I am going to start this today - 90 Overeater Anonymous (or Al-Anon/AA if OA meetings are unavailable) for 90 days straight. Just once last week was not enough for me. I binged last week. I signed up at a local gym and paid for a 4 training session package with a highly recommended trainer. I met with you, and he asked me to keep a food journal. I did one day but gave up because my food cravings reached epic proportions - I felt ashamed to write down exactly how much I ate. For two days straight I ate a 21 oz bucket of Soft Peppermint Mints (per day) - that's just an example of my extreme binging.
I told God that yesterday (Sun 9/23) would be my last day - which it was! Today I would not overeat or eat any wheat, sugar or dairy. My cat woke me up this morning (had a poop accident on my bedroom carpet) so I let her out at 5am. I'm grateful that happened because I also want to keep my promise to God to wake up at 5am every morning. I remember the car burning across the street last year when I had overslept after promising to God that I would start waking up early -- that was God powerfully speaking to me. But I still continued to oversleep. Now I want to change and wake up early. I also want to arrive EVERYWHERE 30 min early - "When you get to places 1/2 hour early, your life will change" is what I constantly hear in my head.
I went to the gym early this morning, but I forgot that I scheduled my training session for 6:30pm instead. Since I was already there, I did some weights and joined a Zumba class for the first time. It was fun! I actually liked it -- so different from the aerobics classes I had tried when I was younger. I met this blond woman who was very nice. I asked her if the instructor was Colombian because Zumba was started by a Colombian. She said no, he's from Bulgaria, but she also mentioned that she's from Venezuela. So we started speaking in Spanish. She has no accent in English because she lived here from 5 to 10 years old. Coincidence of coincidences, she knows of my former coworker that I mentioned who's also from Venezuela. Then I remember that I asked God to send me a guardian angel today - I'm surprised by the coincidence - She seems like a really sweet, geniune person - I hope I see her again to practice my Spanish. Since my mother is Colombian, I always feel self-conscious about how I speak because I make grammatical mistakes. I also need to work on my accent (it's such a work in progress!).
Fast forward to today's meeting (today wasn't as productive as I had hoped for - I cancelled my appt with my trainer and will see him this Fri instead) - I called into a telephone OA meeting to begin my 90-mtgs-in-90-days. There was no leader present so a veteran led the meeting. We read Step 1 - the part that particularly impacted me was that when we feel anxious or confronted by events/people/things that make our lives unmanageable.
This line spoke to me: "We hid from our pain by eating, so we didn't learn from our mistakes; we never grew up." For YEARS I ran away from my problems into the safety and comforting arms of food. And I haven't matured like others my age - I feel emotionally stuck. I still want people's approval - I'm still a people pleaser like I was as a teen.
During the meeting, the leader reviewed the 8 Tools of Recovery in OA. One of them is writing - I shared how I used to write a LOT in my journal when I was in junior high and the first 2 years in high school. But then I stopped - coincidentally enough I began to binge eat in junior year. I remember my sister's friend (who claimed to have some type of psychic ability) told me that the message she received about me from the "spirits" is to keep a journal. That was so weird! That same type of advice was echoed by someboday else a year later.
What also surprised me about the tools was the one about calling people. When we isolate ourselves, that feeds our overeating. Tradition 1 touches upon that. It's funny because that's what I don't really like to do - talking to people by phone. I do just want to isolate myself, surf the net, and protect myself. Besides my sister and my Mom, I don't really talk to anyone on a regular basis. When I isolate myself, I like to eat "fun foods" to cheer myself up or to maximize the pleasure of alone time. When I'm by myself, I can finish a whole pizza and not worry about being judged.
Wow, it's late, and I need to go to sleep. I wrote from the heart - jagged, unpolished, ungrammatical at times. I turned the editing critic off by the virtue of simply speeding through this entry. I may revise it in the future if needed :)
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