How I joined OA

Truth is, I can’t remember how I came to join OA.

I think the catalyst was an acquaintance of mine who started losing weight. She’s lost 20 kgs (about 50 pounds) so far this year.

I learned she had lost the weight through one of those food delivery companies. She’s buying the keto meal version.

I thought that sounded great (well, losing 20 kgs sure did anyway) so I looked her meal plan up online.

$26 per meal!!!!!

Yikes!!!

I might have wanted her weight loss, but there was no way I can afford that – that’s $182 for seven meals, as that price didn’t include lunches or breakfasts. Just dinners.

So I guess I started looking for alternatives that were more realistic. And somehow I came across an OA podcast.

I knew, from hard experience, that I didn’t want a diet. If I went on a diet I’d just yo-yo again. When I lose weight, I don’t want it back again. Any change I was going to make had to be permanent.

I’ve been battling my weight all my adult life. Although I’m about the heaviest I’ve ever been right now, I’ve rarely been a healthy weight. I’ve shuffled around in the “overweight” BMI range for most of my life, sometimes closer to a healthy weight than not, but never lean. I’d lose a fair bit with whatever diet I was on, only to regain again. Over and over and over again.

This all tells me that I’m the one with the problem.

No diet can help me if I don’t fit the Me part of the equation.

So this time I’m not here to lose weight. I’m here to fix me. Overeating is a symptom, not the cause, of my weight problem. I need to fix the cause.

I’ve been going to meetings regularly since July 31st 2021. That’s the date I admitted I had a problem openly, and the date I’ll take as my first day of abstinence. I’ve had two slips since then, but I’m definitely already doing better than I was. That consoles me.

I feel like I’m starting to get my life together. I’m feeling happier. I’m not yet feeling in control of my food, but I know that will come.

But I also know that this is an incurable disease. That’s what I didn’t understand before: I thought I could be cured. So I’d lose weight, stop doing whatever diet I’d done to lose the weight, then I’d tell myself I was cured and didn’t need the diet any more.

Then the weight – plus its friends – would come back.

I don’t want the weight back when I lose it this time. I don’t want to do this again. I know I can’t be cured but I do know I can be healed. I believe I can find my way out of this chaos. I believe I can get better.

I believe I will get better.