So, the H.O.W. plan kicked my ass. This program (OA) takes things one day at a time. I did well for a few days. A couple of days were just okay. I realize that today would only be day 6, but I can't do it anymore.

I think the H.O.W. guidelines are great. I think having a very defined food plan is a good thing for me. But I know that H.O.W. was too much too soon (or too little too soon maybe...)

A friend of mine has been doing H.O.W. for nearly a month now, and it's working really well for him. He says that it has helped him having things so black and white, and that it removes some of the compulsion because his food is so defined that he doesn't have to think about it. It didn't work that way for me.

Following the H.O.W. plan was hard for me. I could deal with the weighing and the measuring and following the guidelines. The hard part was that I was still hungry most of the time. Even right after I'd finished a meal, I was still hungry. And not the compulsive "must have more food" but actually still hungry. Sometimes when I was bored my brain would say "you're hungry, eat something" even though I wasn't really hungry. I'd like to say that for the most part I've learned the difference between when I'm just eating compulsively, and when my body actually needs food.

My point in all of that is that constantly being hungry is a bad bad thing for me as a compulsive eater. I knew that I could not have my next meal until a certain time, I knew exactly what I could and could not eat. What that led to was me thinking about food all the time. That's really not healthy. For me, H.O.W. defined my eating, but didn't remove or lessen the compulsion. In fact, it made it worse, because eating was all I could think about, and that makes me even more likely to binge. Which I did, on the days I mentioned above that were not so good. I binged on healthier foods- I still didn't eat carbs or sweet things- but I still binged. I'm not angry at myself, I'm not berating myself or telling myself that I'm a failure. At the same time, I'm not inclined to stick with a program that leads me down a road I'm trying to stay off of.

So I'm going to go back to my original food plan, that I came up with back in the fall of 2005. Well, I came up with the basics then. I've added new things to the list that I know are danger foods for me. I lost weight following this plan, though I put it all back on and then some when I stopped following it:

1) 3 meals a day- no snacks. Meals can be anything I want as long as they fit with the rest of the guidelines, but meals have a defined start and finish, no "grazing" meals.
2) No adding salt to things once they are on my plate (meaning I can use salt for cooking). I L-O-V-E salt. It's pretty amazing that I don't have high blood pressure.
3) Ranch dressing on salad only, i.e. no dipping things in ranch dressing.
4) No fast food.
5) No fried "appetizery" foods.
6) Limited carbs, keeping to whole grains and unrefined starches as much as possible.
7) No sweets, which means no dessert when eating out with friends.

If I notice thngs becoming problems, I'll add them to the list. Do I wish that H.O.W. had worked for me? Yeah, I do. But it didn't, and I would much rather admit defeat and move on to something that'll work better than to stick to something out of stubbornness and not wanting to look like a failure. Recovery is about making choices that help you overcome the compulsions and addictions. I know I'm not wrong in making these changes, but it's still hard to be saying this out loud.