Thread: How are you dealing with your addiction?

I've just joined this forum today, and I have been reading loads of the threads before i post, but I just had to on this one, as it just makes so much sense to me...

I am totally and utterly addicted to food well more to eating... I looove sitting down to a huuuge plate of pasta or something, and when i watch some TV or a film i want to be nibbling on something... I think about food constantly! I could quite happily sit and eat as much as i could all day, every day!

The sense is there! i have it in my head! Food is FUEL! that's all it is, you don't need that much to survive, no where near as much as we are all so used to now a days.. I don't even move around that much, so it's not like i need much fuel.

You know I would find it so much easier if we didn't have to actually eat.... when people are addicted to drugs or smoking or something they cut it out altogether! but we need something! we need to put some kind of fuel into our mouths... so there is no way round it

Very interesting reading how other people think the same way as me, it's nice hearing people being so open about how they feel they are so addicted to food but know in their heads it's silly :S

Hi Smiley Bon
I totally agree. I was just thinking the other day how ANNOYING food is (haha) and how I would like not to have to worry about it at all. It is just so annoying to have to deal with this... especially when I eat on auto-pilot and then think "omg what did I just do" I really hate that because I know I am totally out of control. My hubby can take or leave food (maybe a bit too much actually... sometimes he doesnt eat until 2pm... I dont think that's good... but part of me is envious as well!) and I think about it all the time.
I am really sick of it. I have been reading about this LL around the boards, what is it exactly? it seems to have helped a lot of people here.

Hiya,
Can't tell you about LL, but I do CD which is also a very low cal diet and takes food out of the picture. It's a bit cheaper & longer established than LL but does not have the counselling aspect. Try posting on CD & LL forums on minis to find out more, or google their websites.

For me, taking food out of the picture has been a huge help. Yes, the weight falls off, but also I've felt focused and energetic and sharp, which is a new one for me! And I have had the time to work on tactics for beating my emotional/ compulsive eating. Not saying I have solved it yet, but I am getting there. Can't praise CD enough... it's been a lifesaver for me.
xxx

I feel the same about Cambridge. Taking food out of the equation was the answer for me

Hey Katycakes,
thank you for your posts to me
am I right in thinking that CD starts off with shakes? i have tried one here called Tony Ferguson which is from the chemist and is like that... I lasted a day haha. I was so starving, I was dizzy, and felt like I was going to faint I actually do really love healthy food and would like to have a diet that is mainly natural foods (grains, nuts, fruit, lean meats etc) but my problem seems to be snacks like muffins, chocolates, and when my husband says "let's order pizza" I cant say no. A few years ago I went on a "diet" (I was just eating healthy food regularly, I need to eat every few hours, I guess its a blood sugar thing) and I found it quite easy for some reason! I lost weight quickly and easily and felt SO great!!!! I just dont get why I cant do that again! the reason I gained it back was, (well apart from the obvious: eating too much of the wrong foods!) I was living overseas at the time, and maybe that was what helped me, I didnt really have any "friends" to go out for dinner with, I made my own lunch for work, etc... I started gaining when I came home for a month and saw all my friends, met them all out and gained a couple of kgs but didnt think much of it cos it wasnt much but I guess I got the taste for things again and have got worse since and it has turned into a binge thing... although I went to a psych last year about it and that did help me quite a bit (didnt lose weight though) and in a few weeks I am going to see a doctor as well, she's a GP but also a naturopathic doctor... she will make me go for blood tests and the whole thing... its a 45 minute consult... so hopefully she can help me, that's where I'm going with conquering my addiction at the moment I cant keep my head in the sand any more, I have to find out if I have any health issues... I have been too scared to go before. Thank you for replying and trying to help, i really appreciate it xx

PS: But, I will have a look at the Cambridge and LL threads, I will give everything a shot or at least a read

Hello Smiley i like your name!!

Sorry i know nothing about LL or CD :S I do like the idea of cutting out food altogether... but i haaaate the feeling of being hungry! So i am going for a healthy eating, and i snack on fruit and sticks of carrot and cucumber and things I am wanting to get healthy as well as lose weight too...

Hope you manage to find something that works for you

Just to input about LL, yeah it's the same as CD but with counselling. You get 4 nutrition packs to have a day and nothing else apart from black tea & coffee, and you can have unlimited water flavourings.

It's a lot stricter than CD in my opinion, which is a good and a bad thing. If your bmi is obese then you do the LL foundation program which is set at 14 weekly sessions/13 weeks. If bmi is overweight then you can do the LL lite program where you have 3 packs and a small protein/veg meal a day. That's only if you have 1 or 2 stone to lose though and it goes in 4 week blocks.
CD I think is more flexible and you can do the SS+ or higher plan if you're struggling on the SS. Also they have more flavours of their nutrition packs.

this thread is pretty insightful.

having read all the posts i realise that although not quite there yet, i think i am displaying traits of a food addiction. it has given me the tools to combat this before it gets out of hand.

thank you guys, for all your personal thoughts, it helps so much to be able to admit this - no-one wants to say it out loud, but on here we can. and i feel stronger for it.

Hi all,

I first read this post a few weeks ago, and stumbled across it again yesterday, and it finally dawned on me that I do have an addiction to food, and one which I need to deal with.

I used to think nothing of going to KFC and ordering a family bucket, and I'd eat the lot. I would order a family bucket because, to me, it seemed more logical than just ordering a meal for one. My logic being that if I ordered a family feast the person serving me wouldn't think it was for me, but they would know that the meal would be for me. I was the same with McDonalds, chip shops, takeaways I'd never just order one meal - always two - for the same reason.

I got to a point where I hated eating in front of people, so I would eat in secret, I'd have a couple of ryvitas at work for lunch and piece of fruit and then binge at home, I've hidden wrappers, thrown rubbish in a neighbours bin, all sorts of things.

However, I love to prepare food, I can cook, bake for hours, I can watch UKTV Food for hours at a time, I love to be in the kitchen, and it makes me happy - making Christmas dinner is my idea of heaven.

It is my relationship with food which worries me though. Currently I am on CD and abstaining from food for the forseeable future, and while that doesn't worry me (at the moment) I am worrying about how I will control my dreadful eating habits once I start to re-introduce conventional food.

When I was doing LL I said the one thing I don't understand is how I can't control something so fundamental. All I want to be able to to is not have an unhealthy relationship with food. I'm hoping that I can find the answers on here and within me, so that I can break this addiction.

xxx

Rach, I identify with the eating i secret bit... that was me, too. We can beat it, honey.

Smiley, hope you get to a solution you can work with. I am veggie & love wholefoods, my diet would be v. healthy if it hadn't been for the chocolate, cake, biscuits, sugar & eventually pasta, bread, butter etc I stuffed myself full of. I have lost weight too on wholefood 'eating healthy' kicks, and on things like slimming world, but in the end nothing worked, the self-destruct impulse over-rode it all. And that was when I hit rock bottom & found CD & began to work my way back up.

It is just shakes/soups to start with, but I didn't feel hungry & nobody could have been more amazed than me about that! It's not for everyone, but for me it really has been amazing. Good luck honey in finding something that will work for you.
xxx

Hi Rach

I totally identify with you... I too have ordered two portions of chips from chip shops before so the woman thinks I'm buying for me and someone else... and also so i can then have 2 portions, even though i am stuffed after 1 portion...

And i also hate eating in front of people :S I sit in an office so I always think people are staring at me, and when i eat something bad are judging me :S

And i've hidden wrappers in the bottom of the bin

Well... it's good to face up to these things to realise the extent of the addiction I suppose :S I haven't admitted that stuff to anyone before!!

But I am a new woman now well I am hoping :S ha. I am doing good with my salads and fruit and wraps at work and I can't remember the last time I went to the chippy or had chocolate wrappers to hide wooo.

Hope you're well miss? How are you getting on?

i too have stuffed choccy and icecream wrappers inside boxes in the bin etc. especially when young and living at home as my mum battled to keep me thin and failed miserably. she is naturally thin, although now she's approaching 48 she's starting to moan about spreading, ha. i WILL be thinner than my mother on my wedding day :P

abz xx

This is such a difficult topic for me, as it is for everyone that has responded so far.
A year ago I was that person who would HIDE wrappers, plan my binging around the times when my boyfriend wasn't home, or even when he went out the room I'd be in that cupboard looking for something to stuff down myself as quick as possible. The more unhappy I became with myself, the more I turned to food especially when I felt lonely and bored. After all, food is a friend that never abandons you. Food is always there for you no matter what. ... wrong.

Abstinence on LL and group sessions with counselling actually helped me think about it properly. Why was I acting this way? In the end it's my own inadequacy to face my problems that made me turn to an easy answer, a quick fix. But no problem can be avoided forever, it will always come back unless it's resolved. I know this now.

My BMI is now normal, and is at it's lowest than it's been since I was born. I have always been a fat child, at the age of 14 I was size 18-20. I know a lot of food as comfort has come from my family - they have never been great at solving problems - the answer is always usually 'Have something to eat!'. You're in pain? Have a cake. You had a bad day? Have some chocolate. You're feeling ill? Have something tasty. ...
Now I know I *used* to be a huge pasta addict, used to adore just chewing on something all the time. ... A 9 month period of abstinence made me see that I don't have to be that fat girl anymore because I could change. I can see I'm an addict and I freely admit it. After abstinence I actually SEE that get more energy from eating an apple in the day than eating a piece of toast, and my mood is definitely better! I no longer care much for pasta to be honest.

I quit smoking about a month ago and I get cravings still. I'm on LLLite plan which actually doesn't feel like a diet compared to the mainsteam LL plan at all. But I do get cravings for starchy/sweet food, except that I have no escape this time from the cravings! This is as pure as it gets because whenever I tried running from food I'd run straight to my friend Nicotine. Now I can't do that anymore and have to face my food demon face-to-face and ask it the most direct questions that I can;
WHAT DO YOU WANT? WHY HAVE YOU COME? HOW CAN I DESTROY YOU?

I ask these questions every time, and usually I may still want whatever I was craving, however I thought about the emotion attached to it, and I work on my feelings instead of longing for food. I don't run from my cravings and neither should you... You just need to admit and allow your feelings to come to the surface, admit that you're feeling vulnerable. It's hard to admit that you need a bit of help as well sometimes, don't be afraid to ask for a hug.

I deal with secret eating habits by actually announcing when I have something to eat, whether there is someone to hear it or not. My boyfriend thought it was a little odd at first, but I explained it to him and he was happy that I had shared something that was so personal to me. After a while you will find you no longer need to announce it because you'd come in the habit of not having to hide it. After all, secret eating often revolves around guilt and shame... which would no longer be there.

I space out my meal times if I'm caught in-between I have an apple or some vegetables. If there's not much time to go I WAIT for the right time to get especially hungry and feel proud that I've waited!


However, there is ONE more thing I need to deal with... which is DEPRAVATION. How do you get around it? The reason I feel that many of us go back to our old habits is that we often feel on healthy eating plans, on abstinence we DEPRIVE ourselves of that cream cake/chocolate/crisps - whatever it is for you. It may be a conscious or a subconscious feeling, that yearning, a want that is unsatisfied because you're not allowing yourself to have it. This is a serious issue for me personally since I feel it is the last hurdle I need to jump across.
I have partly begun to deal with it by not cutting out my triggers completely, but allowing myself a small portion every other day (I buy a small bar of Galaxy which is 250 kcal each) and have it in the evening. I don't actually think about it at all until it's time for 'dessert' after dinner! So, I have a controlled portion, in moderation.

I think when it comes down to it, we need to accept our flaws, not run from them. If you have a problem with cream cakes, then have one. But learn to have ONE and learn to have satisfaction from knowing that you have controlled yourself. It will come easier with time I think.


Any other ideas as to how to deal with this hurdle?

Brilliant post there Minerva You spoke a lot of truth, and it is excellent to face up to these things, and I have done a lot of that while reading people's posts on this forum.

Everything in moderation is the key. I think that is why I have opted for the healthy eating diet type, I want it to make sense and be a change of thinking about food and a change of lifestyle for me rather than a quick fix. I need to face up to how and why I eat, so I can keep it up for the rest of my life. I want to be healthy as well as lose weight.

Thanks for your thoughts anyway, it was good to read