Food Addiction

I feel like our struggles are very similar. I have nothing to contribute; was just hoping for some advice as well. Fast food is my worst offense.

I cook all my food at home now. I used be a HUGE fast food person. Now, I found the healthy food I like and take the time to plan and precook. I make my own coffee - so no more temptation at the coffee shop. I have a smoothie for breakfaast, or make my own veggie omelette, or run out the door with a boiled egg and banana. I precook a batch of soup on Sunday for the week, or precook chicken and make a big salad and portion it for the next couple of days, or I make extra dinner and take leftovers. I figure out how to make my favorite restaurant dishes low cal, etc. It sounds like a lot of work, but you just start tweeking and over time you are making big changes. Eating before you are really hungry is key, because if you wait too long you'll just eat anything. Good luck and I know you can do it, because I did, and trust me, I am nothing special.

Food addiction is right. Here's what I know about me (maybe I will help). 1. I have to track my calories, because if I have a bad day, when I track, I see it is not as bad as I thought, tomorrow is a new day, etc. IT REALLY WORKS, and keeps me from giving up. 2. I CANNOT undereat. IT MAKES ME BINGE. Sooo, I eat back some of my exercise calories and NEVER eat under 1400 calories a day. NEVER. 3. I DO NOT have trigger foods in my house (or I will eat them. I ALWAYS eat them eventually), but I may indulge in something, especially if I have been thinking about it for a couple of days. Like driving to Hilliards for one sea salt caramel and one piece of toffee bark. I would NEVER get a box, cuz I would eat it ALL. 4. I try not to eat processed carbs or starchy carbs as a rule, but I usually have one thing a day. These things rev up my insulin reaction and desire for more. I usually stick to oatmeal for breakfast, or a 100 calorie English muffin, one serving of goldfish crackers, etc. and I eat them with a meal, not as a snack. My healthy go to snacks are usually fruit or yogurt as a rule. 5. I know my trigger food. Chips, bread, pasta, pizza, sweets, etc Even weird things like granola bars, so I try to stay away, but when I do indulge, and I do, I try to do it in a setting where I can't overindulge and I share them. 6. I try to eat a lot of protein, veggies, and fruit. 7. Super important for me as a woman. I plan to eat more calories when my hormones make me super hungry so I don't binge because I have been restricting myself too much. So I don't lose that week, at least I am happy and am not gaining either. Guess what? There are three more weeks left in the month to lose weight in and since this is a journey, not a destination, that works for me. I wish you love, peace, happiness, and hope.

I use to be bad for some of that stuff that you mentioned.
Best thing that worked for me was starting to eat more and healthier as well if I want a burger I get a burger but
that does not mean two and everyday.
With eating more I find I don't binge.
I rarely exercise but starting to bring it back into my day so I have increased my food even more for that.
Hope that helps.

I am in a similar boat, i started dieting about 8 weeks ago and havent been losing anything, i go to the gym about 3-4 times per week and eat three healthy meals per day with raw almonds and berries for snacks 3 hours between my meals.. it all goes well and next thing i no i am stuffing my face with crisps or chocolate.

if i get a pang for chocolate i will drive myself crazy with the idea of getting it, so justify it to myself by getting it now rather than thinking about it for 3 hours and then getting it anyway.

I end up eating a bit on the weekends and wanted some tips on helping stop the naughty stuff when i love the healthy stuff so much!

I started this healthy lifestyle thing to get in shape for summer but at this rate nothing will have changed.

Help anyone?

I was always a big exerciser and never lost weight. Exercise makes you hungry! I think my eating always kept pace with me exercise until I consciously decided to track everything. You have to track your calories with the program daily and eat back some of your exercise calories, but not all (it will help counteract bad days, but keep you from bingeing because you are so hungry. 1200 calories is for the birds!). Eat chocolate. You may be one of those people that need to eat four Hershey kisses a day (or something). Just factor it into your daily intake. Say, OK, chocolate later, so green beans instead of a baked potato with dinner, etc. And most importantly know it is a journey. Just do the program and don't worry about the outcome. Have faith. It will happen if you keep tracking the calories. Just don't worry about when. Sounds like you are impatient like me, but I want to make changes and keep the weight off, so I just keep tracking. So far, so good. Don't give up.

This may help... I took an Intuitive Eating class and it changed the way I see food. I took away it's power and now I enjoy it more. A lot of reading, but good info. Good luck! :flowerforyou:
Stages of Intuitive Eating
10 Principles of Intuitive Eating
1. Reject the Diet Mentality Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.
2. Honor Your Hunger Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.
3. Make Peace with Food Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.
4. Challenge the Food Police .Scream a loud "NO" to thoughts in your head that declare you're "good" for eating under 1000 calories or "bad" because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created . The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.
5. Respect Your Fullness Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you're comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence--the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you've had "enough".
7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won't fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won't solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You'll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.
8. Respect Your Body Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It's hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.
9. Exercise--Feel the Difference Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it's usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.
10 Honor Your Health--Gentle Nutrition Make food choices that honor your health and tastebuds while making you feel well. Remember that you don't have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It's what you eat consistently over time that matters, progress not perfection is what counts.

When I was younger I had a similar experience with food. Cycles of crazy binges, obsessive thoughts about food, etc. It somehow went away. I'm so sorry I can't tell you what happened. Maybe I started being happy with other aspects of my life and my relationship with food followed suit? Maybe my slow but steady weight loss progress was enough motivation to eat healthy but balanced (treats every now and then)? Maybe the enjoyment I got out of exercising prevented me from binging since working out after a binge generally doesn't go well?

Again, sorry I don't have any constructive advice. Just want you to know that I feel for you and I hope that you can find a way to reach a more balanced way of living. Feel free to friend me!

Oh, and do you think MFP could be making it worse? Always thinking about logging and recording your weight and stuff like that? It might not hurt to step away for a while if you think it might be hurting you.

I have been addicted to food all of my life and I was a binger too. Last year I had enough and started really seeking the "why" of it all. Getting to the bottom of that has been my salvation. My biggest problem was taking on too much and feeling overwhelmed. I used food to 'push down" those feelings. I also used my weight to distance myself from people. Once I figured out why, I removed some of the triggers and found other avenues of 'release' that don't involve food. I've taken up piano because I love music and it's a way of being soothed without consuming a package of Oreos.

I would suggest seeing a therapist that specializes in eating disorders. I have no problem with temporarily medicating but you need help to figure out and deal with the real issue so that you don't have to rely on meds the rest of your life and you can feel good about yourself. I wish you the best!

This may help... I took an Intuitive Eating class and it changed the way I see food. I took away it's power and now I enjoy it more. A lot of reading, but good info. Good luck! :flowerforyou:
Stages of Intuitive Eating
10 Principles of Intuitive Eating
1. Reject the Diet Mentality Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.
2. Honor Your Hunger Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.
3. Make Peace with Food Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.
4. Challenge the Food Police .Scream a loud "NO" to thoughts in your head that declare you're "good" for eating under 1000 calories or "bad" because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created . The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.
5. Respect Your Fullness Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you're comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence--the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you've had "enough".
7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won't fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won't solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You'll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.
8. Respect Your Body Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It's hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.
9. Exercise--Feel the Difference Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it's usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.
10 Honor Your Health--Gentle Nutrition Make food choices that honor your health and tastebuds while making you feel well. Remember that you don't have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It's what you eat consistently over time that matters, progress not perfection is what counts.

This is a great post :flowerforyou: Valuble for anyone with food issues, thanks!

Food addiction is a disease. I have had it for a very long time.
I am a member of Overeaters Anonymous, which is a wonderful support group. It works on the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of compulsive overeating. Maybe you want to look into finding a meeting in your area. The website for OA is WWW.OA.ORG.

I agree. When I have spoken with those who have had eating disorders, they will often speak enthusiastically of the organization as being one of the sources of the greatest help. One woman said that, "Without OA, I would be dead now. [She had severe anorexia nervosa along with bouts of bulimia and compulsive overeating.] If you see the entire 12-Steps through to the end, you can't help but have victory." She leads an OA group in her area.