Day Nine: Food Addiction

Starting Weight:  239.5
Current Weight:  228.3
Total Loss:  - 11.2

I lost some of the mystery weight.  Maybe I wasn't fully awake when I weighed myself?  Maybe the scale was on a bump in the floor?  Maybe I gained mystery weight?  I'm trying to not let it bother me, but it does.  It doesn't make me want to quit, but it takes the wind out my sails a bit.  I suppose this is one of those things I'm supposed to learn from on this journey.  We as women gain mystery weight. Our bodies are amazing!  We have the power to create life, and apparently gain 2lbs of mystery weight overnight while consuming 800 calories a day and exercising.  So weird.  Perhaps, I should stay off the scale every day?   I don't think I can.  I get excited to get on the scale.  Oh well...trying to move on from it, again.

I read a lot posts on the www.3fatchicks.com website forum.  I read a post today by a young woman who is about 20 lbs over weight and wants to restrict her calories to 500-700 a day and exercise 5 hours a day!  I want to cry when I read this.  I can see the desperation in her posts - how she really believes that losing the weight is going to be the answer to all of her problems.  That the weight is why everything in her world is terrible right now.  I know that feeling.  I have felt it so many times.  I have felt disgusted with myself and ashamed.  Not wanting to go to family events because I would show up fatter than I was the last time everyone saw me and they would whisper about it or talk about it after I left.  I haven't wanted to go out to dinner, or go into public with my boyfriend because I'm afraid that people will talk about how Rob, my strong strapping boyfriend, has such a fat girlfriend.  I have opted out of living because of my weight.  I have let my weight run my life.

Now, tell me honestly?  Does an alcoholic let alcohol control their life?  Does a gambler let gambling control their life?  A drug addict with drugs?  Yes, yes and yes.  If weight controls your life, causes you to change the way you do things, causes you to miss things you would typically attend, stop doing things you love - if you think about food all day long, sneak off to have a treat, reward yourself for a good day with food, reward yourself for a bad day with food, eat because your bored, eat because your tired, eat because you don't feel good, eat because you are watching tv, just eat because you want to eat when you are not hungry - YOU ARE A FOOD ADDICT.  That is a realization that has hit home with me.  To put a name to this battle that I've been having for so long has brought me some peace.  Once I get through the Optifast program, there may be some trigger foods that I may never ever be able to have again.  I've got to learn how to deal with my boredom, sadness, and happiness without food, like a normal person.  Treating my emotions with food is unhealthy and if I keep it up it will eventually kill me.

Definition of Addiction

Public Policy Statement: Definition of Addiction

Short Definition of Addiction:

Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.

Addiction is characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response. Like other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission. Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability or premature death.

It is time to change our thinking.  95% of us gain the weight back that we lose.  Doesn't that sentence tell you something?  There is a reason why we have yo-yo dieted for years and year.  We haven't been treating the problem correctly.   We have been beating ourselves up because we haven't had any "will-power" "self-control" when it comes to food.  We have mentally tortured ourselves with diet after diet after diet.  We have beaten our own self-esteems down every single time we gain the weight back and have to start all over again.  It is NOT our faults.  Tell yourself over and over and over again.  This is NOT my fault.  Love yourself again.  You, like me were probably brought up being rewarded for a good job with food.  Being rewarded for being brave with food.  Being rewarded for a hard day with food.  Our brains have learned that food is the answer to every mood.  Say it again with me, "THIS IS NOT MY FAULT."   Believe it, cause it is true.  We are addicted to food.  Our brains over rule our ability to make a change every single time.   A great many of us have a food addiction.  Start treating the problem like an addiction.  I'm going to start treating mine like an addiction, because I know that is what it is.  I'm not going to live in the land of delusion anymore.  I'm going to call a spade a spade and do what it takes to heal this once and for all.  I'm getting off this roller-coaster.  Are you guys with me?