Diet/OA Question? End of my rope.

Runner18

Fri, Jan 04 2013, 7:37 am

ChossidMom wrote:

Another thing - I'm sorry if I sound harsh. It's just that I've been down the path you are on. OA is not a diet. OA provides a support group. I never felt comfortable there because they insist that we have a "disease" and are food addicts. This never sat well with what I know that every person has free choice. The good thing about OA is that they encourage you to turn to your "Higher Power" and that they provide huggy kissy people to support you.
In all my 10 years in OA and CEA How I have never met more than a small handful of people who have actually lost the weight they needed to and kept it off. Everyone binges and gains the weight back. I'm sorry to rain on everyone's parade. Over 10 years in OA rooms and sure, I've seen weight loss. But I've seen much more weight GAIN because the system is built on the fact that you must attend many meetings and make many phone calls. Often life gets in the way and that can't happen. A person MUST be able to find a way to help himself from the INSIDE and not constantly need outside help from a group. It's simply not practical. If it works for some people - great. But just because your mom and sister love it, doesn't mean it's for you.
My entire family HATE CEA How after what they went through there. The humiliation of not being allowed to share at a meeting because of not having 30 days abstinence. Uch! People have been destroyed by that program.

Please find something that works for YOU. Only YOU. That's all that matters. It has to be personalized to you and your nutritional (and psychological) needs.

Best of luck!!!

Hi Everyone,

I know I'm a little late to the party but I wanted to just mention a few points.

Personally, I have done really well in OA. I have seen tremendous changes in myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I have never been closer in my relationship with Hashem. And I have never been more at peace with food.

Chossid Mom, I'm sorry that you've had such a difficult time in OA. I would, however, like to note for the sake of this thread that CEA is a more fanatic form of OA. In years, I have never been to OA meeting where there was an abstinent requirement to share. I know that in CEA and OA HOW they are very strict about these things and people feel like it's really extreme...and for many it is.

L'HAVDEEL, but I feel like some of your experience would be akin to someone saying that they have an axe to grind with Frumkeit because of their exposure to the Naturei Karta. The Naturei Karta is not what frumkeit is supposed to be as outlined by the Torah.

So too, the fanatical forms of OA are not what the Big Book outlined as how the program should be. Unfortunately it has an appeal to many, since many people have an all-or-nothing mindset and can easily fall for the extreme.

I want people to be aware of these distinctions in OA because I do think that it can help many people. I'm happy you've had a positive experience with surgery, but I do believe that people need to try their options before they go for surgery. I know many people who were about to get surgery and ended up in OA and didn't need the surgery in the end. I know that that was not your experience, and I am not knocking you-- clearly you really spent a lot of time in the program-- but I do think that OA offers something that many people benefit from.

Are there people in OA who are crazy? 100%! Are there people who are misguided about what it really means to be at peace with food? 100%! But just as the frum community has it's diversity of people when it comes to being emotionally balanced, the same thing goes with OA.

I hope that I was not offensive in any way here. I am not an OA fanatic who thinks that anything outside of OA is bad and shouldn't be tried. But I don't want people to assume that your experience in OA will definitely happen to them and so they therefore shouldn't try it to see if it can work them.

Personally, I can eat chocolate and not binge. Could I eat a piece of cake or cookies and not binge? Yeah maybe, but I don't like the way my head feels afterwards so I stay away from it. I don't think that's fanatical or means I can't truly live. It just means that I'm really in touch with my body and my mind and feel grateful to have found what works for me.

Tova

Sun, Jan 06 2013, 7:20 am

Not to debate, but I think that's why PLENTY of people are successful with programs such as Weight Watchers, etc. People don't usually go to OA as a first stop when they need/want to lose weight. I far from think OA is for everyone (although I do think everyone should be working the inventory parts of the steps constantly; we'd all be much better off! Since I wouldn't have come to the steps if not for the food aspect I'm almost - almost - grateful for that struggle too). I think where the powerlessness part comes in is when we think, this time will be different. I can have X,Y,Z. I can stop after one. I can eat what I want to on Shabbos and be "good" the rest of the week. And some - maybe even most? - people can! Some of us, though, have the experiences of our past to know that it's never ever happened like that. To say, strictly speaking, that I CAN'T do something, yeah, maybe that's harsh. But to say that I can look at my past experiences and I've never ever been able to do such-and-such, well that I can accept and even embrace.

chani8

Sun, Jan 06 2013, 7:39 am

Tova wrote:

chani8 wrote:

It depends on what you are 'powerless' over. But yes, I can see how stating that you are powerless over food, would be hard to swallow (ooh, great pun!) But to state that you are powerless over your hunger pains, that may be true. I cannot control having hunger pains, and they constantly trip me up and try to convince me that I'm hungry, even after I've consumed my 1200 calories, for instance.

chani8, that's not what the program preaches. It's powerlessness over the substance (alcohol, binge foods, etc.). [Could it be that 1200 calories are too little an allowance or that you are not eating the best foods to get those calories?]

That is hard to accept. That I am "powerless" over food, or even over 'binge food'. Even with alcohol, for instance, I would think it makes more sense to state, I am powerless over the cravings for alcohol. OTOH, I think we are getting into semantics. It cures the whole conflict if you state it it past tense, "I was powerless over food. . ." Gosh, it's been years. How does it go?? Google it:

We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.

That's what I thought. We 'were' powerless. Who can argue with that?

momomany

Sun, Jan 06 2013, 9:30 am

I wont play word games. Whatever word u want to insert, I WAS powerless. I was obese. I did not want to be obese. I tried many many programs. 7.5 years ago, oa taught me to surrender to hashem and realize that without His help I am powerless over food, my apetite, cravings.... whatever.
Hashem is all powerful and controls the world (and me). Baruch Hashem, with hashems help every day and with the support of the oa community I have been maintaining a 90 lb weight loss.
I dont understand how any frum person has trouble with the word powerless. Dont we all know that without the power of hashem we are useless?

BTW People in meetings who do not have abstinent days are not looked down on. There is an all pervasive atmosphere of "there but for the grace of g-d go I). They do not share during the meetings because the meetings are set up for "positive pitches on oa abstinence". It is in no way an insult.

Runner18

Tue, Jan 08 2013, 11:43 am

Great post momomany.

In terms of the discussion of being "powerless" over food, I see nothing wrong with that. Until I accepted I am powerless over food, I couldn't be in the same room as my binge foods without them calling to me. Now, I can go to a wedding or party and not even notice the food. And when I do, it doesn't call to me as it used. When I was so-called 'powerful' before I admitted I was 'powerless', I was stuffing that cake down my throat and taking some for the road too. Doesn't sound like I had much power over food.

For me, it also was important to acknowledge that "my life had become unmanageable", as we say in Step One. My constant struggle with food and body and weight issues made my life so difficult. I hated having a closet filled with clothes that would fit one month but not the next. Or how unmanageable life had become when I'd be waking up the morning after a binge and not be able to show up for the responsibilities in my life. Always wanting to wear black to hide my body.

In my opinion, "Admitting we were powerless" is similar if not a spin-off of the first of the Aseres HaDibrot, "Anochi Hashem Elokecha".

It takes admitting we are powerless to recognize that we truly need Hashem's help in coping with this issue. It's the only way we can cope with ANY issue!