Today was my eighth day of my no sugar, no alcohol, three meals and one snack abstinence. I am really enjoying the flexibility that this meal plan allows me, because I don’t have to stress about my plans during the day and how they might be affected by food. Because I don’t have specific foods laid out, I can be confident that at some point, when I’m hungry, I’ll be able to track down lunch. This means that I could easily agree to go to the Olympic Peninsula with my roommates tomorrow without having to worry about bringing all my food or feeling out of place/overwhelmed at a restaurant.

On the other hand, I’m finding that this flexibility is causing my meals to get a little messy. I am eating more than I used to on HOW and am adding back in foods that I hadn’t been eating. To be honest, this mostly worries me because I think I’ll gain weight or at least stop losing any. Also, because of the flexibility, I haven’t been committing my food in the morning and am wondering if it might work to hold myself accountable by reporting my food for the day at night, just to make the choices a little more real and help me to be less ashamed.

One other thing that I’ve been trying to focus on with this abstinence is just the ability to be successful. Even if I’m not losing weight or eating the absolute healthiest choices, I have been able to get 8 abstinent days strung together, the longest time since October. I pray for the willingness to make small steps toward better choices for my meals as I continue to build on my abstinence.