What I learned today or Another fresh start

God,
Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the Courage to change the things I can
and the Wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.

Amen.

This is the Serenity Prayer that all recovery groups use. Yesterday I found an Overeaters Anonymous podcast with testimonials from male members. I did some research and pretty much helped confirm what I already knew. I am a compulsive overeater. I fiend for food the way that an alcoholic would fiend for a drink. I am not going to say that my addictions to food is as harmful as drugs or alcohol, but it is killing me and hurting my family too. As I read the prayer and listened to the testimonials, it clicked. I have been doing things with an emphasis on dieting and losing weight. The issue runs so much deeper than this. I am addicted to the euphoric feeling that food and eating gives me. Even though I feel terrible after I eat a lot (which was most of the time), the worries seemed to go away as I enjoyed the food. Then, when I got bummed I would just eat more and suppress those feelings. Today I am treating the foods that trigger my addiction as a drug. If I can't control myself with these foods, I don't want it in my body or in the house.

When I was a small kid, I hummed when I ate (per my mom and sister). At 4 or 5 I was feeling pleasure from eating. It's no wonder I am so large today. I am not going to let anyone know what I am doing. Seems to be the more people you tell that you are doing a certain "diet", the more that either criticize it or wait to gloat when you fail. I will now let God help me. I always think that my weight loss adventure is too trivial to pray over or ask for God's help, but not now. I am dying faster with each day that passes me by as a morbidly obese man. As I helped carry my Aunt's casket to the grave, I went into an asthma attack. I barely made it the whole way only to step away from the funeral to take an inhaler puff and get my weezing to quiet. Today, a day later, my shoulders and body aches and my lungs hurt whenever I take a deep breath. All that from just walking with 7 other men helping pall bearing at a funeral. Then I think about how huge my casket would be if I die this big. How huge the funeral cost would be. How there aren't enough strong guys in my family that could lift my casket to carry to it's grave. Can you imagine needing a ditch digger with chains around my casket to move me from the hearse to my grave?! No way! I refuse. I will lose this weight one day at a time.

There was a man during a testimonial I listened to that had a saying that got him through the tough times (besides the prayer). "Thin tomorrow or fat forever". He explained that his choice was to stay the course and become thin or fail and be fat forever since ultimately he would be dying a fat person. I like it and have it posted in my cubicle at work.

I've went over enough of what I am doing/thinking for today. Let me close with my starting weight for the contest that started today. It is my heaviest weight ever, but it will not last for long. I will succeed in losing over 150 pounds!

403 pounds

Nothing to it but to do it. That's all for now.