I’ve been making my own yogurt recently. I found a yogurt maker on freecycle, the type that makes a quart at a time so I’ve been purchasing organic 2% milk and making yogurt. It’s very good and it saves a few cents per serving. But, on the road, I don’t make yogurt, I buy it. So, I visited the local emporium and looked at the what they had. They have a store brand of plain yogurt that includes both pre and probiotic ingredients. Nice. Not just that, it’s organic AND the price is very good. A home run, right? Not so much.

Out of habit, I looked at the ingredient. The second ingredient in this plain yogurt is organic sugar.

Here is a legible list from the store’s website:

Ingredients:

Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Organic Nonfat Milk, Organic Sugar, Organic Corn Starch, Organic Cream, Inulin (Dietary Fiber), Fish Oil (Anchovy, Sardine), Kosher Gelatin (Beef, Tilapia), Vitamin D3, Contains a Blend of Live and Active Cultures Including: L. Acidophilus, Bifidus, L. Casei, Probiotic Bifidobacterium Lactis.

Not just that, but in addition to the sugar, this yogurt is a carnivore’s delight. Fish oil and gelatin (which comes from the bones of animals I believe). Overall, not this flexitarian’s ideal choice for his morning protein. I could have chosen another brand of yogurt but instead I went with my old standby, Friendship cottage cheese. Now there is a label a man can understand.

Ingredient Statement
Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Skim Milk, Milk, Nonfat Milk, Salt,
Vitamin A Palmitate, Carbon Dioxide Added To Protect Freshness
And Enzyme.

Yummy.

First off, let me just say, no. I am not claiming an end to my dry spell. For a while now I’ve been toying with writing again. Maybe. Maybe not. My food is good. Solid in fact. Program is strong. I’m doing the drill. Been to two Overeaters Anonymous meetings today in fact. Speaking at a meeting tomorrow. Working with newcomers. It’s all good.

Still, HP sometimes erects a sign and a compulsive overeater ignores it at his own peril. Such a thing happened today.

I was out walking. A quick dash through the woods to the supermarket for raisins, which I needed for the applesauce slowly cooking on the stove. In the strip mall with the market is a pizza place. Their sign was face down on the sidewalk. Maybe some kid knocked it over. Maybe the wind toppled it. I did the good deed of righting the sign and walking past. I did not look at the sign.

I completed my shopping and headed back through the parking lot toward the woods and home. I passed the sign and happened to glance at it.I did a double take and took this picture.

No, I don’t know.

Can anyone tell me why our local healthcare “chain” has sugar packets with their name on it? Will they be selling private label beer next?

God help us.

I was nudged by my silence to say something. Something.

Okay, that’s an awful joke. I’ve been super busy in good ways and just not motivated to write much. I am fine. My program is strong. The play is a huge amount of fun and the run is over this weekend so I will have more time. Until then, I thought this might explain some of what I see in the rooms of Overeaters Anonymous, not that there’s anything wrong with that!

A new study shows that gay men really are leaner than straight men. And conversely, it also found that gay women tend to be heavier than their heterosexual counterparts.

Now you know.

Highly recommended: http://xkcd.com/

Slept like heck Friday night. Up too early but instead of going for a walk, I checked e-mail, drank decaf and chatted with some folks hanging around. The walk might have been the better choice. The talk was nice but I could have used the energy generated by walking. At 7a, I attended the morning For Today/Voice of Recovery meeting. It was good. I was tired and not all that attentive. I didn’t share at the meeting. As leader, I get to talk as much as I want and I don’t want to take away from the time others have to share. That felt like the right decision.

Breakfast at 8am was nice. Simple. I had eggs, which is something I don’ t often have at home.  I had a choice between rice cakes or oatmeal with whole wheat toast. That was an easy choice. I still don’t like oatmeal.  Nice conversation over breakfast.

At 9:15a the morning session started. Did we start on time? Pretty close. Probably the last session to really start on time.

I don’t think I told you the subject of the retreat. Fear. After the ice breaker on Friday, the guided meditation asked us to let our HP tell us what fear we most wanted to have removed.  That choice drove the rest of the weekend. I arrive at the retreat with my fear selected, planned, scripted and ready to go. The meditation changed all that and I worked on something else that was more pressing and real.

So, at 9:15 the attendees settled into their seats and I settled behind my podium and I spoke for about 15 minutes about fear in my life and about all the lies it whispers into my ears. This is what fear does. It tell us things which aren’t true. These lies drove me to drive-thrus, chain drug store sale flyer and local deep fry joints.

We captured and expressed these lies on paper, making ransom notes. Notes that expressed the lies the fear whispers in our ears. We had a big box of old magazines, scissor, glue sticks and markers and got to work. Each table had about 6 people working around it. They appointed someone to capture the lies and share them with the rest of the retreat. No question, there are common themes in these lies.

There was a nice and growing hum from the tables as they worked on their projects and I came to realize that more than the project itself and perhaps even more than the work of the retreat, the fellowship of the weekend is the greatest thing people take away.

The ransom notes were great. People seemed to enjoy the project and express some very real and very honest feelings.

We finished about 15 minutes before lunch and I have to say, I felt a lot better about this whole business by now.

One of my favorites from this past weekend:

If God had meant us to speak more and listen less, he’d have given us two mouths and one ear.

Right on.

So, I am leading my first Overeaters Anonymous retreat. I don’t recall if I wrote about this before. I was approached to do this service back in October of last year. I was hesitant. I had never been to a retreat much less lead one. The retreat chairs trusted me, said I had what they wanted. I asked around, checked with my sponsor and said yes. Today was the first session. We did an ice breaker. Seemed to go well.

I did a basic qualification which included my short version of what I was like, what happened to change me and what I’m like now:

What I was like: Fat, angry and in charge.

What happened to change me: A spiritual experience

What I’m like now: Thin, accepting and in touch.

For the ice breaker. We had our 44 participants count off in two groups of 22 and then mated the matching numbers. Ones with ones. Twos with twos. You get it. They each then had about 3 minutes to share their story with their partner. Then, one pair at a time, they each introduced their partner. We took a break halfway through.

We had a secretary keep note of words that captured what people were like and what they are like now. Two columns. One before, one after. I get to summarize it later.

We closed with a guided meditation lead by another member. It was very nice, and this from a man who does not meditate in any conventional sense of the word. It was nice.

I was quite anxious at the start. I feel much better now. We’ll see what tomorrow brings…

I didn’t start this week with the intention to become caffeine free, it’s just happened that way.

I’m on vacation. Monday, I woke around 5:30 and puttered around the house until 8:30 when the strong desire to sleep returned, so I slept, until 11:30. Nice. Then, I just puttered some more until early evening when I headed off to the cat shelter for my evening of kitty service. I really felt the lack of caffeine, but by that time I figured I would just go without. The very surprising part is that while I felt really tired and I was dragging, I didn’t have a headache.  By 9pm I was totally beat and turned to bed as quickly as I could.

Tuesday wasn’t much better. I didn’t get a nap and with intergroup that evening, well, I was not all that enthusiastic. I got through it and back home awake. Again, early to bed.

Wednesday was better but not 100%. I had rehearsal in the evening. It was okay but I was not thrilled by my performance. I can’t blame caffeine. I can plan lack of experience. I hadn’t really thought through my 6 lines. I mean, what sort of detective was he? I got some direction and on Thursday I had a little private coaching. I feel like I have a better handle on the nature of the detective. How he should behave and respond. We’ll see how it plays out at the next rehearsal.

By Thursday, I think I was pretty much over the caffeine withdrawal. I went to a fabulous play in town, that featured one of our local OA worthies.

Today (Friday) I didn’t think about caffeine at all except when I accidentally grabbed a sip of my daughter’s Coke Zero instead of my caffeine free A&W Root Beer. I don’t think it has corrupted my caffeine free status.

I’ve been sleeping well. Not sure it’s the lack of caffeine. Might be but I never used to drink caffeine after about noon anyway.

Not the best night’s sleep and up again (not by choice) at 5am. I watched a little TV. I love the “How it works” kinda shows. I got to watch them make fried plantain chips. How cool is that?

Had breakfast about 5:50a and hit the supermarket before 7a. After that, off to the local hospital for my 8am call to my step sponsor. We reviewed the weeks events, looked for times when my character defects began to engage and how I handled that and then turned to the more fun stuff, like the play I am in. It was a nice call. I happen to like and respect the guy.

Some Sunday’s there are other OAs that show up after 9a, while I am writing or reading something on the netbook (named ‘lilone’). I got to talking with them and later overheard that one was a writer. Well, I happily shared my 3 minute short story with both of them. They laughed in most of the right places and said they really liked it. That was nice. She’s a poet, and I didn’t know it! Darn, that’s poetry, but I digress. We exchanged e-mail addresses. I’ll send her some of my recovery haiku. It will be fun, I think.

After lunch, I had rehearsal. My part wasn’t called, but I knew that some of the actors needed for rehearsal wouldn’t be present, so I just show up and fill those parts. It helps them block the scene. We often do these scenes over and over again so each time, I get to read the part differently, and I try to improve, at least in my mind, each time. I don’t receive any direction at these times, but I can sense from other actors what works better and sometimes a laugh is a particularly good indication. It’s just all a lot of fun.

This coming Wednesday, my role will be rehearsed. I will be prepared and will have my few lines memorized, I think. Why not? If the part were serious, I’d need to be really hammering the memorization by now. Right?

The rest of the day was okay. Simple. Nice dinner. Did a little laundry. Drove the kid to work. It’s 9pm now and It’s almost lights off for me. Soon as I hit publish, I am hitting the pillow.

Be well. Don’t eat no matter what. No matter what, don’t eat.