OA success

OA as a program works for those that want to work it. The program consists of:

• a daily reset to a plan for just today
• a decision to follow the plan for just today
• the willingness to do the plan for today
• faith in the plan for just today
• a plan for the day
• a review at the end of the day.

Some days the plan will include cleaning up our past, and figuring out how to do better in the future. Most of what we do is good enough. We done good. Pat ourselves on the back and go to sleep.   Some days we need to be the student, and some days the teacher. Some things we just need to step back from and let go by. No opinion necessary. No action necessary. No thought necessary. 

There are many ways to say this does not work, but logically, how can it not work if we have a reasonable plan, and the willingness to do it?

Plan of eating

In OA there is a plan of eating as a tool. It reads as follows:

As a tool, a plan of eating helps us to abstain from eating compulsively. Having a personal plan of eating guides us in our dietary decisions, as well as defines what, when, how, where and why we eat. It is our experience that sharing this plan with a sponsor or another OA member is important.

There are no specific requirements for a plan of eating; OA does not endorse or recommend any specific plan of eating, nor does it exclude the personal use of one. (See the pamphlets Dignity of Choice and A Plan of Eating for more information.) For specific dietary or nutritional guidance, OA suggests consulting a qualified health care professional, such as a physician or dietician. Each of us develops a personal plan of eating based on an honest appraisal of his or her own past experience; we also have come to identify our current individual needs, as well as those things which we should avoid.

Although individual plans of eating are as varied as our members, most OA members agree that some plan — no matter how flexible or structured — is necessary.


Yah sure...

I hold rigidly to the belief that there are chemical in the food that is driving this desire to eat. In addition; for some of us, there is a compulsion or obsession. 

We first must eliminate the chemicals, then address the compulsion. Just for today philosophy, will work to get us started. I just need to to this today. Eat only fresh fatty meat, eggs, fish, cooked, and green vegetable, leaves, stems, chuted, limit roots to non white, with oils; olive, coconut, gee, cold pressed first run canola; only for about two weeks, will get us clear of the chemicals. No sugar, wheat, grains, processed foods, "vegetable" oils, butter, cheese, milk, rice, corn, beans.

Until we do this test, we will be unable to separate compulsion and chemical. Just for today, each morning, commit to the test, for it is for education of your body, and your learning. After each of three or four meals each day, a large glass of water and a ten minute walk, to provide separation from the food eating place. We do not need to do this for long, and just for today, is the only commitment.

Note your hunger, and record what you ate and how much. Weight should be recorded every AM, and after ten days, start a 10 day running average, which will become your "official" weight. You (we) need to eat clean for about 14 days straight. If we slip, oh well, back on the program, but you need about 14 days clean. Are the cravings and hunger less? Has any thing else changed?  Less GERD, IBS, Blood pressure, blood glucose issues? 

Are you clear of the chemicals? Do you feel the difference? Do not starve yourself. If after 14 clean days, you feel the same as before, we will talk more. It took me about a month to get the first 14 clean, but after 3 days, it became much easier. 

Too what lengths

Too what lengths am I willing to go to recover? Just for the exercise, this time, I used the other to.

For some of us to get on the program we give up something that was important to us, for other we just need to be willing to give up important thing, places, people in out lives. It may be necessary for some of us to step back from family who are pushing us into the disease or what ever this condition really is. We may not be able to spend time with people displaying the symptoms of compulsive eating, whether they are or not is not the question. We need to make the decisions that are right for us, not right for others. They will just need to live with our decisions. There are control freaks out there, and some of us are (may be) dependent, but it is life or a slow painful death. Your choice.

To what lengths

To what lengths will I go to have this blood obsession arrested, one day at a time, for today?  Am I willing to record all caloric inputs, including quantity? Am I willing to do 10,000 steps? Am I willing to go to meetings regularly? Do service work, whether anyone wants the service or not?  Do service until service becomes the obsession, or at least thinking of others becomes the obsession? Not yet? More willingness required?

I am a compulsive person, so the compulsion can become recording and doing 10 thousand a day (pick a number).

Service work can become an alternate obsession to overeating. My mother would do anything for anyone other than here family. She "kept in touch" with extended family, but mostly lost touch with here children. Such was her opportunity cost of her obsession. I am not suggesting that we get that into service, but the possibility is there.

These blogs (4) are my current mild obsession now. But these are not strong enough to displace the food obsession yet, always.

Food addiction

video  http://bigthink.com/ideas/23923

One of the key functions of the neurotransmitter dopamine is to create feelings of pleasure that our brains associate with necessary physiological actions like eating and procreating. (gives us motivation to do it again) We are driven to perform these vital functions because our brains are conditioned to expect the dopamine rush that accompanies them.

Addictive drugs flood the brain with dopamine and condition us to expect artificially high levels of the neurotransmitter. Over time, the user's brain requires more dopamine than it can naturally produce, and it becomes dependent on the drug, which never actually satisfies the need it has created.

Changing Ourselves

As we go through the process of changing ourselves, primarily in a effort to be able to maintain a normal weight, other things change along the way. We have no control over what will change. It will happen suddenly, but what will happen and when is unknown.

The first change that must occur is the process of learning, to take the time necessary to learn little bits, and then keep coming back. Perseverance. It will take time. We need to develop patience. We need to develop an inner peace.

We need to learn that we can only change ourselves and then only sometimes, and not in a predictable fashion. We can change the way we react to the world, and this is where much success lies. We cannot change the world around us much. We can change our exposure to the world around us, but what do we want to become? Isolated. Recluse. Do we want to drive those around us away? Or the life of the party? It is our individual choice.

It take determination, commitment, courage, compassion, perseverance, gentleness, consistency, and responsibility to change ourselves in a big way. We need to consider long and hard before we make major changes, for once these start, we may be changes forever.

The serenity prayer does a nice summary of all this. 

Willingness

Change of any kind requires willingness to change. We go through about 5 stages, precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. There should also be a feed back loop to modify the final state to a more favourable state, but that tends to allow creep back to the original issue.

Willingness to change is a state of mind, in fact, the first three are mainly in our head. Until we get to action, it is all in our heads. That is my problem, I think about it and am not strong on the actual doing. Just do it.