Food Addiction
I am a food addict. That’s supposedly the first part of healing any addiction, right? You admit you have a problem. And look, I’m admitting my weakness to the world on the interwebs. That’s about as vulnerable as it gets.
Now, if you’re unfamiliar with addiction, you may claim that food addiction is not a true addiction. You can only become addicted to drugs like cocaine and meth right? Wrong. According the to Oxford dictionary, addiction is defined as “the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity”. It does not specify what that substance or thing is, it simply states thing. You can be a food addict, it can control you, it can ruin your life, it can kill you. Addiction does not discriminate. In our current society becoming addicted to things can be the easiest, most accessible thing to us. We are being force-fed dopamine hits through fake food, pharmaceuticals, screens, and more. But that’s a different article for a different day. For now, let’s focus on food addiction. In this article I will:
explore my devolopment of and relationship to food addiction,
discuss how I became aware of my addiction and began to shift my narrative,
identify signs of a food addict, and
present some steps you can take to heal your food addiction.
My Food Addiction
My food addiction story begins in a little two-bedroom apartment in Santa Rosa, California. My mom worked a LOT when I was really young (shout out to the single moms out there!) so I would stay home with my grandma. My grandma worked a night nursing shift at the time therefore she would sleep a whole lot during the day. I spent much time during the day primarily alone before starting school. I don’t have particularly strong memories of my emotions back in those days but I do have very prominent memories of eating and eating and then eating a little more when I was bored or lonely.
As I grew up, I developed a food addiction as a way to cope with the difficult things I faced. In adolescence my addictive tendencies turned more sinister. I abused many different substances and I developed an eating disorder. I dropped about forty pounds in a matter of a month and a half and I would go days without eating. Eventually as my mom caught on, I was threatened to be sent to an inpatient rehab center. I had to turn my act around. So I would “balance” my starvation with intense sickening binges. I kept away from substances for a while and outwardly it appeared as though I’d cleaned up my life quite a bit. However the binges would grow in calorie-intake and frequency.
To make a long story short, I have struggled both with my relationship with food for many years. I was only made aware of my potential addiction relatively recently. My mom urged me to return to therapy in July of 2023 and I am so thankful she did. I have been working with an insightful, introspective professional since then and I’ve gained much perspective into many different aspects of my past and present life. In facing my food addiction for what it was and is, I have been able to relinquish the shame and guilt I’ve always held so strongly due to my binges and food obsessions. In getting honest with myself and my loved ones, I’ve been able to face my problems and start to work through them. Since October (it’s March as I write this) I’ve lost about 24 pounds and managed to maintain that weight loss. Although I have returned to a “normal” diet that includes sugar and flour in moderation, I am now conscious of how those substances function within my body and on my brain and I can consciously control my cravings.
Signs of A Food Addict
The following list is from eatingdisorderhope.com. I have found the bright line eating website, videos from its founder Susan Pearce Thompson, and articles from foodaddicts.org helpful in my self-education process regarding food addiction.
Signs & Symptoms You May be Addicted to Food:
Gorging in more food than one can physically tolerate
Eating to the point of feeling ill
Going out of your way to obtain certain foods
Continuing to eat certain foods even if no longer hungry
Eating in secret, isolation
Avoiding social interactions, relationships, or functions to spend time eating certain foods.
Difficulty function in a career or job due to decreased efficiency
Spending a significant amount of money on buying certain foods for bingeing purposes
Decreased energy, chronic fatigue
Difficulty concentrating
Sleep disorders, such as insomnia or oversleeping
Restlessness
Irritability
Headaches
Digestive disorders
Suicidal ideations
How to Heal Your Food Addiction
I am not a medical professional in any capacity, however I do have real-life experience with this issue and I’ve extensively researched the subject for the purpose of my own personal growth and evolution. I feel it is my duty to share some of the steps that have been empowering for me in this journey of self-acceptance, -improvement, and -love.
Get Professional Help
Therapy has been the biggest game changer for me. I now have a team that consists of a therapist, psychiatrist, and a medical doctor. I feel heard by each of these professionals and I have worked so hard to overcome my shame and finally seek the help that I’ve always needed. No matter what kind of professional you feel you may need, take a deep breath, make the phone call, and commit to doing anything you need to in order to better yourself.
Meet Yourself Where You Are: Compassion, Patience, Love
You are fully capable of giving yourself the compassion you’ve always deserved. You have made the life choices you’ve made up to this point for a reason. You are now able to choose what you want your future to look like. Give your younger self a big warm hug, forgive her for any of her past mistakes, and commit to cultivating a relationship with your adult self and growing in maturity, wisdom, and empowerment.
Hold patience for yourself as you embark on the painful, tumultuous, ragged journey of self-healing and self-improvement. You are so strong for enduring all of the things you have endured in your life up to this point and you will only grow stronger. Know that you are going to make mistakes. You will still experience setbacks. You will hurt people, including yourself, along the way. The road to healing is probably the most difficult path you could possibly take. But you are more than capable of doing everything you feel called to do.
Lastly, love yourself. Love your imperfect body for all its done and does for you. Your body is beautiful. Your body has grown, or has the capacity to grow, life. Your body has carried you throughout this life and held your precious spirit. Appreciate and learn to accept every imperfection that makes up the physical being you are. Love your essential self. Love that energy within you that composes the human that you are now. You deserve love from the people in your life but more importantly from yourself.
Set Goals
If you need to lose weight in order to become a healthier better-functioning version of yourself, figure out what you need to do to accomplish that goal. Every single person is different which means what works for some people simply will not work for others. Figure out what diet and exercise routine works best for you and commit to that. Diet can be as simple as integrating a fresh food into every meal. Exercise can be as simple as walking for fifteen minutes daily. Start with easy changes in order to build your confidence in your abilities and self-care habits. Once you’re able to do the small things you’ll be able to do the bigger things.
Do Your Research
Research food addiction. Research the food industry at large and how our “modern day foods” are chemically engineered to be addictive so that we will be out-of-control consumers. Research the processing of sugar and flour and compare those processes to other drugs. Research the effects of sugar on the brain. Research the withdrawal symptoms that one will experience when cutting sugar from your diet. I am not going to tell you how to eat or move ever. I acknowledge that what worked for me may not work for you. However, I will share that cutting flour and sugar from my life for a full month resulted in the stable mental health, high energy levels, and weight loss. That change made me feel excellent and I look forward to committing to a similar diet in the future. Find what works for you!
No matter where you are in your health and self-development journey, always remember that there is support available for you. You deserve health and vitality. You deserve to feel pride in the person you are. You deserve to feel at peace with yourself. Take some time and space to reflect on where you are now and where you want to be in the future, then take the aligned actions you need to take to get yourself there.