Home Recovery Inside and Out

Inside and Out

3 min read
0
Screen Shot 2016-10-19 at 2.32.25 PM

It is an interesting question, “How have I adjusted to life at a healthy body weight?” I have almost always been at a healthy body weight, except when I was borderline anorexic or when my weight zigzagged up to 35 pounds (16 kg) overweight. For most of my adult life, I have been within a normal weight range, but I got there and stayed there using a vast repertoire of unhealthy and tormented methods. My favorites included: not eating during the day when my body was hungry, but eating emotionally all night long; over-exercising; bingeing on carrots until my skin turned yellow; and abusing weight loss medications and laxatives.

In recovery, my weight didn’t change much, except to stabilize instead of fluctuate according to my emotional state. But everything else in my life changed once I committed to utilizing the Tools of recovery and applying the Twelve Steps in my everyday behavior. I learned from my first sponsee to cultivate an attitude of gratitude for a body that does what it’s supposed to do: my legs get me where I need to go; I birthed a healthy child at age 40; and my body is capable of giving and receiving physical love. I changed on the inside as a byproduct of living the program, and suddenly the body that used to bring me to despair now looks pretty good— amazing since I had body image issues for a fifty years, and I now have wrinkles, age spots, sags, cellulite, and grey hair.

I used to be afraid to reveal my “unacceptable” self to others, but after years of recovery, all of my relationships are intimate in nature because I accept all my flaws, external and internal. I accept myself. My physical relationship with my husband is better than it has ever been, although it is still hard for me to be completely undressed in front of him or in front of other women at my gym. Maybe there is still more recovery yet to come! That is why I keep coming back.

— Anonymous

  • Better for Both

    In managing food addiction, there is no “putting it up on a shelf and never touching it ag…
  • First Love

    I’m in love! I’ve been in love for almost twenty years now. I’m in love with the First Ste…
  • Oh Baby

    Before I found abstinence and started working the Twelve Steps of OA, my life was falling …
Load More Related Articles
  • Low-Tech Outreach

    I am on my intergroup’s public information committee. We make flyers with a tear-off porti…
  • Available to Everyone

    Here are a few ways I carry the message to other compulsive overeaters. I print out OA’s C…
  • Radio-Active

    I was listening to a commentary about obesity on our local radio station. The commentator …
Load More By admin
  • Thirty Days!

    I’ve reached my twenty-ninth day of abstinence. Tomorrow will be my weighing day and my hi…
  • A Series of Miracles

    In 2011, I weighed 534 pounds (242 kg) and was unable to walk due to sepsis from an E. col…
  • Shining Miracles

    Before I’d ever heard of OA or its Principles and practices, my only desire was to lose we…
Load More In Recovery
Comments are closed.

Check Also

Low-Tech Outreach

I am on my intergroup’s public information committee. We make flyers with a tear-off porti…