Finding your reason for food addiction and obsession

[bluesky]

I had the same issue - we only had treats very occasionally and it would all be gone quickly. So I learnt to stuff my face and ignore any feelings of stomache as the food/ fizzy drink would be gone - usually it was only bought out for guests so literally just that meal. As soon as I was an adult, I was continually 'treating' myself. I still do over 'treat' myself and hope to get better at managing this

[SethP]

I know what happened to by my downfall. My father was crippled in the oilfield when I was 7 y ears old. Up till that point all the pictures you see of the family I was "NORMAL". Fast forward past two years of not being enough food for the family to the point where he got his little settlement and we started our own garden. From that point on I would eat entirely to much. I can remember me and a friend eating 4 large pizzas at one sitting. I gained 100lbs in my freshman year of high school. There was a promise that I made to myself when I was younger was that once I was able to work I would NEVER do without anything I wanted to eat. I have been working since im 13 years old and I kept that promise to the point that I was digging an early garve with a knife and fork. Today I still purchase more food then can be eaten at one time and we take it home for eating later. I have become the king of the take home box. My wife and I try to share as much as we can so we dont have many leftovers but it happens. I sometimes wish there was a surgery to fix our brains at the same time we fix our stomachs. Godspeed to everyone on their journey.

[toutdesuite]

I had a similar situation where there was feasting and then famine during my childhood. It happened again with my ex-husband because he wouldn't work. So when I could afford it, I ate what I wanted, when I wanted it, and ate all I wanted even when I was full. Well, you know the rest of the story.

I'm currently attending Overeaters Anonymous -- they advocate no sugar or flour (addictive foods). I'm also doing a Bible study regarding setting boundaries with food. For me, sugar was my weakness. Flour not so much unless it was warm bread and butter. So, as of now, and this may change, I'm omitting sugar and bread out of my diet.

I still like sweets but they're sugar-free now. Coincidentally, I recently picked up some Light & Fit Greek yogurt and thew it out after taking a couple bites. You see, it was too sweet for me. Then I looked at the ingredients and learned they use fructose to sweeten it. Fructose is just another form of sugar.

[incredibleshrnkngshirly]

I had a similar situation where there was feasting and then famine during my childhood. It happened again with my ex-husband because he wouldn't work. So when I could afford it, I ate what I wanted, when I wanted it, and ate all I wanted even when I was full. Well, you know the rest of the story.

I'm currently attending Overeaters Anonymous -- they advocate no sugar or flour (addictive foods). I'm also doing a Bible study regarding setting boundaries with food. For me, sugar was my weakness. Flour not so much unless it was warm bread and butter. So, as of now, and this may change, I'm omitting sugar and bread out of my diet.

I still like sweets but they're sugar-free now. Coincidentally, I recently picked up some Light & Fit Greek yogurt and thew it out after taking a couple bites. You see, it was too sweet for me. Then I looked at the ingredients and learned they use fructose to sweeten it. Fructose is just another form of sugar.

May I ask if you sweeten anything you eat with Splenda? I was told it was not a natural sweetener and full of Chemicals. I started using real sugar again for my coffee, cottage cheese, and such but I think I've done more harm than good to myself. I tried to give up coffee altogether but that didn't work out.

[niamh]

Hi Shirley - have you considered giving up sweetening things altogether either with sugar or with artificial sweetener. I know it sounds like a horrid idea but our palates get used to sweetness and we crave it. If you give up sweetening things your tastebuds adjust and you start appreciating the other flavours. It's a bit like giving up salt on foods - at first people complain it's bland and then they find they reprogramme to notice all sorts of subtle flavours.

I haven't done that, but I don't have a particularly sweet tooth. Chocolate is really my main vice which I still have in small amounts, but if I drink tea I drink it unsweetened and certainly wouldn't sweeten things like cottage cheese and yoghurt.

[ACE]

Then I looked at the ingredients and learned they use fructose to sweeten it. Fructose is just another form of sugar.

Actually Fructose is now on labels in place of high fructose corn syrup so its SO much worse than just sugar. Another advertising trick big food is trying to get those of us who arent staying current on the changing names of food ingredients to eat it and think its no big deal

[michangel2015]

I too was sexually molested and beaten and have had tons of therapy about it. I have also done a load of research on food addiction and obesity issues. The professionals in this field know a lot and know very little. Approx. 85% of women with food issues were sexually molested and there is a direct correlation between the weight of the obese woman and the closeness of her molester. There is also a lot of research that implies that there are genetic components to this issue. A penchant for being bigger and a penchant for being addicted to sugar and other highly refined (usually white) carbohydrates. I think I got it all...I was born obese; 9 lbs and only 18 inches long. At 18 mos. the pediatrician told my mother to put that obese baby on a diet! I too grew up doing Jack Lalanne w my mother in the early mornings. My mother fought her weight but I think more in the ordinary American way...that is she was never obese and fluctuated between an 8 and a 12 in clothing sizes. To this day, my mother counts calories (age 91!) and exercises. She can't seem to ever understand why I can't just do what I need to do. Even when I've had great success at weight loss (in a support group for food addicts I lost 255 lbs and kept it off for almost 10 yrs) she kept asking me when I was going to lose more and why did I still have to be so careful about what I ate; "surely you know well enough that you could splurge every now and then?" My mother worried more about MY weight than her own; putting me on my first diet when I was 8. At the same time she gave me a children's cook book and taught me to bake. By 11 I was the main cook for the family and therefore could sneak food all the time! At 11 my father raped me, I read an article in Seventeen Magazine about models who cleverly kept themselves from gaining weight by making themselves throw up! I also saw ads on TV with Dana Andrews for AA and mused about such an organization for foodaholics. Little did I know. Drugs and alcohol became addictions on the way to combating the weight and while I tried and tried to purge like those models I never could do it until I learned accidentally that consuming a condiment of one kind would make me throw up. Then it became a daily 4 or 5 times a day thing....but NEVER did I get thin from it. I remember in 6th grade being weighed in front of the whole class and having my teacher gasp and say, " you are the fattest kid in the school!" I was. From pictures I know that I matured very early on (periods by age 10) and reached my full height by age 13. (well except for some weird anomally that put on 2 inches of height after I was 18!!!) I was bigger than most of my fellow students but I did not look fat...sometimes I looked a little chubby but most of my teen years I was pretty cute I think ( :-D I dated and then married a man who way outate me every time and who had also struggled with his weight and a nagging mother. We were like kids in a candy shop when we got married. Suddenly no one told us what to do anymore and so we ate to our heart's content and I gained 100 lbs the first year we were married. He gained only about 50 lbs. of course. Whenever we lost weight at the same time (it seems lie we were always taking turns here and never thin together) sex improved and got too scary for me and so we both turned back to eating as a way to stop all that. We both went to treatment for food addiction and both had individual and couples therapy throughout the years. After the 3rd big weight loss (him 130 and me 255) he went back out and didn't tell me. I found out and confronted him and he started hitting me. I ran away and we stayed apart for 8 yrs. Now we live together off and on though we keep our separate apartments and finances and are legally separated. He had a RnY 3 yrs ago and lost 180 lbs. I am still trying to get down far enough to have the sleeve. I know it is ONLY a tool and they are not going to operate on my mind. I have interviewed the 12 people in my food addiction fellowship who all had bariatric surgery after losing and regaining over 100 lbs. While all 12 of them have gained a little back after their initial losses after surgery; every one of them says they would do it again in a heartbeat! I thought that bariatric surgery was somehow wrong. I thought that it was a copout or taking the "easier, softer way" and not really trusting in God to help. In the fellowship I still go to (although now I also attend special focus meetings for those who focus on bariatric surgery) we are taught that our problem is spiritual with physcial and mental ramifications. I am not certain that I totally agree with that. I think that obesity is a very complex issue and that it is not just caused by child abuse or genetics or lack of a connection to a Higher Power but that all of these things come into play. My tools today are: 1. A clear plan of eating: what, how much and when. 2. Service to others to get out of myself and off the pity pot. Also keeps me busy so I don't eat as much. 3. Accountablity. That is I have several people to whom I talk every day about whether I'm using these tools and what I have or haven't eaten. 4. Therapy--ongoing. 5. Plan of action: this may be my exercise plan or my to do list but I try to have some structure to my days so that I don't just lay around and eat. 6. Reading spiritual literature. 7. Journaling and writing also about what I read. 8. Gatherings: I attend church and Bible study and meetings with other food addicts and bariatric surgery patients so that I don't isolate myself and increase my depression and/or eating. 9. Reaching out when I want to blow it. I call people and/or interact w people online so that I have someone who knows me and who understands some of the stuff I've been thru and can challenge me to not keep hurting myself. These are people like you guys...who care and listen and comfort. I am now going to add that 10th tool which will be the surgery to slow down my volume eating and maybe prevent me from regaining so much so fast.
LOL...I also didn't mean to write a book. Thanks so much.

I was also abused as a child, but did not take to food as an emotional eating problem then, it wasn't until I was 18. I have had years of therapy for the abuse but never for being an emotional eater. Now that I have had surgery I find that I am a graze eater but not for things with sugar, I am eating protein or Popsicles. I'm nervous I am not going to get the results for having my weight loss surgery. I am only a month out, and I have the smarts to know I am grazing. I'm at a loss on how to stop it. Therapy again?

[Ann2]

When you say "Popsicles," do you mean the sugar kind or the sugar-free kind?

Honestly, I think that sucking on sugar-free Popsicles is just another way to get liquids in your body. I really wouldn't call that grazing. But I could be wrong.

I certainly can't say whether you "need" therapy or how much help it would be for you. Although to my knowledge I was never abused as a child (unless you count the irritation of having 6 younger siblings!) the counseling I've had with my own therapist has been so beneficial across a wide array of topics, including ways to avoid nibbling at night. I expect if you had therapy around grazing issues, your solutions would be different from mine.

Very best to you.

[butterflybecca]

Oh honey that's heartbreaking. You look great hon.

[sraebaer]

OK, I have way too much time on my hands being a certified insomniac, however I was curious about this very old post. I looked up everyone and all are gone from this site except ACE, Ann2, and Butterflybecca (who just posted). Where is everyone? Did they regain? Did they keep off their weight and are doing great without this site? Hope it's the 2nd option.

The stories here are heartbreaking. I am the odd duck here. I had a fantastic childhood with a mom who cooked healthy meals every night. Dad came home from work and the meal was on the table, sort of like Leave it to Beaver. No one in my family was overweight. No one was abusive. I have also had/am having a wonderful adult life. I am totally blessed, amazing husband, great kids, and now adorable grandkids. Blessed to be able to retire early and be able to see the world. I only got fat because I loved carbs. I can't blame anything except myself for eating the wrong stuff.

[AnnieG]

OK, I have way too much time on my hands being a certified insomniac, however I was curious about this very old post. I looked up everyone and all are gone from this site except ACE, Ann2, and Butterflybecca (who just posted). Where is everyone? Did they regain? Did they keep off their weight and are doing great without this site? Hope it's the 2nd option.

The stories here are heartbreaking. I am the odd duck here. I had a fantastic childhood with a mom who cooked healthy meals every night. Dad came home from work and the meal was on the table, sort of like Leave it to Beaver. No one in my family was overweight. No one was abusive. I have also had/am having a wonderful adult life. I am totally blessed, amazing husband, great kids, and now adorable grandkids. Blessed to be able to retire early and be able to see the world. I only got fat because I loved carbs. I can't blame anything except myself for eating the wrong stuff.

I also wonder where the folks went. Hopefully they went on to healthy busy lives. I did have an unspeakable early life (in the past and handled through therapy and time) -- but I didn't gain weight until after my 4th child (7th pregnancy) and I went on some meds that just piled on pounds.

I do eat when I'm bored, but I am not bored very often. I find asking if I am thirsty or tired, rather than needing to eat, I find that's sometimes the case. And burying old things "dead" is way better than being haunted. Therapy and journaling, and wonderful trustworthy friends make all the difference!

[Brennyss]

I started to eating disorders when my cousine came to visit us, and she used to verbally abused me. Somehow my mother started to ecourage her and support her with it. I was a normal kid, but then I started to eat a lot

[sophiemurray]

Stress, anxiety, depression.