Quote:
Originally Posted by swansong56
I heard someone say how you do anything is how you do everything. Any thoughts?
|
I can see how this quote might apply to my life. I've always been messy for as long as I can remember, and though I'm better now than as a kid I'm nowhere near perfect. I was watching the show Hoarders a few nights ago and some of the scenes looked very similar to how my bedroom was as a kid - I have some pack rat tendencies.
When I look at my life overall, I realize that being messy and being fat have this in common: I'm lazy and for a long time didn't care enough about the consequences to curb my actions. As a kid, I did a lot of emotional eating because my parents divorced and I got teased a lot. As I got older, it turned into less of me eating because I was teased daily but because it was a habit. Sure it bothered me that I was fat, but because I had grown up fat it was the norm for me and I had no idea where to start with weight loss. My best friends would sometimes confront me about my weight and say they were worried, but I haven't had any adverse health effects yet and I was skeptical as they were all skinny - how could they understand what food was to me?
When I got to college, I got a room mate that was neater than me. I adopted her habits and though I still have clutter here and there it is 95% better than what I had as a kid. I learned from her example that being clean isn't that hard when you take a little extra effort to put things back every day instead of having to spend a whole afternoon cleaning once a week. In that way, I think my dieting approach is similar; if I can have enough willpower to not buy junk during a weekly shopping trip, it makes it easier the rest of the week.
I suppose my point is that I don't believe anything is black or white or 100% right or wrong. I don't know if I agree with the statement of being powerless over food, but I do agree that people self medicate and that food (among things like alcohol and drugs) is one way that they do so.
In any case, I think it's good to question and really reflect on the steps of OA. It means that you're taking it seriously and that you're really trying to get something out of the process.