Tales of compulsive and emotional eating

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A perennial favorite topic around here is how fat a lot of people are and how simple it would be for them to lose weight if it weren’t for their fat laziness. I started this thread as a way for those of us with food issues to talk about our relationship with food. Maybe it will help some of us get control of our situation; and it will most likely at least give our detractors some idea of what goes on in our heads.

Tell a story that reveals your relationship with food. I’ll start:

Once when I was a young sprout, probably somewhere between ten and thirteen years old, I had come home from school, eaten everything I could think of, and then went to lie down on the couch to suffer from severe indigestion. As I was lying there writhing, I realized that despite the great discomfort I was enduring from overindulging, I was fantasizing about my next meal and what it would be.

I have a lot more stories, but I’ll stop with one for now. That and this quote that was from Fran Drescher’s autobiography, supposedly said by her mother (I have to paraphrase): “I eat until I get nauseated and then I stop. Sometimes.”

2

No specific tales come to mind, but I was a binge overeater for many years. It started when I was very little and was the victim of sexual abuse. Add to that the fact that my mother was batshit insane. From a young age, I figured out that food was a constant. A Twinkie would always taste the same, no matter what. And voila! A binge eater was born. My “thing” (drug of choice) was a combo of fat and sugar. Donuts, snack cakes, etc. I’d squirrel them away in my room when I could, and eat them when no one else was around. Since I developed binge eating as a stress defense so early in life, even after those stresses had passed, it was my default setting for stress. I’d eat.

I dieted “successfully” many times (successfully meaning I lost large amounts of weight; I was never successful in keeping the weight off).

This past June, I had a type of weight loss surgery that cut out most of my stomach. It’s capacity is now about 4oz. You can’t binge eat when your stomach won’t hold more than 4oz. of food.

3

I am slightly less than 5’3" in height. I used to weigh 180 pounds. I have not been overweight for more than thirty years, but deep down inside this thin body there is a fat woman struggling to get out.

The worst incident of binge-eating for comfort that I can recall was the night that a man I loved and had lived with for nearly a year told me that he was in love with someone else and he intended to marry her.

I had two Sara Lee cheesecakes in the freezer. I got them out and ate them both without even thawing them.

He married the other woman anyway, of course.

4

I always get a little sad at about midpoint of a meal because I know that I only have half of my dinner left too eat. I just wish I could get away from that little sad feeling and enjoy what food I have. Every meal I eat until I’m absolutely stuffed, and I still don’t always feel satisfied. I wish to GOD I could just get that stupid feeling to go away and feel satisfied.

I eat for many reasons. At night, when my daughter is keeping me up until four or five a.m. I eat out of boredom or just to keep myself awake. I eat to keep from smoking so much. I eat because I’m so miserable and sleepy, and it brings me a little bit of pseudo-comfort, if you don’t mind me inventing a word.

I eat when I’m sad because the chewing and swallowing gets my mind off of things. When my oldest daughter went through a cutting period, she explained why she did it and I could totally relate. It was the exact same reason I binge. I’ve fantasized about being so ill I lose weight. I’ve considered puking it all back up, but I never would. Vomiting is not a good satisfier to me personally. The idea of getting one of those gastric bypasses terrifies me because I couldn’t eat what I love to eat. A life without any sort of satisfaction scares me to death.

I eat when I celebrate. Every holiday is food, every date I have with my SO is food, everything in my life is punctuated by food.

I try, believe me. I do not want to feel this way, tired and hungry and unsatisfied. I hate that I’m fat, despite chasing a toddler and trying to exercise at least thirty minutes a day. Some people are quite surprised to find out that I actually exercise at all. I just eat way more than I burn. It’s so simple, isn’t it? If I stopped doing this, I’d be healthy and thin. So easy.

So easy that I’ve said at least a hundred thousand times that I’m going to stop eating so much. And it works for a day or two. When I was on Atkins I felt so damned good. Getting away from the sugar completely was like a freakin miracle. I lost over 50 lbs. and I just felt so much energy. So much energy I got myself hooked up with a fine man and got myself with child. So much for that weight loss. :wink:

With pregnancy brought new cravings, of salty-sweet-salty-sweetdonutschipsburgersTake5sicecreamcheesenipsbeanburritos…on and on and on. I’ve gained 65 lbs since my first OB visit, 19 months ago. So yeah I know by now it’s a simple calculation. Eat less, exercise more. Eat less junk food, exercise more. Eat more fiber to “fill up”, exercise more.

But the “filling up” doesn’t satisfy me. “Overflowing” doesn’t even satisfy me. And by god I need some satisfaction! I mean, doesn’t everyone want to feel satisfied? But I never do feel it really. I think I’m fooling myself into thinking “stuffed until you can’t move” is satisfaction. I think a good sugarcaffeine buzz is satisfaction. It really isn’t, is it? But I don’t know how to stop it and it’s the closest I ever come to feeling satisfied.

5

I eat when I’m working. I write a lot (college papers, writing short stories, working on that novel that’ll get published some day), and whenever I need to take a “think break” to reorganize my thoughts or figure out how to make a sentence work, out my right hand goes for whatever’s sitting on the computer desk. When I’m having romantic troubles or feeling gloomy, I also participate in the classic “Sex and the City” buy-a-pint-of-ice-cream-and-eat-it-with-a-giant-spoon-in-15-minutes therapy.

6

I’m…amazed at this. Today I have had:

  • Two black coffees
  • A whole wheat ham and cheese Kaiser
  • A bowl of vegetable soup
  • A home made cheeseburger, on a whole wheat kaiser
  • A handful of oven baked french fries
  • 4 beers.

This is a somewhat typical day for me; yes including the beer. I’m 5’7" and 160 pounds and haven’t really changed much in 10 years.

I rarely snack. I exercise moderately, although I could probably use some more cardio stuff. I just turned 44 and can’t imagine food – food of all things – as a crutch. How does this happen? Don’t you feel like, I don’t know, puking if you binge on food?

7

I am also a binge eater. Tonight I felt sad and I couldn’t figure out why, so I went and bought pizza and cheese bread and ate damn near all of it. I feel better now, but I can’t help but wonder if the outcome would have been the same if I had gone on a walk instead. I have always turned to food for comfort for as long as I can remember and I really don’t even know why. I don’t drink or smoke, I’ve never done drugs, I am very healthy and responsible in every other aspect of my life but food. I would love to stop and I have for short periods of time but if anything goes wrong in my life food is the first place I go. I guess it is similar to someone who is a meth addict or something-you feel terrible and you know you have to stop or you’ll die, but even when you feel like you have hit rock bottom you are planning for the future, whether it be your next hit or your next burger.

8

I sure don’t know why some people want to eat and eat and never stop while other people only eat for fuel. I’m trying to brainwash myself into being the second kind of person. I’ve succeeded to an extent but I have a ways to go.

I spend a lot of time imagining eating certain foods. Something will trigger a craving, maybe the smell of someone else’s food heating in the microwave at work, maybe a commercial about the newest bizarre pizza creation (seven cheeses and the meat of every animal!), or even the mention of yellowcake uranium (I’m not kidding).

It usually takes a conscious effort for me to stop eating and go find something else to do. The best strategy I have in my arsenal is to distract myself until my “eating mode” shuts down.

9

Mmmmm…Yellow cake with pink frosting…Mmmmm.

pbbth’s meth addict analysis is spot-on.

10

I lived with an aunt and uncle from the time I was 5 until I was about 9. My mother didn’t know it (when she found out, she got me the hell out of there) but the aunt and uncle were both physically and emotionally abusive to me. My aunt was a bitch, but the bitch could cook. The only pleasure I had in life was food. Those early years have affected my entire life. If I’m upset or depressed, I eat. I have friends that can’t eat if they’re upset, and I’ve always wanted to be like that. Nope - not me. And as I get older it is much harder to lose the weight.

11

I eat when I’m bored.
I eat when I’m happy.
I eat when I’m sad.
I eat when I’m angry.
I eat when I feel guilty (and feel guilty when I eat…talk about a vicious circle!).
I eat when I start to feel bad about my weight (no, it’s not rational. Surprised?)
I eat when there’s food there.
I eat when I have to go out for food.
I eat until I’m uncomfortable.
I eat because I’m uncomfortable.

I’ve had “buyer’s remorse” about junk food binging so many times that I can time it to the exact moment after finishing (it’s usually about 10 minutes). I can look at it rationally AFTER I’ve downed the three cans of Chef Boyardee, but for some completely opaque reason I can’t muster that “Why the hell did I do THAT?!” feeling before I dig in.

I identify with every poster in this thread so far.

12

I can’t eat when I’m upset, but I’m a very cheerful person. Social, too—let’s meet for dinner!
Did I mention I was social? I don’t like to eat alone but often do, so I treat myself to fabulous meals—no fast food for me. I deserve to eat inside, not in my car. I go to a nice restaurant and have a great meal and dessert. I don’t like to be home alone, so I stay out and go to a coffee place and have a smoothie and sit around and talk to whoever’s there.

13

I eat when I am sad/depressed/stressed/bored. Today I was very stressed and frustrated, and what got me out of it was that I decided to bake a batch of cookies from scratch. That perked me up. Luckily I had only three cookies, and am sick of them now… (too sweet/rich)

I love food. I love eating. I hate the feeling of being hungry. I get these extremely intense cravings for specific things. Whether it’s for something sweet or salty, I must indulge… it just doesn’t go away. The feeling of being hungry and having intense cravings is one of the worst and most annoying and distracting physical feelings. It’s like being tired, being horny, or being thirsty… you have to do something about it so it will go away. If I get one of these cravings, I can’t concentrate or do anything.

When I went through a bad period in my life a couple of years ago, I used to bake a whole batch of cupcakes and eat them over the course of a few days. Oh, heavenly cupcakes… <sigh> Whoever mentioned yellowcake up there, I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Since then, I have lost 60 pounds and am not longer fat. I feel so much better about myself and am in a great relationship. Now that I live with someone, I can no longer indulge in my cravings as much… but I do find myself sneaking snacks, because I don’t want to look like a glutton to my boyfriend. Sometimes, I will get something bad like doughnuts at the store and keep them in my car, and run out there and sneak one when I get the craving. It makes me feel so ashamed and helpless.

But I never ever ever want to go back to being fat. I can’t, I would just die. I hated being like that, and when I look a photos of myself when I was fat, I just utterly hate myself and feel so much disgust for myself. So living with the “craving demon” is a tough tough thing :frowning:

14

Well consider yourself very very lucky not to suffer from this affliction.

I know people like you… they can eat whatever they want and remain skinny as a rail.

As for me, if I ate what you described you ate today, I would blow up. That’s a lot of food - a lot of good food - but my body couldn’t handle eating like that on a daily basis without getting fat again. So consider yourself lucky that you can eat that and stay thin.

15

There’s also the fact that some people’s tastes just naturally run towards vegetable soup and sandwiches on whole-wheat bread. They’re physically repulsed by a Big Mac. Good for them, but it doesn’t connote discipline, just personal preference.

If people are inclined to binge, they just are. Elvis was going through a period where he was trying to diet without amphetamines. He threw out all the fatty, sugary junk in the mini-fridge in his room, and had it stocked with fruit and yogurt. Then he ran through all the yogurt in one night: 40 cartons. There was as much fat in that as if he’d had a dozen doughnuts. So the experiment was deemed a failure, and he went back to fried peanut butter sandwiches.

16

I like food. I can probably count all the foods I won’t eat on one hand. Some of my favourite foods are broccoli, liver, asparagus and other unpopular things, but I also like sweet, salty and fatty crap. But even though I like food, I find the act of eating kind of boring and a lot slower than I’d like, and so I have a tendency to skip meals when there’s something else I’d rather do. I snack a lot when I’m bored though.

17

Sorry, I misread a line in the OP (and completely missed the title) and thought this was a “describe how you eat” thread.

18

I’m on the other end of the spectrum, but I’m certainly obsessed with food. I obsess over what other people eat, what I could eat, how I’ll get out of eating, what I can’t eat, what I would eat if I could and why I can’t… If i have the spare time, I can spend hours and hours in the grocery store shopping for myself. Walking around and standing in front of the cookies going, “ooooooooooh. should I? No, I can’t. but oooooh…” and then moving on to the chips and the candy and the peanut butter, the noodles, etc. Then I finally make a resolution and rush through all the aisles just grabbing the food I’ve decided on off the shelves. Filling the cart up and then chickening out totally. Usually I’ll run back through and put everything back where it belongs, but sometimes I just have to get far away from the food no matter what and will just abandon the cart in the store. (I know that’s terrible and the workers probably would like to clobber me, but I’ve only done it two or three times.)

I do sometimes end up binge eating. (but don’t tell anyone.) It’s incredible- most times, I’m in pain after a small meal. I get all upset that I’m expected to eat so much and wonder how anyone could possibly hold all that food in their stomach. But there were times (not since I started recovery, though.) that I’d just start and not stop. The hunger and satiety signals in my body are just gone. I don’t get hungry like most people, but I used to just starve completely until I’d snap and then just go INSANE. I’d eat and eat and eat and then go to the grocery store and buy all the stuff I really wanted and eat and eat and eat some more. I always felt like it was my last meal or something. Like I’d better eat all the guacamole and barbecue potato chips I possibly could because I’d never ever ever be able to have them again and while I’m at it, I’d better eat some crackers becuase I won’t be able to have crackers either. Afterwards, I’d either stick a toothbrush handle down my throat, just get sick “naturally” from eating too much, or fall asleep (and then wake up in horrible pain the next morning and be paranoid for a month that everyone knows about my binge.)
Why is food such a big drug of choice? becuase it’s so easy to go too far with it. People don’t start smoking or doing heroin without the knowledge that they could get addicted. Well, they could if they’re just really ignorant, I guess. But people start out eating just fine and it’s really really easy to tell yourself that you’re just snacking moderately or that you’re just on a diet that’s maybe a little extreme… you end up just a little overweight or a little under and say to yourself, “it’s fine. I mean, who’s not a little overweight? Curves are sexy!” or “Underweight doesn’t mean anything. BMI 18.5 is not that skinny. I don’t look sick.” and then by the time you wake up and smell the triple chai latte, you’ve got a BMI of 12 and they’re sticking a tube up your nose.

And it’s so EASY to be in denial with food. I mean, you’re upset and depressed and you don’t know why. Go drink or go smoke pot or something and you’re admitting that you’re depressed and you’re sort of knowingly taking the easy way out. But food isn’t bad like drugs. Your mommy gave you food. Your grandma ate food. In fact, you got in trouble when you WOULDN’T eat your food. With food, you can just munch and numb yourself while still telling yourself that you’re just hungry.

19

And the reason it’s so hard to quit eating like we do is because you CAN’T go cold turkey on food. You HAVE to eat. So there’s always that temptation in front of you.

20

Are any of you in counseling for these issues? It sounds like there are major skeletons in some of your closets. Have you had success through counseling?

I’ll get on a food “kick” but I’ve never binged. When I go out to eat, it’s more about the social aspect and it being effortless (being waited on) than it is about the food. My SIL has friends who they go out with frequently. This guy is a two-fisted eater/drinker. There are always multiple appetizers, often TWO entrees, and always dessert…all washed down with 7 or 8 martinis. I, on the other hand, am happy to have 2 or 3 glasses of wine and one or two appetizers shared with a friend or two over good conversation. I’ve just never gotten off on eating.