How are your free days going?

I can’t think of anything that is a better predictor of whether someone is going to succeed in a body for life transformation than how the free days go. For those of us who have problems managing a safe and sane free day, it not only slows our progress if we pig out all day long, but it greatly increases our chances of giving up before the twelve weeks is over. It is not just the food itself, it is the guilt and shame that comes with the monstrous overeating, the depression that ensues from that, and the additional overeating that occurs as the trainee begins to give up. Pretty soon, the old “what’s the use?” rears its ugly head, and then the person is thinking that there must be a better, easier solution somewhere else.

I agree that BFL is anything but easy. It’s darned hard in fact. But unlike diets, what you are doing with body for life is utterly different than just losing weight. What you are doing with the carefully structured 6 small meals a day, and the intense but short exercising, is prompting and encouraging your body to burn fat and gain muscle at the very same time. This of course is great, but it also comes at a price. It requires constant disicpline and attention to what one is doing. Even on free day, it requires that a person have the discipline to stop at the end of the day. Those who cannot do this are not bad people, but they just have bad problems with food. Rather than a free DAY, for them a free MEAL is probably the very best idea.

I see the same patterns in people on BFL who cannot or will not manage their food intake as I did in myself and others when I was going through treatment for alcoholism. In other words, it is not a simple, easy matter to just stop overeating, because the addiction is a complex symptom of a much deeper problem.

Body for Life provides great temporary structure for those who struggle with an eating disorder. But by itself it is not designed to cure that eating disorder. Those who continue to struggle will want to look into some 12 step programs dealing with food or similar addictions if they hope to live a long, healthy life free of battles with food. It’s really not the food–it’s the underlying problem, and that’s where the 12 step programs can really step up (pardon the pun) and deal with the underlying issues.

I realize I’m not talking to the majority of those who read this blog, but there are lots of people who lurk on the website, and many of them read the guestbook and the blogs. My hope is that they might see this, and that if they are a person with an eating disorder that they will hang in there with the program of body for life, and that they will also take that next step, to forgiving themselves or others, and to looking into a specialized voluntary support group that can help them to confront their underlying problems without having to give up on their dreams to be healthy and free.

God bless, everyone!