Food addiction ruining my life

[EatingIssue]

My eating is out of control. I tipped the scales at 20st today. I suffer with stomach problems and even eat through insufferable pain and eat things that will have a dreadful effect on me and make me violently ill. The. I will eat it again. There are wrappers all around my bed shoved down the sides, hidden in my glove box. My knees hurt and I don’t recognize myself to the point it’s actually frightening and upsetting sometimes catching the reflection of the real me. Not to mention having nothing in the way of a life as I have pushed everyone away from me because of my embarrassment. I almost wish it was drug addiction because it’s less taboo and there seems to be help. I have no access to healthcare for this, be it therapy or weight loss surgery which I wouldn’t do anyway as I would just eat my way back to this as it’s obvious a deeper internal issue I’m guessing due to the compulsiveness of it and how I know I’m ruining my life and body but can’t stop.

As I don’t have access to healthcare can anyone please advice me how I can beat this myself? I get bursts of hope that I might one day get out if this hole so I don’t feel like a total lost cause. It goes back to my childhood, secret eating but at various stages of my life I’ve kept a semi normal weight. I’ve had long spells where I’ve been relatively normal but I don’t know where to start or how to get any semblance of normal back.
I would really appreciate any input at all. Thank you.

Be kind to yourself. Self sooth your soul. You are not what you weight or the clothes size you take. You are person feeling out of control.
I felt the same as a smoker, ruining my body and my health because I didn't have to strength to take control.
You can do this. Get busy fill your mind, batch cpok healthy snacks and binbthe sugar? If it is gone ypu cant eat it. Read a book that's so good you can't put it down.

I can't recommend The Harcombe Diet highly enough. Zoe Harcombe even offers a bespoke service tailored to individuals' requirements, which comes in especially handy at points where weight loss stalls or you need additional motivation. It's a diet borne out of its creator's own struggles with food addiction, is sympathetic to that predicament and offers real, practical solutions to beating it. It worked for me once and sadly I've backslid (I blame breastfeeding for reigniting those sugar addictions), so am about to start again. If there's a likelihood you're suffering from Candida overgrowth, which fuels cravings for sugar, it can help you beat that too. Good luck, OP! You absolutely can. :)

Hi OP

The good news is that you recognize that you need to lose weight and that you want to do it for yourself.

You didn’t put on the weight overnight and it won’t come off overnight either. I think the only way to lose it and keep it off is slowly. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear.

As a previous poster has suggested make small habit changes.
Make one habit change a week and add to it each week.
Buy a step tracker (or use your phone). Slowly increase your steps each week.

I’d wouldn’t recommend start a very strict diet and fitness regime, as if it’s too hard you may throw in the towel.

Best of luck to you OP. Head over the the weight loss boards. I might see you there x

Hi OP,

Please, please do not join Slimming World or Weight Watchers, despite what they preach, it isn't a ' lifelong' programme ( they would have gone bust by now if it was).

I am in your position ( sort of ), in respect of I am technically obese, hate it, but seem powerless to do anything about it despite having a 6 year old DD and knowing what I should be eating and that I should be exercising more etc.

This is the year it will change though, and having accepted the fact that it there are psychological reasons why I am how I am, I attend to peruse specialist counselling help , self help books etc and try to get to the bottom of ' Why.

Once I am in a better place mentally, I hope to be able to eat healthier and exercise more and start shedding the weight. Just think, even one pound a week average off all year is nearly 4 stone.

You can do this, I'm positive you can. Don't be too hard on yourself and take it steady. If you have setbacks, reflect on why it's happened and go again.

Good luck!

Slimming world is not a life long solution, but it is a bloody good start.
My Bil lost 9lb his first week, he is 2 stone now and he has to confidence to go back to the gym. It was a great start for him and lots of others. What you do with the head start us up to the individual.

*lost 2 stone, he is not 2 stone

Hi OP - I feel you. When you find yourself eating when it's making you feel physically ill to do so but you just can't stop; when your whole day revolves around when you can get what food, when you can eat it all, how to hide how much you're eating from colleagues/family etc... People think it's just greed, but it really is a compulsion, an addiction. No-one is doing this because they are 'just greedy'. We have a mountain of psychological crap behind it.

I'm like you, I've always been a secretive, binge-eating food obsessive from as young as I remember (I remember rooting down the back of the sofa for change to buy sweets, trying to sell my meagre possessions to kids in primary school to buy sweets, eating whole boxes of Roses - your comment about wrappers down the side of the bed really hit the miserable memory button for me. And now, as an adult, the 'secret zip-up pocket' of my handbag is currently bulging with empty packets I can't throw in the bin at home or my partner will see how much I've eaten and I'd be disgusted with myself - Jelly Babies, packets of Ginger Nuts, bags of donuts. So much.

I've usually been able to maintain a weight towards the upper end of normal or the lower end of overweight - pretty much the average for British women if not British women in my age range. But I was bereaved in June and the breaks came off completely. I have eaten a minimum of a bag of donuts every day for 6 months. Often much more. I hate to think how much money I've spent on food, how much time I've spent thinking about, buying, eating and hiding the evidence of food. I've put on nearly 2 stone in 6 months. I am fatter than I've ever been.

And STILL I find it nearly impossible not to obsess on when and how to get my next sugary treat without anyone knowing. I think the secretiveness as much as the indulgence is what does it for me. I don't even want to think about what the reasons are behind that. And it's the VOLUME, there has to be lots, even too much - I think about having one or two squares of chocolate on the sofa with a cuppa as a treat, and it's not just that I want more, it doesn't appeal to me at all. But if I think of buying a whole bar... then I want it. What the hell is up with that?

Christmas actually feels like a healthier time for me because there are lots of treats around, freely available and I can eat them openly as it's Christmas. Plus being at home with the family means less alone time for buying and bingeing. So I've eaten less than I usually would actually the past two weeks.

Today I'm back to work, I have my packed lunch, and I've left my purse at home. I feel a bit panicky. But I'm proud of myself - my house is only 5 mins walk from work, and my cleaner called to say she was struggling to open the door so I popped back to let her in. Now in my head this would usually be my excuse to renege on my resolve, grab the purse, nip to the shop on the way back to work, start again 'tmorrow' or 'Monday'. I so nearly did. But I didn't. Back at my desk, no money, no extra food. If I can make it through today, I can make it through tomorrow. And so on.

So no you're not alone!!! We can fix this. hour by hour if we have to.

Hi OP, I could have written this too. I'm an extremely addictive person and can't have just one of anything. I've put three stone on in the last two years because my current addiction has been food. I have been able to transfer it to weight loss before but it never stayed off because I went back to bad habits.
Yesterday was my first day on the no sugar no alcohol wagon. Will be continuing until I rest my mindset.
Like you, everything must be black and white for me. Having one glass of wine or one chocolate biscuit just doesn't appeal to me. So I choose none.

People who talk about willpower haven’t got a clue. These are hormonal drivers which no willpower will ever stand up to or not for very long. I am an overeater, have always been. It’s on maternal side of the family. My Dad could always eat what he wanted from his plate and leave the rest, no matter how tasty. While we had to polish it all off and go for second helpings. Relatives on my maternal side have struggled with weight and one had diabetes type 2.

It is in the genetic make up. I need to be aware of it and live with it. I can’t behave like a person who hasn’t got an insulin resistance problem. And as PP put it, even one Malteser sets off the downward spiral and cravings. So be 100% the changes you are making are for life, not for a few weeks or months because as soon as you stop, you will be back at square one. Disheartening, but it is the reality. You will always have the addictive tendencies, it is living with them and learning to manage/tame them every day. It does get easier as you go on, but it will always be there. I can’t have just one chocolate, same as an alcoholic can’t have just one drink. I notice the next day I am hungrier, I start craving sugar again. And it spirals downwards straight away. Make it your choice. What is more important, you feeling good or 5 second enjoyment from a treat and days of self-loathing to follow? Chocolate is not worth it, that biscuit is not worth it. You are more important.

Play it as a long game because it is, it’s not for now and then you can go back to the old ways, the healthy caring approach is here to stay.

I found what helped with my cravings was slowly reducing sugar to the point of almost nil, avoiding refined carbs. When I felt hungry, I drink a pint of water. 9/10 the hunger goes. Even better, put a tbsp of cider vinegar in that pint of water. It kills hunger for 2-3 hours. And lowers your levels of insulin!

Good luck with your efforts 💐

OP
You will need to address WHY you eat as you overhaul your diet and habits. From what you've said it doesn't sound as though your permanently hungry or greedy. You said you used to binge in secret?
Perhaps ask yourself or even write down why you did this in the first place and started this pattern. Then maybe you can take steps to find alternative self comforts and begin to feel happier with yourself.
Yes you need to lose weight, but it sounds to me as though the weight is a product of something else much deeper. It's not the food, it's what is making you binge in the first place that is the problem.
If you do it with a clear head and know your triggers you have more chance of succeeding.

IJustLostTheGame

Can't speak for the OP but for me it's clearly rooted in the need to comfort, and some sort of feeling of denial or scarcity. I know that when I was very small school 'took an interest' in our family for a bit because my alcoholic, workaholic dad who had sole care of two young children started letting our packed lunches slide (we were sent to school with only two satsumas each for lunch) so I wonder if when I was very small I couldn't get enough food for a while and it has given me some sort of deep fear of being hungry? It is a sort of panic in me when I can't think how I'll get extra food 'if I need to', even though I'm well aware I won't starve or even suffer particularly if I miss a meal or even two, even if I have a perfectly adequate lunch in my bag.

I think for most binge eaters the secrecy is a function of the shame of how disproportionately much they will eat - you can't just sit in front of your friends, loved ones, colleagues and eat a whole packet of biscuits, a bag of jelly sweets and a tube of Pringles. To really fill that need for more, more, enough, too much, it needs to be solitary eating. And to some extent this compounds the problem as you end up eating things that can be hidden easily, things that can be stuffed away if someone comes along, things that can be hidden in drawers, bags, under the bed... very few people living in a family have the liberty to binge on good, satisfying home cooked food - it's accessible, portable, straight out of the packet junk by and large.

Nothing is so depressing as eating too much of something you didn't even particularly want, which isn't even what you're craving, but it's what you could get, what you could hide, and what you could stuff in in secret.

I mean i'm not saying it would be healthy for me to lovingly prepare roast chicken with all the trimmings and then eat it all... but I have sometimes consumed easily as many calories as that in a day bingeing on total garbage. If I felt able to be open about my compulsion I could at least binge on good cooked food, or toast or something, which is what I usually actually want.

Thinking about it, the time my diet was best was when I was travelling alone, or in uni halls - I wasn't living 'with' anyone, I had total control over what I ate and when. Whereas when I have lived at home with my family, with my sister and with my partner, my eating has been frequently disordered. What does that indicate I wonder...

If the NHS resources and UK organisations aren't appropriate, like PPs, I've known people who found Gillian Riley useful (she does online courses as well).

Take a look through Riley's site and blog and see if it's something that appeals to you?

eatingless.com

Sorry to crash your thread OP. I'm thinking a lot about this today as really want to make this change now, I want to get into good shape so I feel OK about getting pregnant again (pregnancy 1 and the newborn months wrecked my body and my fitness levels).

Am I hungry by Michelle may. Deals with the reasons why we eat, when, how, how much etc. Also good binge eating. Helps you eat mindfully. Making friends with your body is the only way forwards. Diets are just punishing yourself for a crime you didn't commit.

Who told you you don't have an access to NHS? Because if it was a case of for example one GP surgery, they may have been wrong. It actually happend to number of EU people recently. Even got bills, but it was all sorted as it was a mistake. Maybe you are in a same boat. Double and triple check

@OftenHangry - I think the OP doesn't live in the UK. I think she's from the same country as me (it's close, but most definitely not the UK, with a totally different healthcare set up)

I think sorting out the emotional reason why food is a comfort is the most important part of dieting. Cbt and counselling have helped me.
Exercise does boost your happy hormones. Also I think antidepressants can cause increased appetite too.
I've put on five stone comfort eating.

Names that is so true.I have often binged on something I'm not keen on because it was there. Then feel ashamed and disgusted.

@alphaechokiwi i hope OP still double checks. Hopefully the help will be available

I’m so glad I started this thread. I ended up awake until 4am reading into everything each one of you shared and coming to some stark realizations.
Hearing those of you in remotely similar situations is so cathartic, I’d love to some how stay in touch and keep the chat going.

I’m so wary to go into detail as I know the red tops have form for stealing stories from here that’s why I’m being a bit vague about certain things sorry.

I did however, in my sleep deprived madness last night, apply for a loan and I’ve just got the call there to say it’s been granted and the money is waiting for me so I think I probably should invest in some sort of therapy as well as doing as much DIY self help as I can. I’ll also invest in some decent trainers and maybe an at home fitness dvd if anyone has any recommendations? I absolutely couldn’t face the gym right now and as much as I realize it’s the food that’s the issue and you can’t put train a bad diet (can you tell I’ve been up all night learning these little quips ) it might give me that buzz I’m searching for it even just distract me and make me feel worth something.

To the PP that said Christmas is better for them, I agree! I feel normal at Christmas as food isn’t a secret. I don’t feel the panicked compulsion to leave gatherings early so I can make the take away or stop off at drive throughs on the way home from dinner with friends or (and especially) dates because I didn’t get a chance to “eat to my pull potential”

I’m absolutely determined to get this sorted for once and for all.

So much of what so many of you have said has helped me beyond belief

“Can’t out train a bad diet”

Hi OP. I found Jillian Michaels' 30 day shred a really good workout, as it's only 20 mins a day but intense - there are two 'settings' you can do it on, and the easy one really isn't too hard. Results are pretty quick too which I think junkies like us need (we're so used to instant or near instant gratification from food!)

However, with your joint pain etc you might be better off swimming or doing pilates/yoga... increase your muscle strength to support your joints rather than hitting the high impact stuff straight away.