I found FA in upstate New York when I was just short of my 30th birthday. I’d been bingeing and purging for 17 years and hit a top weight of over 180. In my early 20s, I spent three years in 90-Day OA (the 90-day program of Overeaters Anonymous), but I wasn’t ready for what the program had to offer. I couldn’t stay abstinent, and I balked at suggestions from my sponsor(s) and other people who were actually staying abstinent.
After six more years of active food addition, I was more ready to listen. I got a sponsor and a food plan and started to surrender my will. However, there were still plenty of times when I was sure that I knew exactly what I was doing, only to find that my sponsor was the wiser one.
For example, my sponsor suggested that I maybe shouldn’t start any strenuous exercise at first, while I was on a weight-loss food plan. I’ve always been very lazy about exercise, but when I was six weeks abstinent I didn’t see any problem with my husband and I painting the exterior of my nearly three-story house…all by ourselves. With classes done for the summer, I thought it was a great idea to have something productive to do instead of just spending time thinking about the food I was no longer eating.
For five days we started early in the morning and worked until dark. I watched the clock closely for my lunch and dinner times. I felt like my meals weren’t enough. I was sure I needed more food, and told my sponsor every morning that I was starving! I was grateful that she never said, “I told you so.” But she did introduce me to, “I am enough, I have enough, I do enough,” and told me that I was eating enough food.
My food plan stayed the same. I continued to be hungry and continued to be abstinent. Even though I was hungry, I was grateful to have clear boundaries around my food. I don’t know if I’d ever before stopped eating long enough to feel true physical hunger.
I imagine that a “normal” eater can regulate food intake as activity levels change—more activity, more food; less activity, less food. After hearing other food addicts share during meetings, and after reading the AA Big Book every night, it became quite clear that I am anything but “normal” when it comes to food. If it were up to me, more activity would mean more food, and less activity would mean more food. If I hadn’t committed to follow the food plan that my sponsor gave me, I’m sure I would have added in extra food while I thought I “needed” it and would have never taken it out.
From my past experience, I know that extra food, regardless of what it is, almost always leads me to sugar and flour, which leads me to bingeing, which then leads me to purging, and eventually will lead me back to being overweight. That’s exactly where I started 12 years ago when I found FA, and that is exactly where I don’t want to be.