Food as a addiction?

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

Is it really so far outside the realms of possibility that eating one way left me hungry and always wanting more and yet eating another way I have a normal appetite? If that uncontrolled eating can be shut off like a light switch why would you think that's anything other than physiological?

Personally, I think food choice of course plays a role in how hungry you feel and that for some people carbs in particular (especially more refined carbs) tend to increase hunger or at least not sate it, especially if eaten in too high a proportion vs. the other foods in the diet. So I don't have any issue at all with your choices about how to eat (why would I?) or even your statements that changing what you eat made eating less much easier and kept you from being hungry. That's why low carb diets work for many.

What I think would be wrong--and I haven't noticed you doing it--would be to call this an "addiction" issue. That carbs (or sugar) may not be physiologically satisfying to some doesn't make them "addictive"--that would be a very strange use of the word "addiction."

OP seems to be talking about emotional eating, though, which generally is psychological. (Not saying he/she needs a therapist, as many of us deal with emotional eating without therapy, but I do think it's usually more than just an issue of the foods chosen.)

This content has been removed.

This content has been removed.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

Is it really so far outside the realms of possibility that eating one way left me hungry and always wanting more and yet eating another way I have a normal appetite? If that uncontrolled eating can be shut off like a light switch why would you think that's anything other than physiological?

Personally, I think food choice of course plays a role in how hungry you feel and that for some people carbs in particular (especially more refined carbs) tend to increase hunger or at least not sate it, especially if eaten in too high a proportion vs. the other foods in the diet. So I don't have any issue at all with your choices about how to eat (why would I?) or even your statements that changing what you eat made eating less much easier and kept you from being hungry. That's why low carb diets work for many.

What I think would be wrong--and I haven't noticed you doing it--would be to call this an "addiction" issue. That carbs (or sugar) may not be physiologically satisfying to some doesn't make them "addictive"--that would be a very strange use of the word "addiction."

OP seems to be talking about emotional eating, though, which generally is psychological. (Not saying he/she needs a therapist, as many of us deal with emotional eating without therapy, but I do think it's usually more than just an issue of the foods chosen.)

That's what I found key, especially in terms of that hungry feeling.

Because I chronically overate, I had NO idea of portion size. When I reintroduced carbs, because I was afraid of them, I limited my servings of them. I didn't experience any hunger surges from them when monitoring my intake of them.

I am NOT trying to discount what works for AlabasterVerve at all. I'm just trying to share my experience and point out that there's another way if one wants to look for a different solution.

I didn't go through all 5 pages, but I'll say what I always say...I don't believe in food addiction...I do not believe you can be addicted to something that is necessary to sustain life...if you were, you're screwed because the only way to beat an actual addiction is abstinence...and if you abstain from food, you will die.

There are any number of eating disorders out there...under-eating/purging disorders tend to get the most attention...but there are overeating disorders as well that get far less press. These are disorders, not addictions.

For either under-eating or over-eating disorders, there is pretty much always an underlying emotional/psychological issue that needs to be dealt with in order to beat the disorder.

A lot of you people are brutal. You will defend it with "being candid" or "being honest" but the truth of the matter is some of you feed on beating people down.

The forums are a toxic place. I expected it to be different than the other general comment forums, being a self improvement platform, but I see now that it really is no different than the forum and comment section of any local newspaper.

RedRockChic wrote: »

A lot of you people are brutal. You will defend it with "being candid" or "being honest" but the truth of the matter is some of you feed on beating people down.

Yep.

This content has been removed.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

Is it really so far outside the realms of possibility that eating one way left me hungry and always wanting more and yet eating another way I have a normal appetite? If that uncontrolled eating can be shut off like a light switch why would you think that's anything other than physiological?

Personally, I think food choice of course plays a role in how hungry you feel and that for some people carbs in particular (especially more refined carbs) tend to increase hunger or at least not sate it, especially if eaten in too high a proportion vs. the other foods in the diet. So I don't have any issue at all with your choices about how to eat (why would I?) or even your statements that changing what you eat made eating less much easier and kept you from being hungry. That's why low carb diets work for many.

What I think would be wrong--and I haven't noticed you doing it--would be to call this an "addiction" issue. That carbs (or sugar) may not be physiologically satisfying to some doesn't make them "addictive"--that would be a very strange use of the word "addiction."

OP seems to be talking about emotional eating, though, which generally is psychological. (Not saying he/she needs a therapist, as many of us deal with emotional eating without therapy, but I do think it's usually more than just an issue of the foods chosen.)

While I don't self identify as an addict, my eating was absolutely out of control and not just a feeling of hunger. I was never full, never satisfied and eating felt more like a compulsion I had no control over than a desire to eat tasty food. And the quantity of food needed just kept increasing and increasing. It was easier to not eat at all than stop eating once I started.

This didn't happen over night, of course, and it took a several years to get to that point where I wasn't just ordering takeout and soda because it was convenient and tasted good. But just like with cigarettes there came a time when enough was enough and I put a stop to it. I joined MFP, started exercising again and started eating the diet that's always suggested for good health -- lean meats, whole wheat, lots of fruit and vegetables, nuts etc. I limited takeout to the last Friday of every month (because I considered it a bad habit that needed to be broken) but nothing was off limits. I struggled every single day for 6 months. I didn't struggle to lose weight -- I do not lack willpower -- but I was fighting this almost ceaseless compulsion to eat and keep eating.

For health reasons (devastating diagnoses of diabetes, heart disease and cancer in my family) I decided I should lower my carbs and then I lowered them some more and in less than three weeks that nagging compulsion to eat and keep eating was gone. Gone. I described it at the time as miraculous and I still feel that way.

I can ascribe all sorts of emotional excuses to my out of control eating -- life is tramatic and I have a lot of reasons that fit -- but I'll never again be convinced that it wasn't the food when eating different food gave me back a normal appetite. I hope the research continues in this area because I think there's a lot more to be learned.

mamapeach910 wrote: »

That's what I found key, especially in terms of that hungry feeling.

Me too. This comes up sometimes when people claim potatoes or pasta or oatmeal isn't filling. I don't think any of those foods are filling on their own (for the record, at home I eat whole grain pasta and I eat steel cut oats). However, with the exception of oatmeal, I never want to eat those foods on their own, so the way I eat them they are exactly as filling as a meal with equal calories that happens to be mostly meat and veggies (although it's obviously easier to keep the latter lower cal, since you are cutting out one of the components--however, fewer calories tends to make it less filling overall for me, to some extent).

What IS a problem for me, and was when I was gaining weight, is eating something particularly carby (could be sugary but need not) on its own. So if I had a bagel for breakfast (which I often did) and ate it plain because I like it that way and figured it was "healthier" than adding more calories from cream cheese, etc., I'd be hungrier all morning, since I would get the spike and crash effect.

I'm not sure if I'd still get that effect now that I'm more active and much thinner--I'm experimenting with white rice and the like (with protein and veggies, though) post workout and that doesn't seem to make me hungry at all or interfere with satiety despite the fact that OP et al seem to think white rice is one of the EVIL ADDICTIVE foods.

Anyway, I'm not saying that low carb doesn't make a huge difference for some--I think it clearly does--but for many of us (like you and me!) eating balanced diets is what's needed and takes care of the issues that eating unbalanced carbs can cause for us.

I also agree that messed up portion sizing overall, plus (for me) eating when I wasn't hungry for lots of reasons played a huge role in me getting fat. Uncontrollable hunger really wasn't a significant issue (and again would seem to have nothing to do with the alleged addictiveness of certain foods--I wasn't a drunk because I had uncontrollable thirst, after all).

mamapeach910 wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

mamapeach910 wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

mamapeach910 wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

Acg67 wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

zyxst wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

zyxst wrote: »

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

TheVirgoddess wrote: »

If you really believe you're addicted to food, you should be seeing a therapist.

People don't necessarily need therapy to break an addiction. Many people quit smoking without therapy.

The difference is you need food to live. Eating is not something you just quit. Of course, you *can* use the same strategies to not eat food as you can with not smoking/drinking/other drug use, but eventually death happens because humans kinda need to eat to survive.

I didn't suggest using the same strategy.

So what non-therapy route do you suggest for stopping smoking that can be used for stopping eating?

You don't stop eating altogether, you stop eating your trigger foods or eat them in such small amounts they don't cause a problem. And that produces the same exact feelings, or at least it did for me, I experienced trying to quit smoking.

For years before I quit smoking just the thought of quitting would make me smoke more and if I tried to cut back? I'd smoke even more... I worked my way up to a 2 pack a day habit doing that. But there comes a point when enough is enough, you resolve to stop and you do -- no matter how panicky or sick you feel you suck it up, don't give in and know it gets easier. And a few years later you wonder that you ever had a problem.

I've never been a drug addict but there are people who say their issues with food were comparable:

I’m a recovering alcoholic, smoker and drug addict with a history of many rehabs, jail more often than I can count and several trips to the emergency room due to overdose.

After I had been sober for several years, I started to develop an addiction to unhealthy foods.

Full-blown addiction. Nothing more, nothing less.

The reason I’m telling you this is to demonstrate that I know how addiction works.

I’m here to tell you that food addiction is the same as addiction to drugs… exactly the same. --Food Addiction – A Serious Problem With a Simple Solution

The authority nutrition quack's link to the scientific proof is hilarious and many don't deal with "food addiction" or even humans

I wasn't posting science I was sharing my experience and the experience of a drug addict for the countless people using this site who feel like they have a problem and are looking for a solution -- whether there's "proof" that problem exists or not is irrelevant.

That's not a solution, it's perpetuating faulty thinking and enabling the continuing of the real problem without ever getting to the root of it.

You can go to therapy, get in touch with your feelings, your higher power, your inner child, dig deep for the "real problem" or any of the other woo... and if that works for you? More power to you and thank you for sharing your experience; I'm sure it will resonate for someone and be exactly what they need to hear to be successful.

But while you do that I'll be over here eating in a way that resolves the issue and getting the same results without the therapy.

Actually, I didn't go to therapy at all. I just learned through experience and was willing to admit over and over again that I was wrong.

The biggest steps for me in my life, not just when it comes to weight, but for everything (actually, for me, losing weight is the last piece of a really complicated puzzle) were taking responsibility for my own actions and realizing that I didn't need to feel afraid of negative emotions. A large part of my weight problems were due to issues arising from those two factors.

I grew into those realizations all on my own.

No woo, no higher power, nothing.

In other words, I finally grew up. Now, I say that... but my issue with food was mostly emotional. However, even after realizing what those emotional issues were, I was still left with bad habits that I needed to break. I had no sense of portion size, for example.

I tend to think, for the most part, that the crowd who feels addicted to food does have an emotional aspect to their eating problem.

So, yes, I will share my experience, because I think blaming the food is still masking the underlying emotional issue.

IF it's just a matter of really, really liking ... say... sweets? Meh, you want to never eat them again? Have at it. But that wasn't the thrust of the link you provided. So I'll stick with the emotional aspect for the sake of this conversation.

I believe you when you tell me you have/had underlying emotional issues you had to deal with. Why don't you believe me when I tell you I didn't?

Is it really so far outside the realms of possibility that eating one way left me hungry and always wanting more and yet eating another way I have a normal appetite? If that uncontrolled eating can be shut off like a light switch why would you think that's anything other than physiological?

Hmmm... I won't argue your personal experience or your feelings on it. And I don't believe I have argued your experience in this thread. I'm questioning the OP. Her carb addiction elimination is quite dodgy.

I'll just share my experience with the hunger issue here, though. It's brought up a lot, and there's an aspect to it that I'd like to address. Because outside of a medical condition that messes up your hormones and causes that hunger? Well... here's my experience.

I did some form of low carb (Paleo before Cordain's book came out... there was a book called Neanderthin that came out in the 90's, and Atkins and Sugar Busters) for a great many years.

I had the same feeling of oh, this is great! I'm not hungry all the time any more!

Gluten free oatmeal came out on the market, and oddly, that was the carby thing I missed the most. I bought some and ate it. The thing was that I controlled my portion of it because I knew I had been overeating carbs and was afraid of them.

I was fine. I wasn't hungry after eating it.

This started me thinking, and I started reintroducing carbs back in my life, but I'd call what I did moderate carb. I still moderate my carbs because I seem to feel more fatigued if I eat too many (I have a chronic illness that makes me feel fatigued all the time).

I was still overeating food at this point in my life, but I was overeating EVERYTHING. I wasn't any more hungry because I was eating chickpeas and oatmeal and the occasional bowl of cereal or cookies now and then. Honestly, cheese, avocados, and almond butter probably did more damage calorie-wise than anything else I was eating.

I'm not sure why you need me to validate your experience. It's great that low carb works for you. I simply think it's false thinking that it's NEEDED outside of certain medical circumstances. That's not to say that it's not a great choice for some people. You're obviously one of them.

I don't need you to validate my experience but it would be nice not to read BS like this when I do share what's worked for me:

"That's not a solution, it's perpetuating faulty thinking and enabling the continuing of the real problem without ever getting to the root of it."

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

While I don't self identify as an addict, my eating was absolutely out of control and not just a feeling of hunger. I was never full, never satisfied and eating felt more like a compulsion I had no control over than a desire to eat tasty food. And the quantity of food needed just kept increasing and increasing. It was easier to not eat at all than stop eating once I started.

Hmm. I'm not sure how to interpret this--was it not being full/being hungry that caused you to want to eat, or some kind of habit or emotional reason?

I'm just curious, since my impression is that low carb seems to work for some for whom the main issue in decreasing calories is that they feel really hungry all the time (physically, not emotionally), and have major compliance issues. I've played around with lower carb and I know certain ways of eating (unbalanced carb, so you have the spike and crash reaction) tends to make me want to eat (because I feel tired, not hungry particularly), but my own food issues are such that lower carb beyond this doesn't seem to matter.

I can relate to the compulsive stuff, though, but for me that's so clearly related to built up habits--you associate a certain feeling with doing something and come to expect it and think you need it. A hardcore breaking of these habits (which was stressful at first but not that hard) was something I did initially--it's why I cut out sweets for a few weeks, because they happened to be the foods I'd been using for these purposes, but for me I KNOW that if I let myself I could sub other foods for the same purpose if I totally cut out added sugar but also let myself use food for comfort in the same way. Sugar things just happen to be easy and convenient, as I usually don't have some steak or cheese at work. Popcorn totally fitness the bill, though, and was easily substituted back in the day).

But where I object is calling these kind of emotional attachments and habits "addiction." Some aspects of it, to me, are similar--your body expects certain satisfactions at certain times and calls out for them and misses them if they aren't available--but that in itself just doesn't seem enough.

For me the essence of addiction is that the substance becomes the center of your life and you would ultimately sacrifice everything else for that substance. And, related to this, typically addicts are a-holes, terrible people, because they increasingly care so centrally about the addiction. With really rare exceptions (true food addicts would be the morbidly obese who basically sacrifice their lives for eating, not people who overindulge in sugar or pasta, as is increasingly common in our world) I don't think this fits. The self proclaimed food addicts in fact don't put food first in their lives, they are nice people who aren't behaving like addicts--this is the opposite of an attack on them and it seems so weird that being an addict is supposed to be something that's good to be (such that it's mean to deny that its possible and to say that loving cookies doesn't make you "addicted").

It seems to me that what's going on is that people may feel frustrated with themselves for eating more than they should (just like many of us feel frustrated that we procrastinate or don't do other things we know we should because of short term vs. long term issues), and human nature is such that our impulses often outweigh our logical ideas of what we should do--St. Paul bemoans this basic thing in Romans, although I'm not claiming any theological meaning here--but to say this means we CANNOT control ourselves or that we are helpless or, as here, addicts, I think is wrong and unhelpful.

Moreover, when people who are addicted to alcohol or other substances admit they are addicts, the idea is that they MUST stop the addictive substance and can't go on as is. The idea of powerlessness is not an excuse, a "not my fault" or "I can't help it." I get so frustrated with the way food addiction gets used on MFP because, first, it makes no sense -- you cannot be physically addicted to brownies and not sugar in the jar or cookies, but quite commonly trigger foods are that specific. And, more important, it's nearly always a denial of responsibility, an "I can't help it, it's much, much harder for me than the rest of you!" Look at OP claiming that he/she can't withstand the Easter candy or the other poster who jumped in and blamed "addiction" for will power failings (including for abstinence, it seems).

None of this means that food doesn't have physiological effects that make some foods more satisfying than others, especially if you happen to have insulin issues or just are sensitive to carbs in some way, and certainly doesn't mean that people can't have emotional attachments to foods and habits built around them that are complicated and difficult. That's how people are.

But I do not believe that the issue here is addiction and when most people describe what they mean it sounds extremely different from addiction to me, including the OP in this thread. I think the question -- for someone, unlike you, who has not yet been successful -- might be why you so badly want to think it's addiction and not choice. IMO that has to do with the fact that to the person admitting it's choice is seen as a negative statement, that they are "bad" in some way, whereas if they were an addict they couldn't help it and are off the hook. As I said before, I think being fat is not something that's blameworthy or makes ANYONE a bad person--whether they chose to overeat or not--and that a true acknowledgement of addiction includes accepting responsibility, not this extreme denial of it.

I'm really not sure why this is supposed to be so mean, but in any case it's my view of the truth.

mamapeach910 wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

mamapeach910 wrote: »

That's what I found key, especially in terms of that hungry feeling.

Me too. This comes up sometimes when people claim potatoes or pasta or oatmeal isn't filling. I don't think any of those foods are filling on their own (for the record, at home I eat whole grain pasta and I eat steel cut oats). However, with the exception of oatmeal, I never want to eat those foods on their own, so the way I eat them they are exactly as filling as a meal with equal calories that happens to be mostly meat and veggies (although it's obviously easier to keep the latter lower cal, since you are cutting out one of the components--however, fewer calories tends to make it less filling overall for me, to some extent).

What IS a problem for me, and was when I was gaining weight, is eating something particularly carby (could be sugary but need not) on its own. So if I had a bagel for breakfast (which I often did) and ate it plain because I like it that way and figured it was "healthier" than adding more calories from cream cheese, etc., I'd be hungrier all morning, since I would get the spike and crash effect.

I'm not sure if I'd still get that effect now that I'm more active and much thinner--I'm experimenting with white rice and the like (with protein and veggies, though) post workout and that doesn't seem to make me hungry at all or interfere with satiety despite the fact that OP et al seem to think white rice is one of the EVIL ADDICTIVE foods.

Anyway, I'm not saying that low carb doesn't make a huge difference for some--I think it clearly does--but for many of us (like you and me!) eating balanced diets is what's needed and takes care of the issues that eating unbalanced carbs can cause for us.

I also agree that messed up portion sizing overall, plus (for me) eating when I wasn't hungry for lots of reasons played a huge role in me getting fat. Uncontrollable hunger really wasn't a significant issue (and again would seem to have nothing to do with the alleged addictiveness of certain foods--I wasn't a drunk because I had uncontrollable thirst, after all).

I'm sitting here nodding my head. I eat my oatmeal with Greek yogurt.

I eat a baked potato with lentil chili and cheese. Or cottage cheese.

I used to just bake myself a few huge potatoes and call it dinner back when I was single. I'd sprinkle salt on them and chow. Hey, it was the 80's. NO FAT! Heh.

And YES! To learning your hunger signals being a huge thing. That was something I consciously worked on after joining MFP. I knew that I really had no sense of what being hungry truly felt like.

I was constantly confusing mouth hunger and actual hunger. And well, just eating for a lot of other reasons.

Funny how people are different. Potatoes, oatmeal and pasta are some of the most filling foods for me on their own. I only add other things to them for variety, while for things like meat and poultry it's not a meal and it's not filling unless I have something carby with it. When I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes and heard how people were raving about eating burgers without a bun and how great it tasted, how you could use lettuce instead of bread for sandwiches and so on, I discovered how unsatisfying it was for me and that I actually ate burgers for the way bread tastes with the meat, not for the meat itself.

That's why weight loss is so damn complicated! because of the process one needs to go through to personalize it to their own needs, tastes, feelings, reactions, habits.. and so forth. I mean I know for a fact protein is supposed to be filling, and meat is mainly protein, but I guess my preferences and feelings about it play a role in tricking my brain into thinking it isn't, because it does not fulfill me emotionally.

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

Is it really so far outside the realms of possibility that eating one way left me hungry and always wanting more and yet eating another way I have a normal appetite? If that uncontrolled eating can be shut off like a light switch why would you think that's anything other than physiological?

Personally, I think food choice of course plays a role in how hungry you feel and that for some people carbs in particular (especially more refined carbs) tend to increase hunger or at least not sate it, especially if eaten in too high a proportion vs. the other foods in the diet. So I don't have any issue at all with your choices about how to eat (why would I?) or even your statements that changing what you eat made eating less much easier and kept you from being hungry. That's why low carb diets work for many.

What I think would be wrong--and I haven't noticed you doing it--would be to call this an "addiction" issue. That carbs (or sugar) may not be physiologically satisfying to some doesn't make them "addictive"--that would be a very strange use of the word "addiction."

OP seems to be talking about emotional eating, though, which generally is psychological. (Not saying he/she needs a therapist, as many of us deal with emotional eating without therapy, but I do think it's usually more than just an issue of the foods chosen.)

While I don't self identify as an addict, my eating was absolutely out of control and not just a feeling of hunger. I was never full, never satisfied and eating felt more like a compulsion I had no control over than a desire to eat tasty food. And the quantity of food needed just kept increasing and increasing. It was easier to not eat at all than stop eating once I started.

This didn't happen over night, of course, and it took a several years to get to that point where I wasn't just ordering takeout and soda because it was convenient and tasted good. But just like with cigarettes there came a time when enough was enough and I put a stop to it. I joined MFP, started exercising again and started eating the diet that's always suggested for good health -- lean meats, whole wheat, lots of fruit and vegetables, nuts etc. I limited takeout to the last Friday of every month (because I considered it a bad habit that needed to be broken) but nothing was off limits. I struggled every single day for 6 months. I didn't struggle to lose weight -- I do not lack willpower -- but I was fighting this almost ceaseless compulsion to eat and keep eating.

For health reasons (devastating diagnoses of diabetes, heart disease and cancer in my family) I decided I should lower my carbs and then I lowered them some more and in less than three weeks that nagging compulsion to eat and keep eating was gone. Gone. I described it at the time as miraculous and I still feel that way.

I can ascribe all sorts of emotional excuses to my out of control eating -- life is tramatic and I have a lot of reasons that fit -- but I'll never again be convinced that it wasn't the food when eating different food gave me back a normal appetite. I hope the research continues in this area because I think there's a lot more to be learned.
[/quote

I sure wish there was a like button!