One sixty-four on Jan 1, 2010, and let me tell you, I am very, very thankful to be at this weight and not 5 pounds more. Given the stress of the last two weeks and several binges, it's truly a miracle that I managed to maintain the weight I was before the holidays.
My mother visisted for about 2 weeks, and while I love her dearly, it is always stressful to live with your mom around. Besides which, I've come to notice that she may have some food issues of her own.
Whenever she visits, my mother always stuffs my refrigerator to its absolute gills. This has always annoyed me somewhat, but never more so than now since I've been in OA. The amount of food she buys and the quantities in which she buys it (for a 2 week visit!) are amazing. My mom is a tiny woman, due to a lot of exercise and her close, nearly obsessive attention to her caloric intake. She has been dieting my entire life. I can never remember a time when she wasn't watching her weight, and making suggestions for how I could do the same. She eats very little breakfast and a liquid lunch (slim fast), then snacks and binge-eats at night. I used to do that, too. I still do the binge-eating part sometimes, but hopefully I'll get the point where I can claim abstinence for impressive periods of time.
Of course, it isn't all my mom's fault. She doesn't know anything, really, about my program or recovery, she's just doing what she's always done. In addition to all the extra food in the house, we made about a million cookies together (my ultimate trigger food), and she bought a huge bag of M&Ms to keep around the house. I was doing okay until the cookies appeared. Once the cookies were made, I binged on them for days.
Within 20 minutes of my mom's departure, I opened up two big garbage bags and stuffed them full of the awful, extra food in my refrigerator. Much of it I sent to my husband's work, but the stuff that was on it's way out just went to the garbage. She buys food at Cosco, which means there was entirely too much of everything: huge pies, several packages of dips, 2 big bags of chips, large containers of lunch meant, bins of cookie dough, leftover sandwiches and more. The only real trigger foods for me are the sweets, but the combination of being under stress and having the sweets readily available is what killed me a few times. I cleared out my pantry so that it looked exactly like it did the day she arrived, and went back to my normal eating habits. It was such an enormous relief when all of that stuff was out of the house. Who needs that much food? No one, I say, unless you're feeding an army.
I'd gained a few pounds during her visit because I did not remain abstinent. But thankfully, the pounds weren't permanent, and when I relapsed, I was able to forgive myself, recognize that I was in a pretty tough situation, pray, recover and ultimately keep my eye on the ball. The next time she visits, I'm going to have to talk with her about this ahead of time. Ugh.
I am probably the only person in the country who is looking forward to getting back to the routine of a normal work/school week next week. I hope you are all having success tackling any food issues you may have.
Happy New Year
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