Eating Ice Cream With My Dog (39 page)

¹
In food addiction recovery,
abstinence
means refraining from overeating. I’ll discuss the various ideologies of this later, but my own abstinence basically means weighed and measured meals, no sugar, and no flour. Fats, protein, and carbohydrates are very carefully apportioned.

²
In twelve-step programs, individuals seek out “someone who has what you want” to be their mentor, sounding board, last resort. Individuals are expected to be completely honest with their sponsor about their history and current abstinence from the addiction in question.

³
Christine Lagorio, “Diet Plan Success Tough to Weigh,” CBS, January 3, 2005.

⁴
Karen Wright, “Authentic and Eudaimonic: How to Go with Your Gut and Be True to Yourself,”
Psychology Today
, May/June 2008.

⁵
A sponsee is twelve-step parlance for the person one sponsors through the recovery process of a food plan, weight loss, and working the twelve steps.

⁶
“Take your food” is specific to twelve-step programs for eating disorders. The sponsee “gives” his food (that is, reports it) to his sponsor each day. The sponsor, in return, “takes” it.

⁷
“Program” is more twelve-step jargon. It means the individual, no matter what addiction fellowship s/he is in, is following the suggested guidelines for staying away from behaviors and substances. “Working a program” generally includes going to meetings, calling other members, doing twelve-step work, calling one’s sponsor, and reading designated literature.

⁸
“Clean” means you are habitually eschewing certain foods.

⁹
A “home meeting” is a meeting one goes to weekly and considers most familiar.

¹⁰
Instead, one hears references to “that cold sweet stuff” or “the Italian take-out item.”

¹¹
Dialectical Behavior Therapy was pioneered by Marsha Linehan at the University of Washington for the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. Linehan’s thesis is that “an ‘emotionally vulnerable’ person…is someone whose autonomic nervous system reacts excessively to relatively low levels of stress and takes longer than normal to return to baseline once the stress is removed. It is proposed that this is the consequence of a biological diathesis.” Barry Stearns and Michaela Swales, “An Overview of Dialectical Behavior Therapy in the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder,” Psychiatry Online, http://www.priory.com/dbt.htm.

¹²
Some twelve-step programs ban particular foods and chemicals, and have exact measurements and rules around sanctioned food. Other programs do not mandate a particular plan of eating.

¹³
Most often referred to as the Big Book.

¹⁴
Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd ed. (Alcoholics Anonymous World Services: N.p., 1986), 58. The italics reflect how the passage is read out loud.

¹⁵
Ellen Goodstein, “10 Secrets of the Weight-Loss Industry,” Bankrate.com, February 2, 2005 (accessed).

¹⁶
Rebecca Ruiz, “How Expensive Is Your Diet?” ABC News, January 2, 2008, http://abcnews.go.com/Business/PersonalFinance/story?id=4086537&page=1.

¹⁷
Rob Stein, “Obesity Among U.S. Women Leveling Off, Study Shows,” April 5, 2006.

¹⁸
Theresa Makin, “Truth in Advertising,”
The Harvard Salient
, May 6, 1999.

¹⁹
Sharon Dalton,
Overweight and Weight Management
(Boston: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1997), 396.

²⁰
It was small consolation when a story circulated later that he was removed as chaplain when he made his entrance for Easter Mass dressed as a bunny.

²¹
OA (Overeaters Anonymous) is the acronym for one of a number of twelve-step-based programs for recovery from eating disorders. Others include ABA (Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous), CEA-How (Compulsive Eaters Anonymous—Honest, Open-minded and Willing to listen), EAA (Eating Addictions Anonymous), EDA (Eating Disorders Anonymous), FAA (Food Addicts Anonymous), FA (Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous), GSA (Grey Sheeters Anonymous), RA (Recoveries Anonymous), and RFA (Recovering from Food Addiction).

²²
Rather than emphasizing calories consumed or pounds lost, all eating disorder twelve-step groups recognize and reward the number of back-to-back days of adhering to the individual’s food plan.

²³
According to the National Institute of Health, “A person with BPD may experience intense bouts of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last only hours, or at most a day. These may be associated with episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury, and drug or alcohol abuse. Distortions in cognition and sense of self can lead to frequent changes in long-term goals, career plans, jobs, friendships, gender identity, and values.”

²⁴
Eudora Welty,
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), 56.

²⁵
It’s important to keep in mind that standing up from a chair, at four hundred pounds, is the equivalent of five or ten squat-thrusts, which is exactly the motion involved. The heavier one is, the more weight one loses.

²⁶
“Defining Your Authentic Self,” Dr. Phil, http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/73 (accessed).

²⁷
Carol Dawson,
Body of Knowledge
(Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1994), 404.

²⁸
Ibid., 464.

²⁹
Wally Lamb,
She’s Come Undone
(New York: Washington Square Press, 1992), 280.

³⁰
Ibid., 278.

³¹
Jane Green,
Jemima J: A Novel about Ugly Ducklings and Swans
(New York: Broadway Books, 1999). Jennifer Weiner,
Good in Bed
(New York: Pocket Books, 2001).

³²
Helen Fielding,
Bridget Jones’s Diary
(New York: Penguin Books, 1996), 153.

³³
Bridget actually weighs 119 pounds once more, in
Edge of Reason
, but she is gaining weight from her all-time low of 114 pounds after incarceration in a Thailand prison: “(this must stop or jail sentence will have been wasted.)” Helen Fielding,
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
(New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 262, 333.

³⁴
Lindsay Faith Rech,
Losing It
(New York: Red Dress Ink, 2003), 70.

³⁵
Margaret Cho,
I’m the One That I Want
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2001), 107, 109.

³⁶
Jackie Rose,
Slim Chance
(New York: Red Dress Ink, 2003), 49.

³⁷
Jennifer Weiner,
In Her Shoes
(New York: Washington Square Press, 2002), 168.

³⁸
Margaret Atwood,
Lady Oracle
(New York: Fawcett Crest, 1976), 157.

³⁹
Jennifer Weiner,
Good in Bed
(New York: Pocket Books, 2001), 14.

⁴⁰
Ibid., 19.

⁴¹
Jane Green,
Jemima J: A Novel about Ugly Ducklings and Swans
(New York: Broadway Books, 2000), 263.

⁴²
Ibid., 210.

⁴³
Ibid., 373.

⁴⁴
Wally Lamb,
She’s Come Undone
, 178.

⁴⁵
Ibid., 256.

⁴⁶
Jane Green,
Jemima J
., 2.

⁴⁷
Jennie Shortridge,
Eating Heaven
(New York: NAL, 2005), 75.

⁴⁸
Sarah Ferguson with Jeff Copland,
Sarah, the Duchess of York: My Story
(New York: Pocket Books, 1996), 140.

⁴⁹
Codependents Anonymous, a twelve-step program for people who “enable” addiction in those closest to them.

⁵⁰
Lewis Carroll,
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1971), 15.

⁵¹
April Holiday, “A 5’4 Average American Female,” November 10, 2007, http://www.wonderquest.com/size-women-us.htm (accessed).

⁵²
Anne Ream, “Incredible Shrinking Woman,”
Chicago Tribune
, July 29, 2007.

⁵³
Anne Casselman, “The Physics of Bras,”
Discover
, November 2005.

⁵⁴
MIL-STD-1472F, Department of Defense Design Criteria Standard: Human Engineering, May 2007.

⁵⁵
Cynthia L. Ogden, PhD, et al., “Mean Body Weight, Height, and Body Mass Index, United States,” Advance Data from Vital Health and Statistics (Centers for Disease Control) no. 347 (October 2004).

⁵⁶
Psychology Today Staff, “Skin Deep,” May 1, 1993, http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199305/skin-deep.

⁵⁷
Daneil Gross, “Economy of Scale: How Fat People Could Save American Business,” July 21, 2005, http://www.moneybox.com.

⁵⁸
J. Eric Oliver,
Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America’s Obesity Epidemic
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 60.

⁵⁹
Gwyneth Paltrow, interviewed by Prairie Miller,
NY Rock
, November 2001.

⁶⁰
“The core criterion is an abnormally increased food intake in the evening and nighttime, manifested by (1) consumption of at least 25 percent of intake after the evening meal, and/or (2) nocturnal awakenings with ingestions at least twice per week…These criteria must be met for a minimum duration of three months.” K. C. Allison, et al., “Proposed Diagnostic for Night Eating Syndrome,”
International Journal of Eating Disorders
, April 17, 2008. Albert Stunkard, a pioneer in defining this disorder, suggests that wanting high carbohydrates at night increases serotonin levels enough to make sleep easier.

⁶¹
Mayo Clinic Staff, “Binge Eating Disorder Symptoms,” April 20, 2009, http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/binge-eating-disorder/DS00608/DSECTION=symptoms (accessed).

⁶²
According to Health Management Resources, the average Thanksgiving Day meal is a mind-boggling 5,830 calories, February 25, 2009, http://www.hmrprogram.com/documents/Holiday_dinner.pdf.

⁶³
“New Diet Winners,”
Consumer Reports
, June 2007.