Mamavation Monday-I'm a Food Addict

Despite my best laid plans this past week, I gained 0.4 lbs. I'm okay with it, because I deserve it. This past week, I spent most of my days doing really well, only to binge myself to sleep at night. It has been a really sick vicious cycle.

Saturday night, Little Man wanted  watch our local cable access channel, Channel 3, because he says that it's the "pretty music" channel (other than that it's a power point presentation about things going on around the area). While I was watching I saw an "ad" for Overeaters Anonymous (OA). I'm always looking for what is going to "fix" me and my eating issues, so I ventured over to their website, because I've always known I've had a problem with food. I mean, isn't that why we're all part of Mamavation in the first place? There's a reason I can't stick to a "diet", or a "lifestyle change" for more than a few hours-or at most a few days. There's a reason why in my teen years I was anorexic, and then bulimic. There's a reason why I'm going on these daily binges.

After browsing the OA website, I decided that it would be in my best interest to go to a meeting. So I did.

And I'm glad I did.

Last night, I learned a lot about myself, merely through other people telling their stories. I saw myself in every single one of them, in one way or another, and I started connecting the dots.

I'm an addict. A food addict. It must have started when I was little, or maybe I was born with this, because one of my earliest memories (I must have been 4 or 5) is hiding under the table while my mom was in the shower eating stick after stick of butter. Then in high school, when I knew that boys were looking at me (and seeing my fat rolls), I was able to gain control of my eating by switching addictions. Instead of eating food, I started drinking and getting high (you would have never guessed, I was a straight A student and had "my shit together"). Now, since it's not socially acceptable to be a drunk, drug addict, mother, I've got nothing left to do but eat to quell my problems. Which is why I'm having trouble sticking to a "diet". 

I came to all of these conclusions in under an hour. It was kind of cathartic being my own psychologist. :)

So now that I've mastered Step One of the 12 Steps, the one where you admit that you have a problem, my next course of action is to identify the foods that I'm addicted to so I can abstain. The foods that, when I eat them, set off a vicious cycle of binge eating. So that's what I'll be working on this week. I've already got a few things on the list-deep dish pizza, and butter, and there's more than those-I just have to figure them out.

Wishing you all a fabulous week.