CEA H.O.W.

Compulsive Eaters Anonymous Honesty Open-Mindedness Willingness... I'm pretty sure that's what those letters stand for. I went to a meeting last night, the first one I've been to. I have been to many AA meetings and many Overeaters Anonymous meetings, but this was the first CEA HOW meeting I've been to.

We used to have a quite a few OA meetings here, and they were well attended. This was about 20 years ago. I drifted away, and then drifted back about 18 months ago. I was shocked at how few meetings there were and how few people were at the meetings. Of course, I can't really complain, because what have I been doing the last 20 years to keep OA alive here? Oh, that's right, nothing! Anyway, I asked a women after a meeting what had happened to everyone, my theory being that gastric surgery had made big inroads into OA. She said that she thought that a lot of people had gone to this "alternative OA" called CEA HOW. I asked her if she had been to any meetings and she said that she had and that they were a lot larger and that their members seemed to have a lot of successful weight loss. I asked her why she wasn't still going and she calmly replied "Oh, because they're all crazy." I laughed and asked her really, why wasn't she still going to their meetings and she told me that she wasn't kidding. She said that they were overly regimented, controlling and co-dependent crazies. Hmmm...I thought, sounds like her addiction is battling for its life, I'll have to try this thing myself.

I went to a meeting last night and, by golly, they really are overly regimented, controlling and waaaay co-dependent. I won't call them crazy, because I'm too crazy myself to be a judge of that. They tell you that the food plan and all the rules are not suggestions, they are RULES. You will get a sponsor, you will follow the food plan, you will phone your food in, you will make four phone calls a day, you will not be allowed to speak in meetings until you've had 30 days of abstinence. Actually when I first walked in one lady was on the phone calling a newcomer who had come to her first meeting the Saturday before and had apparently made the mistake of giving them her phone number. The woman was on her cell phone wanting to know where the new member was and why she wasn't at the meeting. Ok, I thought, sit down and give them a chance.

Oddly enough, my first reaction wasn't to run screaming out the door. Part of me thought, with relief, that I could just turn myself over to these women and they would BY GOD FIX ME or die trying! Let them bully and pester and humiliate me. Let them take control of my eating and my thinking and my responsibility. What a relief.

The thing that bothered me the most was the part about not be able to speak in a meeting until you've had 30 days of abstinence. I was allowed to read out loud with them from the 12 Traditions, but not until I had been reminded that I couldn't comment on what I'd read or speak in the meeting until I had 30 days of abstinence. It's funny that that bothered me because I hate to speak in meetings. My face gets red and sometimes my voice wavers or cracks, it's not my favorite thing. I guess I've been in too many AA meetings where people will listen patiently to some newly sober drunk ramble on because they NEED someone to listen to them.... I don't know, I just can't go back there.

Now, is it my addiction fighting for its life? Am I protesting too much? (i.e. Dr. Phil Show reference in an earlier post.) I don't know, it just feels so wrong. Like I said, it feels like a bunch of co-dependent women who desperately need to fix all the broken people who walk through the door, instead of helping them to fix themselves.

Polyester Pants with an Elastic Waist

I went to Albertsons today to buy some milk. Some 1% milk. I just can't do fat free milk, sorry. Have you ever put that stuff in your coffee? It turns it kind of gray... Anyway, just as I was pulling in there was a young, pretty white woman in a nice, new white Lincoln pulling out. At the same time there was a heavy young black woman who was climbing out of her car. The lady in the white Lincoln had to wait for me to turn in before she could pull out. There was also some other lady pushing her shopping cart with a couple of little kids hanging off of it. It was kind of like the perfect storm of obstacles keeping the white Lincoln from pulling out. By the time I parked and got out the heavy young black woman was struggling across the parking lot, slowly making her way to the door of the store. The lady in the Lincoln was getting impatient and when she finally could she kind of screeched around HYBW, a little too close for comfort if you ask me. The girl looked at me and said, "Did you see that?" I answered, "Yeah, kind of in a hurry, wasn't she?" HYBW says, "Well, I was walking as fast as I could." I laughed and said. "Yeah, well fuck her. She's in a nice air-conditioned car and we're out here hoofing it on the hot asphalt." She looked at me, the nice middle-aged fat lady in polyester pants with an elastic waist and then just started laughing. We both had a nice chuckle on our way into the store. I do love to surprise people.

Everything's Relative

I've lost four pounds. I am trying to decide how often to weigh. I am leaning toward no more often than once a week, and maybe as little as once a month. I can really get obsessive about weighing, and I don't want to be jumping on and off the scale every five minutes. On the other hand I don't want to throw away my scale either. As usual, it tends to be one or the other with me. At any rate I've lost four pounds in the last few weeks. Instead of yelling "Yay! I lost four pounds!" I said wearily, "My God, four pounds. I still have about 160 to go." Honestly, I am so crazy. I have to sit down and remind myself that this is good, I could have gained four pounds or not lost any weight at all. What helps to put things into perspective is to go online and read stories about people who weigh (or weighed) five or six hundred pounds. Then I try to imagine how it would feel to say to myself "Yay! I lost four pounds! Only 450 pounds to go!" Or I try to relate to how thrilled someone who weighed 600 pounds would be when they got down to 312. They probably felt as light as a feather and thought they looked wonderful. Like I said, it's all relative.

Doing the Same Thing, Expecting Different Results

In AA that's the definition of insanity. You do the same thing over and over, and each time you expect different results. To me, that's also the definition of denial. I used to tell myself every single day, day after day after day, to go ahead and eat what I wanted to eat today, because tomorrow...well tomorrow would be different! Tomorrow I would start with a clean slate and start eating wisely. Tomorrow I would develop a sane relationship with food. I would eat healthy food, I would cut out all junk food, I would never again eat until I felt sick. I told myself that every day for years. I really believed it too. I remember one time a woman I worked with, who knew I was in AA, asked me why her husband was so believable each time he promised her that he would quit drinking. I thought for a moment and I said that I thought that it was because every time he told her he was going to stop drinking he really meant it. He meant it and he believed it himself. That's why it had a ring of truth that made her believe, once again, that he was really going to stop. I am finally learning, slowly and painfully, that I can't start over again tomorrow. If I stumble and make a bad choice with food today, I have to start over again today. I can't keep telling myself that I will start with a clean slate tomorrow, I have to wipe that slate clean right now and start over today.

Big Food

You know how sometimes people refer to the tobacco industry as "Big Tobacco" or the oil industry as "Big Oil"? I have finally begun to realise that there is a "Big Food" industry in this country. And I'm pretty sure that they don't have our best interests at heart, any more than the other two. It's all about the money. I have a feeling that there are a lot of people in the food industry who know that fat and starch and salt (french fries) is an addictive combination, just as addictive as fat and starch and sugar (donuts, cookies.) I'm not going to go so far as to say people should be filing lawsuits against McDonald's because they have gotten fat eating Big Macs and Super-Sized fries. I do say that it's not a bad thing to address the fact that McDonald's knows exactly what they are doing when they put that Big Mac together. I know from personal experience that fast food is addictive for me. Once I've sworn off it, and I've done this a few times, it is really hard for me to drive past these places. The craving is intense, as intense as the cravings I've wrestled with in the past for a drink or a cigarette. When you walk through a grocery store just look at the amazing array of packaged starch, fat and salt, everything from cheese puffs and potato chips to battered, deep fried chicken. Lay's potato chips knew exactly what they were saying when they launched their ad campaign proclaiming "Bet you can't eat just one!" They are exactly right, I've never eaten just one potato chip and stopped in my entire life. I've never been able to eat one Chips Ahoy cookie and stop or eat one bite of cake and stop. There may be some people out there who can, but I believe they are in the minority. The rest of us learn the hard way that, it's true, we can't eat just one. We learn that we will have to find ways not to eat that first one.

The Taste of Metal

I always related to Robert Downey, Jr. I remember more than 20 years ago we had a cute high school girl who came into our office in the afternoons and did our filing for us. She loved Robert Downey, Jr. She talked about him all the time, saw his movies, just loved, loved, loved him! She went to Cabo with her family for a vacation one year and when she came back someone told me to go ask her about her trip. When I asked why they told me that she had actually seen Robert Downey, Jr. there! I went to ask her, thinking that she would be walking on air, and she just answered disgustedly that yeah, she'd seen him. When I asked why she wasn't thrilled to death she told me about how unbelievably, disgustingly drunk he'd been the whole time. Stumbling, throwing up in the potted plants kind of drunk. She was so disappointed. I immediately felt a kinship with him. I was about a year sober at that time. Over the years I've watched him struggle and struggle and struggle. I've prayed for him more than a few times. I am happy and relieved to see that he's clean and sober and doing well. He said something once, in court, about his addiction to alcohol and drugs and I've always remembered it. He said that it was like he had a loaded gun in his mouth and he liked the taste of the metal. That really got to me, and I wasn't relating to our shared alcoholism. I felt like he'd summed up my relationship with food as perfectly as anyone ever could.

Exercise, Schmexercise

Last July my friend Cathy and I started "walking the mall." We chose the mall because we live in Bakersfield, and for us to have walked anywhere else would have been suicide. July in Bakersfield is hotter than the hinges of hell. I know, I know, people here will tell you that it's a dry heat and that is true, but then so is fire. Like I said for two pretty hefty women, somewhere air conditioned was essential. I guess we could have gone to her house or my apartment and walked in circles, but that would have been boring. We agreed to walk around the entire mall once, three times a week and we have been pretty faithful about doing it. I hate walking, or exercise of any kind. When you weigh 316 pounds, all you really want to do is sit in a recliner and watch TV. I have stuck with it though, and have learned a couple of amazing things. First, that it is possible to exercise, stick with it, and see a change in your physical stamina. I didn't expect to see anything, to tell you the truth. I knew that I wasn't exactly training for a marathon, walking a mile three times a week. However, it is more than I was doing before and I did see a change over a few months. The first time we did it I ended that walk red-faced, sweating, and gasping for breath. I think it took us almost 40 minutes to walk it. Now we walk it in about 25 minutes and I am not even breathing hard, much less sweating and red-faced. Yay! Progress! The other thing that I have learned is that I am going to have to exercise more if I want it to have an appreciable effect on my weight loss. I still weigh about the same as I weighed last July. Of course, I could weigh a lot more, so I'll count my blessings.