Saluting Jared Fogle: 10 Years & One (Subway) BUN At A Time

Y’all know who Jared Fogle is, right?  (As soon as WordPress fixes their latest technical glitch, I’ll upload his picture so as to refresh your memory). Jared is the guy who lost nearly 240 pounds while eating Subway (submarine) sandwiches EVERY day while he was losing weight.

Jared not only achieved his weight loss goal, but he has been at his goal weight for just over nine years…and has been CONSISTENTLY losing/maintaining his weight for over TEN years! And wouldn’t you know it, but he has been eating BREAD virtually EVERY day of his inspiring weight loss journey (GASP!!!).

BUNS (yes, those Subway [submarine] sandwiches always come with BUNS!!!)…And those BUNS are made of lots of ingredients including SUGAR AND FLOUR!!! <I think I just heard the sound of a H.O.W. food plan devotee just passing out from shock (not to mention carbohydrate deprivation!)>.

My point to this rant? Well, other than to salute Jared on his impressive success, I wanted to point out that at least some food addicts CAN eat bread (e.g., CAN eat sugar and flour) and still remain in recovery.

So the next time some devotee of one of those dredful “no sugar, no flour” diets tries to tell you that you MUST avoid ALL sugar and flour or you can’t/wont be successful in your recovery journey, feel free to point out that at least some food addicts (e.g., Jared Fogle) ARE long-term successful WHILE STILL EATING sugar and flour.

Maybe they have to avoid ALL sugar and flour (that is their choice — even if they can’t find a doctor or dietician to sign off on it due to the increased risk of health problems caused by low-carbohydrate diets)…but their choice does NOT have to be yours…and your success does not have to come while attempting to follow a CraZy diet that is based on (at best) whacked-out scientific theories.

Oh yeah…I probably should mention that ALL carbohydrates break down into SUGAR in our bodies!!! So NOT “ALL sugar” is bad or (in one sense) is any indivudal TOTALLY sugar free IF they eat ANY amount of carbohydrates.

 

Back To OA: Still CrAzY After All These Years!

Yesterday I returned to Overeaters Anonymous after a seven year absence…which was preceeded by some 23 years of fairly continuous participation.

Please note that during my extended absence from OA that I never stopped working the 12 Steps. Between my involvement with One Bite Fellowship (a group I started especially for MALE food addicts) and participation in a couple of other 12 Step communities (in person and online), I continued working on my recovery.

I stopped attending face-to-face OA meetings for a number of reasons. In 20/20 hindsight, I now believe that most of the problems I left over involved important issues. Seven years ago I believed that ALL of the reasons II left over involved “serious issues”.  Having attended OA meetings in many cities around the US (in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas and Kentucky), I still believe that most of the reasons I left the OA fellowship had to do with problems that are unique to the fellowship here in Louisville, Kentucky.

When I write about OA, I’d like to believe that I know a lot about this organization, having spent over half my life in this particular 12 Step fellowship. Yeah…I’m 50 years old and attended my first OA meeting when I was a wee lad of 20 years old. Where did my youth go? It was spent in 12 Step meetings!

The meeting that I attended yesterday wasn’t what I’d call “terrible”. In fact, it was pretty good for an OA meeting here in Louisville. Then again, I’ve attended some truly AWFUL OA meetings in this town over the years! Meetings where men were bashed. Meetings where the 12 Traditions were repeatedly violated. Meetings where I could have sworn that the fellowship should have been re-named “Excuses Anonymous” (due to the lack of recovery of being shared by those in attendance).

Some of the things about Louisville OA meetings that used to drive me NuTs were present in yesterday’s meeting. My Short List: 20 - 25 minutes worth of readings being read at the start of the meeting  (Why can’t these people in Louisville simply follow the SUGGESTED MEETING FORMAT offered by OA’s World Service Office? YAWN!!!), a request to “NOT mention foods” by their ACTUAL names (for fear we would trigger another member to OVEReat compulsively — PLEASE!!!) and sharing about food plans and physical recovery (both during and after the meeting) that DISTORTS the OA message on these matters.

I plan on continuing to attend OA meetings for the time being (One Meeting At A Time), while remembering to “Take what I like and leave the rest” — or ar least “NOT OVEReat compulsively over the rest”.

Instead of the “larded-up” meetings here in Louisville, I much prefer just NO NONSENSE OA where the REAL message of this wonderful fellowship is CLEARLY and CONCISELY expressed! The OA meesage is NOT one that encourages FEAR and/or RIGIDITY about “sugar and flour”. It is NOT (and NEVER has been) a message of promoting rigid food plans. And the Suggested Meeting Format from OA World Service Office has PLENTY of essential readings that do not distort how recovery works.

Some positive things I experienced at yesterday’s meeting include…

I appreciated the warm welcome I received at yesterday’s OA meeting! The degree of warmth I experienced is a BIG improvement over the ice cold welcome I’ve observed being extended to newcomers at many an OA meeting I had attended in previous years. I hope that I extend an equally friendly welcome to newcomers that I experienced yesterday!

The topic (actually FOUR topics to choose from) were based on topics found in actual OA-approved literature! And what members shared was actually ON TOPIC! This is a BIG improvement over MANY meetings I’d attended previously.

If you read my previous journal entry about how I view my recovery journey as an “A La Carte Experience”, then you’ll hopefully understand why I wont (I did at one time, but wont just for today) put “all of my eggs” in the “OA basket”. Some OA members may believe that OA is ALL they need to recover or that they have (and follow?) the ONE food plan that I “should” be following (Please don’t “should all over me or others” — Just for today!). They are free to believe what they believe to be true…Just as I am free to believe what I believe to be true.

My recovery journey is influenced by numerous sources and OA is just one of them. My Christian faith guides my spiritual recovery. Weight Watchers offers a positive, sane influence in dealing with food and emotional issues that trigger overeating (At least at Weight Watchers meetings we CAN mention foods by their SPECIFIC names! and NEVER get lectured about the EVIL of “sugar and flour”. The philosphy that guides my One Bite Fellowship has been heavily influenced by my OA, AA, Al-Anon and Narcotics Anonymous recovery. And I can’t emphasize how important it is for me to TRUST the “earth people” who help guide my physical recovery, including my doctors, physical therapists, diabetes educators and dieticians.

 

Feelings: To Feel Them Or Stuff Them Down, That Is THE Question!

Many years ago I had a pastor who impressed me with both his great wisdom and delightful sense of humor. He would often quip that he had been known to “cry at supermarket grand openings”!

I can relate to his comment — at least at times. Sometimes I cry with little or no provocation. At other times I do a pretty good job at “stuffing down” my feelings — ALL feelings — including feelings that lead to tears.

I’ve heard it said of food addicts that if we don’t “Face Our Stuff” we’ll (eventually) ”Stuff Our Face”. I’ve found this is VERY true in the sense that some of my most painful feelings have surfaced during periods of sane eating.

How vividly the lyrics of Simon And Garfunkel’s song I Am A Rock captures the emotional pain that many of us addicts have tried to stuff down…

“I am a rock.
I am an island.
I’ve built walls –
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate…
I have no need of friendship;
friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain….
I touch no one and no one touches me…
And a rock feels no pain.
And an island never cries.”

As a recovering co-dependent, feeling MY feelings should NOT be too difficult a task to handle since (in active co-dependency) I had NO problem feeling EVERYone else’s feelings. But the reality has been that running from, denying and stuffing down (”stuffing” comes about with my ingesting EXCESS amounts of food) MY OWN feelings has been my pattern.

Many years ago I heard it explained that feelings, also referred to as “emotions” , are “energy-in-motion” (think “e-motions”). My understanding is that ingesting any any mood-or-mind-altering substance can (and does) “block” the processing of emotions. Hence the state of “emotional constipation” that many of us addicts experienced during out days of active addiction.

I don’t know why, but feeling MY feelings CAN seem overwhelming. At times I’ve found myself wondering if I was going to “e-mote to death” by allowing myself to feel my feelings!

The Overeaters Anonymous brochure entitled, A Plan Of Eating: A Tool for Living - One Day at a Time (Copyright 1988, 2001, 2005 Overeaters Anonymous, Incorporated. All rights reserved.), addresses the connection between food and emotions with these words:

“For a compulsive overeater, eating is attached to emotions. We are never fully satisfied, no matter how much we eat, because we are eating for emotional reasons rather than physical reasons. We eat for excitement, love celebration, loneliness, escape, pleasure and comfort. We devour food to anesthetize ourselves. We eat out of anger, resentment, envy, jealousy, fear, pride, guilt and grief.”

The good news is that, through working the 12 Steps, I’ve actually been able to discover/uncover whatever feelings I’ve been stuffing down with excess food. Through working the 12 Steps while working with other addicts I’ve found the strength to NOT act out with food in an addictve, compulsive or impulsive manner, despite feeling some intense and pretty crappy emotions!

Recovery doesn’t magically protect me from feeling painful feelings. Recovery gives me the strength and courage to discover, feel and then move beyond my feelings without the need to swallow excessive amounts of food or avoid physical exercise. How does all of this work? One Day, One Step and One Feeling at a time!

 

Notes From The Journey…

Before anyone sends me hate mail because I’ve posted yet another picture of REAL FOOD on my blog (yes, I actually got a message from some guy recently who was all shook up over seeing the picture of a man holding a fork — NO food on the fork, just a fork – in the masthead at the top of this page!), allow me to explain why, when I deem them appropriate, I choose to post such photographs.

Allow me to do a reality check: Just SEEING a picture of food canNOT force any food addict to overeat compulsively!!! If I posted a picture of dog poop would you HAVE TO eat it?  Nope!  The same is true when you see, smell or (gasp!) even think about food.  We addicts are powerLESS over food, but NOT over our elbows!

I used to fear the sight, smell and thoughts of food. But my atttitude toward food has been radically changed by a couple of passages found in Alcoholics Anonymous, the basic text of that fellowship. One of those passages (pages 84 and 85) reads:

“”We have ceased fighting anything or anyone — even alcohol (food). For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in (food). If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We can now react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that this new attitude toward liquor (food) is really a gift of God.

That is the miracle of it.  We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation.  We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected.  We have not even sworn off.  Instead, the problem has been removed.  It does not exist for us.  We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.  That is our experience.  That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.” (pages 84-85)

So you might as well get used to seeing pictures of FOOD within the entries of OVERACTIVE FORK, because I’ll continue to post them when/if they fit the topic I’m writing about! Oh yeah…you might want to consider working the 12 Steps so when you do see ”recovery-threatening pictures” you wont CHOOSE to eat whatever food is pictured on my blog! :-D Working the 12 Steps, not just mentally masturbating about them, is how one gets to the “position of neutrality” discussed in the AA Big Book passage listed above. Hiding from food is NO substitute for working the 12 Steps. Being afraid of food is, in an of itself, NOT a hallmark of authentic 12 Step recovery from food addiction. On the other hand, being afraid of what acting out with our addiction can do our health and physical well-being IS something to fear, IMHO.

We now return to the subject of this entry…

I’m pleased to report that this week, my second week of back-to-back food sobriety and exercise sanity this time around, is going very well. Thank you, God!!! Thank you, fellow addicts and others!!!

Occasionally I hope to write about “little but important experiences” I have along this “journey known as recovery”. This is the first such entry.

* To help remind himself that he really is NOT the center of the universe, a good friend of mine in the AA and OA fellowships is fond of saying, “I may not be much but I am ALL that I think about!” What? An addict with an OVERinflated ego? Say it ain’t so! I don’t know about you, but I can certainly relate this  line (at least occasionally). <blush>

One of the ways that I’ve finally figured out that my ego is getting OVERinflated is when I find myself REALLY ANGRY (then ultimately resentful) for the seemingly smallest things that other people “do to me” To paraphrase another AA member , “The bigger the target, the easier it is to hit”. So true!

One of the things that would (normally) send my anger level into the stratosphere is when fast food drive-thru workers would get my WRONG. I just knew that they “were out to sabotage my excellent recovery efforts”. If you go thru many a fast food drive-thru lane you know how (if you are lucky) one in ten of your orders comes out wrong. So I’ve had LOTS of occasions to get pretty mad over the years — Once last year I even managed to use the terrible “F Bomb” when a fast food worker tried to INSIST on giving back to me the WRONG food ALONG WITH the food that I (finally!) had actually ordered (“Just give me the f—ing food that I ordered!” I yelled). <still blushing>

FINALLY, earlier this week, I “got it”!!!

At last I realized that NObody was trying to mess with my recovery (REALLY!!!) when I was handed a food item that I had NOT ordered.  When I went back to thru the lane I was given the CORRECT item that I ordered and was told to KEEP the item that was given to me INcorrectly…And yet I did NOT explode! It may not sound like a big deal, but for me this IS progress!!!

I’m so very thankful that someone finally told me that Health Department regulations PREVENT restaurant employees from serving food that (for any reason) has been returned to them. So when they say, “Go ahead and keep it (the WRONG food item)…” they probably would rather I eat it (or that I give it to someone else to eat) because the only other option is to throw it away.

Even if I feel “terribly weak” in my ability to NOT eat something that I was given in error, it is MY responsibility to take care of myself and NOT eat it. This really is NOT about what other people are doing to mess with me and sabotage my recovery efforts!  I (yes, me) CAN choose to throw away something BEFORE it enters into my mouth (”I may be powerLESS over food, but I’m NOT powerLESS over my elbows!!!). <amazed look>

And really, NO food is my “problem”…My “problem” is the DISEASE OF ADDICTION living INside of my body…NOT an INantimate piece of food that exists OUTside of my body. I have a program of recovery with LOTS of tools that CAN (and HAVE) help(ed) me defuse tense interactions with food.

 

Impulsive Overeating

Some people refer to themselves as “compulsive overeaters”. Others refer to themselves as “food addicts”.

Some people with a “food issue” make a big deal about how they identify themselves and insist that others identify themselves exactly the way they do when it comes to identifying problematic food-related behavior.

My position, when it comes to identifying my out-of-control food behavior, is that ultimately I’m an addict and that excessive food intake and avoidance of physical exercise are merely manifestations of my underlying addictive disorder. As I mentioned in a previous post, I tend to agree with a friend who believed that codependency was underneath every single self-destructive addiction.

Whatever.  How I identify my disorder isn’t all that important. What is important, IMHO, is what I’m doing about.

I’m certainly cmpulsive when it comes to food and exercise avoidance.

I’m definitely an addict when it comes to these two things.

I’m also very much of what I would call an “Impulsive Overeater”. “Impulsive” to the point that when I want to eat something (or want to avoid exercise) ALMOST NOTHING will stop from having my way!  If this isn’t a classic definition of “addiction” I don’t know what is! <blush> As I’ve also heard this reality described, we addicts, “want what we want when we want it — if not BEFORE!!!”

I can really relate to the following definitions of “impulse” and “impulsive”.

IMPULSE
* “Sudden, involuntary inclination prompting to action.”
* ”A sudden desire.”
* “A sudden pushing or driving force.”

IMPULSIVE
” Without forethought.”
* “Determined by chance or impulse or whim, rather than by necessity or reason.”
* “Characterized by undue haste and lack of thought or deliberation.”

Being impulsive explains a LOT about my behavior with food and exercise avoidance…especially with the food part of my addiction process! How many times it seemed almost if food MAGICALLY came FLYING into my mouth! No forethought, just an INSTANEOUS action took place, over which I felt powerLESS.

And when I am powerLESS, what a great place to “tap into the power” I find when working the 12 Steps, praying, working with other addicts! I find it of absolute importance that I share HONESTLY (with both God and other addicts) about at those moments when I want to act out in a self-destructive manner. Mentioning food and behaviors by names often does much to diminish the power of my self-destructive behaviors.

I bring up this issue of “impuslive overeating” because this issue is related to one of my few frustrations with the Weight Watchers POINTS food plan.

As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, I think the POINTS plan has to be one of the nutritionally-sanest food plans ever written. Because it is so very “sane” when it comes to nutrition, I have found it to be the easiest food plan I’ve ever tried to follow. This is NOT another “diet”. Given the variety and volume of food it allows me to consume, for the most part it is a sheer joy to follow. Figuring up the POINTS value of foods takes some work, but my experience is that most things in life that are worthwhile DO take work.

So when it comes to MY impulsiveness and working the POINTS food plan the “rub” is that I really can’t just “grab and inhale” any old food whenever I feel like it.  In order to honestly work the POINTS food plan I must know the POINTS value of every food item I consume. It doesn’t great math skills to work the POINTS food plan, but it DOES take some discipline. And discipline makes it pretty hard to act out impulsively with excess food! This is NOT necessarily a bad thing. The only problem is that my “addict within” doesn’t particularly care for this!