I can’t really get onboard with the Atkins thing. I’ve tried it and I felt horrible, all the time. There was no way I could make it through induction. And dieticians have told me to stay away from it. (YMMV, obviously.) But I am right on board with the cutting out of certain foods to lessen the cravings. I still likes me some sugar, but after skipping desserts for a few days, I don’t want much anymore. Last night I had maybe an ounce of M&Ms, and I didn’t particularly enjoy them. And while I used to really love meals that were entirely deep fried, they make me sick now. Even to think about them. I’ve had to say sayonara to fish and chips.
I don’t know if I have an emotional addiction to food, but I seem to have a sort of intellectual addiction. I don’t read novels, I read cookbooks. I don’t watch NBC, I watch Food Network. I always want to be anti-social during Thanksgiving, because dammit, I want to cook! (In recent years this has resulted in two feasts every T-day weekend. One cooked by family, the other done right!)
In fact, I’m often astonished at how often I think about food. Yesterday my GF and I got on the subject of our recent vacation, and we asked each other what our favorite moment was – our picture-perfect-postcard moment. While she offered beach or boat moments, I started mentally listing the restaurants where we ate. And the cooking demonstration we saw (by Frank Brigtsen, of NOLA restaurant Brigtsen’s). And the cool frying pan I bought.
Fortunately, I think I’ve found a way of turning this obsession into something positive – namely, obsessing about tasty and satisfying yet healthy foods. There can be just as much flair and artistry in preparing a 3oz piece of trout as there is in preparing a 12oz piece of steak wrapped in tripe and served on a banana split.
I’m addicted to sugar too. That’s why my friends dared me to not eat anything sugary for a day, because I used to constantly eat it. You know the powdered Country Time Lemonade? I used to eat that stuff straight out of the box. I found out that I’m hypoglycemic, so I modified my diet accordingly. There are different types, some people can not have extra sugar, while my mom and I apparently just don’t properly absorb enough from our foods so we need to constantly eat to help keep our sugar levels at a healthy range. Once I figured out what foods I need to eat to keep my sugar levels up, I don’t crave sugar nearly as much I used to.
Huh. You know something interesting I discovered in the past week.
I had a cold in the past week, and with it came a pretty sore throat, so I’ve been using an oral anesthetic. Since I couldn’t taste anything–I figured–why the heck not–I’ll fast a couple of days on the 48-hour Celebrity Diet juice, shrink my stomach a bit.
Instead of downing the whole cup of juice every 4 hours, I sipped it ever so slowly… as gradual as can be, two ounces throught the hour.
What was SO WEIRD was that I didn’t get hungry at all, and I didn’t have my mind on food at all. It’s a very weird feeling to not to be constantly thinking or planning my next meal. I’m still doing it somewhat but it’s more out of habit than compulsion. The cold’s long over, but I’ve been using orange juice + Hollywood diet and I’m going to keep up this experiment. (Not accompanied by the fast, the juice will now be part of my daily calorie intake) So far, so good.
I was abused as a child, both by strangers and to a lesser degree by my parents. I ate for comfort when they weren’t around. I was terribly depressed when I was in high school. When I started college, I was a size 24. Then something magical happened. I moved into the doors my second year and made a lot of friends. Then, right before Christmas, I got sick. A viral resperatory infection, nothing terribly serious, but it was nasty. I couldn’t eat. I was feverish for more than two weeks. I lost a lot of weight. I got better. I didn’t gain weight. I did need to eat for comfort because I had friends now to be there instead. I dropped down to a 16. Graduted, moved to Calfornia with my boyfriend. He gained a lot of weight that year. I worked 60 to 75 hours a week on my feet and biked 2 to 3 miles each way to work. I ate healthy. I stayed a 16. We moved back to Boston and swore we’d lose the weight we gained (my clothes went from being lose to being tight). My boyfriend’s doing great. I want to cry because I eat well, bran ceral, carrot sticks, fresh fruit, healthy meals, but no, I’m not losing weight. I went on vacation and over indulged, no change in weight. It seems stuck there. I exercise, no difference. I just don’t understand. And I’m very worried that I could slip easily into the other side of eating disorders because I feel like my life is out of control and that would be something that I could control, so I just don’t know what to do. I used to think if I could just be a 16, I’d be happy with myself, but I’m not. I still feel like I should be thinner. And I get frustrated by the things I can not change. I have a huge long bones. I have a hard time with dress shirt, even more now that I’ve lost weight, because my wrists are too big. And there really isn’t much other than skin and bone there. I’m never going to able to change that. I have wide hips. By waist measurements, I should be about a size smaller, but I can ever get those pants over my hips.
My boyfriend is the only one that ever told me I was attractive, but part of me can’t believe that because he’s my boyfriend and we all know that love is blind. I have such a distorted self image. I still see myself as a size 24. I hate mirrors. It doesn’t compute that I’m not that big anymore. My best friend is a 16, but I can’t look at her and see myself. There was a picture of us from high school on my wall at my parents. I think she was a 12 then and I was a 24. That is burned in my memory as our size difference, so whenever I think about it, I deny myself food to try and change who I was, not who I am.
And I totally understand the being depressed about being fat and over eating to feel better about it. I’m not sure if what I said has a point or is on topic, but this isn’t something I can normally talk about it, because I am so ashamed about my weight and my past.
Every day of my life my stomach wakes me up before the alarm. Growls during court, meetings, dates; pretty much any time I have to go two or more hours without food.
Every event and occurrence is planned around meals. My friends and family begin with “Well, Beau will have to eat something before we can go…” or “We will have to find Beau something to eat while we are out…” before any plans can be made. This means that my friends and family find me to be a huge pain in the ass. They complain loud and long about accommodating my stomach. Their unkind nickname for me is “Tapeworm”. The kinder nickname is “Hoover”. I plan all work and leisure activities around putting food in my mouth.
Grocery shopping is my favorite way to blow money. I am a skilled cook but eat out as often as budget allows because if I am out… I am hungry. I am obsessed with eating and obsessed with food. Any new items in the grocery store or on a menu excite me to near manic happiness. I love weird food and will eat anything and everything that most people are reluctant to try.
Here is the kicker- I am thin. Really thin. Have always been at least 20 pounds under accepted weight for my height/bone structure. I do not have a particularly efficient metabolism. I just cannot manage to clean my plate no matter how hungry I am before the meal. Either my stomach either won’t hold much or I have somehow programmed my appetite to shut down just before full. I hate to feel nauseated; very rarely eat to fullness or discomfort. What this means is that I stop eating before I have put in enough calories and I am hungry again in a couple of hours- the whole cycle starts over.
Beaucarneau, that’s wild. I had no idea there were people in your situation. Have you ever asked a doctor about it? Is anyone else in your family the same way? On the face of it (you’re thin!), I want to envy you, but I realize that constant hunger and obsession with food isn’t enviable.
You are going to pay up and join our message board, aren’t you?
gfloyd, I keep trying to find the right words to type. The basic message I want to convey is: you have nothing to be ashamed of, either for being a little fat or for having been abused as a child.
Mirrors aren’t your enemy. All they do is reflect what you look like. It’s not something to hide from.
