Foodfairy's Journey to Freedom

Back again

2008-11-06T13:22:00.003+11:00

Yes it is a long time since I last posted. I know that lots of you have given up on me. In fact it seems like everybody has. That's a very self-centred whiney thing to say, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I have no readers and no comments which upsets me.

There have been huge changes in my life since I last posted which I really should update everyone on.

I finally dropped the old boyfriend that cause grief in my early posts.
I have a new boyfriend with whom I would like to move in some time in the foreseeable future
I got a job in a nearby city. That was a big change because I have been living solely on disabilty for a few years now so it was a big step forward
I dropped the job in Sydney (which actually sucked) and got a new job in Wollongong doing what I love. But that job is only part time casual. It's still a foot in the door, but I just have to keep moving forward. The next step is full time work
My abstinence has been pretty poor lately. It's often non-existent. I'm ramping up my program to try and get it back again. I'm blaming it on stress, but hte real problem is unwillingness to surrender every aspect of my life to God.

Posting Again

2008-08-26T12:47:00.006+10:00

Ok, lets play "Spot the Compulsive Eater". There is a person who starts her blog and posts every day for a couple of weeks, then doesn't post, then posts again, and then stops posting for almonst two months, and posts twice in a week. I'm not a person of extremes....well not really...well perhaps a little bit...

Did you spot those two second addictive traits? Denial and a need to control everything, including the actions of others? I put them in red in case you missed them. You might also have noticed some progress...some moving out of denial. That's the stage I'm at now. I've been in denial for several months and five kg about my slide towards relapse. Perhaps it's been even longer. But now I'm being totally honest. I posted my new weight here on my blog, and I admitted it at two meetings. I know honesty is important to recovery. In the Big Book it says that the three essential traits needed for recovery are "honesty, openmindedness and willingness". I don't have any of these in spades. But I have a smidgen of each. I'm just hoping they'll be enough for recovery. I'm praying for more of them every day.

I've been working my program harder the last week or so. Last week a drove an hour round-trip to go to a second face to face meeting and I emailed my sponsor and sponsee, read my online program emails, meditated, prayed, journalled and worked on my fourth step, almost every day. I try and do 5-10 minutes of each every day. I find committing to a tiny tiny action is much easier for me than committing to anything massive. I've also started listening to OA speakers in my car. That's a useful thing to do. I highly recommend that one. I download my speakers from www.oalaig.org

As a result I've got back some semblance of abstinence. I've given up the sugary foods and the three big binge foods: ice cream, chocolate and buttered bread. The buttered bread binge food is a big one that I've been trying not to admit for a long time. But if you can't stop at two pieces of buttered toast, but you go on to half a loaf, or even more, so that at the end you feel sick, that's compulsive eating of an alcoholic food. I'm not snacking as much either. Just one or two snacks if I need them because meals are too far apart or I need ot take my antibiotics. The next step now is to cut down my meal sizes. At the moment my meals are still binges. I don't know if I'm still putting on weight or if I"m losing it. That's actually a good thing, because it means I've given away a bit of that obsession with weight. I've even put my scales away in my room without going back to get them again.

Hisashiburi---Long time no see

2008-08-19T22:28:00.002+10:00

Yes I know it's been a while. I'm actually much more faithful with this blog than I was with my non-OA one, in which I kept up semi-weekly posts for a couple of months and then just stopped posting. I need to do service and use the writing tool. I know that. But finding the time is pretty hard. I think we all also know that. My food has been a bit off the last few months. Well I've been saying "a bit off" during those months, but let's face it, when you put on 3-4kg (6-8lb) in a few months, and your eating is off track on more days than it's on track, then you're not "a bit off" you're so far off you're in relapse. Just because I haven't regained all the weight or anything doesn't mean I'm not in relapse. The other day I stole food from the fridge and ate it in secret. I've been anxious and yelling at people. I've been spending too much money on food. I've been eating chocolate and ice cream by the packet.

The good news, of course, is that I have the program. I just need to work it harder. I know that it works if I work it and I'm worth it.

The Entertainer

2008-06-24T20:27:00.008+10:00

One of my favourite parts of our intergroup retreat was the "review", "entertainment", "variety show" or whatever else you call it, that we had on the Saturday night. I helped out with the writing and performance of several skits. Everyone loved them and thought they were hilarious. I want to put the scripts here:

I got a lot of inspiration from the television show "Starved" which was on late at nights in Australia at the same time as I started the program (odd or God?...A pretty big coincidence whatever the case). Apparently it only ran for a few episodes, but it was an absolutely awesome show. If you can get your hands on a DVD or an online version let me know. If you're offended by sexual references and things then don't watch it because it is quite risque, but otherwise it is amazing.

Script 1: Romance Gone Wrong:

Characters: Compulsive Eater, Fruitarian, Narrator

Compulsive Eater approaches Fruitarian infatuated and shy, like a lovesick puppy

Hi....um...I really really like you. I've never met anyone like you. Please...please, please, will you go out to dinner with me?

Fruitarian: in a snobby voice

Well you know I only date fruitarians....are you a fruitarian?

Compulsive Eater's face falls and they look horrified.

Errr...do fruitarinas still eat chocolate, pizza, KFC, ice cream and cheeseburgers? Because I haver to eat those.

Fruitarian: Er...in a word, No! ...But I do make a delicious, fruititious, nutritious, 110% fat free, zero-calorie vegan burger!

Compulsive Eater: Falls to their knees and shouts Oh my! I love you so much! Will you marry me? Your lifestyle totally enables my eating disorder!!!

Compulsive Eater and Fruitarian turn away from audience. Compulsive Eater stuffs padding in his/her clothes. Fruitarian puts on a wedding viel.

Narrator: 6 months later

Compulsive Eater: Angrily rips the veil off Fruitarian's head. What have you done to me, you liar!!! I've been eating a gazillion of your burgers every day. You said they were zero calorie 110% fat free so I should have been able to eat as many as I wanted. Now look what's happened to me! The wedding's off!! I never want to see you again!

Skit 2: Dietrette Patches
This one was inspired by the Nicorette ads I posted about previously and also by a Chindogu I saw once.

Characters: Compulsive Eater (name can be anything), Dietrette Salesperson, Cheerleader, Devil, OA Angel

Compulsive eater: Slumps down on the stage.
You know, I really am addicted to food. Beats the air with her fist I need to do something about it, now!

Dietrette Salesperson: Oh I have a wonderful solution for you. These new dietrette suhgar patches and this nose cover. Put your favourite foods in the nose cover and put on this patch, and you'll smell your favourite foods all the time- whilst also keeping your blood sugar up in that hyperactive range you've come to love. You can eat a salad and feel like you're eating five mudcakes. And it only costs $5 millioon! Imagine it...it will be like having your own personal cheerleader to help with weight loss....Hands a huge children's band-aid and a ridiculous loking fake nose to COE, who puts them on enthusiastically, then exits

Cheerleader: Enters stage in costume doing elaborate moves and chanting "No [COE's name], No!" "No [COE's name], no!"

Devil: Enters from other side of stage and places a bowl in front of COE's face, whispering Eat it! Eat it! Eat it

Cheerleader and Devil continue on either side of Compulsive Eater, who becomes increasingly distressed, clutching her nose and arm. Compulsive Eater then covers their ears and shouts desperately "NO! No! NO!!!"

OA Angel: Enters from the back of the audience, wearing an angel costume. Reaches out hand to COE and addresses them by name. It's alright Sally. I put my hand in yours and together we'll find freedom. Just say "Yes God Yes."

Skit 3: Apocalyptic Eating:
This one is all me. This is my mentality to a T

Characters: Compulsive Eater, Friend

Compulsive Eater: Stands in front of a backdrop picturing a massive pile of canned food of all types. Holds a pot and is frantically tipping cans into the pot, stirring and cooking

Friend: Walks in and surveys the scene. What on earth are you doing with all this canned desert....baked beans,, spam....and dog food!???

Compulsive Eater: Looks terrified. I'm preparing for the apocalypse! I told you before- tomorrow there's going to be a terrible disaster! The end of the worldas I know it. Slim chances of survival. I have to get ready!

Friend: Oooookay.....welkl for starters you never mentioned an apocalypse. Um...and you do realise that the advantage of canned food is sort of lost if you cook and eat it before the apocalypse actually happens?

Compulsive Eater: Not this apocalypse! This is the diet apocalypse. I have to eat as much as I can before the dreaded calorie count falls.

Skit 4:

This one was inspired directly by a Garfield cartoon.

Characters: Compulsive Eater, Scales

Scales: Stand in the centre of the stage. The person can be made to look like scales in any way you like. The person in our skit just used mime. Compulsive Eater Walks over to scales. They tip to one side

Compulsive Eater: You're fat

Scales: Look very distressed Am not.

Compulsive Eater: Are too!

Scales: Angrily Am not!

Compulsive Eater: Are too!

Scales: Scream Am NOT am NOT am NOT!!

Compulsive Eater: You can dish it out but you can't take it, can you?

Intergroup Retreat- Morning After

2008-06-14T12:22:00.004+10:00

Lots of things happened on the Monday morning before breakfast at the intergroup retreat....
I wouldn’t know about them. I got out of bed, got dressed and rushed down to the main hall just in time for breakfast (who isn’t surprised I missed that? It’s amazing how effective a motivator food is to the compulsive eater). I was pretty ticked off that they put raisins in the porridge, since that was the item that was on my food plan for breakfast that morning. I don’t like raisins.

I had a good chat over breakfast to some people who were interested in Asperger’s/autism. As usual I did most of the talking. Learning to listen is going to be an important part of my recovery, I think. I also had a good chat to a lady who had a similar history of “never having been slim” before OA. There are so many OAers who weren’t that overweight to begin with, or who were yo-yo dieters. She was on a very restricted food plan because as she became abstinent she discovered heaps of food allergies. She pointed out the link that some people believe exists between food intolerances and autism.I know about that. I’m not supposed to eat Gluten and Casein. That means no wheat, oats, rye or dairy. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that dairy and carbs tend to be big triggers for me,. But I’m trying to give up one food at a time. My first total eliminations were weetbix and ice cream. Besides, my psychiatrist is very scepitical of the food intolerance theories of autism. He is much less sceptical of the idea that I have a physical reaction to refined sugar and simple carbohydrates. Apparently that's fairly common in people with ADHD.

Now I have been committing to my sponsor daily that I will abstain from ice cream, chocolate, bread, sugar and white flour. The weetbix is also off the table, but it comes under the sugar thing I think. Anyways, I don’t eat weetbix. But at the meeting after breakfast I discovered that merely refraining from binge foods does not constitute abstinence. One of the veteran members said that “you mustn’t eat an abstinent meal compulsively” I can completely relate to that idea. It seems like a contradiction in terms, but it isn’t. For example, on my birthday this year, I thought that I was abstinent because I didn’t have any sugar or white flour. Now i know that was a huge achievement to get through the day like that. But it wasn’t abstinence. I was eating non-stop even if I wasn’t eating my so-called trigger foods. In fact, if I’m honest, I was bingeing. It was only a matter of time after that before I did break my sugar and white flour rules.

The fact is that abstinence is defined as “refraining from eating compulsively”. This means, whenever I eat for my own self-will and not God’s will, whenever i’m not submitting to the guidance of God and the program, whenever hte food is eaten selfishly not to nourish my body so I might better do God’s will, and whenever I’m failing to have “life in between meals”, constanntly thinking about the next meal instead of being present in the moment,-whenever I’m doing all these things I am not abstinent. That’s a hard definition to have, but it’s true. Lots of OA members shared that they still struggled with the freedom from the obsession. I don’t want to have that obsession for the rest of my life, to be a “dry drunk.” And yet that’s what I do. I do feel powerless against this obsession, but I find it hard to trust thqt God can relieve it.

Retreating further

2008-05-23T22:51:00.004+10:00

Ok so I really wanted to share as much as I could about my intergroup retreat. It was awesome, and I want to milk the experience for all it's worth by writing about it, sharing about it and reflecting on it as much as I can...now where was I up to?..

Ah yes, after the candlelit meeting on the Friday night, most people went to bed, but since I'm a nightowl I stayed. I had the added incentive that somebody was setting up a Scrabble game. I LOVE Scrabble! But I have nobody to play it with. I play it on the computer sometimes, but I always see board games as social things.

Of course socialisation for the compulsive person with Asperger's is a real double-edged sword. I was terribly nervous because I didn't know anyone there. Now I'm doing my fourth step I'm becoming aware of many of my faults. I know I'm not as spiritually fit as I thought I was. I was frightened that the people in the program would look down on me for not being spiritual enough. I felt my old need to show off and impress coming through. I had to win the scrabble to prove I was "smart". That is my self-worth and my social worth...I have to be smart. That's the one thing I can do. I'm fat, annoying, clumsy and socially awkward...but I can win a scrabble game. That's how I think. But then of course, I started to worry that my showing off would be obvious, and that these "spiritual" people would think me an arrogant smart-##S. So I slipped into the defence of "I'm not upsetting you am I?" "Sorry if I did...". It tends to work, people are like "Oh no it's fine." Few people have the courage to answer "Yes you are." to a question like that.

But that's the thing about spiritually fit people, they don't need to judge others. They just cared for me and accepted me. That became even clearer that night, when I woke several people up in my dorm by having a late shower. I said I was sorry, and everyone was ok with it. They seemed genuinely forgiving. I tell you what...people who disturb my slumber don't get much sympathy from me. I just felt the serenity from some of those people.

Getting away from it all

2008-05-22T16:42:00.003+10:00

OA Intergroup Retreat

Hi everyone. I hope you are all well and abstinent. I had a wonderful time this weekend just past at a retreat organised by my local OA intergroup. It was amazing. I knew I needed to go. My sponsor went to great lengths to get to her retreat, and recommended I do the same, and I’m a big fan of retreats anyway. I had wanted to go on one ever since I started the program.

We arrived on the Friday night at about 7pm. Everyone was eating dinner. It was lovely to be around people who also had physical allergies to certain foods, like me. The food was free of gluten, and somebody else asked whether there was sugar in the chutney (the only thing on the weekend with added sugar). When I waited to have lunch, a simple “I don’t like to have eat too early” sufficed, without any need to worry what people were wondering.

After dinner we had a late night identification meeting which included a beautiful ceremony where the lights were dimmed, the chair lit a small candle. After her share, she told us one quality that she’d like to pass on to the person nextto her, and then used her candle to light theirs. As we each shared our experience strength and hope the room gradually began to light up and we became a circle of hope united against the darkness. I can be a very visual and kinesthetic learner, and I'm a bit of a romantic at heart, so I enjoyed the symbolism. It was also good to see teh variety of people there. Several of us were in our twenties, whilst others were in their seventies or eighties. Some has been in teh program a few months, and some had been in it for decades. My usual face to face meeting is very small so there was no one whom I knew. That was actually a good thing because it gave me an extra level of anonymity which enabled me to share more honestly and openly.

The Flatlands

2008-05-05T12:39:00.003+10:00

Have you ever been in the Australian outback? It’s a wonderful experience and I really recommend it. There’s nowhere else on earth like it. The remoteness is unimaginable to all but a few. The colours are brighter than anywhere else on earth, and contrast with each other in a raw primeval way, even as they blend together into one another to form strangely beautiful new hues like green gold, red-blue, and silver-cream.

Of course all this can be observed fairly early on in one’s journey, and, since journeys through the Australian outback take hours.....and hours....and hours on end, the novelty can wear off, or at least become drowned out by the car-sickness, boredom, drowsiness, and other more familiar, if less pleasant, sensations we associate with road trips.

I feel that my recovery is in a bit of an outback spot at the moment. I’m travelling along a flat road, neither improving nor deteriorating...at least the landscape around me isn’t deteriorating. It’s been the same for the past couple of months. But I am deteriorating. My recovery is going backwards. Recovery is a mountain, not a plane. I haven’t been climbing it. I’ve been content to coast along and hope things improve. I was so excited by my progress, that I just let things slip. This program requires so much dedication and perseverance. Sometimes we can be deceived by the beautiful country of wellness that we are entering, into thinking that we have left our disease behind for good. The moment we forget our first step, we are bound to slip. I keep forgetting my first step.

I think part of the reason is that I don’t like the second and third steps, and the first step makes them necessary. If I can’t manage my own life then I have to let someone else manage it. It’s hard not to admit I cant’ manage my own life. Just the other day my mother said to me “We’ve tried so many things to make you happy, and you’re never happy. You need to spend a long time with God.” I knew the first part was true. I didn’t like what she deduced from it. But that second part was true too. I need something outside myself to manage my life. If nothing else that means the program. I need the program, and I need to be devoted to achieving recovery through spiritual renewal. To get that spiritual renewal I need to work the steps and use the tools. Even if I don’t want to. Well at least I’m writing here now.

The biggest problem for me at the moment is in the relationship department. I finally laid stuff on the line to my boyfriend over a month ago. The way he treats me would be totally unacceptable under almost any circumstances. (I don't mean he hits me or anything like that). But our circumstances are very unusual, and he is going through a LOT at the moment. I said I would stick by him through this hard time, but I still feel taken for granted and besides, what's so great about this relationship anyway? We don't really have that much in common to be honest.

Anways, I layed things on the line. I was sure that was God's will. But I was angry and resentful in the way that I spoke to him. That was not God's will. And I wasn't honest. I blamed him for our problems, and ignored my own part in them. Moreover, I was insecure and distressed. I said in the email I sent him that "I don't suppose you'll even bother to answer" but the fact was I really hoped he would. He didn't, and I felt so rejected and alone and lost. So, about a week or two after that, when I hadn't heard from him, I sent him another email, saying I was so sorry for being so mean to him in his hour of need, and would he take me back. (Can anyone say "coward"?) Now I'm back where I started....thinking I'm in a relationship that isn't God's will but not trusting God to get me out of it and take care of me...after all I tried that. Oh yeah...my boyfriend replied to the second email, and we talked, but I haven't heard from him since. (can anyone say Jerk?)

Sorry Guys!!!

2008-04-22T23:21:00.012+10:00

Ok well I know that not many of you are reading me at the moment (and who can blame you?) so you might have missed the fact that I've been missing in action for almost two months now. I have quite a few excuses. But they're all pretty lame ones. I need to blog here. I need to be part of this online community of OA bloggers. I know there are only a few of us that can post every day, but here's my new commitment: to post once a fortnight and to comment on each of the blogs in my blogroll during the same period. Let's see if that's do able shall we?

In the meantime, my food has been off and on. I finally broke 50 days abstinence the other day (my longest time yet) and haven't got anywhere near that since then. But it's all about progress not perfection and there was a time when 50 days abstinence would have been as impossible for me to achieve as a gold medal in skiing. Also, I've hit the 30kg mark in my weight loss (that's 66lb). Which is just awesome for me. I've never lost anything like that in my life. I'm a special breed of yo-yo dieter- the "inverse inexpert kind". You know how kids (like me) who can't use a yo-yo properly, end up with it bouncing up and down at the end of it's string, never rising back into their hand? Well my weight bounced up and down within a range of about 5-10kg (10-20lb) and never got anything like target weight. In factg I was never anything less than obese. I am now just 3kg away from normal weight. Amazing! Praise God!!!

Here are some photos:

These first two are of me near my top weight (around 95kg/

These are from my "losing weight" phases (somewhere between 80 and 90kg/ 175 and 200lb)

And these are from my graduation and my trip to the easter show in the last couple of months (71-75 kg/155-165lb)

Crash

2008-03-06T16:07:00.003+11:00

Attention All: this is a community service announcement concerning public safety:

Foodfairy is learning to drive!

Actually, I've been learning to drive for a while now. But today I had my first accident. I'm pretty shaken up about it, and my natural reaction would be to eat. I can control it for the time being, but without some program work that will only be a temporary soluation. As one of the virtual speakers I've been listening to lately mentioned, if you don't write about your feelings you will eventually eat over them, sooner or later. That has certainly been my experience. I can deal with my emotions by bottling them up for only so long. But inside that bottle they all ferment into hunger. So I know I need to write about how I feel right now. I haven't been injured physically by the accident, but I could still be injured by the emotional fall-out.

So basically what happened was this: I was driving along a two-laned road that becomes one lane about 200m down from where I was. So, knowing I would have to change lanes at some point, I thought I would be smart and get in early. However, there is an important turn off before the lanes merge, so, the cars in the target lane are liable to be stopping quickly. This is why, in fact, my supervising driver had always waited until AFTER we passed the turnoff to tell me I needed to change lanes.

So, being inattentive and wilful as I usually am, I decided to change lanes early, without being directed, and without seeing that there was a car getting ready to stop and indicate.I was going too fast and I didn't check in front of me as well as behind me before I changed lanes. I think I got distracted when my supervising driver asked me why I was changing lanes. Anyway, I pulled in behind the car in question, and, I think, accelerated. I saw it, and my supervising driver yelled BRAKE!!! and I put my foot on the ACCELERATOR. I soon realised that I had put my foot on the wrong pedal and switched, but it was too late. We banged corners. Here's a picture of the corner of my car.

So the other guy got out and said I'd hit something. I said I hadn't, because my supervising driver said she didn't think I had. This got his back up, and he said "Yes you have, get out and have a look." Well I didn't want to get out and have a look. I was stopped in the middle of the road held in place only by the footbrake, inches from his car, and taking up two lanes. I asked if we could drive down the shoulder at the bottom of the hill. But by now he thought I wasn't going to take responsibility for it, and so he was trying to insist that I give him my name, license and registration before I went anywhere. We managed to convince him to follow us 100m down to the kerb, and I got out and gave him my license and name. But by that time I had started crying and was close to breaking down. So my supervising driver took over and I went to the car and started shaking and bawling. We went straight home, and I sat on the couch and bawled and cried some more. My supervising driver happened to be my mum, and so she sat on the couch with me and comforted me.

I have so many feelings going round in my head at the moment and I don't know what they are. I feel angry and resentful towards the other driver and my mum. I'm not exactly sure why. I mean he didn't really do anything wrong. The accidwent was undoubtedly my fault. It was no one else's fault- not my mum's and not his. He was angry and pedantic about getting my details-but who wouldn't be, especially after I denied I hit him in the first place? I'm resentful of my mum because she didn't tell me that I was a wonderful driver and it wasn't my fault (which is what I wanted to hear, but it wasn't the truth) and because she's still upset and gloomy, and that makes me feel bad and guilty.

I'm afraid, very afraid. I'm afraid that he will come after me for all I've got, and that the damage to his car and/or our car will be much worse than it looks, and there will be, at the very least, a huge insurance excess that I can't afford and my parents can't afford (I'm really struggling with money at the moment anyway). I'm afraid that my mum will think I'm a terrible driver and not take me out driving again. Or, if she does take me out driving again, I'm afraid she'll get all overcautious and overprotective and do the whole "You have to drive at 40km an hour [24miles] in an 80km [48miles] zone" thing. I'm afraid that my ADHD will stop me from ever being a good driver. That I'll never be able to pay attention to everything on the road, and that I'll be stuck at home with no life forever. Or else I'm afraid that one day I'll have a terrible car accident and get brain damage and turn into a zombie or a horrible person or something. (Yes I'm getting ahead of myself). I'm afraid that my parents will be angry at me and hate me.

I'm also afraid of my feelings- that they're not right or proper or real or something. This is a longer-running issue that is coming out in my fourth step. But I often use sad feelings to manipulate others, and I can't tell the difference between genuine bad feelings, and dramatized ones. Often I think it's a combination of both. But I still have this guilt and confusion about where one ends and the other begins. Today, when I was crying and shaking, was it to get sympathy and leniency from the other driver and from my mum? Or was it because I was actually shaken up? The thought certainly did cross my mind that I should cry, and that it would be better for me if I did, but I was also upset, I think. And when I called the people whom I'd been goin to see to say that I wouldn't make it, did I really need to tell them I'd crashed my car, so that they'd be all sympathetic? Couldn't I have just said something happened? Wouldn't other people be too ashamed or shaken to tell anyone that? Doesn't the fact I was able to use it to excuse something show that I wasn't really feeling ashamed, guilty and shaken enough?

I also feel fear about guilt. I worry taht I don't feel guilty enough. I'm really quite self-centred in my reactions to all of this. I"m not concerned for the person I crashed into, or my mum's trauma and state of mind. I'm not concerned for the other people on the road (primarily). I know I need to feel guilty, and to feel humbled so that I won't be so cocksure of myself next time I drive. But I can't make myself feel these things to a satisfactory extent, And if I did feel them to the extent I think I should I woulnd't be able to cope anyway. So I'm scared of not feeling the right way, scared of feeling the right way, and just damned confused and guilty.

Epilogue: Learning to drive in my part of Australia:

Ok, so the first thing you guys need to know is that I've had my learner's permit for about five years. That's a little bit long, but the reasons for it are threefold:

1. Finding the time and money was difficult for a long time

2. I am a procrastinator

3. The laws about driving in my part of Australia are insanely strict. So it's becoming more and more common to take a long time to get your licence

In my state you have to go through ALL the following stages to get a full licence

1. Turn 17 years old

2. Take a test on the road rules and safe driving habits, getting a very very high score

3. Complete 50 hours of driving practice under the supervision of a fully licensed (not provisional) driver, practising a variety of manoevres in a variety of conditions (since I got my learners' permit it's gone up to 120 hours thank goodness I missed that.)

4. Pass a very strict on road test, which almost everyone fails the first time.

5. Receive a 1st level provisional license (red P's) and keep those for a year. Your driving is restricted during this period, and you have ot display P-plates on your car

6. Pass a test based on a computer simulation designed to test how you deal with emergencies on the road

7. Receive a second level provisional license (green P's) and drive for another two years with P-plates on your car and restrictions

8. FINALLY receive your full license.

Is that overkill or what???

My favourite quotes from the 10th Tradition

2008-02-28T14:36:00.002+11:00

Hi there. I'm Foodfairy, a compulsive overeater. When I was reading the Tenth Tradition in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, I wrote down these passages and I thought I would share them with you.

"The OA recovery program is essential to each one of us. Our very survival depends on it. Without it...many of us would have litle time or energy left to do anything else." -p186
This is a helpful reminder when I don't feel like working the program. I need to remember how much I would lose if I lost my recovery. I need to remember the promises of the program. I might not die in a physical or literal sense, but I would lose so much of my vitality, that I would be useless to the world around me, and die a slow emotional and spiritual death

"We find we can live happier and more effective lives wehn we focus on doing our Higher Power's will each day, rather than on conflicts." -p189
Dale Carnegie once said that we should avoid conflicts like we do a pit full of snakes. He pointed out that they really serve no good purpose. Most of the time when we are involved in conflicts we are not taking constructive action. The Big Book says that faith without constructive unselfish action is dead.

I hate my sister and my boyfriend

2008-02-24T03:30:00.006+11:00

Resentments, resentments, resentments. I know the Big Book says that we must be rid of them or they kill us. It also says that our troubles are of our own making, a result of our self-centred-ness. Yeah? Well perhaps that's true. But right now I still feel #*%* resentful of both those people...so much so that I'm sobbing in my bed at 3:30am in the morning. Unless I write SOMETHING I'm going to eat for sure. I can't write too much, because I don't want to violate their privacy and abuse them online. Essentially, it comes down to both of them making me feel rejected and unimportant. That desire to be important and loved by others is one of the strongest forces in my life.
Today I was watching a movie called "Too Good to Be True". Basically it's a thriller about a woman who has two men after her. In my self-centred insanity I found myself desperately wishing I was her, that I had men who loved me that much. I think now that I've lost almost 60lb, boys should be falling all over me. Wny not? because I suck! What's wrong with me that no boys even look at me except for the boyfriend that treats me like crap??? *sighs* What's wrong with me that my own twin sister doesn't answer my SMS? I don't know. Maybe I'm self-centred. I can only pray for that to change. I commit to you guys that I won't eat over this problem, at least not for the next 24 hours.

Mini Big Book.....What the????

2008-02-18T00:59:00.004+11:00

I would really love to know if I am the only person in the world that finds it extremely ironic, to the point of being a little bit freaky, that there is a pocket-sized version of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book?

Well there is. And since I'm a big fan of anything portable, I bought one at a meeting I attended recently whilst travelling away from home. And it's been a Godsend! I've been carrying it everywhere with me and reading it on trains, buses and in waiting rooms.I've also been listening to speakers whilst working out, doing housework, and doing pretty much anything else. I've been trying to work the program for an average of 2-3 hours per day. It's a lot, but the speakers help me to do it without losing too much time. And it's definitely worth it. I'm grateful to say that I have been abstinent now since Friday February 8th, despite some quite severe personal problems. As a reward, I've lost more than 1kg since then. I am now 27kg down from my top weight!!! Great news. Keep watching that ticker. Wiht God's help it will continue to move in the right direction.

If I had to sum up what I've been learning with all this program work I've been doing, it's this: that this program must truly have a spiritual basis for us. "Derrrr!" I hear you saying "Doesn't it say over and over again in the program literature that the spiritual is foundational?" Well yes it does, but that doesn't mean I was listening does it?

When we come to OA, we are told immediately that "This is not a diet and calories club or a weight loss program." and that we shouldn't treat it as one. I couldn't understand what they meant. I treated OA as a diet and calories club. Then, my sponsor's constant insistence that OA is not about weight, it's about changing your life, finally sunk in, and I started to examine myself on an emotional level. I thought that by unearthing my emotions, and learning about myself, I could learn how to fix myself. I started treating OA like a therapy program.

Chapter 3 of the AA Big Book, however, blasts the therapy program illusion out of the water, with the same torpedoe that blasts all hope of future physical normalcy out of the water. Here are some of my favourite quotes from that chapter (translated for the compulsive eater):

Parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking compulsive action around food. Our sound reasoing failed to hold us in check. The insane idea won out." p 37

"In some circumstances we have gone out deliberately to binge or purge, feling ourselves justified...But even in this type of beginning we are obliged to admit that our justification for a binge was insanely insufficient in light of what always happened." p37

"She made a beginning...All went well for a time, but she failed to enlarge her spiritual life. To her consternation, she found herself stuffing her face again half a dozen times in rapid succession." Chapter 3 p35

"The actual or potential food addict...will be absolutely unable to stop eating compulsively on the basis of self-knowlege."

"The compulsive eater at certain times has no effective mental defence against the first bite....Neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defence. Her defence must come from a higher power. "Chapter 3 p 43

Chapter Four then says:

"Lack of power, that was our dilemma....that's exactly what this book is about. It's main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself...."

For those of you who are interested, my fourth step inventory is also going well, albeit slowly.
See you all again soon.
Love from Foodfairy- Compulsive Overeater, and powerless to manage my own life.

I want abstinence!

2008-02-09T22:09:00.000+11:00

Hello Everyone! I’m powerless over food and I cannot manage my own life. How about you?

So...a new post, a new excuse for blog neglect. This time I’ve been tripping from one end of my country to the other, stopping in at home for a night or two to fulfil a local commitment, then setting off again. Travelling can be great fun. But it’s not wonderful for recovery. Not only does it often become difficult to find the time, privacy and internet/phone/meeting facilities for working the program, but there are a lot of triggers for overeating, including stress, change, fatigue, lack of control over what and when you eat, and so on. Overall I saw progress on this trip compared to previous trips in recovery, but failed to maintain abstinence, mainly due to a combination of stress, fatigue and program neglect, as well as just plain self-will.

Early Thursday morning I left home for an 8.5 hour train trip to visit my paternal grandmother in the town where pretty much all of my dad’s family grew up and resided for two or more generations. It’s a country town which gets pretty boring at times so I took a friend along. Being a compulsive people pleaser, living with two people outside of my “inner circle” was slightly stressful. Moreover, food has always been a huge part of my relationship with my grandmother. Just stepping through the door at her house is a trigger for me.

I almost made it through that trip abstinent. I say almost, because on my last full day there I gave in and had “just one” of my grandmother’s home-made sugary treats. I managed to be abstinent after that for about 12 hours...but the obsession that had been triggered was brewing inside me, and eventually broke through the flimsy barrier of my willpower. After everyone had gone to bed I raided the cupboards not once, but twice, and and did not regain abstinence until two days later. However, progress not perfection is my favourite OA slogan. I can definitely say that there was improvement. Apart from the length I held out, I was much firmer with my grandma about my eating requirements, and less worried about putting her out, than I have been in the past

I arrived home at about 9pm on Tuesday the 29th of January, and hurried to prepare a lesson for the next day. I felt very resentful when only 4 people turned up to the free, volunteer English class that I had cut short my time at my grandma’s to eat. After getting home from the lesson I packed my bags for another destination, got to bed around midnight, and woke up at 3:30am the next morning January 31st to head to the airport. My second destination was more than a twelve hour drive from my home, but this time I flew. I went to visit a very dear friend of mine who is now studying there. I got back from that trip at 12:30am of February 6th, snatched a few hours sleep and hurriedly prepared a shambles of a lesson for that afternoon. After getting home on the Wednesday night I collapsed into bed, and I’ve spent the last 2 days recovering.

I started my abstinence again on the morning of the interstate trip. During my time with my friend, I slipped up a teensy bit once or twice. But overall I would say I was abstinent the whole time- eating according to plan without white flour or sugar. That was a definite record for time away from home. However, getting a record for nomadic abstinence made me cocky and wilful, as did the loneliness and depression at saying goodbye to my friend again. By the time I left her I was back in the illness. As I was saying goodbye to my friend all I could think about was how I would soon have the chance to eat without any accountability at the airport. I did overeat in amount at the airport, but I still stayed away from white sugar and white flour. That was definitely my Higher Power not me at work, coz I came awfully close. Unfortunately, even that abstinence broke when I got home. I had two white rolls on arriving home, and the next day I also ate some of my number one binge food: ice cream.

The thing that really ruined my abstinence this second time was the return of self-will and cockiness. I’ve just started my fourth step. (More about that in another post), and one of the targets of resentment I found myself writing down was God (see the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous Chapter 5 for more about self will and resentments in the fourth step) . I’m so angry at him for giving me this disease and making me do all this work to overcome it, and for not taking away the cravings, and for everything else that sucks in my life. At the end of the second week away I was so exhausted from maintaining abstinence, so annoyed at all the times I’d felt deprived, that I just said “Hang it all, I deserve this binge”. That’s, of course, a stupid way to think, but we compulsive overeaters are insane after all.

My abstinence started again this Friday. May God help me to maintain it. I’m working my program hard now. I’m sick of breaking abstinence again and again. So many long-timers have years of back-to-back abstinence. I know it’s possible if I just work the steps. I am continuing to work my third and fourth step. More about that later. For now, thanks to all those of you who have bothered to read this far. I hope my story has been of help to you. And thank you to God for the more than a day of abstinence. Please continue to grant me more. I offer myself to you, as your servant creature. Please mould me and remake me so that I might serve you and do your will as you would have me. Amen.

No Hannah no!!!

2008-01-17T23:34:00.000+11:00

Ok well today is the 17th of January, which is eight days since my last post. Thats' an improvement. I don't think anyone at all is reading me any more. Maybe I should advertise this blog a bit more.

I went on a binge yesterday, but today has been pretty much abstinenbt, except for eating my midnight snack an hour early. To be honest, I haven't really put together 2 days B2B abstinence since the big binge of Tuesday night last week. At that time I fell for the lie that I could stop bingeing any time. It's simply not true. The life of the addict is one governed by inertia. When I was learning science in primary school, there was a very snmple definition of inertia:

"Things [read addicts] like to do what they are already doing"
Addicts like to do what they are already doing. That means, if they are bingeing, that's what they want to do and it's very very hard to stop. When you've been abstinent for a period, it get's easier to remain so. If anyone is reading this blog and thinking about bingeing.
DONT DO IT!!!
Employ these guys if you have to!

Although make sure they know what they're doing...or you'll end up with something like what happened to these Aussie Mike Moores (The Chaser Team)

The great news is that for those of us who are COE's, we do have a cheer squad. All our brothers and sisters in recovery are cheering us on. Thank God for them.

Rebel girl!

2008-01-09T10:08:00.000+11:00

It's been 9 days since my last post. So that means I'm getting close to keeping my "once a week" commitment.

I'm also going well with getting to face to face meetings. Part of that is due to the fact that there are now people at my local meeting who can offer lifts. Yesterday's meeting was really good. The sharing was very open and honest. Althoguh I feel like I wasn't 100% honest with the others about my struggles. I felt like I wanted to project an image of being more recovered than I am because the newest person there (3 meetings) is leaning on me a bit, and I like giving her advice. I feel like I can give her some advice and help, but that if she sees that I'm weak she won't want to listen to me. However I know that I need to be honest for the sake of both our recoveries, because otherwise she will develop unrealistic expectations and I will deceive myself as well as her. As my sponsor says, honesty is crucial to recovery.

It annoys me when people act like the online program isn't the "real" OA program. It's a breach of the 1st tradition to be so closed-minded to people who practice the program in a different way to you. The Recovery Group, and this blog are both governed by the 12 traditions and are based around the use of the twelve steps to stop eating compulsively, which therefore makes the online communities and tools perfectly valid parts of the OA community through which we can the program.

Weight loss is still going well- I'm down another 1.8kg since I last weighed in (no doubt largely to do with hormones...but lets not look a gift horse in the mouth!). Unfortunately, I decided that the best way to celebrate such a loss was to binge on sugary foods. I've forbidden sugar and refined flour in my food plan. And I managed to stay abstinent for about 6 days straight. Not bad I suppose, but not great. The last 36 hours have, however, been an on and off binge. And it's been a crazy binge too, the kind where you go around the house and seek out whatever's there, even if you don't really like it, just for the sake of stuffing food in your mouth. And it wasn't like I didn't know what I was doing. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I wanted to do it anyway. I feel like a rebellious teenager. I can hear myself saying to God "Why do I have to always do what you say? It's not fair. I want to eat these foods and I'm going to. I should be able to. " It's so like an immature and belligerent child. But it does seem unfair to me that I should be asked to trust God with my life when God is the one who gave me this diseas. I mean, at the very least surely he could have prevented it. If he can stop it now, why couldn't he stop it earlier? I know the answer, that the disease is here to teach me something, but I don't like what it's teaching me, that I can't control my life, that I have to submit to God. I wanna be my own boss damn it!!! Grrrr step 3 sucks!!!

Part of the problem is my boyfriend. I don't wanna break up with him, and I think that God might have other ideas. So I really don't wanna submit my life to God as I understand him, because I'm frightened of what that would entail. OUr relationship is very complicated. I just wanna give it a chance to work when he gets back from overseas. Ahhhh complicated

Ok there we go, at least I'm starting to talk about this problem. That's a start. I've been hiding it and unwilling to talk about it for a while. I guess that's what "Acting as if you have the willingness to be willing" means. It means doing what you need to become willing, even if you don't really want to be willing. He he he I reckon this is going round and round in circles a bit.

The evil ship and other reflections

2008-01-01T22:39:00.000+11:00

Ok, so it's been more than a week (yet again) since I posted. But with all the hustling, bustling, frantic, frenetic frenzy that is the "Silly Season" I hope I can be forgiven. Of course, one thing this past month has taught me is that there should be no excuses in this program. The first part of my conference, I was abstinent, because I made a massive effort to continue to work the program. When things got more hectic towards the end of the conference, I let my program slip, and my abstinence went with it. This Christmas/New Year, my only abstinent days have been ones where I made an effort to keep in touch with the program. The rest of the time I made excuses for not working the program, but these excuses were really a cover up for a lack of willingness to be abstinent. As it turned out, I was definitely not abstinent over the Christmas, New Year period, because I didn't want to be. I'm still far too attached to the notion that I deserve those little "breaks' when I can once again feel that sweet sensation of sugar flowing through my veins. At the moment, I am praying very hard for willingness. This is the most important thing for me at this stage of the program.

Recently on the train, I was reading the Brown Book and I found this quote:

"Off in the distance stands that chocolate ship of mine. I do not have to go back to it UNLESS I CHOOSE to. Thank God, today I HAVE A CHOICE." (emphasis mine) If I have a choice there are no excuses, only the need for willingness.

The section I was reading was Chapter 20: Sink The Lollipop and I scribbled some reflections down on note paper. It is my policy to dispose of such incriminating documents at the first opportunity for the sake of privacy (I had a bad experience once when I left behind my diary at work and my boss found it) but I would also like to keep what I wrote. So I've decided that the best thing to do is to type them up here, that way I'm using the writing and service tools at the same time (I'm so efficient!)

"Within the huge body was an emotionally contorted child"

I hide behind my huge body. It's a storehouse for all the bad parts of myself, a storehouse with the advantage of making its contents appear transitory. "A simple diet could fix this body of mine, and along with it all the evil that it contains," I persist in telling myself.

The phrase "emotionally contorted" describes me to a T. I am immature in so many ways and my emotions are contorted in several senses. They are contorted in the sense of being tangled and confused. I have no idea where one emotion starts and the other begins. They are contorted because they are in the sort of painful, unnatural, unhealthy and ugly state that one sees at circus sideshows. They are contorted in the sense that they are stretched and squeezed, far beyond the point where they can remain stable.

My immaturity comes through in the way I see and understand the world. I am self-centred and I make mountains out of molehils. I fail to regulate myself- I don't have the emotional executive functions that other adults have. This means I can neither examine my emotions critically and objectively, nor control and bend them to my will. So instead, like all children do, I live in a fantasy world.

"I expected people to look after me"

Like other immature people, I take a follower role. I cannot be captain of my own ship because I am unable to face the idea of taking responsibility for dealing with crises. I expect others to fix the world around me. I sometimes encourage or assist their efforts. But as for getting up from the sidelines and taking centre stage in my own life, I don't think so. Instead, I prefer to criticise and rage against those who do make an effort, especially when those efforts don't meet my expectations. My expectations are rather simple, I think, they are that other people will meet my standards and fulfill my needs. This is an incredibly selfish and self-centred attitude and I pray that God will relieve me of it as soon as possible.

"...candy...eliminated the need to make decisions."

This desire to avoid decision-making is a MAJOR factor in my bingeing. Decision-making is a difficult and terrifying prospect for me. Bingeing makes me feel free of this great burden. At the most superficial level, it lets me avoid decisions about portion sizes, budgeting, nutritious foods, eating times etc. etc. Instead of making my own decisions, I let my cravings and instincts and circumstances dictate my behaviour. In seeking freedom I beocme inslaved to that which harms on a deeper level, because it enables me to put off bigger decisions in my life until its too late. Eating shields me from decision-making because it lets me live in the future. I simply put off whatever distresses or confuses me until I've finished eating, or until I've lost weight. Yet the idyllic future I'm living in doesn't exist, instead, I can look forward to a ruined future, with life passing me by due to my failure to make decisions. Perhaps one of the reasons I find deicsion-making difficult is because I cannot trust myself to make the right decision. Perhaps it is also difficult because it always involves internal struggle: struggle with one's desires, struggle with one's reason, struggle with the competing options. I don't want to struggle. I want ot surrender. But food is a ruthless overlord. I must find something else to surrender to. That's why I need a Higher Power.

"I ate because I was sick, and I was sick because I ate."

This cycle applies to my disease at all three levels: spiritual, emotional and physical. Physically, when I am unwell for any reason I use it as an excuse to binge. Yet bingeing only fills my body with junk, which suppresses my immune system, tires out my digestive system, imbalances my energy production mechanisms, and poisons me. This, in turn, leads to lethargy, prolonged infection, irritation, allergies, and general poor health. This poor health then makes me bored, depressed, scared and angry at God. So I eat more, and the cycle starts again. Emotionally, it is a similar and related story. Not only do the physical imbalances negatively impact on my emotions, but weight guilt, and low self-esteem come with bingeing are also direct results of bingeing. And Spiritually, guilt and anger are major blocks to my relations with my Higher Power.

Looking at all these reflections, it's easy to see how evil the "chocolate ship" is. It is the true "ship of fools", the doomed vessel. Yet if I have a choice to be on it or not, why do I keep making the wrong decision? Why am I not fleeing it without a backward glance? God please grant me willingness

Progress not Perfection

2007-12-17T00:08:00.000+11:00

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

2007-11-30T23:36:00.000+11:00

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!!!

2007-11-02T10:28:00.000+11:00

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!!!

2007-10-08T17:25:00.000+10:00

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

2007-09-29T23:43:00.000+10:00

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

2007-09-16T00:49:00.000+10:00

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)

2007-06-25T15:12:00.001+10:00

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

2007-06-23T00:11:00.000+10:00

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

2007-06-17T00:20:00.000+10:00

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

2007-06-16T18:34:00.001+10:00

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

2007-06-16T18:23:00.000+10:00

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)

2007-06-15T21:42:00.000+10:00

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.

2007-06-15T18:18:00.001+10:00

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

2007-06-04T12:58:00.000+10:00

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

2007-05-29T17:46:00.000+10:00

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

2007-05-28T13:25:00.000+10:00

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?

2007-05-27T02:28:00.001+10:00

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

2007-05-25T19:57:00.000+10:00

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!

2007-05-25T01:32:00.000+10:00

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!

2007-05-24T19:06:00.001+10:00

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!

2007-05-21T15:32:00.000+10:00

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

2007-05-21T02:22:00.000+10:00

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!

2007-05-20T03:40:00.000+10:00

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

2007-05-17T02:45:00.000+10:00

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?

2007-05-16T01:53:00.000+10:00

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

2007-05-14T02:16:00.000+10:00

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!!

2007-05-13T13:40:00.000+10:00

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

2007-05-13T02:54:00.000+10:00

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

2007-05-13T02:38:00.000+10:00

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.

2007-05-10T15:54:00.000+10:00

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

2007-05-09T16:40:00.000+10:00

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

2007-05-07T11:22:00.000+10:00

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