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So sorry I fell short on my promise of an update over this last weekend - since I know you were all waiting on the edge of your seat for it - but this is the first chance I've had to get on the computer (and I'm at work... go figure).
I had a good L-O-N-G five-day weekend this past week and kept pretty busy but not as active as I wished. Food is still kicking my ass and it's so hard for other people to understand how imprisoning food can be. Someone left me a comment the other day that really hit it on the head for me:
LRS said...Food being more addictive than cigarettes? Wild claim but I think there's some truth to that. Food has some powerful associations with it and it differs with each person but in the end food is addicting... at least to me. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say a certain food makes me feel good or it can take me back to my childhood or it can remind of grandma's house. With happy associations like that, who wouldn't want to food around?
Annie - I came to your site to read as much as I could about an honest review regarding Shakeology. I'm leaving your site even more convinced that food is more addictive than cigarettes. I quit smoking 1 year and 10 months ago and have no desire to ever start again (I’d hate to have to go through the quitting a second time ; ). I smoked for nearly 10 years and it was absolutely my favorite pastime. I used to say it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but that was until a year after I quit that I decided I needed to get my binge eating under control. I'm still working on it and sometimes during moments of weakness I worry that I will never have a healthy relationship with food. That being said, I refuse to quit my efforts. Even though we aren’t there yet, we are still closer than we were yesterday. To quote Jimmy Dugan, “If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great.”
The point in me sharing this with you is to help you to feel you are not alone. Every single person out there can say there have been times in their life where after many steps forward they have unfortunately taken a few steps back. Therefore; Honey, you fell off the wagon. Dust yourself off, hop back on and don't look back! I’m rooting for you :)
Unfortunately most of those foods are what we would consider "comfort foods"... fatty, sugary, holiday-treaty types of food. For me it's ice cream. Growing up my parents never really kept sweets around in the house. We were more of beef-jerkey, chips and crackers kind of snackers but the one sweet that we always had around: ICE CREAM!
Yup, even to this day I only eat salty/savory snacks and pretty much stay away from the sweets. No candy, pastries, baked goods or even soda but there is a permanent space reserved for ICE CREAM in my freezer. Ice cream just takes me back to everything good! Not the best thing to be "addicted" to when you're trying to get healthy.
So how do I get over this?
Pretty much the same any addict would get over their drug of choice: rehab. I've tried the cold-turkey way but that only makes me go crazy and binge like a starving person. So I'm approaching this addictive habit as if I were a true addict*. Will do some light reading on the topic and see if I can come up with a substituted method or plan for getting me off the ice (cream)! (Oh come on, it's a joke!)
*I do not mean to offend anyone with a true addiction problem but I seriously need to find something that works for me. If food is addicting (and many professionals will say it is) I think treating it like an actual addiction may help me.
4 comments:
In my last job, I worked with a lot of people with drug addictions.. the only time I ever saw them successfully recover is when they had a strong reason. Not just one that was good enough, but one that was too powerful to ignore. I haven't found my reason to overcome food addiction yet, but I hope to.
Annie - that comment could have been written by me. I smoked for 10 years, 25 smokes a day in the end! I quit 4 years 1 month ago. The problem with food addiction, why it is harder than cig addiction is this: The reason I haven't started smoking again is A) I vowed to not have another puff ever again. I know that one cigarette is dangerous.. the same reason I cannot have one peice of chocolate. and B)I vowed to not ever buy a pack of smokes ever again. Can't say that about food, or ice cream (what would my poor kids do without our twice annual tub of ice cream?) Anyway, she's right. Food addiction is like cigarettes, except much harder to control long term. If you quit cigarettes for any long term amount of time, it's not that easy to slink back into smoking. It takes a choice to seek it out, buy it, ask for it... but food - we are constantly surrounded by it! It's unavoidable. *Sigh* We can do it though. BE STRONG!
I used to be a food addict too, at least until this past July. And I will say, that the more I tried to "fix" it, the worse it got. I began transfering my addiction of food to a renewed love and addiction to God. I am glad to say I am HEALED!
Hey Annie! Glad to see you back in blogger land! I'm sorry to hear you're struggling, but I know you'll find the strength to figure it out. Maybe taking it slowly at first will help. I do believe food is an addiction for some, so I think it's worth investigating. I think my switch from eating emotionally and only for pleasure to eating for health (and still loving food) just occurred over the last year or so. What got me was actually trying to go local/sustainable. I focus on all natural foods and organics, and it's actually helped a lot. I think it's probably that I switched the #1 most important attribute of my food from price or taste to where it came from.
Good luck! Take it slow... you'll be back to P90X status in no time!
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