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Daily Motivation, Inspiration, & Affirmation
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I love today's KISS message! Because of this program, I've been able to have meaningful relationships with old friends and new ones. I will admit that the toughest relationship was the one with myself, especially in my first round of working the steps. I carried around a lot of self-doubt and guilt, but with my HP at the wheel, I was able to let those feelings go, where it no longer defined me. I haven't completed today's action (it's getting late), but I will tomorrow.
Wishing everyone peace and serenity.
I'm Felicia, a grateful, compulsive overeater!0 -
Food For Thought
December 29
Working Compulsively
We do not want to turn from compulsive overeating to compulsive working. This, too, is an attempt to escape reality. Compulsive working holds a particular danger for us, since when we allow ourselves to get overtired, we run the risk of breaking our abstinence.
Working compulsively includes the fear that what we do will not be good enough. It is when we are unsure of our self worth that we have to continually prove how much we can accomplish. Compulsive work is also a way to avoid meaningful relationships with family and friends. If we fear intimacy and exposure, we sometimes try to hide behind a facade of busyness.
When God controls our will and our lives, we work according to His direction. We have the faith that what we do will be acceptable and enough. Believing that God cares for us, we do not rely only on our own abilities. Working for a Higher Power means that we work with serenity and confidence, knowing that He directs and sustains our efforts.
Teach me how to work productively for You.0 -
I don't think I work compulsively and try to keep any potential compulsions in check. I have been able to accomplish this only through working the 12 steps and with my HP. I don't have much to share on this topic, but in the past I was able to relate, although, I cannot relate currently.
I'm Felicia, a grateful, compulsive overeater!0 -
Oooohhh; I’m just seeing these, Felicia. Thanks for your service here.
I’m always ready to hear more OA wisdom, and grateful for the experience, strength, and hope of others on this path.
I’m Jill, a recovering compulsive overeater.0 -
SenchaJill wrote: »Oooohhh; I’m just seeing these, Felicia. Thanks for your service here.
I’m always ready to hear more OA wisdom, and grateful for the experience, strength, and hope of others on this path.
I’m Jill, a recovering compulsive overeater.
Glad to be of service in any capacity that I can be!0 -
A Day At A Time
January 3
Reflection For The Day
My addiction is three-fold in that it affects me physically, mentally and spiritually. As a chemically-dependent person, I was totally out of touch not only with myself, but with reality. Day after miserable day, like a caged animal on a treadmill, I repeated my self-destructive pattern of living. Have I begun to break away from my old ideas? Just for today, can I adjust myself to what is, rather than try to adjust everything to my own desires?
Today I Pray
I pray that I may not be caught up again in the downward, destructive spiral which removed me from myself and from the realities of the world around me. I pray that I may adjust to people and situations as they are instead of always trying, unsuccessfully and with endless frustration, to bend them to my own desires.
Today I Will Remember
I can only change myself.0 -
Yes, the vicious cycle of insanity. It took willingness to get me off of the insanity wheel and to truly let go and let my HP take care of the things that were not in my control. I now take comfort in knowing that I don't have to have all of the answers and I don't have to live in my old ways. Change that has allowed me to better focus on my recovery (and sanity) keeps me in a place of abstinence.
I'm Felicia, a grateful compulsive overeater!0 -
This reminds me of my phrase to myself:
Addiction is addiction is addiction;
Recovery is recovery is recovery.
I repeated this to myself over and over, praying for a way to become “food sober.”
I was in recovery in another program, and I just couldn’t find a way to find abstinence.
And, finally, as a gift from outside myself, I found recovery with my eating.
I know I can only change myself, and I pray for the willingness to continue working this program.
I’m Jill, a recovering compulsive overeater.2 -
That's awesome Jill, thanks for sharing!0
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Food For Thought
January 4
Three Meals a Day
For most of us, abstinence from compulsive overeating means three measured meals a day with nothing in between. Before we joined OA we often ate one enormous meal, all day long. Through this program, we find the discipline to eat according to our needs rather than our self-destructive cravings.
Unless a doctor has told us differently, we do not need more than three meals a day. As we practice this pattern, we retrain our overgrown appetites and learn to function in the real world. We can eat with our families instead of secretly snacking and bingeing.
We plan our three meals for the day, write them down, and report them to our food sponsor. Then, instead of nibbling here and there and thinking about food all day, we can forget about eating except when it is time for a planned, measured meal. As we acquire disciplined eating habits, we find that other areas of our lives become more ordered and productive. Freed from the bondage of self-will and impulse, we are guided by the sure hand of our Higher Power.
I am grateful for the order and sanity OA has brought into my life.0 -
Today's reading reminds me of my first sponsor who taught me the 3-0-1 plan, which really helped me grasp the concept of a food plan versus a diet. Letting go of the idea of needing snacks was difficult, but I saw how it was the root cause of my compulsive eating. I was taugjt as a type 2 diabetic that I needed to eat every 2-3 hours to regulate my blood sugar, which turned out to be false. Now, under my doctor's supervision, I eat 2 low carb meals a day (no snacks), and intermittently fast for at least 18 hours daily and have been at my best health.
I'm Felicia, a grateful compulsive overeater!1 -
Thanks, Felicia - I’m glad to read your share. I started with 301 30 (!) years ago, had some good abstinence for a hot minute, and went into a 28-year relapse. I had periods of abstinence like some old-timers have brief periods of imperfect abstinence.
And now, with help of others and a power greater than myself, I am working a program of recovery and have been gifted with abstinence.
This app, MFP, has been a very helpful tool, and eating low carb has helped enormously. And, I do not eat 3 meals a day. I eat 2 measured meals and have found relief from the compulsive eating.
And, as the reading states, I “find that other areas of my life have become more ordered and productive.”
I’m Jill, a grateful recovering compulsive overeater.
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Food For Thought
January 10
Decision
Someone has said that the hardest part of the OA program is making the decision to follow it. You can do just about anything once you make up your mind to do it! But the decision has to be firm and it must be the kind of commitment, which involves our deepest self.
Many of us who are compulsive overeaters have spent our lives looking for an easier way to lose weight. We feel that there should be a magic solution somewhere, which will enable us to eat our cake and be thin at the same time. Our first reaction to the OA program is often one of dismay. It seems so drastic, and we protest that there must be an easier way.
The OA program is not easy. Life is not easy. Rather than solving the problems and difficulties in our lives, overeating multiplies them. We in OA have been offered a new way of life. Each of us decides every day - and many times every day - whether or not we will choose the new life.
May I decide to follow the program today.0 -
Today's reading really hit home. Working the steps is just that, work! There isn't a magic pill that will "cure" us from this obsession, and I remind myself to always be mindful that a binge is just around the corner. I've noticed differences in my approach and thinking as I evolve in the program when working the steps. It's been about 2 years since I've worked the steps with a sponsor and I'm feeling that it's time to give this process over to another source. I am grateful for the tools of recovery, which has afforded me abstinence, one day at a time, by the grace of my HP.
I'm Felicia, a grateful compulsive overeater!0 -
Food For Thought
January 17
All We Have Is Now
We can only live now, this moment. We cannot erase the mistakes we made yesterday or bring back the good times we had. We cannot know what tomorrow will require of us, nor can we ensure future security and happiness. Now is what we have, and now is everything.
We can follow our food plan now. We can abstain this moment. We can deal with the problems, which confront us today as best we can, trusting God to guide us. We can be in touch with our Higher Power only in the present.
As we focus on the present moment, we live it deeper, and we derive a satisfaction that we did not know when we were regretting the past and worrying about the future. Whatever happens now is all I can manage and all I need.
Thank you; Lord, for this present moment.
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This program has taught me a valuable lesson, not to dwell on the past, learn from my shortcomings, and move forward. My experiences no longer define me, they provide knowledge and make me a better person. I am always learning, and evolving in this program, and can only accomplish success in my recovery and of course with my HP guiding me. What a great and relevant reading today.
I'm Felicia, a grateful compulsive overeater!1 -
Father Leo's Daily Meditation
January 18
GLUTTONY
"Gluttony is not a secret vice." - Orson Welles
The unspoken disease of food: hide in food, bury anger with food, cry
behind food. Food addiction --- eating, forever dieting, starving --- is the
hidden disease that is becoming more obvious. But are we talking about
it? Recovering alcoholics minimize it and get lost in ice cream and
doughnuts. For many people the pain around food is as real as alcohol
or any other drug. And the family and relationships suffer.
Today I am willing to talk about it. Spirituality affects all my life and
this involves my eating habits and body weight. God does not make
junk and so I choose not to eat junk. Today I choose to talk about the
buried emotions that I am stuffing behind the food. That is a step
towards living.
When I bless the food at meal time, may I also bless my abstinence.0 -
I normally don't view Father Leo's meditations, but stumbled upon this one, as it resonated with me and I'm sure you all. I used to call myself a glutton and felt really bad about eating, so much to the point of misery. I never knew what hunger pangs felt like while deep in my disease. This program has afforded me opportunity to address this disease efficiently. I've also learned to not quit before the miracle happens, and in order to experience the miracle, I had to be in a good place of recovery.
I'm Felicia, a grateful compulsive overeater in recovery!0 -
Food For Thought
January 20
Avoiding Binge Foods
Most compulsive overeaters react to refined sugar and flour the way an alcoholic reacts to alcohol. One bite and we sooner or later go on a binge. We find it impossible to eat a controlled amount of food, which contains refined sugar or flour, and we inevitably end up with a hangover from our excesses.
Many of us have other binge foods as well. We have learned from sad experience that it is easier to avoid these foods entirely than to try to eat them in reasonable amounts. We have to be rigorously honest with ourselves in order to determine which food plan is best for each of us as an individual.
No food is worth the anguish of a binge. Once we accept this, we can accept the necessity of abstaining from personal binge foods. Abstinence means freedom from the obsession with food and from the compulsion to overeat. Freedom to live without overeating is the reward we gain when we avoid the foods that trigger our compulsion.
May I realize that avoiding binge foods is a small price to pay for freedom.
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One of my first exercises in the program was identifying and eliminating trigger foods, the foods that lead to me binging. It was tough having to "give up" those foods that were my go-to at times of high stress, or celebrations. As a T2 diabetic, my health was deteriorating, but I still wasn't at my bottom, even after realizing that some of the trigger foods were slowly killing me. I am so grateful for OA and what the Program has taught me!
I'm Felicia, a grateful compulsive overeater in recovery!0
