ollieacompulsiveovereater

I've posted here that I do long endurance events for fun (mosty walking or running races). So, from time to time, I get injured. Thanks to OA, I don't have to worry about gaining weight during injury "down-times".

But I am always eager to return to training for my sport, so I often look at my old training logs to see when I had a previous injury and to see what I did to recover from it.

So, I ended up digging up my old logs from 1981-1983, back in my pre-morbid obesity days. I was in my early 20's and had never heard of OA.

But I had the disease then all right; in spite of running 30-40-50 miles per week, I had trouble controlling my weight. I bounced from 190-220 pounds frequently; often within the same year.

And many of my entries were about food, calories, etc. And how many times did I write: "diet starts today; THIS TIME I MEAN IT" only to read 3-4 days later "BINGE. WHY DID I DO THAT???"

I just didn't understand it. I had the discipline to get through running marathons, a service academy's physical, military and academic training as well as a nuclear engineering program. Yet, despite my best intentions, I couldn't control my eating.

Mind you, I wasn't to join the 300 pound club until the early 1990's.

But the signs were all there...those were not happy times.