My take on Food Plans and Abstinence

I eventually figured out that a food plan in OA does not have to be about deprivation, restriction, or dieting. A food plan should be aimed in the direction of having a healthy relationship with food. Rigid rules and lists of forbidden foods never could help me build a healthy relationship to food. They didn't help me get in touch with the wisdom of my own body—my hunger and satiety signals.

The first and most important step in preventing my long time pattern of yo-yo dieting was to eliminate the artificial boundary between dieting and normal healthy eating— weight loss and weight maintenance. From the start, I had to consider my new healthy way of eating a lifestyle change, not a diet. Diets don't cure Binge Eating Disorder, they exacerbate it.

Many members of Overeaters Anonymous make or use food plans that look suspiciously like being on a diet. Diets generally involve sticking perfectly to a recorded list of measured  amounts of specific foods and usually the time of day to eat each item. Many OA members consider their "abstinence" as being able to stick perfectly to their food plans. I did it that way for the longest time and never had any long term success. Just like a lot of conventional dieters, once I deviated from my food plan, I would feel like I had failed entirely. At this point I would usually decide to go ahead and binge and start the diet (my food plan and abstinence) over again the next morning. Always being just one bite away from failure was no way for me to develop a healthy and intuitive relationship to food. I had to make friends with food. It would become one of my strongest allies in recovery.