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Sharing SHiFTs by Amanda ~ SHiFT Your Ideas About Overeating!
It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S. next week, that means it’s back to basics time! If you’re a food addict who’s in recovery, take a few minutes to remember how confused you were in the beginning. Think about how many diets and weight loss methods you tried. Remember the humiliation you felt each time something didn’t work.
And, most importantly, remember how incredibly relieved you felt once your ideas about overeating SHiFTed to include the concept of food addiction.
What is a food addict?
How do I know if I am a food addict?
If I am a food addict, how do I get help?
All of these questions were answered within a few hours of your first Acorn Intensive and even though you didn’t know it at the time, your life would change forever.
If you haven’t yet found recovery and don’t know exactly what a food addict is, I invite you to sign up for our newsletter. When you do, you’ll be given three links to videos that describe the differences between a normal eater who is overweight, an emotional eater, and a food addict.
If you’re already a subscriber to our newsletter and are interested in seeing the videos, like us on Facebook. We’ll be posting the video there at the end of the month.
Wherever you are in your recovery journey, I wish you the peace of knowing how to SHiFT your ideas about overeating to include food addiction.
Sharing SHiFTs by Amanda ~ We’re Celebrating National Recovery Month!
It’s National Recovery Month and we’re celebrating! The event, is designed “to increase awareness and understanding of mental and substance use disorders and celebrate the people who recover. The 2019 theme is Join the Voices for Recovery: Together We Are Stronger.”
At SHiFT, we understand how important joining together in recovery is and we work hard to support food addiction recovery for everyone. On Saturday, we’ll be at Recovery Day in New Westminster, BC (6th Street & 6th Avenue) providing information about food addiction. We hope you can stop by and see us.
In addition to this, there are several ways that you can receive regular free food addiction support and inspiration from us.
To begin, in addition to this weekly blog, and as a service to all food addicts and those interested in learning about food addiction, we maintain a Facebook page where we post inspirational memes, informative articles, and helpful personal stories twice daily. You can like us here – 
We also publish a free bi-monthly email newsletter that provides information about food addiction recovery including an abstinent recipe in each issue. You can subscribe to that at our website – https://foodaddiction.com.
Also at our website, we provide information about food addiction, personal stories and testimonials from food addicts in recovery as well as resources for additional information. There’s also a quiz to help you find out if you’re a food addict.
In addition to these free services, we also offer self-paid programs including our 5 week food addiction treatment program. This program includes the Acorn Intensive, a powerful 6-day residential program, followed by 30 days of home-based aftercare. We also offer 3 Days with SHiFT weekend recharge programs for you to deepen your recovery as you progress.
It is our honor to help food addicts with recovery and we hope that you find these services helpful. Take time this month to begin or strengthen your food addiction recovery and let us know if we can help.
Women’s Health Month
Happy May!
Today I was thinking of the saying “April showers bring May flowers”. That saying doesn’t really fit for Florida weather (as there really hasn’t been any rain to speak of), which is where I am currently but it definitely fits for Vancouver’s weather. May is a time for new beginnings, the sun is warming, flowers are starting to bloom, birds are chirping and the garden is showing signs of growth. May is also Women’s Health Month. What will you do this month to take care of yourself?
For me, taking care of myself and working my program of recovery are two in the same. I heard someone recently share that recovery is simply taking good care of myself in all areas of my life; physically, emotionally, mentally, socially and spiritually. Am I looking after my physical body? Am I looking after my emotional health? How are my relationships? Do I follow a daily spiritual practice? In order for me to truly look after myself, I need to take care of my whole being. If one pillar of my foundation is shaky then truly my whole being is off kilter. The scary part is that I may not even notice I have a shaky pillar until all four of my pillars are in jeopardy and then I am in a pretty desperate situation. The good news is that it now doesn’t take much for me to get back on track and once again, be in a place of positively moving forward.
It’s vital for me, especially as an addict in recovery, to take a pulse check often of how I’m doing in all areas of my life as it is very easy for me to slip back into poor self-care. Recently, I learned a new tool called a Recovery Grid created by Roland Williams. The details of how to use the grid are a different topic (a great topic but a different newsletter) however I thought the healthy living checklists were brilliant. I have shared them in the box below so you can assess how you are doing with self-care. This is by no means so that we can judge and be critical of ourselves. It’s just a great checkpoint. For me, I need as many tools as I possibly can have in my tool belt to help me be honest and see if I am on track. I lived so much of my life being in dishonesty with myself that I truly often can’t see the truth.
Take a look at the grid below and notice the things you are doing and notice what you’re not doing. Would the things you are not doing be beneficial for your personal recovery and well – being? If so, what commitments are you willing to make around doing these things? Remember that small changes are much more attainable than lofty grandiose commitments that we actually never end up doing and then get to feel bad about ourselves for not doing (I know this one well).
As I have been writing this article, I have taken note of areas that I haven’t been focusing on and I can definitely tell there are several. Under my physical health, I really haven’t been doing any consistent exercise lately. Exercise is something I either seem to do full on or not at all (an addict…you think?). Recently, I have been in the not at all part of the compulsion. So about 2 weeks ago I committed to taking a 30-minute walk every day. I’m pretty sure I haven’t missed a day. My mind can easily tell me all sorts of negative things about this like; 30-minute walk – that’s nothing, you should be running, what about cardio…and the chatter continues. The important thing here is that I took a look at what I am and what I am not doing to look after myself which allows me to then get honest and make changes that support my long-term health physically, mentally, socially and spiritually. And that my friends is a beautiful piece of recovery…that I actually can take a look, get honest and make commitments (that I actually keep) to move towards recovery and away from relapse or towards health and away from the disease. That is a miracle.
Would love to hear what you will do to look after yourself in the month of May (men too).
Biologicaly – Physically
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Psychologically – Thoughts/Feelings
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Socially – Relationships
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Spiritually
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The start of summer is a busy time at ACORN. Today, we start a Primary Intensive in Florida, followed by a week of Living In Recovery and a Step 4-9 Alumni weekend to finish it off. In June we have a Primary Intensive starting June 8th in Vancouver, followed by a Relapse Prevention Alumni Weekend (I think there is waiting room only for this left?) and then a week of Living In Recovery. There are many events that could be part of your self-care plan.
Wishing you a happy, healthy, sober May.
Peace & Abstinence, Amanda
- May 4 – 9 ~ – Primary Intensive
Bradenton, FL - May 10 – 16 ~ Living in Recovery
Bradenton, FL - May 18 – 20 ~ Alumni Retreat: Blocks to Working Steps 4 – 9
Bradenton, FL - June 8 – 13 ~ Primary Intensive
Vancouver, B.C. - June 15 – 17 ~ Alumni Retreat: Recovery and Relapse Prevention
Vancouver, B.C. - June 18 – 23 ~ Living in Recovery
Vancouver, B.C.