Yesterday I went to a BBQ held by friends. It's the social event of the season, to be sure, and everyone brought super-delicious and a lot of unhealthy foods. I can't describe it but I felt such peace around the food. I ate reasonable to small portions of the unhealthy stuff that looked really good (e.g., hashbrown casserole), I passed on stuff that didn't seem worth it, and I made sure to pick out stuff that had vegetables and looked reasonably healthy.
When I got home, I did not know how to track the stuff for WW as I didn't even remember what all I'd had and I had no idea what some of the stuff even was. In the past I would have just given myself a holiday exemption -- ie, we don't have to track this; it's in honor of our nation's independence! This year that just didn't feel right; I knew that this meal should dip into my weekly points. I decided I'd track the meal as 30 points (to give you an idea, my daily allowance is 37, so this means I overshot my daily target by quite a bit) and move on.
It was so bizarre (but GREAT) for it to feel weird not to track my food. To me this was no superficial decision to follow a commercial weight loss program, even though that is what it may seem like. To me it symbolized something so deep, so foreign, and so important to me -- this was basically me reacting to a deep sense of honesty and accountability I now feel about my food. This was about me saying "You know what? I ate that, and I will not ignore it and pretend it didn't happen because it's a holiday. I will take responsibility for this food choice. Not because I feel like I should; not just because I want to lose weight. I am doing this because I will be honest about myself about what I am eating." And there was liberty in tracking that food. It was so unexpected, and so counterintuitive. But it was so liberating.
Today friends invited me over for a BBQ. When my friend described the menu, there was not a good food option on the list that sounded good to me -- the meal is centered around meat, and I really don't eat much meat anymore. I thought about skipping it, but decided that was not a good option because I did not want to forgo the social interaction. I thought about eating before hand, but decided that would be too awkward. I finally decided I'd go and bring a good option I know I can eat, even though I was told that they had plenty of food and I didn't need to bring anything.
I am starting to be able to navigate tricky food situations without feeling like I'm crumbling on the inside or a crack addict having the shakes. Again, I can't take credit for any of this. Clearly, this is God helping me. The tools I am learning through OA have helped me to realize how utterly reliant I need to be on Him for His help in overcoming my addiction to food.
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