Get Rid Of Food Addiction. Personal Experience

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

I was addicted. I was addicted to food. Not anymore. And now I myself work with eating disorders.

I have always loved to eat and have never been skinny, although I was not particularly fat either. An ordinary plump child. As a child, food was a source of pleasure for me and it happened that sometimes, in an effort to get more pleasure, I overeat.

From the age of eight I began to feel fat and generally huge. Although in reality I was just tall and slightly overweight. I don’t remember anything specific, but for sure I didn’t suddenly start thinking about myself like that, most likely I was teased, as children usually do. Perhaps it was only a few times, but they made an impression, although they were erased from memory.

In physical education, I was always the first in the ranks of girls, and since boys at this age are smaller than girls, I was the largest in the class. Building in physical education was a difficult test for me, I always wanted to somehow shrink, I slouched and shrank in order to take up less space in the space.

Then I did not understand the connection between food and weight. I just wanted to be smaller, but I didn't know that you can become thinner if you eat less.

At about the age of 15, I began to understand that weight is associated with food and that if you eat less, you can lose weight. And she approached this radically. I just tried not to eat almost anything at all. I spent 10 days eating tomatoes and lost 5 kg. And my weight with the growth of 178 cm, 70 kg (oh, horror!) Became 65, which in my opinion was still not enough, although a little better.

And from that moment it all started. My life turned into a series of limitations and disruptions. I perceived food as the worst enemy from which you need to stay away. And I held on with all my strength, but since the body still needs food at least sometimes, from time to time I broke down and then I could eat a pan of pasta or a whole baking sheet of pizza. After that, I was very angry with myself and felt guilty. I learned that you can induce vomiting and get rid of the food you have eaten. Fortunately, I didn’t succeed, otherwise I’m sure I would have gotten hooked on it. But instead, I thought of drinking a laxative. The effect was, in my opinion, not sufficient to compensate for what I had eaten, but at least something.

Once I got a job and was glad that I would be there all day, far from food and nothing threatened me. And in what horror I came when on the first working day I was proudly informed that they brought free lunches to their office for everyone. In general, I did not work there.

I stopped worrying about my height and even became proud of him after I completed my training at a modeling agency. My height turns out to be perfect and many girls envied me because they did not reach a couple of centimeters. Then I managed to lose another 5 kg and I weighed 60. But when I was selected for the main team, I was not included in it, why do you think? Because I'm fat! True, even here I realized that this was already nonsense. The weight of 60 kg was fine for me and here I didn’t consider myself fat. But this weight had to be maintained and I did not know any other way to do it other than avoiding food. In subsequent years, my weight ranged from 65 to 63 kg, I still could not achieve my "ideal" weight of 60 kg and considered myself fat.

At the age of 26, I decided that in general, probably 65 kg is normal and you shouldn't torture yourself like that. Moreover, a couple of times I felt sick from the laxative so that it seemed that I was about to die. But I didn't know how to eat right. I stopped limiting myself, but I didn't stop overeating. And she quickly recovered. Then I periodically tried to go on diets, then again returned to food "at random." I began to have periods of uncontrolled food intake. When I felt especially discouraged, I began to eat and, like in a trance, consumed a huge amount of food. So I went from bulimia to binge eating disorder. But then I did not know such words, did not know that I had an eating disorder, which is a serious illness along with alcoholism and drug addiction. I thought I just needed to pull myself together and start eating "right." That's right - it was, of course, mostly grass and chicken breast. Sometimes I managed to "pull myself together" for several days, but then I myself did not understand how, but I found myself already eating the floor of the refrigerator.

Now I am completely free from food addiction. It was a difficult and not always straight path. And the main part of the work was the work on the awareness and experience of their feelings. I realized that binge eating attacks happen when I had hard feelings that I didn't want to admit to my consciousness. I didn’t want to notice them and live, as they were too painful for me. When I learned to accept and live my feelings, the need for bouts of overeating disappeared, but the habit of such eating in jerks remained, when it was thick or empty. And then I worked with it the same way. I left the idea of fast weight loss and focused on getting rid of addiction, on getting rid of bouts of overeating. It is important to realize this vicious circle, how restrictions lead to breakdowns. Therefore, you cannot limit yourself, but this does not mean that you need to eat everything. I learned to listen to my body, to eat when I want and what I want. In the beginning it was not easy, old habits were deep. But this period of breaking old habits was surprisingly short. And it was short-lived because the main cause of compulsive overeating, not knowing how to handle your feelings, had already been eliminated. And then there were already moments, one might say technical. An important role during this period was also played by work with a therapist, where I spoke out the feelings that arose in me, my difficulties and failures.

And then the moment came when I suddenly realized that I was free. In those situations that previously caused thoughts about food, they ceased to arise. I'm talking about the desire to come and get drunk, and not about the usual healthy feeling of hunger. I, as before, love to eat and I usually have a good appetite, I eat whatever I want, but exactly everything I want and how much I want, and not everything. I never had binge eating attacks again. I deliberately gave up the idea of losing weight quickly, because this provokes restrictions, and restrictions, as you know, provoke breakdowns later. But, nevertheless, I lost weight, although not by much so far.

As usual, it is difficult to fully comprehend the horror of the situation when you are inside it. And only after getting out of the situation and looking back can you fully understand it. Looking back now, I understand how hard and abnormal my life with addiction was. And every time I remember this, I feel a huge relief that now it is not so. But also a slight sadness that I suffered with this for so many years, and if I had asked for help earlier, I could have lived happily more years of my life.