiness you felt on the upswing was in proportion to the downswing, but that's life. I feel better today. Not any real reason, except for a good night's sleep. Although I have a headache. I have to take control of things.

The little victory is that I have made 10 days abstinence! That means double figures!!!! The real test will be this Sunday, because the old pattern was that if i dieted for a week i was allowed to binge. I have been known on rare occasions to go more than a week without bingeing, but never more than two.

I'm going to commit to doing 5.5 hours study before i leave uni tonight. That's something I can change. I'm not sure where I read that the first line of the serenity prayer "accept the things I cannot change" covers everything in the past. There's no point letting the past get you down. If i've screwed up on study so far all I can do is get over it and move on.

Ok...to work!

Giving the writing tool a go

I'm feeling closer to the opposite of serene than I would like to right now. In The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous that recovering from overeating involves finding new and healthier ways to deal with our lack of serenity than food. That's a lovely idea. But right now i don't feel the compulsion to overeat so much as twisted and drowing inside. At least the crazy logic that tells me that this gives me the right (what the?) to eat, isn't kicking in yet. But that's not really helping me right now. Perhaps that's why the 1st step also talks about how our lives in general, not just our weight, has become unmanageable.

So one of the "tools of recovery" that we are supposed to turn to instead of food is writing. We're supposed to write our feelings down. So I'm going to give this writing thing a go and see if it helps me out any. Here goes.

I feel stressed and ashamed and unhappy. I want to avoid life but I can't do that any more. I've been finding since I joined OA I've been losing myself in other things which admittedly aren't food, but which have just as devastating effects on my life. Yesterday I got all carried away with designing this blog, and completely neglected the university work that desperately needs doing...and now I feel guilty and I'm panichking. Gosh I don't know what I"m going to do. I'm going to have to ask my lecturers for extensions but I"m too busy and too ashamed to go and see them. I HAVE to stop getting carried away with things. Then last night I stayed up too late and slept in this morning. And my room was a mess, and I ddin't have enough money to catch my bus, so I raced around the hosue looking for spare change, and becuase I didn't put my wallet straight in my bag I ended up leaving it behind. And I ran into an old school friend who I hadn't seen in six years, and whom I wanted to impress..but instead I had to be humiliated, first by her seeing me with my high school bag. (It was a good bag...why shouldn't I keep it?) and then because I had to empty my bag out on the bus to try and find my wallet, and then call my Dad to meet me with a bus fare. Some people might see that as one of those accidents that happen, but I have neurological issues that interfere with my organisation, and so it happens to me wayyyyy tooo often, and when it does I feel so embarassed, and I wonder whether I will ever be able to live a normal life. Then I went to dancing class, and I could hardly remember any of the steps. I do love dancing, and it's great exercise, but sometiems I do wonder whether it's worth humliation. As well, they want me to perform with them and we'll be wearing fitted clothes so everyone will be able to see how fat I am.

Of course the big thing that threw me off balance was my boyfriend coming back from holidays. Romantic love is not exactly the most serene feeling...and romantic love mixed with anger and hurt feelings is a recipe for disaster. Sometimes I think the only reason I'm with him is because I was desperate for any man to pay some attention to me. He forgot my birthdasy in March this year. I forgave him for it because there was a lot of rough stuff going on in his life at the time. Then at the beginning of this month I sent him an anniversary card for our "anniversary month" (it's difficult to pinpoint the exact date we started going out). At the bottom of the card there was a link that said "send a thankyou e-card to foodfairy". It couldn't have been easier for him to find an opportunity to tell me he loves me and make up for his mistakes. Do you think he did? NO. Nothing. And he keeps shutting me out all the time. He won't even show me his holiday snaps. What kind of a relationship is this? I think he's my biggest obstacle to serenity right now.

Well time to get to work...I don't feel any better yet.

Welcome and title explanation

Well all. As I explain in my profile. I am a young compulsive overeater and I have joined Overeater's Anonymous and they recommend writing and talking as important to recovery. Well I love writing and I leeeeeeeerve talking...so I've decided to see if starting a blog will help me (and who knows maybe someone else too.)

The title of this blog is not the result of any long or deep deliberation..It's basically the result of me trying to design a pretty template and finding a cute fairy picture and using it. I love fairies. I've loved them ever since I was a little girl. But I only like the pretty little princess ones.My favourite fairy artists are Cecily Mary Barker and Shirley Barber. Their fairies represent everything I want to be...beautiful, feminine, good, kind, in touch with the world, fun. There is just something about fairies. But my overeating stops me from being the fairy princess that I want to be and turns me into a fat food fairy. Food fairies also represent the disease but in a sympathetic way. This blog is to help me change...and to get rid of the food fairies inside me that sprinkle me with stupid dust every time I"m around food. These fairies are sick and tired of being in my head. They just want to be free. I need to set them free so both of us can live.

See you all soon