Hope

It looks like my workout schedule for this week will have to be tweaked.

Ruby still has the runs, and Adrienne and Nick are both home sick today. I'm feeling better, and would like to work out. But I don't think it's going to happen today.

So here's my plan. I'll work out Thursday and Saturday, instead of Wednesday and Friday. And I'm going to at least take a walk when Ruby goes down for a nap this afternoon.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about addiction. My family is steeped in it. Alcohol mostly, but when drugs get involved they hit hard. Like my brother who is recovering from heroin addiction. And my sister who traded a speed habit for vodka.

My dad drinks beer everyday. Or he did, until a nutritionist told him he had to stop because he had something wrong with his blood, a precursor to liver problems. My daddy won't stop drinking beer, but he's only doing it on the weekends now.

My step-mom is a teacher. When I was a teenager my dad was in prison (for mail fraud) and it was her and me and a gaggle of much younger brothers. She used to go to school on Friday and come home to change clothes on Monday morning. She spent the weekend drinking.

So I always thought I was doing okay. Because I don't drink at all. Ever. And I don't use drugs.

It's finally dawned on me that not only do I have an addiction as severe as my alcohol- and drug-abusing relatives--mine is far more obvious. THEY don't weigh 300 plus pounds. You would never be able to look at anyone in my family and pick out the ones with substance abuse problems.

But you could easily pick out the one who is addicted to food. The compulsive over-eater.

She is me.

I went online after reading Passing for Thin by Francis Kuffel. She lost 180 pounds with the help of Overeaters Anonymous. They have online meetings. I tried two of them, and wasn't too impressed, but I'm going to keep trying.

They also have email loops. I picked two to join. I meant to join one, but I found another one that felt like such a perfect fit I had to join it, too. Those are a hoot. Much smaller, more initmate. And it's odd to have everyone involved really get what is happening inside me.

I met a woman through that second group who has offered to be my sponser. I'm biting the bullet. Because I don't want to be an addict. I want to be recovered. I want to be healthy. And I can't be if I'm obsessed with food, even if I'm thin.

It isn't even only about being obsessed with wanting to eat food. I think about my weight, and my weight-loss all day long. I need to learn how to live again. How to eat and exercise without making a career out of it.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I can live a life where food is nothing more than a pleasant source of energy. It tastes good. It feels good. It makes me feel good. But it doesn't own me. They say it takes three weeks to break a habit. I haven't had a binge, and only one episode of overeating, in 31 days. I feel strong. I feel hope.

And when I close my eyes, I can feel myself crossing the finish line of my first triathlon.

Tomorrow is June's check-in day. I'm going to make an honest effort not to weigh myself again until July 1. I'm not sure I'm ready yet, so I might not be able to keep to that. I am definitely going to stay off the scale during the week and only weigh myself on Saturdays, no matter what. Daily or more weigh-ins are keeping me tied into a diet mentality.