There was a time when cooking was a huge chore and not something I would ever consider doing on a daily basis when there were fast food restaurants and shops where I could swing by and grab the foods of my choice, even if I ate most of it before ever setting foot in the […]
Yearly Archives: 2024
Grief Triggered Compulsive Eating? OA is the Answer!
I know we don’t talk about it a lot at meeting level, but “grief” is a thing that has served as a trigger for a large amount of my compulsivity around food. In fact, I suspect it was a primary underlying cause for my food addiction and disordered eating. Like some of us in the […]
Overeaters Anonymous Freed Me From Feelings of ‘Not Enough’
Today is a good day. Why? Because, just for today, I am ‘enough.’ For as long as I can remember, I NEVER felt enough. Not enoughness, inadequacy, feelings of being a failure or a disappointment, ruminating thoughts of being ‘broken’ or ‘a mistake’ – all of this ‘head junk’ forever repeating itself between my ears […]
Practicing Rigorous Honesty – the Road to Recovery from Food Addiction
In Twelve Step recovery programs, the message isn’t to be occasionally honest, or to try to be honest, but to practice “rigorous honesty.” But what does this actually mean? In the rooms of OA recovery, I learned that “honesty” is defined as “devoid of all motives to deceive.” If we look more closely at Step […]
OA Member Recipe: Yummy Good-4-U Spinach Parmigiano Chicken Rollatini
My family is from Italy and came over to the US on a boat back in the late 1940’s. Although they are all exceedingly slim and healthy (most of them living to ripe, old ages), I was the exception in that I struggled mightily with my weight from nearly the moment I was born. While […]
My OA Weight Release Journey: Happily Ever After…?
“And they lived happily ever-after.” I grew up on fanciful fairytales and the happy-endings of Disney movies. How many of them ended with that famous one-liner? “And they lived happily ever after.” In coming into OA (after years of binge eating, sugar addiction, and endless fixing with food), my belief was that when/after I reach […]
Comparing Weight Loss Drugs to OA’s Twelve Steps
You’ve likely noticed the multitude of news headlines and social media posts regarding “easy” and “dramatic” weight loss resulting from “a simple weekly injection,” along with the promise of that injection being made available “in the near future” as a simple little pill. Such a “magic pill” was once the ultimate dream for this compulsive […]