I will just go ahead a say it. I gained 1 lb. I knew it was coming and honestly I was not upset about it until about 9pm last night. I weighed in at 5:15 and stuck around for the meeting and then proceed to my friends house to continue working on their deck. I had a wonderful dinner there and then came home. When I got home I was still a bit hungry (or so I thought) so I went to the fridge and grabbed leftover pizza! 3 slices later I was feeling horrible. Which brings me to the real topic of the day. Addiction.
Hello, my name is Matt and I am a foodaholic. I eat for many reasons and hunger is probably last on the list. Lets first take a look at enjoyment. I do enjoy preparing and eating good food. But anymore the enjoyment derived from an unhealthy meal or snack is very short lived. Then there is depression. This one is particularly bad because of the downward spiral effect. You enjoy eating something bad for a short time and then you get upset about it. What better way to cure that depression then eating more bad foods? Yes eating out of depression is not a good thing. Boredom. The worst of my foes. I eat because I am bored. God forbid I read a book or clean the house. Nope, crack open a bag a chips and dig in while the cable TV washes over me. And then we get to hunger. Hmm what is hunger. Do I know it. Do I really understand it? I know I can go a whole day without eating if I am busy and not feel hungry, and yet other times I can't go an hour. Do I eat because I am hungry? I would say probably not.
So I think there is an underlying issue at hand with all of this. I think the I along with many others are stricken with food addiction. An addiction to sugars and fats and salts. An addiction that allows us to rationalize poor decisions. This addiction might be the toughest of all to face. While I have never been an alcohol or drug addict and cannot speak to their experience I see one key difference to the addictions. In order to sustain life one must eat. You do not need alcohol, drugs or tobacco to live. Food and water however are needed. So while trying to battle this addiction we must still eat. We cannot quit cold turkey, and try as we might to eliminate the fats and sugars from our diets we simply cannot.
So my question is this for today. Are you addicted to food? I feel that I am. How are you overcoming it?
1 comment:
My own personal theory on this is that I'm not addicted but have allowed myself to turn to food in all the ways you have listed. Eating is such a pleasant and easy way to make ourselves feel better that it's understandable that we would turn to as often as possible. Let's face it...if we were those people who could seemingly eat to our heart's content without gaining weight, we'd eat with pleasure all day.
Part of the answer is educating ourselves to see just when we are turning to food and for what reasons...you've clearly been figuring that out. And the next part is coming up with a plan on how to deal with those situations differently...what we will substitute for the food. And the final part is gathering up the self-discipline to follow that plan. We can all do it...we just have to gather the will to make it happen.
I always think of myself turning to the inner-child who is saying "I want!" and the adult me having to put her foot down and saying "But you shouldn't!".
Having said all that...I know for a fact that I get the shakes and feel horrible the first few days that I go back to healthy eating after consuming a lot of highly processed carbs for awhile. "Coming down" from sugar is probably pretty close to coming off a drug...as close as I ever want to come.
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