The Doctor's Opinion
"We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of [food] on these [compulsive overeaters] is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker." - xxviii
There hasn't been any indication of an "allergy" response, but as I mentioned previously there is a definite difference between compulsive overeaters and the normal population in terms of brain response to food. I mentioned to my sponsor tonight that this mechanism is why I always had a hard time relating to other people who tried to help me. It just seemed like the dieticians, nutritionists, doctors, trainers, food counselors at diet locations, family and friends - everyone tried telling me about some magic trick that would help me overcome this problem. They all made it sound like it was sooo easy to just follow a diet and lose the weight. Whenever I try to talk to my mom about it she talks about her own struggles with food - but even then it isn't the same. She says how it is hard to say no to sweets, but she doesn't have the same cravings. And if she does have them, clearly the fact that she can say no indicates it isn't as bad as what I experience.
I was on vacation last week. My husband and I passed a Coldstone and I thought "wow, that sounds amazing" and then we went in to buy the ice cream. As we waited, I thought "you know, I really don't want this - it's just going to give me a stomach ache." But I bought the ice cream anyway. Then I ate the ice cream and every bite I thought "I really don't want this" - but I couldn't put the ice cream down. I felt powerless to stop myself from going through the motion of eating that desert. And it was stupid, but I really felt unable to stop. It was a compulsion to keep going. And it wasn't that I didn't want to waste the ice cream, either.
How can someone who doesn't have that type of response understand what I go through on a day to day basis with food?
"These allergic types can never safely [eat] in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve." - xxviii
The alcoholic can simply stop eating, but the food addict doesn't have that luxury. So we enter the danger zone every time we hit a meal time. I hear all the time in meetings about how things get tough when people are "in the food" - how the world goes crazy. I can't say it goes crazy per se, but I do know that I feel absolute desperation when that point hits me. It is this sense of defeat that is absolutely awful. And the lack of self-confidence is a very true point. It always seems when my eating and weight are out of control - and I have tried to control it and tried and tried - I feel like I doubt myself in everything and everywhere. And suddenly I am just crippled by the hopelessness.
"Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices. The message which can interest and hold these [compulsive overeaters] must have depth and weight." - xxviii
My dad loves to tell me how I need to lose weight because he doesn't want to have to raise my son for me. I know I need to get my eating under control. I know this disease can be deadly. I don't want to die. I don't want to miss out on my son's life. But that doesn't mean that this is going to help me. If it was a simple matter of willpower, I'd have kicked this thing years ago. It isn't. But all of these reasons are what has gotten me through the door at OA, and they are the reason I will go to any lengths for recovery.
"Men and women [overeat] essentially because they like the effect produced by [food]. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their [compulsive overeating] life seems the only normal one." - xxviii
I honestly don't know how other people can eat "normally." I don't think I eat more than other people. It doesn't seem like I am doing anything that other people aren't doing. But somehow I'm still obese. I still eat things I shouldn't. And I lie to myself about what I'm eating and how much I'm eating. The process of stuffing myself becomes so unbelievably automatic. Now that I'm on a food plan I look at what it entails and I'm amazed becuase I'm still hungry. The portions are resasonable, they seem normal, and even though I would think this would be more than enough food - it isn't. And I'm hungry. Which tells me I was eating more than this amount every day. That just makes it all the harder to know what I'm doing right and wrong. The worst part is - I have believed for years that dieting doesn't make a difference to my weight at a certain point - it seems like my body clings to the weight. Is this true or is my ability to understand normal portions so skewed that I can't see that I am overeating instead of following a sensible diet.
"They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by [eating a few bites] - [bites] which they see others taking with impunity." - xxviii-xxix
It is awful to wake up thinking of food. Eat, thinking about the next meal before the current one is even finished. Think about how long until you can eat again without it being odd or bizarre. Grocery shopping is just torture, because you want to buy one of everything and eat it all. And the worst part is you see all these normal sized people eating junk food - cake and ice cream and pizza and fast food. How can they do it but I can't? It's maddening.
