I recently watched an episode of West Wing, where a character talks about being an alcoholic:

I’m an alcoholic, I don’t have one drink. I don’t understand people who have one drink. I don’t understand people who leave half a glass of wine on the table. I don’t understand people who say they’ve had enough. How can you have enough of feeling like this?

Replace alcohol with food – and I am there.  Its hard to believe how much I related.  At work we often go to lunch as a group, and I have watched co-workers order the same entree as me, but leave half the sides.  I don’t get that.  I clean my plate; I look for a bread roll to wipe up the sauces because licking the plate is socially unacceptable.  People bring in doughnuts or bagels into work and leave them on shelves at the end of the cubical row, then others cut them in half to not take too much.  I usually take only one… at first; then a second one; sometimes a third.  Then there are the candy dishes at peoples desk.  I told Stephanie today, I don’t have a problem eating healthy, its eating only healthy that’s difficult.  Salads are great, covered in cheese and dressing, followed by a main entree and dessert.

I’m not looking for a crutch to lean on, or a reason to excuse overeating.  I’m actually doing just the opposite.  Understanding just how bad my addiction is, looking into myself for real understanding is, I believe, the only way I will be able to move toward change.  I want to lose weight, but I first have to understand how I got here.  A crash diet or intense workout routine may help me take the weight off, but knowing what got me here and changing that is the only way I will keep it off.  That’s why I’m thinking about joining Overeaters Anonymous.  No – that’s not a joke… More on that later.

Sunday, Stephanie and I went to a Boston Market to eat lunch.  It was difficult making a good choice there, but just as I was about to order, Stephanie suggested the chopped salad.  I realized when they put the side of cornbread on the tray that I couldn’t eat it.  I grabbed a water instead of ordering a diet coke (I recently learned that diet coke has sodium).  Knowing I’m addicted to food helps me draw the boundaries.  Its amazing to me how many people will say “you don’t have to cut [insert any food item here] out completely, just eat it in moderation”.  People don’t see food addicts the same way they see alcoholics or drug addicts; you would never say to an alcoholic,  “you can still drink a beer, just limit yourself to one”.  While in line at the company pot luck, a co-worker and I were talking about making good food choices, when another relatively skinny guy said “I can eat whatever I want, it doesn’t affect me”.  People around me chuckled, but I couldn’t help but think if I said to an alcoholic “I can drink as much as I want, it doesn’t affect me” how many people would think it was cute.

I’m not looking for sympathy, just making the point that people see food differently than other addictions.  A friend of mine says, “If only I could quit food cold turkey…”; Unlike the alcoholic, I can’t quit eating or going to places where people eat.  Most people see overeating as a matter of will power, not addiction.  That’s where Overeaters Anonymous comes in.  As a support group, they understand the challenges of being addicted to food.

I first heard about Overeaters Anonymous on an episode of “Gimme a break” with Neal Carter.  I don’t remember the details, I was a kid, but I do remember thinking it was a funny episode.  I had all but forgotten the group existed until my brother-in-law brought it up to me yesterday.  I checked their website (http://oa.org) and found there are several meetings close to my house, although they do have online and phone meetings if you can’t get to a face to face one.  I am going to try to join a face to face meeting. I doubt I will be allowed to talk about the meetings due to the ‘anonymous’ nature of them, but I will share my personal experinces as I learn and grow (ok, I’m hoping thats ‘grow’ figuratively and not physically!).

So tell me – do you think food is a real addiction?  Do you see it differently than other addictions?  Are we ‘fat people’ just looking to be the next victim group – over sensitive and seeking protection by the politically correct gang?  Should ‘fat people’ just suck it up?

I realized while watching the season finale of the Biggest Loser, this show sucks!  Hollywood usually gets a bunch of ridiculously good looking people to be in ridiculous situations, and believe it or not, even on a show centered around fat people, Hollywood is able to still end up with the best looking fat people available.  Once the cast has been set, we have a few months of ridiculous weight loss – 5, 10, even 20+ lbs a week.  Two trainers giving the contestants four hours of dedicated attention a day, food that’s calculated and measured for them, no jobs to worry about, no family events, no church ‘fellowships’, no pizza places, no ice cream shoppes, nothing to keep them from full focus on their weight loss goals!

Reality Television is anything but real – and The Biggest Loser is no exception!  Just this season, Bob (the male trainer on the show) explained that the winner of the first biggest loser season has already gained all of his weight back.  While they have had one “Did they keep it off” followup episode, they only showed us a fraction of the contestants from the show’s history.  Just like lottery winners that blow through millions of dollars within the first few years of winning – these guys start putting the weight back on shortly after leaving the show.

Ok – maybe I’m disgruntled because they didn’t pick me to be on the show – I did try out when they came to Mesa, AZ.  I drove 40 miles, stood in the longest line of fat people I have ever been in that didn’t end in a buffet, waited for hours while listening to extremely overweight people tell other extremely overweight people how to lose weight (I’m not making this up), just to get 5 minutes at a table with 9 other fat people all talking over each other in order to make an impression on the casting director for a chance to be called back.  I was not called back.  But I did learned a few things while waiting in that long line of large people.  I learned that everyone thinks they know something about weight loss regardless of how fat they are.  I learned that a lot of people want to get on the Biggest Loser as a way of winning the fat man’s lottery.  I learned that I’m no exception.

I want to avoid having to figure out how to fit a work out into my schedule, or how to know good food from bad food, or learning portion control.  I want it all to be done for me.  But that’s not going to happen – and it would seem from the biggest loser contestants that put the weight back on, that you can’t avoid those steps even if you make it on the show.  I am going to have to learn a lot over the next several months if I’m going to lose weight.  I think I need to start by learning more about me.  I want to know more about being a food adict.  I want to know more about the triggers that cause late night snacking and over eating.  I want to learn what has me staying up too late at night, or what has me so unorganized that I cannot find my workout cloths in the morning.  I have a feeling my weightloss journey is going to be as much about personal awareness and development as it will be about weight.

In any case – The Biggest Loser sucks for not picking me…