FOOD IS DOING PUSH-UPS IN THE CORNER

Last Saturday morning, I was thinking about my day and realized we were going to a wedding that night. Dreadful thoughts over took me as I started thinking about all the food and having to watch everyone eat.

I have been in recovery from my compulsive overeating for over eight years. Every time I am invited to a party, I always start worrying about how I am going to handle the food. Usually as the day progressed I become more anxious and my fears turned to anger. I start to control everyone, telling them what to do and if they didn’t listen I would get angrier.

This time I decided this day would be different and I was not letting my fear of the food ruin my day. That morning my husband and I took a walk, as we were walking I told him how I felt. While I was walking the dreaded feeling started to disappear. By the time we returned from our walk I felt much better. As it turned out I had a pretty relaxing day.

My husband and I went to the wedding enjoying each other’s company instead of arguing. After the ceremony, my fears came true; we entered a room where there was enough food to feed more than 500 people. I left my husband and started to walk around the room looking for something I could eat. While walking around I started to talk to friends, family members and before I knew it they were calling us into dinner.

Once at the table, I felt much better because I could eat, dance and enjoy seeing my niece and her new husband enjoy their wedding. I ate what was on my food plan and felt fulfilled, powerful and grateful that my food monster did not take control of my day.

Some of the tools I use to ensure my food monster does not have power over my recovery:

• Acknowledge my feelings and talk to someone about them.
• Decide what I am going to eat ahead of time.
• If I want to eat something not on my plan, STOP, ask myself is this the choice I want to make and then take the appropriate action.
• ACKNOWLEDGE MYSELF!

What feelings do you have when you go to a party?