This has been me for many years now. When things got bad I'd have an overwhelming desire for every high calorie food in the house. I'd have a little voice telling me that this really isn't a good idea, how will I feel tomorrow?
A much louder internal voice says 'I don't care' 'It doesn't matter' and I would be eating. I've family problems with my first baby dying at a couple of days old, a son on the autistic spectrum who has had two long term hospital stays for mental health issues, and a husband who is autistic too with very poor health. More stuff, recent bereavements, more family stuff .....
I've had several substantial weight losses but as soon as another crisis hits than I'd be back hiding food wrappers down the back of the settee, eating everything that wasn't nailed down.
Having been in counseling for some years now, I've identified a lot of the history and reasoning behind it all but still wasn't changing my behaviour. But more recently I've noticed that I don't turn to food so much, that I talk about my worries, acknowledge them to myself, write about them here sometimes ... its been a gradual change as I've got more emotionally strong myself. Recently I had a bad binge, and later realised it was something to do with one of DH's habits. I hadn't wanted to acknowledge this to myself, certainly not him and had turned to the old coping strategy of eating so much it hurt.
I also listen to free podcasts by Renee Stephens, who works under the trademark of Inside Out Weight Loss. She works from the point of view that changes in our body will not happen until we have internal changes. She also says weight loss should be a pleasurable experience as we do what is good for us, making the choices that benefit ourselves. Some of the podcasts have given me very useful insights but the long term slog of going to see my counselor every week has been most beneficial. Sometimes I will talk about an understanding I have reached because of what I have been reading or listening to. Now I'm losing weight for what must be the 4th or 5th time, I've lost count but did a very rough estimate of how many stones I have lost over the last ten years or so and it is frightening.
Diets on their own are definitely not the answer, we need to address why it is we over eat. In fact, research on weight gain after loss shows that restricting calories alone is very far from being the answer. Some experiments done with volunteers (conscientious objectors AFAIK) around the time of WW11 shows this very clearly. Experiments that are not repeatable for ethical reasons, have a look at this. The calorie intake of the semi starvation period was around 1500 kc, similar to what many restricted intake diets give.
This is a page all about the experiment but I'm going to copy and paste extracts as well. Leaving out the maths, as its an area I tend to skip. In another report I read but cannot find now, it said that the men obsessed about food, stole it when they could, collected photos and images of food ...
Minnesota Starvation Experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[h=2]Goals and methods[/h] The primary objective of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment was to study in detail the physical and psychological effects of prolonged, famine-like semi-starvation on healthy men, as well as their subsequent rehabilitation from this condition. To achieve these goals, the 12-month study was divided into four distinct phases:
- Control Period (12 weeks): This was a standardization period when the subjects received a controlled diet of approximately 3,200 calories of food each day. The diet of the subjects who were close to their “ideal” weight was adjusted so as to maintain caloric balance, while the diets of the underweight and overweight individuals was adjusted so as to bring them close to their ideal weight. On average, the group ended up slightly below their “ideal” weight.[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP]:74[/SUP] In addition, the clinical staff of the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene routinely conducted a series of anthropometric, physiological and psychological tests designed to characterize the physical and mental health of each participant under normal conditions.
- Semi-Starvation Period (24 weeks): During the 6-month semi-starvation period, each subject’s dietary intake was cut to approximately 1,560 calories per day. Their meals were composed of foods that were expected to typify the diets of people in Europe during the latter stages of the war: potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, bread and macaroni.
- Restricted Rehabilitation Period (12 weeks): The participants were divided into four groups of eight men; each group received a strictly-controlled rehabilitation diet, consisting of one of four different caloric energy levels. In each energy-level group, the men were further subdivided into subgroups receiving differing protein and vitamin supplements regimes. In this manner, the clinical staff examined various energy, protein and vitamin strategies for re-nourishing the subjects from the conditions of famine induced during the semi-starvation period.
- Unrestricted Rehabilitation Period (8 weeks): For the final rehabilitation period, caloric intake and food content was unrestricted but carefully recorded and monitored.
During the starvation period, the subjects received two meals per day designed to induce the same level of nutritional stress for each participant. Since each subject had distinct metabolic characteristics, the diet of each man was adjusted throughout the starvation period to produce roughly a 25% total weight loss over the 24-week period.
The researchers tracked each subject's weight as a function of time elapsed since the beginning of the starvation period. For each subject, the weight versus time plot was expected—as well as enforced—to form a particular curve, the
prediction weight-loss curve, whose characteristics were decided before the commencement of the experiment. The postulated curves turned out to be quite predictive for most subjects. If a subject did veer off his curve in any given week, his caloric intake for the next week would be adjusted, by varying the amount of bread and potatoes, to bring him back to the curve; however, the required adjustments were usually minor.[SUP]
[2][/SUP][SUP]:75[/SUP] The shapes of the curves were chosen “based on the concept that the rate of weight loss would progressively decrease and reach a relative plateau” at the final weight.[SUP]
[2][/SUP][SUP]:74[/SUP]
(Big Snip)
[h=2]Results[/h] The full report of results from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment was published in 1950 in a two-volume, 1,385-page text entitled
The Biology of Human Starvation (University of Minnesota Press). The 50-chapter work contains an extensive analysis of the physiological and psychological data collected during the study, and a comprehensive literature review.
Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis as measured using the
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Indeed, most of the subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression.[SUP]
[1][/SUP][SUP]:161[/SUP] There were extreme reactions to the psychological effects during the experiment including self-mutilation (one subject amputated three fingers of his hand with an axe, though the subject was unsure if he had done so intentionally or accidentally).[SUP]
[5][/SUP] Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase. Sexual interest was drastically reduced, and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation.[SUP]
[1][/SUP][SUP]:123–124[/SUP] The participants reported a decline in concentration, comprehension and judgment capabilities, although the standardized tests administered showed no actual signs of diminished capacity. There were marked declines in physiological processes indicative of decreases in each subject’s
basal metabolic rate (the energy required by the body in a state of rest), reflected in reduced body temperature, respiration and heart rate. Some of the subjects exhibited
edema in their extremities, presumably due to decreased levels of plasma proteins given that the body's ability to construct key proteins like albumin is based on available energy sources.
[h=2]Related work[/h] One of the crucial observations of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment discussed by a number of researchers in the nutritional sciences—including Ancel Keys—is that the physical effects of the induced semi-starvation during the study closely approximate the conditions experienced by people with a range of
eating disorders such as
anorexia nervosa and
bulimia nervosa. As a result of the study it has been postulated that many of the profound social and psychological effects of these disorders may result from undernutrition, and recovery depends on physical re-nourishment as well as psychological treatment.[SUP]
[1][/SUP][SUP]:199–200[/SUP]
