To share this experience of sugar addiction and binge eating… it’s long!
I guess I’m posting this because over the years I’ve found some incredibly helpful posts on here and I have often looked on here to see if others have been going through a similar experience and it seems there are a lot of us who identify as sugar addicts and/ or struggle with over eating and binge eating.
I’m writing a post that I wish I’d found myself. Although I appreciate it may simply be timing, because nothing I’ve got to say is especially revolutionary, so perhaps these are things that we have to be in the ‘right place’ to engage with.
If this post helps someone, then I guess it’s worth sharing.
All our experiences are unique so maybe this is irrelevant for some, but I hope that it reaches someone who wants to hear it and could benefit.
My experience is that I have always struggled with food. There are a lot of food issues in my family in general. I have spent many years eating way too much- eating for comfort, eating to disconnect from uncomfortable feelings, eating in response to stress, eating due to boredom, eating to celebrate, eating for a million reasons that have nothing to do with being hungry!
I know how to cook healthy meals from scratch, I enjoy cooking. It’s not a lack of knowledge or ability.
On occasion (in my early 20’s) I became overweight but apart from that, I have actually managed to maintain a healthy weight. But this is because I have swung like a yo-yo between over eating and restricting unhealthily. I look very healthy but in reality my food intake has gone from ultra healthy meals, to severe calorie restriction, to mind boggling binges.
I have tried every approach under the Sun. I know about all the different programmes and diets. You name it, I’ve researched and tried it. Often I have been very successful with regards to committing for a significant period of time and getting my weight to a place I’m really comfortable with, maintaining the approach and thinking “this is it! I’ve found the solution!” Only to slip back into the sane old pattern.
I’m very aware of the health implications of yo-yo dieting and the dieting industry in general. This decades long cycle of trying different approaches has been a desperate attempt to find an approach I can sustain long term- a healthy lifestyle NOT a diet. I just didn’t manage to find it.
Every time I felt I found an approach that worked for me, sooner or later I’d stumble and be back at square one. It could have been a week in or a year in… regardless of the time, I’d eventually slide back into a binge and restrict cycle. If you’ve been in this situation, you might be able to relate to how demoralising and exhausting it can become.
Eventually, I lost hope of finding an approach that would allow me to eat food in moderation, especially the foods I viewed as ‘unhealthy’. You know the usual tricky foods- sugar and refined carbs. I felt I was never going to ‘be normal’ or ‘eat normally’, I felt like the only way I could free myself was to treat sugar and carbs much the same way as alcohol needs to be treated by someone with a drinking problem.
There is no shortage of AA programmes for sugar addicts. I met a lot of people whose experiences really resonated with mine. Kind, intelligent, determined people. People who were cutting any form or sugar or refined carbs out of their diets, for life. I gave it a go and learnt a lot along the way- became more mindful of certain things. Connected with some great people. But (similarly to the many, many times I have cut sugar from my diet… sometimes for over a year!) I would eventually end up nibbling a bit of cake at a birthday celebration/ accepting a gift of sweets at Christmas/ giving in to the temptation of an ice cream whilst on holiday etc etc. this would then lead me to binge and so the cycle would repeat. Like a broken record.
Every single time, I would think to myself… there must be another way. There must be a way I can cultivate a different way of relating to food. Thee must be a way of finding moderation. I’m human! I will never stop wanting a little treat here or there- and what’s so wrong with that?? So how do I do that without it spiralling out of control? I’m an adult for god’s sake!
Every single time, I’d search high and low for a healthy, long term, well balanced approach. Something that doesn’t involve ludicrous faddy diets or unhealthy restrictions. Every time, I’d wonder what I could do differently to make friends with food… because the truth is, even when I was at the peak of physical fitness (the times I actually managed to eat genuinely healthy well balanced meals and exercised regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, feeling physically fantastic, confident in my own skin, more energy etc etc)… even in the healthiest times, I could never do it without being totally obsessed with food. I was totally fixated on my food intake.
I’m trying to describe the suffocating all consuming mindset I experienced, EVEN when I was supposedly at my ‘healthiest’.
What I longed for, was a way of living that didn’t involve having to take extreme measures to not over eat and also didn’t involve a complete fixation on food when I wasn’t eating it! It was as if I couldn’t escape it, no matter what I did. Obviously for me, it was deeply psychological.
But what does a person do when they have tried all the diets, been in therapy, read ALL the books and actually been very successful in maintains a healthy weight. Yet remains completely consumed by food…
The thing I tried before my most recent approach, was a self guided CBT approach for binge eating. Which was very useful and I found the rules made a lot of sense. I also found it very helpful to force myself not to restrict. I won’t go into details because it’s all out there to read via a basic google search, but it was yet another useful learning experience rather than a permanent healthy solution.
I gained a bit of weight in the process of focusing on the psychology of it all. My intention was to focus on the psychological aspects, regardless of weigh ins or weight loss/ gain, in the belief that the healthy weight would inevitably follow a truly healthy and permanent lifestyle/ healthy approach. By that, I mean… if I genuinely cultivate a healthy relationship with food, where I eat in a mindful way and I’m able to eat when I’m hungry (and stop eating when I’m full) and I’m able to eat a wide variety of foods, in moderation… without obsessing about what I’ve eaten/ not eaten/ want to eat/ won’t eat/ can eat/ can’t eat etc… then surely my weight would eventually settle somewhere healthy, even if the process takes a bit of time.
My dream is to cultivate the ability to eat intuitively, to be able to trust myself around food, to eat without shame or judgement, to eat mindfully and in a way that respects and nourishes my body, but to not spend 80% of my time thinking about food. Ah! The thought of not giving it much thought. To be free of it.
After years of searching, I find it hilarious that I stumbled across the approach that liberated me… by accident. I don’t even know where I found it. But essentially it was a podcast by someone whose experiences are breathtakingly similar to mine and remind me so much of the millions of posts and threads I’ve found on here and other forums over the years.
It’s not a diet. It’s not a CBT program, it’s not therapy, it’s not a quick fix, it’s not something you have to pay for. It’s just a really well thought out and (in my opinion) insightful series of reflections that summarise why people over eat, and what keeps them from changing. The delivery might be an acquired taste. But underneath the delivery are messages I have found truly transformational.
I don’t know if there are any rules about promoting things? So I haven’t shared any links. But I wanted to share the messages in the podcast that changed my life… because it has been invaluable to me and if it helps someone else then I’d be so happy for you, as I know the misery of food issues and I’d have been so grateful to have stumbled across this kind of recommendation myself.
Shame and judgment. It’s not possible to make long term change unless you can understand your relationship with food and it’s not possible to gain understanding and insight if you are consumed with shame and judgment. Understanding what drives you to eat allows the insight needed to make sense of and begin addressing it. So there’s a lot of stuff about managing shame and judgement.
Remove restriction- Responding to our problematic eating by taking drastic measures and restricting, ultimately fuels the episodes of bingeing- she went into a lot of detail about the physiological effects of restriction, alongside the psychological.
Our nervous systems- this is where stuff got really interesting for me. Understanding my nervous system, how it operates and how it is affected by my eating habits was huge for me. Again, too detailed to properly summarise here but I learnt a lot about the nervous system and the concept of the ‘window of tolerance’ to take better care of my nervous system. This was a game changer for me. One of those things that allowed me to shift my mindset overnight- still a long way to go in terms of implementing everything I learnt but it gave me a very helpful boost of confidence in how much change I can effect, with a consistent approach.
Connecting with my body- this is really an extension of the stuff about the nervous system, it armed me with info about how the address an overwhelmed nervous system/ body. Loads of stuff about why and how to implement all the self care stuff that is required to make real long lasting change- lots of mindfulness stuff and ways to eat intentionally and in an emotionally well balanced way. Lots of stuff to help promote awareness that can lead to meaningful practical changes. Lots of stuff about being human and not expecting perfection, but also not encouraging excuses etc. the focus is on understanding what’s going on, in order to tackle it.
A load of stuff about increasing my emotional capacity- ways to expand your window of tolerance, so to speak. Some really helpful and practical strategies. Stuff that is relatively simple but hits the nail on the head and when considered all together, somehow revolutionised the way I relate to food and behave around food.
Trust- this really helped me. A lot of helpful info about how to develop more trust (both in yourself and how you behave around food. But also ensuring your body can trust you. Your body physically responds to the way you eat and it needs to trust that you will meet its needs, or else it will send all kinds of unhelpful signals to try and address unhealthy eating e.g things like not fluctuating between feast and famine, which sends lots of alarm signals to the nervous system, messing with your system and resulting in cravings). The idea that control is not what we need- if you trust someone then you don’t need to control them. The same goes for our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with food etc. Instead of creating extreme rules, it encourages you to build trust so that you can truly relax around food without fearing the consequences. There’s a load of stuff addressing the understandable concerns about how you manage this (what if I remove all restrictions and just go crazy? How do I trust my body to communicate what it needs and manage this sensibly? Lots of stuff about practical steps to take care of ourselves and how we make those decisions, ultimately allowing you to trust that you can listen to your cravings and eat a wide range of foods without bingeing. How to navigate all this in a healthy way without demonising specific foods.
Stuff about the narratives in our heads, our internal dialogue. And lots more.
I’m not really sure how to summarise it. But when you take all the different sections together, it’s pretty airtight. The women who shared this stuff seems to have a knack for distilling the info (that I’ve probably read a thousand times) and making the concepts digestible and accessible.
There is no quick fix, it’s very much a process. It’s a way of processing and adjusting the relationship we have with food, to enable a competent different perspective.
I’m a perfectionist and seem to have struggled with a lot of the same things as this person, so maybe that’s why it resonates so strongly with me. But as you can probably tell, I highly recommend it to all!
Huge hugs to anyone struggling with food. I know this particular issue is entirely our personal responsibility to manage and resolve, but I want you to know, it’s not your fault. You can cultivate a new relationship with food. You are not broken.
Not sure of the rules about promoting things on here? If I’m allowed I’m happy to share the podcast info. I got it free on audible and she’s still creating new episodes.
Also, I’m tired! So I hold my hands up if I’ve not explained the info as well as I’d intended or got any of the info wrong- it’s all from memory and the actual podcast is a lot better!