Food For Thought - OA for January 2015

[MajestyJo]

Sunday, January 4, 2015

You are reading from the book Food for Thought


Three Meals a Day

For most of us, abstinence from compulsive overeating means three measured meals a day with nothing in between. Before we joined OA we often ate one enormous meal, all day long. Through this program, we find the discipline to eat according to our needs rather than our self-destructive cravings.

Unless a doctor has told us differently, we do not need more than three meals a day. As we practice this pattern, we retrain our overgrown appetites and learn to function in the real world. We can eat with our families instead of secretly snacking and bingeing.

We plan our three meals for the day, write them down, and report them to our food sponsor. Then, instead of nibbling here and there and thinking about food all day, we can forget about eating except when it is time for a planned, measured meal. As we acquire disciplined eating habits, we find that other areas of our lives become more ordered and productive. Freed from the bondage of self-will and impulse, we are guided by the sure hand of our Higher Power.

I am grateful for the order and sanity OA has brought into my life.

Before recovery and until I got a spiritual awakening in recovery, I only ate two meals a day. I didn't realize that I was putting on weight and doing harm to my body and didn't really care about doing the breakfast thing, I didn't want to face food early in the morning. I am still not a big breakfast person, but I know it isn't something that I can skip over and I need that energy to start my day. When I found out that I had Type 2 Diabetes, I was told that I was suppose to eat 5 small meals a day. This seemed impossible. I had trouble eating the 3. But then, I found that like everything else, I had to turn the thinking over to my Higher power, because those smalls became bigger and bigger, and again it was about control. Whether it is 3 or 5, it is about putting my life into my God's Care.