Thursday, November 19, 2009

My Food Plan

My name is Charlie, and I'm a compulsive overeater.

::Hi, Charlie!::

I want to talk about my food plan today. I need to get it out there so that I can be accountable. I have been slipping and sliding like crazy. I can't put together two weeks of abstinence. I have been binging on sugar, cereal, pizza... Ugh.

All right. I think that the food plan that best fits my needs is very similar to the HOW plan. This is the plan that I followed a few years ago... It was very successful, and really, as I followed this plan, I found out that my cravings were lifted, I was free to be serene and let go of my obsession with food.

So here it is. It's simple.

Breakfast: protein, fruit

Lunch: protein, vegetables

Dinner: protein, vegetables, salad

Three meals per day only.

Non-caloric drinks only: Diet Coke, coffee, water

No sugar, no refined white flour.

5 comments:

Jess said...

Hey, Charlie!

It's great to see you blogging again!

legally_barb said...

Thanks for sharing your food plan. I'm curious, because this is something that has been coming up a lot in my area lately - how do you distinguish your abstinence from your food plan?

I've always been of the mindset that your abstinence has to be something you can succeed at, and your food plan is something that helps you achieve your abstinence, but failing to follow your food plan does not necessarily mean you're not abstinent. For example, with your food plan, if you had a piece of toast with your protein and fruit in the morning, are you still abstinent?

Ultimately, I think the test has to be whether you can "lose your abstinence" while genuinely not eating compulsively. If you can, then it probably isn't a good definition of abstinence. If an alcoholic defined "sobriety" as "not drinking", then told himself that he lost his sobriety after having a drink of water, that would be insane! Same goes for food - if you define your abstinence the same as your food plan, and then sanely vary from it for some reason but still eating sanely, then how can it possibly be considered compulsive overeating?

If you're sensitive to flour and/or sugar, then staying away from it makes sense - it would help you not eat compulsively by reducing/eliminating cravings. But that seems like a food plan issue to me, because eating it out of an occasional necessity or even accidentally shouldn't necessarily mean that you're not abstinent. It should depend on what you ate instead, how much you are, how you ate following that event, etc., etc.

I have defined my abstinence as "no bingeing" for quite some time, with my food plan varying over the years to fit my needs at the time. This has worked well for me and I've lost quite a bit of weight. However, I've been reconsidering this lately.

A few people in my area have re-defined their abstinence to be weight-related (e.g. no more than a 10-pound weight gain from their current weight), the underlying idea is to be at or approaching a healthy body weight. I've been drawn towards this new definition lately, because while I am still abstinent by my current definition, I have had some weight gain in the last year due to many significant things that have happened in my life. I know that I'm not bingeing, but I also know that weight gain means I'm eating more than my body actually needs. I think that a change in food plan is definitely in order, but I also think that perhaps a look at my definition of abstinence would be helpful because, while a small amount of weight fluctuation in life is normal, at some point it becomes obvious that something else is going on.

Just curious about your thoughts on this, and anyone else's who might want to chime in.

WillingWill said...

Abstinence has been "how" I have been eating and Food Plan has been "what" I have been eating. I have used this for a while now to help me distinguish and found a wonderful workshop that uses this to help people use this tool to their advantage.

If I could only come up with a "who"...then I would be a cannibal, but so far, not an issue :)

Anonymous said...

Have you read The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Program by Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. ?

She covers how to deal with a lot of what I see posted in your blogs.

Joe

shee said...

There's nothing new in here. The website is so blunt and lifeless. Why don't you try to visit: www. gourmetrecipe.com. They have good layout and presentations in that site. Not only that they have many exciting and interesting recipes. I love that site so much. Try it!