When I signed up for a spring break service trip to Muchucuxcah, Mexico, they told me we'd be working in an impoverished Mayan village and Western amenities might be lacking. "How bad could it be?" I thought, "I'll find a way to stay abstinent." Turns out these people didn't have refrigerators, the closest supermarkets were in cities two hours to the north and south. I was told most of the people spoke only Mayan (they have started learning Spanish, which I know, only recently, to cope with the ...

I went to Prague for a conference and we ate in restaurants all week. Luckily, my roommate was Czech, and with her help and the little mini-dictionary I had with me, I checked ingredients and got by, weighing and measuring in front of diplomats, NGO heads, and senators. But one time, we were out for an early dinner before a ballet at a famous theater. When the cooked veggies came, I measured and saw that there weren't enough, so I plopped some of my extras onto the plate. I ate a little, then go...

Abstinent in GSA since 25 March 2006, a meal at a time, a day at a time. I would steal food as a child and eat it in secret. Not normal behaviour for a 5 year old. I felt ashamed and hated myself for behaving like this, and couldn't understand why I couldn't stop doing these "crazy, shameful" things with food. This behaviour followed me into my teens, twenties and early thirties. I didn't know it at the time, but I started to use alcohol to try and numb the pain of the shame I felt for the way I...

Hello Greysheet Family!  Regards from New York City and many happy abstinent days to everyone for 1996.  I would like to qualify as I reached my 90 days yesterday, December 28th, 1995.  It was a pleasure to speak to the community at the West Park Presbyterian church which was honored by the presence of one of our "GreyNet" community from Texas who spoke very highly of the benefits of our email system. I was a compulsive overeater from the start.  I stole m...

Hi everyone, My name is [Anonymous], and I weigh and measure 3 meals a day off the grey sheet, call it in to my sponsor, don't eat in-between no matter what, and abstinence is the most important thing in the world to me.  I do this without exception, and have been since July 17, 1995, in Cambridge, MA, where I first got abstinent. I wish I could say it's been easy.  It hasn't.  But my life has improved, changed, and grown dramatically in every possible way. &nb...

Hi my name is [Anonymous] and I have this disease of Compulsive Overeating who gratefully weighs 3 meals off the Cambridge Greysheet and I am proud to say I belong to GSA! My eating history is probably not a lot different from yours.  I ate and I ate and I ate!  I lied for food!  I stole for food!  I compromised my morals and values for food!  I lost a job to food!  I was willing to compromise my health by stretching my body beyond its ...

Hi everyone.  My name is [Anonymous] and I am a food addict and compulsive overeater.  I weigh and measure three meals a day from the GreySheet.  I don't eat between meals no matter what and abstinence is the most important thing in my life today. Food has always been very important to me.  One of my childhood memories was of saying, "No, thank you," to xxx from one of my friends' mother because I thought she would be impressed by my manners and would cert...

I'll tell you a little about myself. I'm originally from Chicago - was born there and grew up in the suburbs - Arlington Heights, as a matter of fact.  I went to nursing school at Augustana Hospital, which was near Lincoln Park Zoo.  Now there are condominiums there.  It's kind of sad, but that neighborhood was my haunt many years ago.  This was the famed "Old Town" area in Chicago, in its heyday with the folk music and the hippies.  I graduated ...

My name is [Anonymous] and I am a CO.  I will be happy to qualify since I have a couple of minutes of free time before my nose goes back to the grindstone here in Extension Horticulture.  I have 131 days of abstinence on GreySheet by the grace of God.  My sponsor, who found GreySheet in New York, brought GreySheet to College Station, Texas.  She had been my oldest sponsor here in College Station OA when I first came in 1981.  She has definitely b...

Hello Community, I'm [Anonymous], a CO, abstinent and grateful.  I w&m 3 meals a day from the Cambridge Greysheet, write them down, commit them to my sponsor, don't eat between meals, do eat every meal, and I've done this daily for 6 years today, June 20th, 2002.  And I'm writing this post with tears of gratitude, humility and disbelief running down my cheeks. When I began this trek 6 years ago I was at a place of total despair regarding my weight and food in my life.&nbs...

Fellow GreySheeters: I've been putting this off, and without even the excuse someone else has of being sick of her own story.  It's not as if I get a chance to qualify very often.  Anyway, without further ado, here it is.  My name is [Anonymous] and I'm a food addict and compulsive overeater.  (Hi.)  I weigh and measure three meals off the GreySheet without exception, write them down, turn them over to my sponsor, don't eat between meals no matte...

Dear GS friends, [Anonymous] here, abstinent as WE define it in Cambridge Massachusetts, and thrilled to have weighed and measure my food off the Cambridge GreySheet for the last 27 years and 7.5 months, back-to-back. Thank you for asking me to reflect upon the blessings of abstinence and the incredible fringe benefits of long-term abstinence. First among these, for me, are my loss of illusions about returning to the food, the lack of longing to be "normal" (read, return to my crazy days, as tha...

My name is [Anonymous], and I am a compulsive overeater.  I weigh and measure three meals a day from the Cambridge Grey Sheet, write them down, commit them to my sponsor or another qualified person.  I don't eat in between no matter what.  Abstinence is the most important thing. Compulsive eating runs in my family, and I believe I was born with the predisposition toward food addiction.  I also saw compulsive behaviors around the food.  My mother ...

Hi all, [Anonymous] here from nyc a&g on the GS & I DENMW.  I am so peaceful today.  GS clarity & selfcare are kicked into high gear just for today.  I'm so enjoying my new abstinent tool of a mobile phone.  Just got it this weekend & get lots of free hours.  So guess what?  Now I attend the 9pm telephone mtgs as well as the weekend ones & can make outreach calls long distance & if someone is in my network I get ...

My Story of Coming to GreySheet Abstinence Childhood I was born into a good German Catholic family, the oldest of five children. I learned many good values from my family: the value of hard work and responsibility, the usefulness of organization, the value of education, the importance of my faith, and a positive attitude toward life. But I also learned many of my character defects and compulsive behaviors. From my most loving, hard-working, 6'3" father, I learned to LOVE food and to overeat. Fro...

To My People, "Epiphany" - Webster's dictionary, 1. [religious holiday celebrated on] January 6; 2. "an appearance or a manifestation, especially of a divine being." My epiphany was January 6, 1980 and the "divine being" I saw was myself--a clear food-free self. Abstinence is the Windex on my windshield of life. Thanks to it, I see clearly and can drive myself places that I want to go. Today is my 23rd anniversary. What's in a number? Grace, footwork, and mainly, more options and more experience...

Hi, everyone. My name is [Anonymous] and I'm a compulsive overeater.  I weigh and measure 3 meals a day off the Grey Sheet, write them down, and commit them to my sponsor.  I don't eat anything in between meals no matter what.  Abstinence is the most important thing in my life without exception, and a day at a time I work to put my program first. Before GS, I was in denial.  I didn't want to believe that I was a compulsive overeater, even though I'd never ...

Greetings, fellow travelers.  [Anonymous] in NYC here - still w&m'g w/o exception my 3 meals/day off the GS, after writing them down and committing them to my sponsor.  I don't eat between no matter what, and I put my abstinence first. I just received an email from someone (and I paraphrase here) who shares that, after a short period of abstinence, she begins to feel great, optimistic, and confident, and to forget all the pain it took to bring her to the state of desperat...

[Anonymous] in NYC here, to share my experience and strength, and where I get my hope. "It's always the bitchy women who get the nice men," I observed when I was full of patience (and enabling) and stuffing my face, and attracting the Users and the Losers.  Well, now I'm the bitchy woman, and I'm abstinent, and I have possibly as nice a guy for a husband (of 16 years) as any who ever walked the face of the earth. Got sober in AA 27.6 years ago.  Binge-free 18.9 years. &n...

[I'm posting this to the GreyNet because a very nice individual I know expressed to me personally her unhappiness about our using Cambridge in our name.  She perceived it as confusing and elitist.  This is the answer I sent her, and I hope it helps.] I'm really sorry you have bad feelings about the name "Cambridge" attached to Grey Sheet.  It surprises me, because I experience it so differently.  As they say "that's what makes horse races." I hate to think...

I am still weighing and measuring without exception my 3 beautiful abstinent GreySheet meals each day, one day at a time.  Because I'm an addict (and as such, fundamentally a sneak, cheat and liar around my food), I continue to commit my food daily to my food sponsor.  I write it down, and keep the 3 by 5 spiral notebook where I have written it in my kitchen - set up like a little easel, so that while I prepare my meals, I check and make sure I've got it exactly as committed....

Dear GreyNet Family, In an AARP report I read "the majority of chronic conditions and deaths due to heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis can be attributed to poor nutrition."  For me, GreySheet Abstinence is preventing diabetes, stroke, cancer, knee replacement, etc., etc.,-- all diseases in my family, from which my family members are now suffering. I am a compulsive overeater who needs GreySheet Abstinence!  Before I came to GreySheet, I ha...

MY ONE NMW WHERE I "FAILED" AND IT TAUGHT ME SO MUCH BE PREPARED! Always bring full back up. Pray to do it with "grace and ease". Let go of what other people think. To thine own self be true, and I KNOW this is really really good for me. I went to Mexico with our youth group. I'd always wanted to be a "missionary nurse" (ego). I hadn't brought enough wg or veggies, or protein. Wasn't assertive enough/deem it important enough to ask anyone to let me take the van to the nearest store or ask the pl...

HEARTWARMING NMW This is one that isn't so much about the food, but more about the kindness of strangers in a situation that wasn't so great. It happened about four years ago. I was traveling from Taipei to Ohio to see my family. My sister had told me that my father was going downhill and I should come back and see him before his mind was gone. At the time, my daughter was almost two and just this wee little curly haired kid. Well, we made it to the airport safely and were on the plane. I had "p...

4 ASSORTED NMWs 1. On a sunset boat cruise. Already eaten protein and open tupperware to discover that vegetable/salad is moldy. Miles and hours from shore. Pre cell phones. Eureka! Other passengers' meals are decorated with a steamed vegetable so I beg for lots and lots of decorations to fill my cup. 2. Mother's deathbed is within a few moonlit blocks of 'Grace's' restaurant where I order traditional Greysheet comfort food to take back to the hospital. 3. My 12-day-old son is in the ER. Ambulan...

BIGGEST NMW With some guy in Brown's in the U.K. First date asking for another 8 oz. of veg because it only came to 7.9 oz and I did not want to get out my back up and I knew he could afford it.  FIRST MASSAGE WORKSHOP NMW Lunch was at 12 midday. I had finished my breakfast at 9am and so when we were due back at 1pm it was my lunch time. I had to ask the teacher if I could eat while he was demonstrating foot massage (not on me) and to watch the eyes of the curious while I tried to eat my fo...

BIGGEST NMW Probably the biggest was on my sailing trip last year when I was miserably seasick for days on end, couldn't hold food down and didn't have a way to call anyone. The Captain of the boat was pleading with me to eat Xs and sip soda with sugar. I was imagining that I'd have to be airlifted off the boat and fed intravenously. Fortunately, I had worked out some of these possibilities with my sponsor beforehand - though I had never imagined that it would be as horrendous as it was. But dur...

HEARTWARMING NMW I love this story and it could fit into big and embarrassing too. I just think of it so fondly. I was about 5-6 months abstinent. I had a job at the time where I traveled and in this case I was going to a conference in Chicago. I was speaking at a convention for my job. It was huge and I had a teleprompter and someone directing, etc. I was terrified and newly abstinent. I was with people from work and they were supportive, but still didn't really get it. My part was small but be...

NOT NUMEROUS BUT CHALLENGING NMWs 1. I remember going camping early on, with another GS'r. We both brought our own food. We took it out and both had a green vegetable, but different variety or something and she said "lets swap pieces" and I about had a heart attack, said, NO. She was shocked, but I kept my food that was weighed and committed. 2. On my second week on GS, my husband and I went to the beach in Charleston. He had to run back to the condo to get my cup. What a sweet guy. He is still ...

STAYING AT HOME NMWs I came into GreySheet abstinent on another food plan. My body had started feeling too full and bloated when eating grains and starch so I switched to greysheet and have been back-to-back greysheet abstinent for just over a year. My situation is a little unusual in that I've been mostly homebound this past year and a half. This means I have not eaten out in a restaurant or traveled on greysheet. I have weighed and measured at home in front of guests and eaten different food t...