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Practical Reasons for Weighing and Measuring Your Food

While every food addict does not need to weigh and measure their food, there are some very compelling reasons for doing so:

  1. Weighing and measuring simplifies portion control. There is no question of how much of each food to eat.
  2. For the food addict who is weighing and measuring, it is always clear exactly what surrender means.
  3. If the amount of food in your plan has the amount of calories to be your ideal weight, you will eventually reach it and maintain this weight.
  4. For those who sometimes – or always – have a distorted concept of food volume, weighing and measuring is like wearing glasses with the corrected prescription.
  5. Weighing and measuring is a gentler and a much less expensive alternative to intestinal bypass surgery.
  6. For volume addicts – who almost always want more food – weighing and measuring assures that you are getting enough to eat.
  7. Weighing and measuring eliminates the need for all the head talk about “how much is enough today?”
  8. Being committed to weighing and measuring assures that you know there is one important way you are remembering that you are a food addict.
  9. No one gets hurt– including the food addict – by a practice of weighing and measuring.
  10. When a food addict weighs and measures in public, there is always the chance another food addict will be helped by seeing and talking about this practice.

© Phil Werdell 2010

Weighing & Measuring Food

Many food addicts who had resisted mightily the idea of weighing and measuring report later that, after they tried it for a while, they found a great relief. Rather than experiencing it as harshly restrictive, they say that they actually feel much freer when they weigh and measure. It helps relieve the obsession with food before, during and after a meal. Compulsive eaters who have weighed and measured know for certain that they have eaten exactly what they committed.

There are variations of weighing and measuring. Some weigh and measure all their food; some will weigh and measure only their protein, starch and dressing. Others will weigh and measure at home but not at restaurants or social events. Some will measure their vegetables and starches in a cup; others will weigh them. Some will weigh and measure for the first 30 days, 90 days or a year, then do it only when they feel anxious, notice they are getting sloppy or just want the practice of surrender. There are some with long time, stable abstinence and recovery who have simply integrated surrender to weighing and measuring into their food plan one day at a time for life. For those who are addicted to volume, the use of a cup, scale and measuring spoons is not a form of dieting but rather a physical aid to portion control.

As with bottom lines, the decision about weighing and measuring comes down to individual choice – usually in collaboration with a sponsor – based upon past experience and upon what works and what does not work when it is tried. What is important – as with other parts of a food plan – is to first make a decision then do the spiritual work of staying surrendered to that commitment.

While every food addict does not need to weigh and measure their food, there are some very compelling reasons for doing so:

  1. Weighing and measuring simplifies portion control. There is no question of how much of each food to eat.
  2. For the food addict who is weighing and measuring, it is always clear exactly what surrender means.
  3. If the amount of food in your plan has the amount of calories to be your ideal weight, you will eventually reach it and maintain this weight.
  4. For those who sometimes – or always – have a distorted concept of food volume, weighing and measuring is like wearing glasses with the corrected prescription.
  5. Weighing and measuring is a gentler and a much less expensive alternative to intestinal bypass surgery.
  6. For volume addicts – who almost always want more food – weighing and measuring assures that you are getting enough to eat.
  7. Weighing and measuring eliminates the need for all the head talk about “how much is enough today?”
  8. Being committed to weighing and measuring assures that you know there is one important way you are remembering that you are a food addict.
  9. No one gets hurt– including the food addict – by a practice of weighing and measuring.
  10. When a food addict weighs and measures in public, there is always the chance another food addict will be helped by seeing and talking about this practice.

© Phil Werdell 2010

Sharing SHiFTs by Amanda ~ Surrendering To Recovery

Willing to go to any lengths for recovery. This is the beginning of long-term food addiction recovery. Many food addicts who call our offices or come to our events, are often shocked by the idea of weighing and measuring their food. Some even criticize this as promoting a “diet mentality” or as being “overly rigid” or “encouraging food obsession.” While many food addicts who were reluctant to weigh and measure their food in the beginning have thought these things, almost all of them have come to understand the value and reasoning behind this concept.

The greatest benefit of weighing and measuring for food addicts is the peace and serenity that come from being 100% certain that they are following a healthy eating food plan that is non-addictive. Many food addicts, in addition to being addicted to certain food substances are also addicted to eating large amounts of food. This is known as volume addiction. Weighing and measuring food takes away any “wiggle” room that contributes to food obsession and manages volume addiction. This means that food is in its place – as a means of nourishment and not used as an emotional crutch.

Another benefit of weighing and measuring is the stability it provides.  Whether in recovery or not, we all go through emotional times in our lives. For food addicts, these emotions are excuses to over or under eat.  Weighing and measuring keeps food addicts honest when emotions threaten to interfere with food choices.

While there are many other benefits of weighing and measuring that you can read about here, the cornerstone of recovery is the idea of surrender.  In order to maintain long-term food addiction recovery, daily surrender to a new way of life, which includes a food plan and higher power, is the foundation of recovery. Many food addicts had to learn to develop an open mind, become willing to go to any lengths to make changes and ask themselves this question before becoming willing to weigh and measure their food, “How is your life working for you now?”

Turn The Page

Food has played a significant role in my life, it has served to be my greatest source of pleasure, purpose and pain. It has given me my highest highs and taken me to my lowest lows. It has provided me with a means of connection and it has lured me into total isolation. It’s been complicated to say the least.

My birthday is coming up and every year as it approaches, I look back, mentally flipping through the “book” of my life. With each day that I’m alive, another page is written. There are countless characters and countless plot lines but in almost every chapter, Food is a main character, secondary to me.

In this moment, I open the book to “1977”, the year that I went from a “normal” child to a chubby child. I’m at the part where the doctor suggests that I see a nutritionist….

The nutritionist was a kind lady, she taught me all about weighing and measuring my food and introduced me to the concept of “portion control”. She explained that adhering to this practice would result in me “returning to a normal weight”. Sometimes, it felt rather clinical when she came to greet me, dressed in her long white lab coat. In her office were lifelike, rubber replicas of every food imaginable and while I wondered why I never saw another kid there, I didn’t mind having those all to myself to play with. At some point, I can’t say exactly when, I was no longer an innocent 6 year old playing with rubber strips of bacon and sunny side up eggs. I was a 6 year old striving to manage my food and weight so that I could be “normal” like all the other kids at school, “normal” like my brother, “normal”.. like I used to be.

There began a 40 year cycle of binging, restricting, dieting and over exercising. There began a relentless obsession with food, body image and weight. There began a tormented love-hate relationship with food. There began my life in active food addiction.

It wasn’t just about what I ate, it was about my state of mind. What I weighed and what I ate determined my mood. If I was adhering to a diet or losing weight, I felt powerful and proud. If I ate “off plan”, missed a workout or gained weight, I felt guilty and weak. But no matter what I ate and no matter what I weighed, one thing never changed. I lacked peace of mind. Not a day went by that I didn’t feel at least one of the following emotions; defeated, disgusted, deprived..sad, self conscious, guilty… angry, punished, less than….rebellious, determined, depressed…shameful, helpless, hopeless. All because I couldn’t consistently control my food and weight.

Now I flip forward by thousands of pages and open the book near the end of “2017”. I’m at the part where I discover what “food addiction” is and my heart

aches at the painful scene that details what it feels like to discover that I am an addict. I turn the page and the story takes a hopeful turn, there’s great relief in finally knowing what is wrong, even greater relief when the promise of a solution is revealed.

With each page I turn, Food shows up less, making room for the development of three new characters, Recovery, Community and Higher Power. Gradually, these characters are woven into the story, until they are so prominent that the story begins to read like a whole new book.

“2022”

Now I’m at the part where I’ve made peace with food and my body. I’m at the part where cravings and feelings of deprivation no longer exist. I’m at the part where I no longer binge eat, restrict or exercise my body beyond a reasonable edge. I’m at the part where the story keeps getting better.

I encourage everyone to believe that a hopeful turn is possible, no matter what your story is. If you’re reading this, you’ve made your way to SHiFT and that means Recovery can be a part of your story too.

I don’t know what’s left to be written in my book of life but I do know there’s always hope in turning the page.

Andrea

SHiFT Spotlight: Peter’s Story

 

This week on our blog, we are doing something different. This week we are starting a new series called “SHiFT Spotlight”. SHiFT Spotlight is a way of celebrating the stories of our community members who have persevered through hardship, stuck to their program and have seen incredibly positive changes in their lives as a result. The goal is to use these stories to inspire everyone to be the best version of themselves, and show that no matter how bad things may seem at times, there is always hope.

This week on our SHiFT Spotlight, we feature Peter Meerwarth. Peter’s struggles with food are all too familiar for many of us food addicts. His story is a compelling one, and one that many of us can relate to different portions of.

 

Hi everyone, I’m Peter; a compulsive overeater.

 

I was a fairly unhappy heavy child growing up on the farm. I was beaten and abused regularly and I turned to food for comfort. I was always dieting and exercising to curb the extra 30-50 pounds of overweight. I started college at 220 pounds and was convinced that being free from home would be the answer to my weight problems, but I graduated at 270 pounds. I got a job and thought that surely being out on my own would be the answer to my overeating, right? I could overhear my new coworkers talking about my weight on the very first day. I tried every diet on the market. I read every diet book. I spent thousands of dollars on gyms, pre-made foods, shakes, pills and diet meetings.

 

Soon, I got married and we had two wonderful sons. Certainly, getting married and buying a house would be the answer to my overweight. My weight soon escalated to 325. I became the music director at a church. In that first year, I gained 100 pounds. At age 35, I was 425 pounds and unable to get off the yo-yo diet cycle. Every Sunday I stood up in front of the congregation to direct the choir. I was mortified. I decided to try bariatric surgery to no avail. I was soon back to my pre-surgery weight. I was embarrassed and felt like a complete public failure. 

 

I turned 40… certainly, this would be the decade that the weight would come off. We moved to another state and I found OA. I cried through my first few meetings because I knew I had found “my people.” My overeating wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t a moral failing like I had always been told. I was accepted. I immediately had success with my physical recovery and followed a food plan that was flour and sugar free. Weighing and measuring my food and working a spiritual program was also part of the plan but I figured that I could lie about those parts since I was having physical success. I kept relapsing.

 

At age 50 I knew for certain that this had to be the decade for the weight to come off – Ha! I had been in and out of OA for 10 years… more out than in. I thought that I knew all of the right words and actions but I just couldn’t apply them to my life. Something must be broken in me. In that time span, I had a second unsuccessful bariatric surgery, I broke my ankle, and then arthritis settled in my knees which made it hard to walk and I developed blood clots in my legs. I bought more of the diet foods I saw on TV. I was still 425 pounds and taking medications for depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and blood sugar (which was alarmingly high). 

 

I decided that I was tired of the diet and OA roller coaster. I gave up. From age 50-55 I was in total relapse. I didn’t even try to diet and I didn’t go to any OA meetings. I just ate what I wanted.  I remember eating an entire 2-layer cake with my bare hand while driving. I was committing suicide on the installment plan with each compulsive bite. I couldn’t face my constant failure any longer. I was obsessed with thinking about food and where I would binge next. My life insurance company dropped me when they saw the list of medications I was on. I accepted the writing on the wall that I would simply die a fat man. Why fight it? Diets failed me. My church failed me.  My God failed me. I failed myself. Covid hit and was a great reason for me to isolate and eat all the more. I chose to eat myself into the grave.

 

Then, this past January, at my lowest point, my wife motivated me to try the program once more. She wanted me to know my grandkids and live a long full life together. I cried thinking about not knowing my future grandkids.  My food addiction became life or death for me. I called SHiFT and on January 15, I got sober on their Food Freedom program. I no longer wanted to allow this food-demon to have control over me. It was so much more than a food plan for me, it was a new way of life that I now had a new willingness to follow. I was completely powerless but not hopeless.

 

When the plan said “no flour/no sugar,” I cut it out. When the plan said, “weigh and measure your food,” and even though I had heard about it before, this was the first time I actually had the willingness to do it. The plan said, “no caffeine…” OH BOY! I had been drinking 10-12 mugs of coffee everyday for the last 25 years. I really believe that removing caffeine and weighing and measuring were key factors for me that I previously never had the willingness to do.

 

I spoke with Amanda at SHiFT and she identified me as a low-bottom late stage food addict and suggested that I enroll in a SHiFT INTENSIVE… Boy was she right! I worked with Mary and Phil at the Intensive with lots of emotional work and support around identifying my feelings. 

In SHiFT I came to feel and believe that I was completely powerless over my food addiction and that there is no shame in that. The weight started coming off. 

 

Also, in 50+ years I had never done my spiritual work. Never. It was time to start! I learned about guided meditation and gratitude apps. My knee pain miraculously disappeared and I started walking my dogs and doing chores around the house again. I had more energy than ever. I started to love making phone calls and connecting to total strangers around my program.  After spending my life feeling alone in groups of people, I felt like I was truly a part of every SHiFT or OA meeting I attended. My sponsor, who also got sober in Food Freedom, guided me to the Harlan G. BIG BOOK teachings online and avision4you.com meetings and is constantly focused on my spiritual program (which I always treated as optional).

 

The weight continued to come off. My cholesterol levels became normal. My A1C dropped from 9.2 to 5.5 and my doctor started taking me off my blood sugar medications. It’s June 1 and I’m down 102 pounds from my top weight of 425. I’m not having cravings. I’m actually enjoying the cleanest food plan I’ve ever had. I so admire the stark HONESTY found at SHiFT which has encouraged me to be completely honest around my food for the first time in my life.

 

What would I say to someone considering SHiFT?

 

Be Coachable.

I stopped believing that I knew everything about food, weight loss, and exercise and I simply did what I was told to do.

 

Be Honest.

Share it or wear it. No lying by omission. Trying to look good with my peers only leads me back to the food. Tell all.

 

Work your Spiritual Program.

I had to fire my old God and find a new Higher Power and work my daily spiritual program of walking, reading, meditation, gratitude, writing, and Big Book step work. That’s where the answers are as I recover the person that I was born to be.

 

Stay Connected.

The opposite of addiction is connection with my Higher Power. Make those phone calls and ask questions about their HP/food program. Share your experience, strength, and hope.

 

A special thank you to Peter for being willing to share his story with us all. Hopefully we can all take lessons from his advise and put it into practice in our own lives.

If you would like to have your story featured, please reach out to us at contact@foodaddiction.com

Mary’s Story

As an obese child, life was very hard. In fact, I can honestly say that it was brutal and something that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. I know that many of you can relate.
I was born a healthy weight of just over seven pounds. I was a cute little girl with curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes. I was the second child born in my family, and my sister and I were loved and cherished. I was a “normal” weight until around three years old when I became “chubby.”

My first memory of sensing that I was “different” because of my size was when I was five years old. One of my young friends and I sang “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” at a summer neighbourhood talent show. As I stood on the stage singing my little heart out, proud as I could be, I sensed that some people in the audience were laughing at me because I was fat.

By the time I was in third grade, I weighed 130 pounds, which was more than some of the teachers. Throughout my school years I was subjected to daily teasing, mocking, jokes, stares from people of all ages, bullying on the playground, exclusion from gym teams, and being ostracized by my peers. With each passing year, my weight increased approximately 30 pounds and my self-esteem and self-worth plummeted. The pain was too great for me to bear and, as a young girl, I prayed many nights that I would die in my sleep. I hated myself. I hated my life. But even more so, I hated having to face yet another day with its painful repetition of the day before.

I felt vulnerable to constant negative attention every time I was out in public. One time, with tears rolling down my chubby cheeks, I told my father that I felt sad and hurt by all the kids teasing me. He told me that he had been a fat kid too and that he knew how I felt. With sadness in his eyes, he offered his young daughter the only comfort that he had known, which was to simply say that, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” I believed my daddy and tried his advice. When kids teased me, I told myself what he had said. It didn’t help. I still felt sad and lonely and hurt. That was the last time I remember telling anyone about the pain.

In seventh grade I weighed 270 pounds, and by the time I was a junior in high school I weighed 290. The experience of obesity during my teen years was excruciating. I was never asked to a dance and I never attended a prom. I was kicked, tripped, and spat at in the hallway. Every day was a matter of survival until, at the end of each day, I could walk into my home and fill myself with my favorite “comfort foods,” which consisted of cookies, chips, and other snack foods that gave me that much-needed sense of relief.

As an adult, people have asked me why my parents allowed me to get so fat. Why didn’t they help me? Why did they let me eat so much? In fact, by today’s standards, I might have been removed from my family home, my parents accused of abusing me.

I am quite clear about one thing: I do not blame my parents. My obesity was not their fault. They had no control over my mental obsession with sugary foods and had little, if any, control over my consumption of them. I hid food. I stole food. I snuck food. I lied about food. I know today that my parents did their absolute best to support a daughter who, without their understanding, was suffering from the disease of food addiction.

Both of my parents were overweight, and neither one had access to recovery prior to their early deaths. Of my four siblings, one sister and one brother have weight issues, but they do not identify with my experience of bingeing on addictive foods. I do not know if they are addicted to food; it is not for me to determine. Even more to the point, however, my other brother and sister – who were raised in the same household, with the same parents, and with access to the very same foods – have never had eating or weight problems. So I do not subscribe to the belief that obesity is entirely a problem of family or environment.

I have learned a great deal since growing up as an obese child and adult. I first heard about compulsive eating and food addiction while attending a food-related Twelve Step fellowship in the mid-80s.  I learned that some people have an abnormal reaction to certain foods – for me, primarily sugar, flour, and volume – and that those with this addictive disease and/or predisposition cannot safely eat certain foods in any quantity.

About that same time, I attended my first inpatient food addiction treatment program. I was 34 years old and weighed 340 pounds. While there, I discovered that my obesity was a symptom of the disease of food addiction. I worked hard in treatment and wholeheartedly surrendered to their direction. Upon leaving, I continued a multi-faceted recovery journey that lasted well over a year.

As the weight came off, I began to think that I had somehow overcome this addiction, and that I didn’t need to do so many of the actions that had given me a sense of freedom from the weight and from the obsession. This thinking led to four years of relapse during which my will to live was of no match for my will to binge. My last binge lasted 42 days and I gained 56 pounds, during which time I decided that I would eat until I died. I knew that I could not stop; and I knew that life would not be worth living without sugar. I was done.

Yet, deep inside of me, there was a little spark of hope. In January 1990, I re-committed myself to a residential treatment program that used the addictive model. This time I stayed for five weeks, followed by three months in a halfway house for food addicts.

Pain had become a huge motivator.

I surrendered to their direction and did whatever I was told. I followed their recommendations for treating advanced food addiction: putting my abstinence first, no matter what; weighing and measuring my food without exception; structuring my daily life around what I need to do to be abstinent and to recover; surrendering to rigorous participation in a food-related, Twelve Step fellowship; cultivating a spiritual life; building a strong network of support; getting professional counseling as needed; committing to helping others who suffer with this disease.

All of these actions – and more – have enabled me to live free of food bingeing and the mental obsession of addictive foods for over 27 years, maintaining a 195-pound weight loss for over 25 years.

The internal scars of growing up as an obese child are, to some extent, still with me, and I continue to experience ongoing healing as a result of the daily actions that I am guided to take.

In reflecting upon my story, my thoughts turn to the hundreds of thousands of obese children all around us who may be suffering in silence and don’t yet know how to get out of their excruciating pain.

While I am grateful for the heightened awareness of bullying in recent years, I also know that bullying and oppression against fat kids and adults continue. As I perused a few websites specific to Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, I did not come across one article that addressed the possibility of food addiction in our youth and the need for abstinence from addictive foods. I support the work of organizations like the Food Addiction Institute and others that seek to promote education and treatment for food addiction.

My hope and prayer is that every food addict has the strength and courage to continue their abstinence journey such that our voices and our very beings may share a resounding message of hope, of recovery, and of healing from food addiction and obesity.

I offer you my love and prayers for ongoing abstinence and recovery,
Mary