11 posts tagged “food addiction”

It's the first of the month again, which means I get to weigh myself first thing in the morning.  I did that today and was pleasantly surprised: I lost another pound to bring my total weight loss to date to 115 pounds.  Is that incredible or what?  The most amazing thing to me is that I lost it without dieting, without being hungry and without having to work out like a maniac.  For me, taking care of the food business just has to come first in order to lose weight and keep it off. 

It's been almost 5 years since I started on this journey and the more time that passes, the more I'm convinced that I've found my "for life" answer to all of my food and weight problems that plagued me my entire life.  What a relief.  I'm so joyous and excited about finding this solution, I wish everyone could experience it.  It is so hard to watch and listen to friends and acquaintances who struggle with their food and weight issues continually, but I do believe I've gotten much better at keeping my mouth shut about it! Oops, just screwed that up, didn't I? 

I decided in the shower this morning (I'm always inspired in the shower), that I'm going to keep a record of my food intake on this blog.  I blogged about getting more variety last week and I've made some progress, but I feel like writing my food down here every day will keep me more accountable. Here's what I ate the last few days:

Friday
B: 1 C plain yogurt, 6 oz Granny Smith apple, 1/4 C steel cut oats, 1/2 C roasted soybeans, cinnamon (all mixed together)
L: I can't remember
D: 4 oz flounder, 8 oz baked potato, 2 C salad, 2 t oil, balsamic vinegar
S: 1/2 C cottage cheese, 6 oz blueberries

Saturday
B: Pineapple Mini Loaf - 1 egg, 4 oz firm tofu, 6 oz. pineapple, 1/2 C oat bran, 1/3 C powdered milk, cinnamon and nutmeg
L: Abstinent Pizza - 1 egg, 1 C brown rice, Italian seasoning (crust), 4 oz soft tofu (crumbled), 1 C Classico spaghetti sauce, 1 C peppers and onions, 1 t oil
D: 4 oz chicken, 8 oz sweet potato fries, 2 C salad, 2 t oil
S: 1 C plain yogurt, 6 oz blueberries

Sunday
B: 1 C plain yogurt, 6 oz apple, 1/4 C steel cut oats, 4 oz silken tofu, 1 egg
L: 4 oz shrimp, 1 C Brussels sprouts, 1 C cherry tomatoes and cucumbers with balsamic vinegar, 8 oz red potato fries, 2 t oil
D: Chili - 1 C Spicy Hot V-8, 1 C peppers & onions, 1 C white kidney beans, 4 oz tempeh, 1 t oil
S: 1/2 C cottage cheese, 6 oz blueberries

Today
B: Peach Shake - 6 oz frozen peaches, 8 oz silken tofu, 1/3 C oat bran, 8 oz milk, nutmeg
L: 4 oz ground chicken, 1 C brown rice, 2 C broccoli, salsa, 1 t oil
D: 4 oz ground chicken, 8 oz sweet potato fries, 2 C salad, 2 t oil, balsamic vinegar
S: 6 oz grapefruit, 1/2 C cottage cheese

I noticed I have blueberries just about every night, so I'm going to switch that up tonight.  You'll probably notice that I have about 3-5 different meals that just rotate.  I'm okay with that - it's the eating of almost identical meals every single day that troubles me.

I need to add some variety to my diet.  I know that I go in cycles where I eat a lot of the same things for a while and then I move on to the next thing, but I'm noticing that I eat pretty much the same lunch or dinner every.single.day.  I have two breakfasts that I rotate, but that's about the extent of the variety.

I'm going to commit to thinking of some new foods to eat and buying them at the store this week when I go.  I think I should have at least three different breakfasts, lunches and dinners.  So that means I need to come up with one other breakfast and two other dinners. 

Time to break out the recovery cookbooks!

I've had a rough week.  Work has been exceedingly busy and stressful and I haven't been getting to bed early enough for my body.  I'm looking for a new sponsor, without having much luck.  I'm seeing some of my biggest character defects coming to the surface that have laid dormant for months and years.  And tonight, I had food thoughts at the restaurant we ate at and the grocery store we went to afterwards.

My head told me, "Remember the 'good ole' days' when you could just numb out and eat whatever you wanted.  It wasn't that bad.  So you were a little heavier, everything else was fine."  I need to combat that voice with the truth.

And the truth is - it was that bad.  And worse.  I wasn't "a little" heavier.  I was one hundred and twenty freaking pounds heavier.  I hated myself physically and mentally.  I didn't know who I was, so I turned into a chameleon to blend in with wherever I happened to be.  I hurt at the deepest level of my soul and I had no idea why.  Food robbed me of so much and i will be damned if I'm going to turn my life back over to it.

It's time to get back to the basics and start showing this disease that my HP is running this show.

Well the lady I asked to be my sponsor isn't available right now.  She's currently sponsoring 5 women and just doesn't have room for another one, which I completely understand.  When she let me know she couldn't do it, I found myself getting so upset and anxious and I just wanted to get off the phone and cry.  She wanted to chat a little bit, and the whole time I was just wanting to hang up so I could cry.

Once I hung up and cried a little bit, I started thinking about what had me so upset and it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I am scared to death that I'm extremely close to picking up the food.  I know that I need to make some changes immediately or I will be back in the food in a bad way. I can feel it, I can sense it, I can just about visualize it in my head.  I'm in danger.  I need help. 

I'm not having food thoughts or planning out a binge or anything - which is good - but I am seeing the warning signals all over the place with the two slips I talked about already and then last night when I put my bowl of blueberries and yogurt in the sink, I got a bit of it on my finger and I licked it before putting it in the sink.  This was at least an hour after I ate, so it wasn't like it was still my snack time.  I have not had any "bites, licks or tastes" in a long, long time.  I simply just don't do that any more.  Except I did last night.  And it was just instinctual, it just happened and there was no thought involved. Hence why I am scared.

I really hate being a food addict some times.

I had a dream last night that scared me to my core.  The scare has stayed with me all day today, too, because it was so real.  In my dream, I ate ice cream for my snack instead of my usual blueberries and yogurt and I immediately was thinking of ways to lie and justify it so that it wasn't a break in my abstinence.  The whole dream was more based on me trying to come up with ways to say that it was okay to have ice cream and the whole sneakiness of the disease just really took over.  I was "back in it" like I had never left. 

Since I've been sick this week, I haven't been to a meeting since Sunday morning.  I think I need to get to one tonight, no matter what.

At the office holiday party tonight, I brought my food scale with me and weighed my meat on it.  I had no less than 6 people standing around, watching and commenting on it.  I felt a bit self-conscious, but just reminded myself that I was taking care of myself and that people probably admired that I was doing it rather than thought I was a freak.  Hopefully, anyway.  LOL

I got so many comments, though. "Oh, you're so disciplined," was the recurring theme.  I guess I am disciplined, but I hate to hear that for some reason.  I always feel like I don't give the program, the 12-steps and my HP any credit when I say, "Yes, I am disciplined."  I guess I don't always have to as long as in my heart I give that credit. 

I just read about a 21 year old Brazilian model who died from complications of anorexia.  My heart is heavy from this news.  That poor girl... not because she is dead (because I believe she's at peace now), but because of the emotional and mental turmoil I know she lived through before she died.  Anorexia is a painful disease.  All of the diseases related to food and eating are.  There needs to be more public awareness about the diseases and about the help that is available for them. 

My disease goes both ways - in the end for me, it was on the other end of the spectrum with the out of control eating. But I spent so much time in that anorexic mode - starving myself at all costs.  I would play games with myself to see if I could lower my caloric intake each day.  I'd feel proud on the days when I could keep my total below 500 and ashamed when it went higher. 

I'm grateful that the recovery I have today deals with all aspects of the disease - from the compulsive overeating to the compulsive undereating because I need help where food is concerned no matter what.  I only wish more people would find the help that I found and that people would stop dying from this disease and its complications.  Whether it's malnutrition from not eating or diabetes, heart problems, etc. from eating too much - there are people dying every single day because they have a problem with food.  It's scary and it's real. 

One of the girls I sponsor just called me.  She has been "in the food" for about a month and has gained 17 pounds in that time.  17 pounds in a month. Tell me that's not powerful.  Some people think that food addiction is not really a disease.  Some say that having a problem with food is nothing compared to having a problem with drugs or alcohol. 

I say they're all deadly, but have varying degrees of how fast the killing takes place.  And to me, having a food addiction can be more emotionally and mentally taxing than other addictions that are more obvious to outsiders.  Because you're always trying to put on this front that you're okay, but you know deep down inside that something is definitely not right.  Thinking and obsessing about food all the time is not healthy and while they may physically live longer than someone who has an untreated drug or alcohol addiction, they are dead inside because their feelings are constantly being numbed by the food.

I'm not diminishing the power of other addictions by any means - they're all extremely harmful in one way or another - I just think that food addiction gets swept under the rug in today's society and I'm tired of it.

One of the foods I don't eat any more is sugar.  That means I don't eat it in any form.  I read all ingredients on labels of products I eat and I stay away from anything that has sugar as an ingredient.  Sugar has many names, too:  sucrose, fructose and glucose are some common ones, but there's a whole slew of other hidden sugars.  To name but a few: Barley Malt, Brown Sugar, Cane Sugar, Corn Sweetener, Corn Syrup, Dextrose, High Fructose corn syrup, Honey, Lactose, Maltose, Mannitol, Sorghum, Sorbitol.  It's scary how many different names are out there for this highly addictive substance.

So let's talk about why I don't eat it.  The main reason is that it's addictive.  I can't eat just a little bit of sugar.  Eating a bite of it means I'll eat a pound of it eventually.  That's just how it is for me.  Eating sugar clouds my mind and distorts my thinking.  It is truly a drug for me.  It numbs my feelings and makes me want to isolate from the world.

I've taken this next snippet from the Wikipedia page on sugar addiction.

In general, to be classified as an addiction, reproducible "double blind" experiments would have to show that the experimental subjects exhibited all three elements that make up the definition of this term: a behavioral pattern of increased intake and changes in brain chemistry; then signs of withdrawal and further changes in brain chemistry upon deprivation; and third, signs of craving and relapse after withdrawal is over.

I definitely experience all three elements of addiction to sugar.  But now that I don't put it in my system at all, I find that my cravings for it have decreased tremendously. 

Sugar has virtually no nutritive qualities and today I choose to use food as fuel for my body.  If it's not providing good fuel, then it has no place in my diet.  I'd love to eliminate sugar from my household, but my husband feels it's too radical a move.  I worry about the amount of sugar in foods my kids eat.  Check out this page on Rotten.com - it's a bit harsh, but the sentiment behind it is real.  Food manufacturers know all they have to do is add sugar to a food and the chances of it being a top seller are good.  The reason?  Because the foods with sugar in them are addictive! It's frightening, actually, how much we as a culture have allowed sugar to rule us.

I know that my approach is pretty hardcore, especially to "normal" eaters, but for people who have a legitimate problem with sugar addiction, being hardcore is the only thing I've seen that works to break the cycle of addiction.  I have seen lots of people diet who say the diets are working for them - only to watch them play the yo-yo game again and again and again.  Yes, the diet works when they are on it; it's simple math.  But how do you stay on it consistently if you've got a real problem with food, especially sugar?  Once you put the offending substance into your system, the cycle is started and it's virtually impossible to not do the yo-yo dance until you eliminate the substance completely.  For me sugar is just one of the substances that trigger the addiction cycle, but it's probably the biggest offender. 

Should you stay away from sugar?  That's personal and something you can only figure out for yourself.  I know people who can eat it without being triggered - my mom is one of them.  I believe that people with addictive personalities are definitely more likely to have problems with sugar.

I think the best idea is to be informed and educated.  Read about sugar and its effects.  Do some tests and see if you experience withdrawal by giving up sugar.  I was astounded when I realized how physically addicted and dependent my body was on different food substances.  You might get the same results - you'll never know until you try it.