Return to Grace

April 14, 2012

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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU    This was my first day back at church in over five years. It was Divine Mercy Saturday. That was especially meaningful to me, because I prayed the Divine Mercy prayer with a dying friend before my first confession before my confirmation during Holy Week in 1996. She passed that night after I returned to her bedside, but not before I saw Christ and Mary walk to her side to take her home. That was my introduction to the power of grace associated with Divine Mercy. For this to be the time for me to return to the church seemed only natural. It was easy to hear Christ’s voice inviting me to come home to Him. The priest made it just as easy and as welcoming. I got to hear the singing of the Divine Mercy Chaplet while we took communion. All in all, it was an amazing evening.

It has been a week filled with surprises and graces. I found out that I can repay my school loans based on my income rather than the flat rate that I had been billed. That is certainly a grace. That means that I can start working full time, so that happens Monday. We are accepted into a program to refinance our home. As part of the process, my husband is going to close his IRA and pay off our second mortgage and give us the money to buy another vehicle. So we will save money on the mortgage, get rid of the second mortgage, and be able to find a car without so many miles on it–though it has been pure grace to have the one we’ve had for as long as we’ve had it.

Add to that the new recliners that came into our home this last month when our double recliner broke–two Lane recliners that retail for $800 each that we got for $600 together–and we’ve had quite a financial boost this month that was unexpected but not unappreciated. It makes me think that when grace happens, sometimes it happens in pretty big portions.

I’m feeling the love. I needed to write that here. Life hasn’t taken the turns I expected, and I’ve been meaning to write that here since I didn’t start school in January as planned, but tonight just seemed like the right night to write something for sure. Faustina is at work in my life I think. Christ is for sure. Divine Mercy abounds and I am most grateful.

God’s Will

June 8, 2011

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I’ve been thinking about the third step since I wrote about the second. I’ve been remembering what it was like for me the first time that I “made a decision to turn my will and my life over to  the care of God as I understood Him.”

I was twenty-four. I awoke from my third suicide attempt, screaming in pain, because I understood in the depths of my soul that I didn’t know how to live and God had made it clear that He wasn’t going to let me die. That was the first time that I worked the first step. I admitted that I was powerless to die and my life was unmanageable. I knew I believed in God, but I wasn’t so sure that He believe in me. Still, I knew that He was my only hope. That was the first time that I worked the second step. I came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity to the degree that if it was possible, it had to be God doing it. Weeping, I climbed out of bed and fell to my knees.

“God I have always asked you for things I believed to be good and holy. With every prayer, you have answered–no matter how small or how impossible. I know you exist. I know you are my only hope, but even hope feels elusive. All I feel is desperately unhappy and utter despair, because of the mess I have made of my life despite my best attempts to be the person I think you want me to be. I have wanted to die, because I have never forgotten how it felt when you pulled me to you as I stood beside Dena’s grave. I have never forgotten that love and I wanted to be returned to you. I thought I could do that through death. Three times I’ve tried. Three times I’ve failed. I don’t know what to pray for–everything I ever thought I knew about life just doesn’t work. I have no more ideas. I have no more resources. I have only the smallest faith that somehow you can come to me and somehow you can guide me out of this darkness. I have always told you what I wanted. You have always listened to me. Now I am asking you what you want for me. Now I am saying that I will go anywhere, I will do anything, I will make any effort to follow if only you will lead me somehow.” This was the heart of my first third step prayer: I was willing to surrender self-will for God’s will.

I went into the other room and picked up a notebook and paper. “I don’t like anything about me, not even the color of my hair.” That was the beginning of my first fourth step. After I wrote the sentence, I laid down the pen, dressed and drove to the store and bought hair color. I experimented with various colors and shades until I found the red color that I have used since. In that experience, for the first time, I understood the essence of the serenity prayer: certain things I could change if I dared. I never again felt like a victim. I stopped feeling powerless in that moment. I started searching ways to change, and before every one, I prayed: “God, stop me if it isn’t your will. Help me if it is. Show me the difference.”

That night, my husband came home from work. I asked him to care for our son, who yes would have been alone all day if I had died, so deep was my insanity, my selfish concerns. I climbed into the tub with my Bible, because it was the resource that I trusted most. Still, I prayed first. “God, I think I know these words by heart, but all my understanding has brought me here. Yet, I believe there is truth here if only you will help me find it. Probably there is truth in every religion, but I am out of time to search. I need you to come to me here and now as you came to me once long ago.”

He did. As I’ve written before, every page I turned to and every verse I thought to read all came to these words, in black and white on my pages: “(My birth name), you are mine, and I love you.”

I continued to write in the notebook over the coming weeks, and then I worked my first fifth step. I went to our preacher and read him all that I had written. It took hours. It was the most honesty I had ever managed about my life–and I was terrified of what he would say or think, but all my prayers told me that I had to do this before anything could really get any better. When I was done, my preacher took my hand, looked me in the eye, and said, “I love you. I believe that God can make all your weaknesses your greatest strengths. You do know, don’t you, that you can’t continue these destructive behaviors?”

I looked at him and said, “That’s why I’m here. I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know how to stop.”

He said, “There is written in scripture in many places that we should give thanks to the Lord always and everywhere. Start there. Begin telling God thank you for your life. Trust Him to turn it around.”

Everything bad had to be kept secret. I believed that until the day I spoke to my preacher and laid out my truth. That day, I knew everything depended on my finding circumstances where I could go for help and be rigorously honest. Little by little I devised the plan of joining the military when my husband discharged so that I could ask for psychological help. My husband and I both thought that for me to do so while he was in the service would have hurt his career. I knew that I was going to die if I didn’t get help. For me joining wasn’t about having a career. It was about faking it until I could reach my first duty station with six months good time so that I would have the option of care.

I’ve written here before about finally arriving at my base in Las Vegas and making my first appointment with mental health. I’ve written how the day before  my appointment, I attended an event to introduce new arrivals to the services provided by Social Actions and how that led to my entering a model treatment program. It changed my life. Almost exactly a year after my failed suicide attempt, I walked into my first 12-Step meeting and saw the Steps hanging on the wall. As I read each one, I thought about my year and how I had gotten where I was. I knew that I was in the right place. I knew that the steps were nothing mysterious but truly something mystical. They are quite simply how life works. Either you are flowing with them or you are fighting against them. One way brings misery and despair while it steals happiness and life itself; the other way is serenity and sanity that truly is happy, joyous, and free.

I knew that God had answered my prayers for direction in another astonishing show of miraculous revelations. I’m still asking God for direction. I’m still asking Him to show me His way. And through it all, I give Him thanks. He has truly turned all that made me broken into the medicine to heal my deepest wounds.

By Example

May 20, 2011

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I’ve been writing a lot for my sponsor on Step One—which is how it should be. But here is where I can admit that it’s really hard finding that time to read a whole step every day as I had planned. Life has its own pace, and I certainly see the sanity behind having a goal to read a single page and write a single page each day.

So, I’ve neglected my blog, but I’ve been working away at my new abstinence. Today is day 11, by the grace of God. I’m losing weight and not having to take my diabetes medications. In other words, something really good is happening.

I’ve spent a lot of time learning new recipes. What I’ve been doing is part of the problem, and now I have to make a change. It’s challenging, but at the end of each day, I can honestly say the effort is worth it.

I did read Step Two from The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous. I’m always thrown back to early recovery, because that is where and when God lifted compulsive behaviors right out of my life. That doesn’t mean that I got perfect. It means that I got the gift of choice in my behaviors. It doesn’t mean that I always chose wisely, but I got to be part of the solution.

That all started with Step Two for me: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Step One is about admitting that insanity has taken over our behaviors. Step Two is recognizing that there is help available.

I started by choosing a sponsor and going to her with everything—and I mean all of it, crises and chaos and heartbreak. Day after day I had contact with her. Day after day she said sort of mundane but deeply profound things to me: “You’re right where you should be;” “Let go and let God;” “Go to a meeting;” “Come spend some time with me.”

She was my life raft. I knew she wasn’t perfect either, but I knew she had something I wanted and I trusted her connection with God much more than I trusted my connection. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God—I just figured He must surely have given up on me. Then with the gift of my sponsor, I learned He really hadn’t at all—He was right there and speaking lovingly to me through a person who could hold me and hug me and make me smile again.

So my sponsor was my first Power greater than myself. I owe her the world. She told me it doesn’t work that way. I don’t give back to her—I pay it forward to the next person suffering. She taught me that we honor our Higher Power by taking on the responsibility of being the helping hand for others. We cooperate with God as partners in love. We take action. We become that Higher Power for others through our abstinence and recovery.

Getting Control

May 16, 2011

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I found the question from the first step of OA’s Twelve Step Workbook, “How have I tried to control myself?” very interesting. From a very young age, growing up in a very chaotic, dysfunctional home, I have certainly tried to exert control over myself and my environment. My earliest memory of doing so was arranging my mother’s kitchen cupboards which were far from organized.

I remember how angry she was that I had changed her surroundings—had taken the initiative of “owning” the kitchen where I had been put to work. It made sense to me that if I were to be the primary preparer of meals, I should have the “right” to fix the cupboards in what was a far more logical, practical arrangement.

I won that argument. My mom grumbled, but let me take over the kitchen. It wasn’t long before I decided that if she wasn’t going to clean the house, I could. Again, I took liberties. Again, she was royally pissed at some of them, but overall admitted that it was nice to live in some order.

Somewhere around that time, I remember making my first schedule—an activity that has stuck with me through all the years. I like structure. I like organization. I created it for myself. Looking at this question, undoubtedly it is a form of exerting control over my life.

Before my 12-Step recovery, failing to follow my schedule—for any reason—caused great emotional upheaval and a sense of despair. I was fairly rigid. Serving in the military taught me to think of it in terms of being self-disciplined. Only after entering recovery did I learn to let a little more flexibility into my days. Only in recovery could I begin to grasp “progress not perfection” as an acceptable standard.

The steps took the compulsive factor out of my behaviors. I found a life that had a lot more balance. I still have highly organized kitchen cupboards. I still put my spices in alphabetical order when possible. I still menu plan and follow my shopping list. I still schedule my day. The difference is that there is flexibility and spontaneity in my life that didn’t exist before.

Today I can see when I need to let go of my plan and get out of the way of God’s. I understand better how to “Let Go and Let God.” I have learned that His speed and his method beat mine hands down. That’s how yesterday was—I had a plan for the day, and starting right after breakfast, I knew my plan wasn’t going to work.

Physically I crashed. Everything that I have done this past week to get firmly started on my new program of abstinence in OA just came down to survival—eating and sleeping was all I accomplished all day. By grace, I stuck to the food plan, but after every meal and every snack I ended up back in bed, fast asleep. All the control in the world couldn’t have changed that. Self-discipline went right out the window. I just gave in to my body’s needs.

This morning when I weighed, I had lost three pounds this past week—more than I lost in a month when counting only calories. I know it is absolutely a form of control to count calories and carbs. It is one reason that I avoided it for so long. It seemed like a step backwards into compulsive behavior. I guess the results speak for themselves.

Again, it reminds me of the first sentence in my Air Force Basic Training Manual: There are two types of discipline: self-discipline and imposed discipline. Those who fail to practice the first are always subject to the second. I guess that’s where I am. Not understanding how to control my weight without counting, this is the result—having to learn to count.

I like the results. My blood sugars are the best since I was diagnosed with diabetes eight years ago. I am off my insulin and my injectible.  I have used my lowest dose of oral meds only twice this week. Having a daily food plan is a good control that is serving me as well as those others I have lived with most of my life. It gives me a road map, a guide that is safe and sane.

The week has flown by—and felt like a thousand years. I know things are changing. It is exciting. Meetings and having a sponsor are controls. They are a way of choosing to make myself accountable. Working the steps is a method of control—they fuel spiritual growth and keep my head in a positive, healthy place. Reading and writing are controls. They make me aware of those inner thoughts and how they are hurting or helping me.

Well, I guess that’s where I am with methods of control that I have used for right now. I think it’s time to tweak my schedule for next week to include all the recovery activities of the past week that are working for me!

My Journey

May 14, 2011

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I came to 12-Step recovery with a lot of obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Eating compulsively was not one of them. From the time I was fifteen, I did the menu planning, shopping, and cooking for my family of origin. That pattern has continued since.

I grew up with three meals a day of pretty good food thanks to my step-dad’s farming. We had our own pasture-fed Black Angus cattle (without hormones), free range chickens, pigs, sheep, and geese. It was a special time in my life. My grandmother taught me to bake and my aunt taught me to make pies, but sweets were special and not every-day fare.

My husband and I bonded over food, among other things. I could cook and he liked to eat. We were both active, thin, and healthy. My domestic skills were important, and meal time was about so much more than food in our house. It was a time for us to be close to one another and share our days. It was a time and place to share our love—he earned the money for our sustenance and I spent time preparing nutritious meals. We sat down at a table together, we spent time eating and enjoying  our food, we developed a solid base for our marriage in the kitchen and dining rooms of our house.

I can remember baking compulsively during two separate periods. One was early in our marriage when he had just entered his technical school in the military. It was my first time away from family and I was lonely. I started baking every day and inviting neighbors over to share desserts with us. I saw that it was something that I was doing that I was no longer enjoying—I just couldn’t not do it.

I took action, as I had before and would again, when I saw that I was doing an out-of-control behavior that was causing me unhappiness. I knew baking had been special. I didn’t like the way I was feeling about it anymore. What I did—over and over—when I saw such a pattern, was to replace one behavior with another. In time, of course, the new behavior spun out-of-control also. It was a never ending cycle of compulsion.

When I first came to 12-step programs, I told my sponsor about all my behaviors, how I had taken normal, everyday activities and perverted them into self-destructive obsessions. We made a list of behaviors in order of their destructive powers. Sex, the out-of-control acting out of childhood sexual abuse, was at the top. Behind that behavior, I had three suicide attempts.

Alcohol and food were next. I hadn’t gone to the bottom with either, but the goal was to avoid that. The list contained less destructive things like cleaning my house and reading that I had definitely used as compulsive escapes before the program. The plan was that if I had to engage in a behavior because I couldn’t get to a meeting or my sponsor wasn’t available, I could choose the less destructive ones. I could, for example, read—but turn that around by reading recovery literature.

It worked. From the first day of my recovery, I never again wanted to die. From the very beginning—because of my past experiences—I understood the dangers of substituting one very potentially dangerous behavior for another, so I practiced my HALT behavior before putting food in my mouth. You can bet though that I had one exceptionally clean house during those early years!

What brings me to OA after all these years of recovery is that I have done my best, worked a solid program, and still I find myself at an unhealthy weight. This is the third time in my life I have attempted fairly drastic dietary changes for health reasons. My doctor thinks this new plan, given my poor response to our previous efforts, may be the key. But I acknowledge up front that after reading about it, what I thought was healthy eating for my diabetes may have been exactly the opposite. Who knew? Research changes. New information becomes available.

It’s day five. It has been a very physically trying day. My body is struggling with the change from the old food to the new food. There were moments when I didn’t think I could make it another five minutes. That’s when I did a quick 1,2,3 and found an online meeting or picked up The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous.

Definitely I have today abstinent because I trust the groups and my God as higher powers in my life. One minute at a time, I stuck to my foods, even when my head felt like it would split open and even when I was so tired that for the first time since I got my C-Pap in 2006, I took daytime naps.

Step Two says, “Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.” Today was proof of that. It’s been a good day—one where I am grateful for my air mattress bed, my heating pad, and my cozy comforters. I certainly am grateful for computers that let me attend online meetings and write my recovery process even when I have very little energy.

Just for Today

May 13, 2011

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I sat in the sunshine after lunch today and read Step One from The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous. It reminded me of when I was pretty new to the 12-Step approach to life.

I was in the military, stationed at a remote site, separated from support meetings and 12-Step friends. I worked and socialized with my fellow servicemen who drank pretty heavily and partied even harder.

By God’s grace, I did have daily phone contact with my sponsor back at my home base 200 miles away. Together we devised this plan that every day at lunch time, I would drink my lunch with one of those diet shakes (I was not overweight at the time) to allow me time to read a step or a tradition  in my AA 12×12.

I would follow that up by leaving dinner with my guys and returning to my hotel while they went partying. There I would write about what I had read. Then I could share with her on weekends when we were back in town.

It’s where I became a fanatic about the steps. It’s where I knew for sure that God’s grace was working in my life. It’s where huge miracles happened for me and my recovery began to feel like a solid contract between me and God.

Today, sitting and reading the first step in the sunshine, I heard God asking, “So. shall we do the dance again?” I just laughed–with glee and wonderment. God is so cool. I”m sure there are more elegant ways to say it, but it just comes down to a cool-factor that defies explanation. When you experience it, you get it.

So, that’s the plan. I will have my lunch and read from my OA 12×12 and write about it. Whether I will drink a meal replacement or not I guess will depend on how my time is allotted for the day.

Today, usually, I have time to make and eat a healthy lunch for me that is large enough for my husband to take portions of for his lunch the next day.

What resonated with me today, just for today, was the paragraph that says, “In step one, we acknowledge this truth about ourselves: our current methods of managing have not been successful, and we need to find a new approach to life. Having acknowledged this truth, we are free to change and to learn…. First we grasp this knowledge intellectually, and then finally we come to believe it in our hearts. When this happens, we have taken the first step and are ready to move ahead in our program of recovery” (pp. 6-7).

Going Up!

May 12, 2011

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I laid in bed last night thinking about my statement that I was still on the [disease] elevator when it came to food. I’d like to retract that after talking with God awhile about it.

I had the grace to have a sponsor who from our beginning made it clear to me that all my behaviors were subject to recovery if I chose to work the 12-Steps. I saw the Promises of the AA Big Book delivered in spades. My program has never been about just giving up alcohol.

I didn’t exempt food from the things I turned over to God. What I wasn’t taking into consideration as I was struggling the other day with the words ”compulsive overeater” is that, in truth, I got off the disease elevator 34 years ago, including food.

So while I have no problems identifying myself as a recovering alcoholic, that’s what I was objecting to about the compulsive overeater title. I am in recovery. By the grace of God and through the 12-Steps I’ve never had to go to the bottom with eating anymore than I did with drinking.

I can be a recovering COE with no problems. That feels like it has integrity to it. Food has always been included in my inventories. I have examined what I eat and why I eat. I have certainly asked for and accepted medical advice from the beginning of my excess weight. I have followed the medical regimens for my thyroid and my diabetes.

I just haven’t gotten the results that I’ve wanted—or expected given my honest efforts—at least not YET. Maybe I never will. Results and outcome are God’s territory. What is mine is to not give up, not despair, not blame myself, not denigrate myself—just pick up the pieces and keep going forward with the newest, latest plan that incorporates the latest medical research.

The good news is that this is only the third day of that plan and I have been insulin and oral medication free for 24 hours with GREAT numbers. I’m taking that as a sign that I’m on the right road, that OA is the right place for me at this time in my life. I am just really grateful for all the goodness my God of Mercy and Compassion.

Food Prep

May 11, 2011

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Today I checked to make sure that I am as anonymous as possible, since in future days I will be writing regularly about what I read in the book The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous. I don’t want to violate the traditions while working the steps. I know that 12-Step recovery has saved my life and made that life worth living.

When I first came to recovery, I didn’t have terrible horror stories to tell about alcohol. My drinking was in its early stages. However, I had preceded alcohol with an almost endless series of compulsive-obsessive behaviors. When I was told that alcoholism was a progressive disease, I could see the writing on the wall.

My sponsor told me that my disease was like an elevator and I didn’t have to go to the bottom floor before I chose to get off. That is what I think about when I am reading these first pages of a new 12-Step guide. I was told that I couldn’t work a program of substitution if I wanted recovery—so I’ve been aware for 34 years that food was a potential problem.

I just haven’t related to the word overeater, because I kept thinking in terms of the worst cases I’ve listened to and thought, “Thank God, that’s not me!”

Wow. I just forgot that denial is deeply ingrained in this disease. I forgot that I was in the elevator still, still eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, finding reasons and excuses why I am so overweight. It has been an unrecognized grace that I haven’t gotten worse, haven’t gone further down the road.

Today I see that. I am where I am because of enormous grace. I’ve struggled with foods, thinking in diet terms. I’ve been learning what’s good for me, what’s bad for me, and how much my body can handle. But I see today, that’s not good enough.

I’m overweight and that’s just not healthy. But losing weight is just not what this is about. The sentence that I read today that drove that home for me says, “Sooner or later, we always started overeating again and gradually (or rapidly) the eating worsened until at last we were out of control.” What registered with me is how many times that I’ve tried to take unhealthy foods out of my diet and how they always seem to eventually insert themselves back in.

I realized that I had given up trying to take them out. I had begun using calorie counting, but I had left room—lots of room—within those calorie restrictions for the highly-processed, starchy/sugary foods that are definitely “comfort food.”

Today, at one of my online meetings, somebody identified as “a compulsive comfort-food overeater.” That hit home. That’s me. I’m glad that I’ve found a place that understands that and will help me help myself to a different approach to my food. I’m ready for Step One.

Back to Basics

May 10, 2011

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Something life-changing happened for me today. I woke up at 4 am, thinking I heard God calling me to take action with my food and giving me an actual plan for developing the details needed. I started with what has got to be one of the coolest sites around: www.fatsecret.com

I played with foods until I came up with an eating plan for the day that I really thought would work. It looks at restricting both my calories and my carbohydrates—an approach my doctor fully endorses. It felt good, sitting here and looking at my first real concrete action towards turning around this disease of mine—well, the first in a couple of months anyway!

That’s when it hit me. I couldn’t approach this like a diet. I needed my 12-Step principles and spirituality to make this journey. That may seem like a foregone conclusion, but it is actually pretty easy to forget that I need my Higher Power in all areas of my life. I have let food be a separate part of my life, disconnected from my recovery.

I’m often probably (that’s called minimization and denial) even guilty of using food in place of alcohol in my recovery! What a shocker. Hold the presses!  So, I found my first online 12-Step recovery meeting and it was suggested that I “read a page and write a page” every day for my recovery. What a concept!

I pulled out an old copy of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. I know anonymity is one of the 12-Step spiritual concepts and I know all the reasons behind it. I know that I can break my own anonymity. What I’m not supposed to do break anonymity at the level of press, radio and films. I have some concerns about where blogs fall into that, but honestly, there is no way I can chronicle my journey without this part of my life being part of the story.

The first thing I was reading was “no matter how adept we become at handling life’s problems, we will always have these abnormal tendencies.” What I was thinking about is that since my first real weight-loss experience in 1987, I’ve known that sugars and highly processed foods were a problem for me. Even before that I talked about having an addiction to sugar and tried to address it by abstaining.

I actually did abstain for a year—three different times—but I didn’t lose weight. I didn’t know as much about how I just substituted those carbs for other carbs. Now I get that, but I am so aware how fragile I am. Those nefarious foods just keep inserting themselves back into my life. It is tied up with who I think I am. I do need a complete overhaul—well, certainly a minor one—to change one more time one day at a time.

Writing about books and other media that influence my life and inspire me are the primary purpose of this blog. It wouldn’t be doing justice if my 12-Step books weren’t mentioned in the roll call. The book I pulled off the shelf today: The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous.

Countdown

May 10, 2011

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I’m overweight. In 1978, I gained my first extra fifteen pounds. By 1982, that fifteen had become forty. By 1987, forty had become a hundred and sixty excess pounds. It snowballed. 1987 was also my first successful weight loss when I switched to a more organic, whole-food diet and lost eighty pounds. Since then I’ve gained back sixty-six, lost another thirty, and gained back ten. It’s slow and agonizing so I’m not sure yo-yo is the right term.

If you’ve read my blog, you know that I’m actually quite fortunate. Through it all, somehow, I haven’t just given up and gained enormous amounts after my small victories. I’ve been stable over years and years, which is really unusual. I know I can’t take that for granted. I know I have to keep waging the fight for the health benefits.

I thought I had found a solution when I fasted successfully for the first time. For the first time, I lost weight really, really fast. Of course, when I quit fasting, it came back just as quickly. So, I won’t try that again. I think that I was, again, fortunate. After regaining what I lost, I once more stabilized rather than continuing to gain.

When I started this blog to track my journey, I knew that I wanted to acknowledge that most of my best ideas come from reading books or listening and watching other media. I get inspired by others. If I tried in this entry to tell you all the people who have inspired me through the years not to give up, all their names would look like Dr. X,Y,Z.

I know, because numerous doctors have testified, there are no quick fixes. It is definitely about changing life style. I have tried. And I have failed. But I keep trying again and again to rid my daily diet of foods that rob me of energy and steal away my health. I have tried and failed to be more active while I still have that option. It is so hard—which you know if you’ve ever tried.

I just can’t accept the alternative of giving up. I figure that every day I get it right benefits me more than not trying. So—I’m getting ready to try again. I’m listening to another doctor talk about eating to overcome my type 2 diabetes. I think his ideas make sense. I think it will be as tough as always. I don’t know how long I can maintain, but I know that I have to give it a go. The latest research links diabetes to Alzheimer’s. I really don’t want to go there.

Usually, after I agree to try again, I read the plan, do my shopping, and start within 24 hours. This time I’m doing it a little more slowly. This time I’m taking a few days to look at the plan so I can pick the menu items that make for a simple start. I am setting a start date—this Saturday. I am including my husband as always. I am spending a few days trying to envision success.

Usually I change my food first and then wait a few weeks to phase in exercise. This time I’m doing that differently. I started walking yesterday. I have two days of walking approximately 45 minutes. I know diet and exercise are a team.

I’ve never written on message boards and such. This is my first public forum. It’s really hard to put this struggle out there when I have failed so much. I guess Oprah is my inspiration. She has tried everything and battles every day. That’s where I’m at. I’ve struggled for a long time and can hardly imagine it being any other way. Maybe it’s just time to be public in the struggle. Maybe I’ll find something that really clicks with my metabolism this time. We’ll see.

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