I made it through Halloween without eating a single piece of candy. I did eat a fortune cookie, which hinted I was going to meet an “important stranger who would change my life”, but fortune cookies don’t count. They don’t have any more sugar in them than toothpaste… If I had eaten any real candy, it would have set off a chain reaction. MORE CANDY. One piece, or even six pieces are never enough when I am on a binge.
All or Nothing…
A friend of mine in recovery once said that even as a child, she was excessive about everything she did. She said, “If my family went to the beach I would have to collect shells. White shells. Or round shells. Or rocks. It would be getting dark and my mom would say it was time to go and I’d beg, ‘Wait. I NEED to get a few more.’ And I would have a stuffed bag, but it would never be enough.”
That beach story really hits home with me. I have long felt like a glutton. Don’t get me started, because I won’t ever stop. My best friend Kim tells me to “be consistent, keep a schedule and moderate.” So does Mari Winsor on one of my Pilates tapes. I don’t listen to either of them. I am the definition of inconsistent and immoderate.
Why Me?
I don’t mean to be resentful. I understand pique is a No-No in recovery, but WHY ME? Why can’t I be like Kim who exercises every day but Sunday? Someone who cuts bonbons in half, because she “just wants a taste of chocolate”. Someone who would never think of spending a day in bed, with a party bag of caramel corn and Netflix for company…
Instead, I go for a month exercising three hours a day and eating organic kale, only to have some horrible internal switch occur. I spend the next few weeks fasting on coffee and stopping at the Circle K on the way home for a dinner of Charleston Chews.
In my free time I like to walk for 12 miles or so on deserted beaches and collect SHELLS…
I AM Sober…
Since I got sober, I have given myself a break on some of my other bad habits. But, it is never a good thing to yoyo diet and seesaw exercise. The second pot of coffee is probably something to avoid… Somewhere deep inside, I think I tell myself that a bag of black licorice might make me gain weight or make my heart pound, but it won’t cause me to run over my neighbor’s mailbox and then yell at them for “leaving it so close to the street.” It seems like the lesser of two iniquities…
This is all a long way of saying that I am in long term recovery, but I still have a long way to go.
I joined the YMCA this weekend. And I was up at 4 AM doing Pilates this morning. My lunch is a hard boiled egg and an apple. I did not eat a single piece of Halloween candy (even though the little fellow who’s house I was visiting, sorted his candy temptingly around my feet and when he wasn’t looking I could have pocketed the Dum Dums)…
I am going to ride this health kick till the switch gets pulled…
