I'm addicted to food

[Illjustblendinhere]

I've had lifelong issues with food and my weight, been on/off diets since I was 16. Ranged between a normal BMI to overweight, only ever been classed as obese after 2 pregnancies briefly before losing some weight.

Excuse this time around is lockdown but truth is my excuse is food obsession. I think about it all day long like what I'm going to eat next, what I can have for dinner/dessert, what I want to buy from the shops etc. I can't regulate a normal healthy diet, I am either on a diet or eating everything in sight and I alternate between the 2.

Right now I am about a stone and a half away from the top end of a healthy BMI so not massively terrible but still not good.

I feel like food is the only thing I have to enjoy in life. Over 15 years this has been going on, how do I stop it!?

I skip breakfast and lunch and have early dinner. I spend the whole day just drinking coffee and water and if I feel very hungry, I grab a banana to stop my stomach rumbling. I love food but I enjoy food when I'm relaxed not when I'm stressed out trying to make it out the door on time for work in the morning or eating a shitty cold sandwich by my desk at lunch. I don't enjoy food like that and it's not worth the calories, I mean I can eat the world if I wanted to but I don't enjoy it that way. Instead, I plan all day thinking about my reward meal in the evening where I can sit and unwind and enjoy it. I wait till I get home, cook, open the TV if I have no company and just enjoy it. This is how I lost weight and have maintained my weight for years. When I eat at 6pm, I'm in bed by 11pm latest and that 5 hours is too short for snacking. I wake up at 7am, have a coffee, I have another coffee at lunch and about 2-3pm I start getting really hungry then I just eat a fruit and then come 5pm I'm making my way home to cook and reward myself.

This is me. I've always been like you describe with food, I was within a healthy weight for most of my childhood, though I was always obsessed with food.
I fell pregnant with DD, put in 7 stone, managed to lose most of it, then put it and another 5 stone on.

Despite being on a diet half of my life I continued to put on weight.

Every day was planned by what we would eat and everything after. I found life was getting smaller because I didnt feel good about myself unless I was stuffing myself with food.

The best thing I ever did for myself was go to FAA. I felt like I'd find other hugely fat people there, but i didn't. I realised that many of the people there were struggling in different ways, but food was truly addicting to everyone there.

The thing I learned and found really helpful was, refined sugar and refined carbohydrates are a massive part of the problem.

I find if I manage to cut them out, I'm happier, feel healthier and food doesnt take up the same space in my mind.

I had a gastric sleeve to fix things, it's been great, but FAA is something I would recommend, or a food psychologist if you can spend money on the problem.

I'd not worry too much about weight right now, but reclaiming the parts of your life that food is taking away, and as you let go of the addiction to food, please be careful with alcohol. People often swap alcohol for food or food for alcohol.

Wishing you all the best

It is boredom lack of interesting things going on. Is that changeable the focus from food.

Not sure if you mean 1.5 stone above the top of your BMI or 1.5 stone below. 16/8 fasting works sometimes - don't eat until midday and go to bed early! Avoid too many carbs as they cause spikes in blood sugar that can trigger bingeing. Try to avoid alcohol for the same reason. Eat plenty of veg and protein, and some fruit. Don't obsess about your diet, just congratulate yourself if you have a good day and try again tomorrow if you don't. Be positive and don't dwell on failures. This has been a lifelong problem for me too, so wishing you good luck.

@LaurieFairyCake I assumed OP meant a stone and a half above healthy BMI not below.

How does a constantly hungry person suddenly find something within them to be able to switch to eating 800 calories? I think that's useful advice at all tbh.

Blerg yes yes totally recommend Overeaters Anonymous oa.org/. This is an addiction. I used to eat and eat and eat. Insane amounts. Then eat some more. I'd tell myself I wouldn't do it. Then would do it again. Couldn't control it until I joined OA. Now I've been abstinent since January - even with the pandemic. Cannot describe the relief

I meant not useful advice .

800 low carb calories, eaten in a smaller eating window means you go into ketosis; that supresses hunger.
But, yeah, terrible advice from a doctor, with millions of people doing it who have reversed pre- and type 2 diabetes

No advice but I'm the same. Have been overweight and chubby all my life since childhood. Comfort eating in a major way now since the first lockdown and now the Christmas treat eating has started earlier than usual. Wish I was less fat, just so I could eat it all back up lol.

Seriously I have no advice but I'm also seriously stuck in comfort and emotional eating - mainly out of boredom and real lack of connection to anyone IRL, including DH.

@Doublebubblebubble you can have coffee in your fasting window. Drink it black or with cream. Just not cream that has sugar in it!

Try reading a book called Just Eat by Laura Thomas or The F*ck It Diet

@Doingtheboxerbeat
The point is, 99% of people who claim they are "constantly hungry" are not. They are bored, have built up bad habits over the years, or feel their blood sugar level crash because they eat too many carbs.

I put on 2 stone in a few weeks in late August / September. I was on an average of 8000kcal a day (I never feel completely full / sick after years of binge eating). I was most definitely not constantly hungry.

I am on a very low calorie diet at the moment. I am not hungry. What works for me is 16:8 and a very low carb diet. I still think about food way too often in a day, but I am the one who has control over what my hands put into my mouth.

The reason you are obsessing about food is because of your mindset towards food and dieting. Let’s say you are craving some chocolate, eat some chocolate and then move on with your day without feeling guilty. Chocolate is not naughty and not something to obsess over it’s just food. If you try to ignore your chocolate craving and decide to have an apple instead to be “good” you are going to end up craving chocolate even more and you may end up eating loads more than if you just allowed yourself to eat it in the first place. Try to enjoy a variety of nutritious foods most of the time, but if you fancy something that isn’t the most nutritious that’s fine, you are human!

And please please please don’t starve yourself to 800 calories and cut out carbs, that really will not help you!

@Shalomjackiee

The reason you are obsessing about food is because of your mindset towards food and dieting. Let’s say you are craving some chocolate, eat some chocolate and then move on with your day without feeling guilty. Chocolate is not naughty and not something to obsess over it’s just food. If you try to ignore your chocolate craving and decide to have an apple instead to be “good” you are going to end up craving chocolate even more and you may end up eating loads more than if you just allowed yourself to eat it in the first place. Try to enjoy a variety of nutritious foods most of the time, but if you fancy something that isn’t the most nutritious that’s fine, you are human!

And please please please don’t starve yourself to 800 calories and cut out carbs, that really will not help you!

Man that’s terrible advice.

You know absolutely nothing about the OP. She’s given no detail. You’ve potentially just told an alcoholic that a small G&T every night is no problem because it’s all in the mind.

I'd say you are probably not addicted to "food". But to sugar /sugary things.

Because food is not an addiction and wont make you obese. Food is necessary and nutritious. And if you eat the good kinda foods you wouldnt be obese. So probably look into your sugar intake. Because when you eat sweet things, your body wants to eat more of it. Sugar is a tough addiction like cocaine. So just hold your horses on all the sweet stuff your body is asking for. Replace them with fun natural sweet stuff. Like eating dates with almond butter on a bit of banana. (Yes it is sugar. But natural. Just dont eat20 dates haha) and set yourself a nice bit of dark chocolate at night. 2 pieces perhaps? So you actually and truly enjoy it and have something to look forward to.
Mostly it is just overcoming the habit of eating when bored /emotioanal/sad/ etc. Find out what triggers you to eat

Oh and look into drinks as well and just swop regular coke by diet Cokeetc. Just.... baby steps. No dieting. Just changes of patterns. X

Try Clair McKenzie- she does podcasts and online coaching. She has blown my mind. It’s all about your mind not the food. I’ve been eating differently for 4 weeks, lower carbs, no snacking but good meals and chocolate and have lost over a stone.

@Yeahnahmum I disagree. It makes no difference to your body whether the sugar comes from a date or a beet.

royal chocolate if you wanna believe that if eating a snickers bar vs home made large orange juice just because it has the same amount of sugar: it makes no difference and you might as wel eat the snickers bar? Ok then... You do you 😉

I've read this thread so far with interest. I have an awful relationship with food. I eat until I can't move, or even breathe! I've spent most of my life on a diet of on variety or another, the first one at age 10. I am mostly a size 16/18, but have got down to a 14 (almost a 12) and as high as a 20. At my lowest 11stone 7lbs, I was scrawny and bony. I looked terrible (I'm 5ft6). I can't work it out. I actually think I'm made of anvils or something, I'm hugely heavy but not necessarily fat! I don't eat sugar laden foods (not had chocolate, cake or biscuits for three years- it's made no difference) I'm large, wide and solid. In order to lose weight I have to eat no more that 1200 calories a day, lots of veg, few carbs. But I have no off button and can just keep going.
Sorry of that sounds confused and jumbled, it is, I've been doing this for 40 years!

Dieting is the problem. You need to eat normally. Let yourself know that the food will always be there to eat. The food isn't going anywhere and you can eat it when you want to. The problem is that you've been on so many diets that you're eating the food in preparation for the next famine. The next restriction in your eating cycle. I'm the same and it's very difficult to allow yourself to enjoy foods without binging and restricting.

@Yeahnahmum yes, I do believe that drinking a large glass of orange juice (even homemade) will raise your blood sugars exactly in the same way as a Snickers bar, and then send them crashing. Sure, the orange juice will give you some extra vitamin C so is a better choice if you have scurvy.

I am not saying "might as well have the Snickers bar", I am saying both are terrible choices as a standalone snack.

A better choice if you have scurvy 🤔. Allrighty then. I am out.

@justanotherneighinparadise that’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is if a recovering alcoholic did happen to have a gin and tonic one night they should not feel guilty about it, tomorrow’s a new day. Feelings of guilt only make you feel bad about yourself which is when an alcoholic is more likely to relapse and drink the whole bottle.

No I don’t know OP, does anyone here?

Should she never be allowed to eat anything nice then?

Found my people. Took me a long time to realise the issue is possibly partly psychological or to do with a bad relationship with food. Considering OA or similar. I just need something to help me stay resolute. I've dropped to a size 14 or so. I just want to be healthy, really.

I have actually lost weight this year though. What works for me is drinking lots of water and calorie counting app. I do a little while on it and a little while off it and try to broadly follow portion sizes when I'm off it. I have an absolutely fucked ankle joint which means being more careful, too and that helps- although it also hinders if I can't exercise. My main issues at present are that I find it harder to be strict now DP has moved in so need to figure that out, I stress eat at work which needs to stop and I'm not a winter person so I currently feel the need to enjoy huge bowls of pasta and then curl up for a cosy warm nap- but obviously I'm not designed to hibernate!