I have been thinking a lot lately about my eating behaviors and how I have struggled time and again to follow an eating plan — any eating plan. It wasn’t that big a deal before. I blamed hypothyroidism and having a baby. To be fair, both contributed greatly to my current weight. Even so, I thought about how finding sweets, especially chocolate, to snack on almost seemed like a need. With my cholesterol how it is, following a diet may literally be the difference between life and death and I couldn’t even stick with it for two weeks. That’s when I realized that I had a problem.

My specific abnormal food behaviors are as follows:
– I eat when I’m not hungry
– There are times when I eat so much that I feel sick
– I have feelings of guilt, shame, and embarrassment over the way I eat and the way I look
– I eat sensibly in front of others and make up for it when I’m alone
– My eating is affecting my health
– My eating behaviors are making me unhappy
– I have tried fasting or severely restricting my food to try and lose weight
– I have eaten food that was very stale
– There are certain foods that I can’t stop eating after I have the first bite
– I have lost weight by following a diet, only to gain it all back by binge eating
– I spend too much time thinking about food and planning my next diet

After some internet searches, I found the Overeaters Anonymous website. I took their quiz and found that I had about half of the abnormal food behaviors on the list. I looked for some meetings in my area. The closest ones were 40 minutes away and happened at 10am on two weekdays a week. Wtf, do they expect only housewives to have this problem!? I found an online meeting group and an online support group. I posted there, explained that I was new, told them about my problem, and asked for advice. The advice was to get some of the literature, attend a meeting, and find a temporary sponsor.

The book and workbook came in and I found a Pagan sponsor! I was excited about this because it’s tough to trust in a higher power when I believe in so many. I was hoping since she understood the nature of Paganism, she would be able to help me with this when the time was right. I read the first two chapters of the book and really related with a lot of it. My sponsor asked me a lot of questions. I was surprised at the answers to some of them. One of them was that I was scared to start. After a lot of thinking and soul-searching on the topic, I discovered that I was afraid to give up sugar. i was afraid of never tasting it again. And that never tasting some of the foods that I really loved saddened me. I realized then that must be how an alcoholic feels about taking a drink. I understood in that moment that I truly am an addict — to sugar.

Over the holidays, we visited a number of people and I watched myself closely. My son is starting to notice these patterns and behaviors in me. My mom had a bowl of mini-m&ms set out. I kept going back for handful after handful. Every time I did, my son would hear my hand in the bowl and ran over asking for “more”. He’s learning my eating behaviors from me by watching me. I tried to control myself for his sake and failed. I kept going back for more and more m&ms. She must have kept refilling them because the bowl was never empty. I had a similar issue at my mother-in-law’s house with my favorite cookies.

Because of this, my sponsor and I decided that I should start by abstaining from sugary foods. Out of the four days I tried, I succeeded one. I suppose that was a huge success, but I felt like a failure. I am feeling a little lost in the process at the moment.