Developing a "Food Plan"

> How did you all come up with your food plans? I think I'm ready to
> look at what I'm eating at mealtimes more closely but don't know how
> to do it.
>
It took me a few years of failed food plans to come up with my current way of eating. Now it's more a lifestyle thing than a food plan. In the past, most of my food plans were not much different than any other diet. I'd name them a "life time eating plan" but they were essentially just diets with some OA wrapped around them. I had long lists of foods that I couldn't eat and short lists of what I could eat and a limit on the amount of calories I could have every day. There were a lot of rules to follow, and so, a lot of rules to break. Every time I broke one of my rules, I'd feel like I'd blown my abstinence. Of course, that usually triggered a binge.

Through a lot of painful trial and error, I finally ended up giving up on rigid rules and it helped my recovery immensely. I have some general guidelines but even they are not cast in concrete. At the core of my relationship to food now is a couple of main ideas. First, when I eat or shop for food I ask myself if what I'm going to buy or eat is life affirming and health promoting. Nearly all whole natural unprocessed food is and that's what I generally choose to eat. They tend to be nutrient dense. They naturally contain anti-oxidants and phytonutrients that help ward off disease. Natural whole foods are life affirming health promoting substances. They help lower my cholesterol and blood pressure. They help lower many of my risk factors for various diseases like cancer, osteoporosis, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

The other main concept I guess would be that to be successful with my physical recovery over the long haul, I have to enjoy what I'm eating. I love to eat. Looking at food as my health promoting friend in recovery instead of as a bad guy or demon substance, I think, is my higher power's will for me. I'm blessed with abundance and that just can't be a mistake. Instead of a food plan per se, it is an attitude shift. Rather than just filling me up, I realized that my diet needed to control my hunger, taste great and be pleasing to my other senses, provide the nutrients and energy my body and brain requires to function optimally, and help minimize my risk for disease.

So to come up with a food plan, I'd suggest learning all you can about the science of human nutrition. Then using that knowledge to come up with a food plan that is healthy and balanced. I believe that when our body regularly gets all the nutrients it needs and we give ourselves permission to truly enjoy the experience of eating, cravings soon drop by the wayside as does our extra fat tissue. Food then becomes the very substance that helps us recover.

Love, Dave