Step 1 - The realization

I continue to read from the Overeaters Anonymous little brown book, and am getting so much from the personal stories I have read. I can hear the heartbreak that the writers have been through.

I was always pretty jaded about weight - my sister was always overweight and it was always a constant battle - diets, bingeing, secret eating. I didn't have those problems - I was so active that I could eat anything anytime any quantity and not worry. She suffered so much. She had problems with her kidneys and her glands. She was eventually diagnosed as having some sort of chemical imbalance that likely caused her to have weight problems.

I read something in the book that really struck home for me: It is strange to realize when I look back that I was trying to "get even" with my friends, and especially my family, by eating. How it hurt them to see me eating and apparently not caring what I was doing to myself. I overlooked the fact that although I was hurting them, I was destroying myself.

For my parents and sister I don't think that this was so much the case because my weight gains came after I left the household - college and after. But for my ex-wife and my girls it seems to strike a cord - that my life and the eating that came with it was hurtful.

I need to commit to this. I need to begin my Steps. I need to believe that there is a life ahead instead of life has ended.