Year Two: The Rise of Darth Fatso

I posted this over on the Darth Fatso site, but I felt it belonged over here too.

It kind of snuck up on me, but today is two years since I started a process to change my life.  When I began, I weighed 355 pounds and had absolutely no self-control when it came to me approach to food.  I have tried to document my process on this blog.  For the first year, I was pretty faithful.  The second year, things became more spotty.  Part of the reason was that it was maintenance.  When I started, my goal was to lose 100 pounds in the first year - strictly by changing my food habits.  I accomplished that.  For my second year, I wanted to maintain that loss.  I wanted to learn how to live this new way.  I needed to explore what exactly I could and couldn't do.  I really just wanted to maintain my weight and resolve.  Year three I would move on to exercise.  In year two, while I was largely successful, to say that I accomplished my goal would be stretching it.

First of all, the cold hard facts.  I currently am 270.  That is down a net of 85 pounds from this weekend in 2010.  But, it is up 15 pounds from last year.  For much of this year, I was able to stay in the 260-265 range.  But the last few weeks, I found myself creeping up higher.  My clothes have started to feel a little tighter, although hard for others to really notice.  I have some shirts I don't like wearing.  The belt has gone back one hole.  I was hoping to rally right before I hit the second anniversary.  But my efforts fell short.  I know that lots of people would say encouraging things.  "Look how far you've come."  "You've still done a great job."  "That isn't so bad."  Those people mean well, but that is honestly what got me into trouble in the first place.  We can always find people who will tell us we aren't so bad.  And we can always compare ourselves to someone else and feel okay.  For me, I can compare myself to that fat load of goo from 2010.  Compared to HIM, I am fine.  But if I compare myself to 2011 David, I am not fine.

What happened?  I wouldn't go so far as to say I've relapsed.  I can point to countless examples of where I  am not even the same person I was then.  But I can definitely say that I am not as disciplined, diligent, careful as I was.  In some areas, I have gotten lazy.  The image that comes to mind is that of an ancient walled city.  There would be these walls all around their property.  The purpose was to keep OUT invaders.  There was a big deterrent there.  Massive energy had to be exerted to breach those walls.  You had to have equipment strong enough to take them down or enough manpower and resources to lay siege to the city.  It largely was a pointless endeavor.  Why would you go and attack some walled up, heavily defended city when there was some weak tailed undefended township up the road?  Those walled cities did have vulnerabilities, though.  If you eliminate the involvement of God and throngs of horn playing Israelites (Jericho), I would wager that the biggest threats to those cities came from within.  You could have someone betray the city and allow invaders in, someone incompetent who forgot to lock the doors, or people who failed to keep the walls strong.

The problem with walls is that they don't only keep people out.  They also trap their citizens IN.  There were many times during this process where I felt like a prisoner.  I felt trapped in my restrictions.  And I hated it.  I could understand that feeling being necessary for the first stretch.  But twenty months in?  It gets old, quite frankly.  It sucks.  I hated being the only one not eating pizza.  It is a lousy feeling at a wedding watching everyone chug my favorite micro-brewed root beer while I have to be satisfied with water.  I don't like it.  I can see where a person in a walled city could be convinced their security isn't worth the trapped feeling.  I also don't like the constant vigilance.  It wears me out and it gets frustrating.  That is the maintenance end.  People in those cities had to constantly check the status of the walls.  Time and weather and wind and animals and moss and grass all work together to slowly compromise those stone security options.  If you don't keep a wary eye peeled, those walls can become useless as cracks and holes appear.  This was where I really started to fail.  Little decisions would lead to bigger issues.  I didn't stop a bad choice, and it led to something worse.

Let me explain with a food example.  One of the biggest food items I had to banish was bread.  Bread was something that I just couldn't control at all.  It was a part of some of my biggest problem foods.  By getting rid of bread, I also eliminated subs, burgers, melts, pizza, calzone.  It was an important and vital decision.  No bread.  For the most part, I have really stuck to that.  But, here is how an erosion  happens.

• NO BREAD!
• A friend asks, "What constitutes 'bread'?"  A fair question.  At first, the answer is everything that uses flour to make it.  For the first stretch, I was draconian in my application of this rule.
• What about cornbread?  Well, it is more corn based.  I never have liked cornbread very much.  So maybe that will work.  I found myself eating it too often, so I kicked it back out.  But then I allowed it again.  
• Cornbread is okay.  That means that whenever I go to 4 Rivers, I can get cornbread instead of their biscuits.  At Jason's Deli, I can use their corn muffins on the chili.  At Cracker Barrel, I can have the corn muffins.  At Boston Market, I can have the cornbread.  When I make chili for everyone and buy cornbread, I can have that too.  It is amazing how often cornbread presents itself once you decide you can eat it.
• What about battered objects?  NO!  They violate two major banned foods - bread and fried foods.
• What about battered veggies?  Like pickles or onions or zucchini?  Would those be okay?  Hmmmm.  Okay, as a cheat fried pickles will be fine.  Plus they are really hard to find.  (Not really.  I find them all over the place.)  And onion rings will be okay, but not all the time.  (Yes, all the time.)  But no french fries.  That is the line.  Unless they are sweet potato fries.  No white potato fries.  That is the real line.
• How about egg rolls?  They are friend, but they are stuffed with cabbage and stuff.  Plus they go great with your chicken and rice.  No.  Are you sure?  Okay, fine.  Especially when they are avocado egg rolls.  
• How about hush puppies?  We already established that corn bread is okay.  And fried stuff is sometimes okay.  What about hush puppies?  Are those okay?  We'll allow them.  No reason to be too legalistic, right?  
• Corn based products seem to have some more validity.  As a correlation to this rule, it begin to affect my approach to chips.  Whereas I had restricted myself to rice based chips, now I wonder if I can have corn chips.  This especially applies to chips at Mexican restaurants.  See, salsa and guacamole are great and things I can eat.  But I need a delivery system.  So I begin to allow myself to have those chips at Mexican places.  
• Have you ever been able to control yourself eating chips and salsa at a restaurant?  Yeah, me neither.  This now allows me to get chips, salsa, guac at any Mexican place.  I still will almost always pick rice chips when they are available.  But they are never around at a restaurant.  
• Since we are on the topic of chips, what about pita chips?  That is the option when hummus is involved - another great allowable dip without a good delivery system.  Well, how often are you really going to find pita chips?  So those are okay.
• Of course, some places give you just plain pitas with your hummus.  Or flatbread.  Those are okay too, since they are in the delivery of hummus.  Which is healthy.
• Since flatbread is okay, and gyro meat is also allowable.  (I discovered how awesome Greek food is.  It fit my diet perfectly until this bullet point.)  So is hummus and tzatziki sauce (yogurt based).  So, then are gyros okay when there aren't that many other great options?  Sure.  Why not.  
• So, let's take stock here.  No bread, no chips.  Except for cornbread, fried veggie products (except fries), egg rolls, hush puppies, corn chips, pita bread, pita chips, flatbread.  (ummmmm)  
• So what about hard shell tacos?  I mean, isn't it kind of ridiculous and hypocritical to allow chips with salsa and guac, but not the corn taco shells for tacos?  It would make things so much easier to be able to order tacos than always to have to get fajitas and mix it all up on the plate.  Okay, fine.  Tacos are okay.  But only hard shell!
• What about pumpkin bread?  That is not really around much of the year.  Maybe this could be a cheat item?  I'll allow it.  But very warily so.  [Note: this particular though process came up three times and all three times ended up with me with the equivalent of waking up in a storm grate with a pumpkin bread hangover.  NOT smart.]  Okay, so maybe not pumpkin bread.  
• Banana bread?  See the above point.
• What about crackers?  I mean, crackers are so innocent.  People recovering from vomit fits have crackers.  Plus, they are a part of communion at church.  How bad can they be?  Hmmmm.  Good point.  We'll allow them for communion.  (Yes, I actually had a conflict about taking the cracker at communion in that first year.  I was hardcore.)  And I guess they can be used once in a while.  
• Breaded and fried veggies are okay.  What about fried and breaded chicken?  Awww, heck no.  That is a big no no in these parts.  But it is so freaking annoying to only eat grilled chicken.  And it is so hard to get that everywhere.  Plus, it costs more.  And it has smaller portion sizes.  It would make things so much easier to allow it.  Slowly, I allowed it.  But I tried to limit it to only when there was not a legitimate other option.  (Funny how loose that standard becomes.)
• Keep in mind, that through all of this process, my weight has stayed around 260.  So, since the weight hasn't gone up, I felt that my choices may have been okay.  
• Does that cracker clearance include Ritz Chips?  They are just like Ritz crackers, but crispier.  Plus they go great with that peanut butter yogurt dip.  The judge will allow it.  Now, go scarf a whole bag down on New Year's Eve.
• How about tortillas?  Absolutely not.  Under no circumstance will tortillas be allowed.  Whole wheat?  Nope.  Spinach?  Nope.  Ezekiel 23 mulit-grain high protein?  Nope.  No tortillas.  Please? NO!  
• Okay, let's say all of you are at a burger place and they have a very limited menu and one thing you can have is a grillen chicken wrap.  And they have loads of topping you can have (salsa, guac, roasted peppers), but they need to wrap it up.  And they have a whole wheat option?  How about then.  We'll allow it . . . once.  
• Next day - What about burritos at Moe's?  You can have everything inside of it.  And they have whole wheat ones.
• SCREEEEECH!!!  

The car came to a major halt.  Here was a major problem and I knew it.  See where that process went?  See where it ended up?  I had allowed so much stuff that it was hard to keep any standards.  And if I couldn't keep up with my rules by myself, how could I expect anyone else to?  People already had a hard time following my logic from the outset.  ("Wait, hot dogs are okay but not burgers?  You can have BBQ but not whole wheat pasta?")  Now when I was scrambling my own standards, when I would ask someone else what they thought, they had no idea what to say.

I ended up allowing myself cheats here and there.  But no cheat ever stays a cheat.  I know this.  I can look at that list now and realize how insane the process was.  But I never really examined it like that before.  It was a gradual erosion.  It took two years.  But there I was, yesterday, trying to convince myself not to get a burrito - one of my clearly banned foods.  (I didn't get it, if you were worried.)  Once a cheat is allowed, my mind would revisit that to see if it really was a "one time deal" or if it could be incorporated again.  My largest determining factor was the scale.  As long as I kept things around 260, I was okay.  I would have stayed at a net loss of 95 pounds.  Who wouldn't be happy with that?

But then I started to question this logic.  Was this really just a five pound fluctuation?  Or was it the first year of a process of gaining five pounds every year?  Would I sit there at the end of year three at 265?  Then 270?  Was I going to gain five pounds each year until I was back where I was?  Isn't that how I got to 355 in the first place?  It's the same thing that happened with my credit cards in the past.  I had a student card I got my first week in college.  It was one of those $500 limit cards.  By the time I hit the wall with it years later - after virtually living off it for years - it was, let's say, NOT a $500 limit.  I paid it off at one point.  But a few years later, it was back up to the former limit again.  I started to worry that I all I had done was reboot my weight so I could go back up.  Of course, I punched myself in the brain and said shut up.  I didn't want to have to get really strict again with myself.  I had already done that.  And I could look at all the victories and still believe I was fine.

There are many victories.  I still have not had any pizza, pasta, lasagna, pie, subs, sandwiches, burgers.  I can mostly say I haven't had any soda, ice cream, or cheese - although cheese has snuck into a very small number of items, I had one small cup of sugar free ice cream in December, and I have had a total of five sips of soda.  I can honestly say I have held those two food at bay and kept them on the banned list.  But I had cookies this Christmas.  I had some cupcakes.  You have seen my bread experience.  I have chocolate and frozen yogurt all the time.  So, while I have kept the spirit of my restrictions list alive, I have definitely had a field day violating the spirit of it.  Honestly, if I evaluated myself today, I would have to say that my struggle is not a raging victory.  Instead, I kind of feel like I'm playing Risk.  And even though I still have small armies all over the place, I don't have strong reinforcements anywhere.  I don't really control any complete continents.  And a strong attack may just completely collapse my army.

Two major things brought me to that conclusion.  The first was the fact that I was back up to 270 and it wasn't just a blip after a trip.  It was there for a few days.  That showed me there was trouble.  The second thing was that I saw a good number of my friends doing something called a Daniel Fast on Facebook.  From what I can gather, it is a thirty day fast where people try to follow Daniel's example with food.  They aren't eating any processed food.  They pretty much are banishing meats and rich foods.  The goal is to teach self control and to focus on living a pure lifestyle.  It is a noble thing to do.  In the past two years, I have seen numerous friends go through efforts to lose weight and/or change their eating.  I always  have been very supportive, as the friend on the other side.  Lately, though, I have felt some jealousy for them.  I started to go with the whole "well they had more to lose" defense.  And when I saw all these people doing the Daniel Fast, I started to hear that same mocking voice that used to reside in my head.  I had largely banished that voice.  But there it was, ridiculing what they were doing - trying to make me feel better about where I was.  I found reasons to diminish their efforts.  A lot of these people are at a church in Arkansas where a friend of mine is the Pastor.  The church is going through this process as a whole.  The thing is, we are doing a conference at that church in February.  Instead of thinking of how to join with them in their work, I began to count on the calendar to make sure they were "over their stupid little food thing" by the time I got there.

What the heck is wrong with me?  It hit me this morning full blast that I am in trouble.  Sure, I can keep up the half-hearted efforts I am making.  I could go through a little intense phase of a week or two to get myself back down to 260.  Then I would feel better about myself and go back to what I was doing.  I could just be more careful with the allowances.  The thing I realized two years ago was that this wasn't about food.  It was about my heart and my mind.  I needed to change my life.  Honestly, I don't want to do this again.  I don't want to go back through this garbage.  It sucks.  It is a lousy situation.  It is restricting and painful and uncomfortable.  But, if I am really being honest, I am not happy where I am.  I posted last week about how I felt that God was telling me that this year was the year for me to wake up.  I think that applies to this effort.  I've been sleepwalking through this.  There is very little thought involved. When it comes to a questionable food choice, I used to err on the side of strictness.  Now I err on the side of ease.  How else can I explain eating a cupcake - let alone three cupcakes - at a Christmas party?  How can I explain even considering ordering a burrito?

So, I guess that means that I need to go to Publix and get the things necessary for me to actually accomplish this.  I need to fix the walls and pull the guides back in.  There needs to be a strictness applied again.  Some of those questionable food choices need to be revoked.  Maybe some of those foods that got allowed in because they weren't seen as problems actually are.  Maybe corn products are more of problem than I thought.  I also do still want to add in exercise this year.  I think it is time, as much as it terrifies me. In short, I need to realize that Darth Fatso is not dead.  Just like George Lucas is going to resurrect Darth Maul this Spring in The Clone Wars show, I need to realize Darth Fatso was merely biding his time.  And I must fight again.  I've seen enough movies.  I should have realized that villains never disappear after the first loss.  That why sequels exist.

352

Over the years of being employed at churches, I have had the pleasure to work with some truly amazing people. (Yes, I also have worked with some real pains. That's a different post.) One of the most wonderful people I had the joy to serve with was Vince Manna. He and his wife, Holly, both worked at First Baptist Oviedo with me. Vince was one of the most genuine, passionate, encouraging people you ever would meet. He was in charge of helping new members get acclimated to the church. But over the years it became apparent he also loved mission trips. Eventually, planning mission trips and overseeing the mission efforts of the church became a huge part of his job description. Truly, this was a perfect match. Vince and missions - one of those all-too-rare examples of a man working in the dead center of his skill set and passion.

He loved talking to missionaries from all over the world. And he tried to learn things about different countries and cultures. I saw the excitement on his face when he would be able to share some of these discoveries with others. Vince and I had a great relationship. We had our usual disagreements on minor issues - just like you would with anyone. I considered Vince one of my better friends and a real treasure to the staff. He had a great sense of humor, which I appreciated. And he could dish it out, if necessary. But he never was cruel.

One day, I was walking down the hall and he was popping out of his office. He saw me and lit up. He tossed his hand up in the air to wave, got a big grin on his face, and said loud enough for everyone to hear, "JUMBO!!!" I was kind of taken aback. What did he just say? Did he just call me Jumbo? What kind of jerk is he being? I can't believe that he would just call me "Hey big fat guy!" in front of everyone. "What did you say?" I must have looked a big upset or confused. His demeanor changed and he explained, "That's how they say hello in Swahili. Jambo. Oh no! You thought I said Jumbo, like big." Then he laughed his butt off. And for the next couple years, as is typical for guys, he poked fun at me about that. That's what guys do.

I tell that story to lead into this. When you are offended by the traditional greeting of an entire people group, maybe you need to examine some things. The other day I weighed 352 pounds. It is not that I was shocked by that number. It isn't the worst I've been. It sure isn't the best. I hover around that number. And, truthfully, I may have actually lost a few pounds. I'm not sure. I know, this is where the women start grumbling about guys losing weight so easily. Let me just explain something. If you have 352 marbles, it is easy to lose 5 marbles. They could roll under the couch or fall down the toilet. If you only have 100 or 125 marbles, you are more careful with your marbles. It is more noticeable when you lose 5 marbles. The guy with 352 marbles doesn't notice until he loses 20 or 50 marbles.

Anyway, weight issues have plagued my life. I always say that it easy to see which kid was me in baby pictures - I was drawn with all circles. I have always been round. I was one of the tallest and biggest kids in my class all the way back to Kindergarten. I remember all through elementary pulling at my shirts so they wouldn't be so tight across my belly. My shirts still bear the telltale signs of this behavior - stretched out button holes, pull points on the front. As years have rolled by, I have continued to get larger - it kind of was a foregone conclusion. You just keep buying bigger clothes. I have also developed an unhealthy relationship with food. There is a level of emotional dependence and addiction that had become a part of my life.

This is one of the things that is extremely frustrating to me. Fat people are treated differently. They are seen as lazy and self-destructive. Now it is being painted in the news and in health circles that they are personally responsible for destroying the economy and health insurance industries. When do you see an overweight person portrayed in a positive light? They play the buffoon or the lazy bum in movies and shows. I think that a lot of this is due to public perception that fat people are in this quandary thanks to a lifetime of poor choices. And, it is also believed that they can escape this problem with discipline and just "not eating so much." As any fat person will attest, this is not true.

I spend a lot of time working on issues of addiction. My ministry deals with it on a regular basis. I have read books about addiction - I've even written a Bible study on it that we taught at a conference. My father was an alcoholic - and probably a gambling addict and food addict and nicotine addict. Several in my extended family have battled various addictions. I am currently finishing a wonderful book that deals with men and addiction called Samson and the Pirate Monks by Nate Larkin. One of the thing that jumps out at me when you compare food addiction to any other addiction is that most addictions begin at some point with a choice by the addict to start the process. They go in the door and then get lost in the house. But at the very beginning, they open the door and go in. It may be that they drink that first beer at a party at Brian's house or they take that first hit behind the football stadium or they look at the first porn magazine in their friend's room. But there is an initial decision. AND, the other major difference is that, despite what they believe at that point, they CAN live without the addictive object.

With a food addiction, you can't live without food. You have to eat. And you don't really choose to develop a problem. I don't remember at any point sitting down and wrestling with whether or not to eat a cookie, which set me off on a spiral towards the point where I wake up in the gutter covered with crumbs and empty Hydrox packages. I wasn't any different than any other kid. We all ate cookies. They gave us cookies in school. I remember one event in first grade where all the parents helped make food from other countries - mostly desserts and pastries. We also had a Thanksgiving feast out on the recess field where we had all kinds of goodies. (My mom made a lattice blueberry pie, thereby ruining 90% of all blueberry pies forever for me.) We weren't allowed to have sodas, except for with certain meals or on special occasions. I remember loving New Year's Day because I could have Wink soda and eat in the TV room.

We had a "clean your plate" policy at our house. You were supposed to eat everything on your plate - if you liked it or not. We didn't want to be wasteful with food. I still battle this now, feeling bad tossing part of my kids' food when they get full. We didn't sit there and eat fried foods all the time. My mom rarely fried anything - once in a while we would have fried chicken or french fries. We had a normal roster of dinners. Baked chicken, cubed steak, turkey, hamburgers, pizza, spaghetti, tacos, pork chops, roasts, stews, soups. We never had rich casseroles because my dad hated casseroles. We didn't eat big salads and poached chicken every meal, but I refuse to believe that is what everyone does. I have always been a bit baffled by the whole weight thing to some extent, because for most of my life I have not eaten any worse than anyone else - and I have not eaten more than other people. In fact my friends usually comment how I eat less than a lot of people. My brother was always thin. He would take out an entire bag of Doritos each night. He put bleu cheese dressing on everything. He never gained a pound. I never did those things and gained weight all the time. I don't mainline candy. If I get candy, I usually nurse it along for weeks (unless driving on a long trip).

I am not sure what triggered everything. Was it that we usually had pizza on Friday and hamburgers on Saturday? Fun foods on fun days? I don't know. But I became drawn to those types of food. I love pizza, lasagna, cheeseburgers, mexican food, Italian food. I would eat those all the time if I could. They are "fun food" to me. And I tend to drift towards those foods when I'm down or had a bad day. Eating out only was on a special occasion. So if you eat out every day, every day is a special occasion. Dessert was always fun and made you feel good. I understand a lot of this better now: the release of endorphins from chocolate, neural pathways that are built to release pleasure chemicals, learned association.

There was a stretch of maybe six or seven years where I hung out with a bunch of college students. I was a student myself, and then a young single guy working with college students. I ate like a college student. Lots of cheap, pre-packaged food. Fast food joints all the time. I ate so much pizza it is a miracle that I still like it. And then we discovered buffets. Breakfast buffet at Shoney's. Lunch buffet at Pizza Hut, Cici's, and Vallarto's. Dinner buffet at China Jade. Dangerous places. I gained some weight, but not as much as you think. The last explosion of weight actually happened after I gave up those habits. That's even more baffling - although my life became more sedentary after having kids and when I took a job as a desk jockey.

I can start a diet tomorrow and make it work - for a while. I started Weight Watchers a few years ago. I lost fifty pounds in four months. And then put it back on by the end of the year. A few years later, I decided that I really needed to avoid certain foods instead of "dieting." I lost thirty pounds. And then I put it back on. I lost fifty pounds working at Rhodes Furniture - but gained it back before I quit there. I can diet. But that doesn't do anything. It just shows you how to manage your poor food intake. As I've read the Pirate Monks book, I picked up on some things that have really made this clear. I guess one of the tenets of AA is that "abstinence is not the same thing as sobriety." Forgoing something is a great first step. But the mindset is what needs to change.

I have all the classic symptoms of an addict when it comes to food. I can't imagine my life without the object. I get angry when I think of going without pizza or soda. I have tried to quit so many times. I have hundreds of excuses for why I can't do it. And I'm a loner when it comes to fighting. I don't want help. I don't want praise for doing it right. I don't want "you can do it" messages from friends. Because if they buy their way in with the positive, that gives them the right to criticize when I mess up. I hate it - just get boiling angry - when I'm eating with a friend who knows about my weight battle and he makes a comment about what I ordered. That means that someone else noticed, I guess. (Of course other people notice. I make people in my row in airlines and in arenas cringe when I walk up.) I have learned to cope by poking fun at myself. But it merely hides the fact that I hate myself. I hate how I look. I hate my weakness. I hate my failure. And I hate that I want to go eat pie right now. I'm not happy when my friends lose weight. A part of me want to be, but a bigger part is mad because it shows how I am a failure . . . AGAIN. I have friends who are doing great with their weight struggles. "That's great," I say to their face. Inside I'm like, "Yeah, great. I should send them a fruit basket. Wait, that will help them. I'll get the fruit covered in chocolate. NO. Better yet, a ham basket."

I have tried every motivational tactic that I can imagine. I tell myself that I'll be more attractive if I am not so enormous. My wife will like it better if I am not so fat. Sex would be better. I would be able to play with my kids without needing oxygen. I would be able to live long enough to see them graduate, get married, have kids. My dad died before I got married, had kids, started my ministry. I should know how hard that is. He had diabetes. Heart disease and high blood pressure run through both sides of my family. Being thinner would help me professionally, since people don't respect fat people. I have a hundred, a thousand reasons to lose weight. But for each one, I have irrational and stupid reasons that seem logical at the time that stop me. Most of all, I have fear.

I am afraid that I will fail. I am afraid of giving up certain foods. I am afraid of what would happen if I succeeded. And what if I succeeded and THEN failed again? Fear has derailed me so many times. And it continues to relentlessly attack. I was afraid of writing this. I was afraid of what people would think, of what comments they would leave. I was afraid of their suggestions and encouragements - maybe even more so than their criticisms. I can't keep living like this. And, quite frankly, I won't keep living like this. Eventually, living like this will kill you. For some reason, all of this clicked into place this week. Maybe it was the book. Maybe God, Who mercifully pursues me all the time even when I ignore Him, finally broke through my thick skull and hit the chewy nougat inside.

On Tuesday night, I am going to do something that I cannot believe I am doing. The very thought of it terrifies me to my soul. I am going to go to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting at 7:30pm at a church in town. I have no clue what to expect. I don't know if this is even the best option. I just know I need to try a different tactic. I need to address the reasons why I do what I do instead of just getting frustrated by failing. Why do I fail? What is the root of this destructive behavior? How can I fight that? So I am going to try OA. So pray for me. Remember me on Tuesday. I want to say I'll keep everyone updated. I know my tendency is to keep my latest battle quiet so the failure is also quiet. That's not healthy. To win this, I have to have others around me. Maybe I'll get to the point where Jambo is just a greeting and not a name.