When it comes to learning a new language, I struggle. I struggle so much that I always give up. A friend of mine who teaches Spanish in high school assures me that some people are just not designed to learn languages. Boy, do I believe that.  Still, I am willing to try again. This time, I’m giving Hindi a shot. Why not? I work with customers and co-workers in India.

So, yesterday, I signed up on Livemocha, a web based language education site that offers learning exercises plus social networking based help. Nice idea and it seems well implemented. I completed the first lesson last night and this morning, I reviewed flash cards I made from this first lesson. What words do you suppose this first lesson includes? Here’s a partial list:

• Moti (fat)
• Patli (thin)

There are pictures accompanying each new word or phrase. The picture with moti is very negative. The picture with patli plays to many male fantasies. Look, I’m grateful to be at a weight the charts say is normal for my height, but I’ve gotten past the idea that when I was fat I was, in some way, defective or “less than” as a human being. Thinking about the public eye, Oprah had no less influence when wearing her fat than when it was hidden away (as she’s pretty clearly never recovered from compulsive eating, the fat was just hidden, not removed. There is a topic for another post).

So, that negative picture is really insulting. I’ll write the website about it. Will they change it? I don’t know.  Today I can ask for what I want and turn over the results.

Around my house, that’s when others choose to run the dishwasher. Before dinner, so I am guaranteed to have to open it for stuff I need. Why can’t they wait? I’ve asked. Over and over, I’ve asked. The smallest stuff is the hardest to turn over.

If I were to suggest to you that the food industry combines sugar, fat and salt with the specific purpose of driving us to want to eat it’s products, even to excess, would you be surprised? Would this come as some cosmic revelation?

I thought not.

In truth, our grandmothers did the same to varying degrees. Pecan pie anyone? The difference is, at least in part, modern food science and marketing that has fresh baked goods and their smells, wafting through every mall in the country AND, of course, an average shelf life approaching the half-life of U238

Apparently, this came as something of a surprise to Dr. David Kessler*, former head of the United States Food and Drug Administration, or so it seems from this article in the NY Times covering his new book on overcoming overeating.

I wonder. Would an American food conglomerate be in violation of their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders if they failed to maximize consumption?

“Your honor, Feel OK food company has in it’s possession a reformulation of it’s oatmeal raisin cookies which studies prove increase consumption, by 15.8%, in individual white males age 16-25, a significant Feel OK demographic. The company’s objection that this reformulation coincidentally increase triglycerides and tracks with increased overall body adipose tissue is not relevant.”

Okay, that’s probably over the top. Probably.

Dr. Kessler is not to blame for coming late to this realization. I suspect he is not, in the words of the Big Book, a REAL compulsive eater.  The Times article recounts an experiment where Dr. Kesseler resisted the cookies at home, only to yield to their draw while stopping for coffee. I have been there and eaten that.

Part of me feels all this attention to the compulsive eating is a good thing, no matter where it is initially directed. Another part of just wants to scream “Over here! We have the solutions, OVER HERE.”

* A kind word about Dr. Kessler: He was an excellent head of the FDA. Real principles. I hope this book represents a sincere desire to help and isn’t just another diet book. I don’t plan to read it.

Okay, so today I had to exchange some cable hardware again. This time at a different location because yesterday’s isn’t open on Saturday. This location is in a mall, right next to the Lindt Chocolate store. Once again, we have two women working. One, is one of us. The other, is naked.

I just remark that I’m glad I don’t work next to THAT place. The one of use asked why and there I go again.

This one seemed genuinely interested, which was really nice. Who knows?

My afternoon meeting had a newcomer today and the morning meeting had some great sharing so all in all, two thumbs up on the day.

We recently changed cable TV provider and I had to drop off some old hardware and pick up some gear at the local service center. No big deal. Behind the customer service counter were two CSRs (ladies) and a TV. The Food Network was on. I can always use that as an opening to talk about OA but sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. This time, I did.

I mentioned there were two ladies behind the counter. One was one of us. The other, if she was, wasn’t wearing it on the outside. I was sort of wishing she wasn’t wearing anything on the outside, but I digress.

I mentioned to the reps that my family loves to watch that network but I don’t because I used to be over 300 pounds.  Over 300 pounds, yes, but that’s not why I don’t watch it. It has nothing to offer me. I never, ever, have cooked anything I’ve seen on there. Neither has my wife or daughter. It’s food porn. Sorry, but I do not need to watch a celebrity chief laugh off a pound of butter in some recipe as she takes her blood pressure medication and pulls up her support hose.

I have nothing against butter. Love it in fact. Use it, 1 Tablespoon at a time. You get what I’m talking about.

So, as is usually the case, all I have to do is mention I was over 300 pounds and someone will ask how I lost it. POW! Overeaters Anonymous. We all talked for a while and then the naked lady went to the back room to grab a new cable box for me. While she was away, my other friend and I chatted. I mentioned there were lots of meetings in the area. She seemed interested in a low key way. More than polite but less then hooked.  The idea is planted.

I’ll avoid any seed images here thank you very much.

Oy.

Actually, this story doesn’t start with Oy. It starts with an e-mail and an idea. An OA acquaintance (Now friend. Service does that sometimes.) got in touch with me a few months ago. Like me, she’s into getting the word out about OA. There was an event coming up which would attract lots of medical professionals who specialize in weight loss. Or rather, they specialize in trying to get their patient to lose weight. Medically supervised weight loss. Surgery. Whatever.

We talked about this opportunity and I agreed to get in touch with the organizers to see if we could set up a table hand out literature and talk about our experience in OA. The answer from the event organizers was: “send a check, get a table”. So, we turned to the local intergroups with a budget in hand and viola! Instant funding (to the tune of over 1500 dollars).

Next steps: Organize volunteers (done by my friend) and order literature (done by me). We also applied for and received reduced cost literature from WSO. Not make or break, but nice to have.

Today was the day of the event and I signed up to setup the booth/table, such as it was. We were tucked right in next to the elevator and just to the right of the man selling books on nutrition.

We had lots of literature and we burned through quite a bit more than I had thought we might, and this was just the first day. “To the Man” was gone by early afternoon, but then again, we only had about 25 of those. People seem interested in Dignity of Choice and A Plan of Eating. No surprise with this audience.

I got to visit and talk with all the other exhibitors: 3 Meal/supplement manufacturers. One medically supervised weight loss program that includes foods. One booth with a supplement that increases metabolism (burn more calories with the same level of effort), a publishers rep and, Stop and Shop. I got a nice bag. Some pens. I talked about OA and listened politely when they talked about their stuff. I do believe that they really believe and hope their product help. God bless them.

I think I talked to more Registered Dietitians than any other group.  They genuinely appreciated that we didn’t have a dog in the food plan fights, though one women said a client of hers came away from OA with a high carb food plan (6 slices of bread a day) and she was very surprised. Me too. Whatever.

Two practitioners from Canada seemed surprised that we have meetings in the great white north.

One guy (an MD) actually pitched is upcoming breakthrough weight loss foods. I explained, more than once, that we do endorse foods. On he went about how well it worked. It seemed as though he wanted to sell me! Skinny (no, not skinny. Weight appropriate) me! I asked him nicely if he thought I still needed to lose weight? Ummm, no. We parted on good terms. I have his card.

I think we did a good thing by going. I know we planted some seeds. How they pan out? Well, I am not in charge of that.

I’ve been thinking about what I should write for my very first blog here and nothing has come to me lately that is in the least bit amusing.  I find myself focusing on what’s not going right rather than what has not gone wrong.  Hmmm…even that sounds negative.   How about this:  I focus on what is not going right rather than what is going right.  Whatever.

Important to note that I’m just back from a week away…a week of goofing off, no laundry, no dishes, and lots of shopping, OA meetings, meetings with friends, sleepovers with the girls, an OA retreat, tons of recovery…had it all been more fun I could not have been able to stand it.  Welcome back to reality; crashing back, really.  Back to the dishes and laundry, and work.  I’ve said it often but it bears repeating:  we should have been born rich instead of beautiful.

I also attended an Al-Anon meeting while I was away and I found it highly motivating and the end of the meeting was highly entertaining.  The question of who was to take the key for the coming week to open the meeting came up, and no one said a word.  It was the most pregnant pause I have ever witnessed.  At one point, I almost laughed.  It appeared, and no doubt was just that, an appearance, but it appeared that all of the recovering co-dependents were trying to outdo each other in not speaking first.  Too funny, or so it seemed to me.  I wanted to say I would take the key just to break the silence but that would have been crazy since I didn’t live there.  Yeah, well, someone had to take that key.

I guess I will say this:  Although I’m not feeling too sparkly and I’m certainly tired out from the trip, I’m still grateful for this blessed gift of abstinence and freedom from food obsession.  More on that another time, no doubt.

I worked from home today and decided to make myself a fresh, hot lentil dish to have with my veggie stew. It’s been a while since I’ve done this and I didn’t remember the right serving size so I looked on the label of the bag of Masoor Dal (split red lentils). According to the label , a service size is 1 cup (140 grams) dry weight. The bag contains 13 servings which is about right for a 4 pound bag. Protein, 10 grams. Calories, 180. Makes sense.

When cooked, this turns into a lot of lentils. I’m not complaining, so I ate my lunch happily and went about my work.

Later I wondered.  This seemed too good to be true so I did some more research.

Opps.

It seems split red lentils (Masoor Dal), really have more like 500 calories per dry cup. A dry cup really is about 140 grams though. So, the label on the package is wrong. I’ll have to write the distributor. I hope they have an e-mail address.

…has absolutely nothing to do with this post except that that’s the phrase I think of to summarize the Star Trek movie I saw last night. Fabulous (and loud. Too loud. I guess in the future, hearing loss is not an issue). Don’t ask me why the Romulans look like that. I have no idea.

Movie turned into movie and dinner. Sort of a solo date night. My wife is out of town visiting family, I drove my kid and 3 of her friends to the mall before the movie. There was no way to schedule dinner at home before the movie and make it home by the time the kid got home, so movie and a dinner out. I could have had dinner at home after the movie but that wouldn’t have made it much of a date.

The theater is part of the mall area mega-complex and as it was a relatively early show, parking was easy and there was almost no wait for a ticket. I got a pretty perfect seat too: Middle seat in the middle row of the middle section.

It was nice going by myself. A form of isolation? I don’t think so. More, a form of quiet time in a noisy place. Nobody to sit next to in the theater so I enjoyed both arm rests without competition and I could fidget pretty much to my heart’s content. After the movie, I was finally feeling a bit peckish,  so I hit the salad bar at a local chain restaurant. Tax and tip comes to 11 bucks. Can’t beat it for a meal out. Two trips to the bar and done. Good vegetarian and vegan protein at the bar. The only thing missing is carbs on my food plan. Would pasta salad kill me? Probably not, but it’s not on my plan and doesn’t look particularly good so why bother with that when, instead, I could have that perfect round, brittle, (almost) popcorn like cylinder that is the brown rice cake (from home).

The most amazing thing about this movie was the food. I don’t remember any. Not in the movie and not in the theater either.  No gagh and no popcorn. I don’t recall a sight or sound of food. Not one crunch or slurp. Nada. What’s up with that?

This is all the more astonishing to me because the movie started at 6:26pm and I didn’t have dinner until 8:45, this after I finished my lunch around 11:30am so this was a long LONG time between meals.

I got to 2 Overeaters Anonymous Meetings today. The first, at 7:15 this morning had about 130 attendees in a large auditorium. It is, I think, by far the largest meeting in the state. Not that I’ve been to every meeting in the state, but I think I’m right anyway. I’ve been to this meeting a few times. It’ s not a regular meeting, yet, but it is likely to turn into a 2 times a month meeting for me. I like a couple of things about it:

1. It’s early. Starting at 7:15am, it’s over at 8:15.
2. It’s 60 minutes long. I guess you figured that out already. I prefer the shorter meeting. I get itchy and inattentive after an hour.  Actually, I can get itchy before I even sit down but that’s just the way my brain works.
3. After the meeting, there is fellowship in the facility’s cafeteria. That’s very nice.
4. There are lots of men here.
5. Often newcomers. I was looking for a new sponsee and found one .

Anyway, I got up and shared about my dilemma. After the meeting, a few men and women came up and share their own experience on the topic. It confirmed for me that I was probably doing the right thing dealing with it.

I sat at a table of men after the meeting and after talking to my newcomer. I ate my breakfast (cottage cheese, applesauce and Wasa crackers). The man next to me had questions about what the crackers were made from. This was curiosity, not suspicion.

After breakfast and fellowship, I headed home and started on the day’s projects:

• Get a haircut  – Done
• Make and eat lunch – Done
• Get a small rake and Weed Popper. My old popper died and I do like the darn thing  – Done
• Build a large frame for an above ground planter  – Done
• Go to second OA meeting – Done

This is a smaller meeting but it’s a great meeting too. We had a new man at this meeting and 3 men of 10 attendees. The topic was “This too shall pass”. Great topic. My take was that “This too shall pass” is part one of the serenity prayer:  to accept the things I cannot change. And while letting the RIGHT things pass is important, it is just as important to NOT let the wrong things pass (change the things I can).  Wisdom being the key to avoiding having to make amends for a poor choice.

This came straight at the issue of my dilemma (my wife embarrassing my daughter and thinking nothing of it). Letting it pass would be a mistake but dealing with it by trying to make my wife feel bad would just compound a mistake. I share on this one some more and felt more confident in the path forward.

More from the list of today’s tasks:

• Get my sunglasses “fixed” – Done
• Make and eat dinner – Done
• Tidy the kitchen, at least a bit – Done
• Water plants – Done
• Drag crap to basement – Done
• Prepare for Step 1 work with new sponsee – Done
• Get ready for IG meeting tomorrow – Done
• Update Blog – In process – Done

Now, the day is done. Time for the evening oral hygiene regime: Brush, gloss and rinse.