This week, I joined the Overeaters Anonymous team on SP. (Does that make me not anonymous?) I have never properly dealt with my emotional issues surrounding food. This is modeled after the 12 step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, so the first step is to take a fearless inventory and admit that I am powerless over this. I did that earlier this week and have been thinking about what it means to be "abstinent" in terms of food. One cannot go without all food after all.

Subject to change, I think abstinence will mean different things to me depending on a given situation. Thursday, it meant walking past the chocolate cake. Success. Friday, it meant not eating the less-than-the-best food choices my friend offered to share with me. Partial success.

Since learning that my LDL ("bad" cholesterol) is slightly higher than it should be, I have determined that I will really work on losing this tonnage. I am closely watching sodium (and I blew it today even without having a diet soda!) and I am cutting way back on animal protein and cheese for the next couple of weeks just to see what happens. I love cheese and I am having a caffeine shortage headache to boot! Coffee and tea do not take the edge off in the same way a soda does.

In my mind, the OA thought process and the LDL discovery dovetail nicely. The LDL number is like a kick in the rear. I walked today for over 30 minutes. I walked to the local Home Depot to pay my bill. It took me 14 minutes to walk there and and 14 back, even though I walked faster on the way back. That meant I needed to do a little more walking to get to my 30 minute minimum. I ended up walking 36 minutes. My lower back was sure sore and the last bit was really a challenge. Walking is not always this hard. Blame it on the weight. That step, distance and time total did not include the grocery shopping in the morning. The step count is not what I want, but I obviously need to work back up to 10K on a daily basis. I have to because I don't want to cut my life short nor do I want to lose any more abilities just because I am not taking care of this body of mine!

Thank you, SP family, for your support. It has been a rough journey for a while now!