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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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Posted by Llurpsie_Noodle on January 26, 2007, at 12:53:42
Hi all, I'm reading a book on Food Addiction and I took some notes on the first 3 chapters. I've decided that I cannot really continue to eat the way I do. It's unhealthy mentally and physically.
Below, please find my notes and personal reflections on topics such as my emotional relationship with food, food as an addictive substance, physical relationship with food.I know it's long. I just want practice putting these things in words. Please feel free to comment if any of these things resonate with you, or if you have ideas about how to break the cycle I've found myself in.
Thanks in advance
*************************
Food addiction: my personal pattern
bingeing on sweets and carbs:
-when under stress to perform
-to numb anxiety or other negative feelings
-cope with problems
-to supress emotions
-to deal with stress
Addictive behavior ---> changes in brain chemistry ---> changes in my relationship with food.Psychology: Root of Food Addiction
Low self-esteem: anxiety about my self and my ability to deal with challenges. I need help setting realistic expectations for myself and finding balance in my thinking and behavior.
Emotionally stunted: Never having been comfortable expressing or feeling emotions (much less analysing them and addressing their causes and solutions) I have learned to numb them using various methings, of which eating is the most socially acceptable.Emotional triggers:
Anger: Not comfortable speaking about my anger to the offending party. I will eat and "stuff it" instead. I bottle my rage, and gradually it spreads and poisons all my feelings and my mood. I turn my anger on myself and use it to berate myself for my poor eating and exercise habits.
Feeling good about myself and wishing to reward my good behavior with a treat or three.
Feeling really really depressed and sad and hopeless. What's the point of eating healthy if there's no tomorrow?
Need: A hunger for something- emotional or physical intimacy, thirst, sleepiness. I do not analyze what I need, I just assume it can be fed with food. Maybe I was only thirsty or tired, or lonely. Food not a cure-all.
Fear: what am I afraid of? facing the emotions I'm trying to smother/fear of getting fat it I stop monitoring and berating myself over intake/fear of people noticing and commenting on me if I get skinny or toned/fear of being too fat for uncoming bridesmaiding/men's attention/having to do hard work of constant vigilance of relapse of physical carb addiction/having to do hard work of regular workouts/emotional and physical intimacy.Situational triggers:
working and reading- need something in my mouth. CBT techniques may help me break this cycle. wear gloves to avoid chewing on fingers, chew gum to avoid too much eating, drink hot tea (unsweet) to stay alert.
visiting family- need to address the emotions, rather than just try to prove my worth by cooking and eating extravagent meals and desserts. Avoid the collective binge-fest of our get-togethers. Awareness of how others' eating primes and triggers me.
Visually appealing food displays- big buffets and servings are nearly impossible for me to avoid.
Need to Procrastinate: eating, shopping & preparing food is time I can use to say "no more work on my diss, eating is more important".
Loneliness and Boredom: food is the friend, the activity that is always there. the belief that if I make a nice meal, my friends will come to visit me. I cook too much, and eat it over the next several days.
Powerful association: TV on, mouth open. Eating meals and snacks in front of TV, I've turned into Pavlov's dog. really!Taste triggers: milk chocolate- once I start eating it, I cannot stop until it's gone.
pastries and baked goods- cannot stop until I feel full, but these foods are so rich that full = too many caloriesNegative effects of my food addiction:
overweight and overblubbery- concern that I might be affecting my risk for diabetes, heart disease and other chronic health conditions
poor self-esteem- Negative feelings about my own self-efficacy, since I cannnot seem to get my behavior under control.
Feelings that I am weak and deeply flawed. Shame for engaging in unhealthy behaviors, even as I *know* better.
Disconnect between my knowledge and my intentions and my behavior reinforce my sense of being out of control and put me at risk for depression, dissociation.
Uncomfortable secrets: I haven't told anyone the extent of my bingeing, the way that I hoard and eat food in secret. The way that I cannot seem to see a piece of chocolate cake as an "option" but rather that I MUST have it- I am sick of acting like I'm normal.
Discomfort over late-night bingeing and discomfort at never being able to talk about it with anyone, because they'll wonder how I KNOW all of this stuff, yet I cannot get my behavior under control.
My weight.
My size. Why do I look like a fairly normal (only slightly pudgy) young woman, and why do I feel such intense distress about my diet (when I stop to think about it?)
Feeling shame about the pints of ice cream in my shopping cart. Wondering who will see me feeding my addiction?
Taking excess medication when I could be controlling the symptoms through developing a more healthy relationship with food.
***************Solutions
1) physical addiction to sweets- cold turkey avoidance of refined carbs and sugar. cutting back on artificial sweeteners to retrain my tastebuds about what "sweet" is. increase fiber and protein.2) shame and guilt: talk to my T about these feelings. Secrets not quite as domineering once they are out in the open.
3) boredom and loneliness: find something to do that doesn't involve/allow eating. Play violin, play on psycho-babble, read a good book.
4) conditioning of TV = eating. Hard work cognitively: mindful eating AT the dining table. mindful TV watching, perhaps replace eating with some kind of beadwork or other busy craft/ situps and other calisthenics?
5) emotional suppression: analyse my negative feelings and tension. Find a way to communicate my feelings in a healthy way, or journal about them, or tell T.
6) mood and chemical instability: take my meals, meds and sleep at regular times. Regular exercise is a great mood booster.
7) hard work: I have the tools to make changes- good pdoc, good support (husband, T, p-babble, internet)
And an Anti-Solution:
Fasting might make you feel good about yourself for a few days, but actually that is the enemy telling you lies. You will lose muscle, and get it back as blubber. You cannot sustain it, and eventually you will recognize it as self-destructiveness, rather than a solution to your tendency to binge.***************
Affirmations:
This is not the last ______ in the world. There will always be another opportunity to eat ______.You are addicted. Milk chocolate is a controlled substance. Don't slip now- eat dark chocolate or cup of hot cocoa instead.
I can rise to challenges that other people avoid (like trying to understand my abusive childhood and getting a PhD and having long-distance marriage at the same time). This is another challenge, and I'm feeling so good nowadays that I'm READY to face it!
I'm free NOT to eat!
My number is not me. It's a way of measuring my size, but not who I am.
I can make small changes, and small changes make a real difference.
I forgive myself for slipping. I will give myself every opportunity to get back on the balance beam of mindful eating and feeling real emotions.
Struggling is OKAY. Struggling is not the same thing as suffering.
I can teach myself new habits. I'm smart and I have the necessary tools.
I will use psychology and pharmacology to overcome my phood addiction.
I love other parts of myself. I can learn to accept my size and shape too.
My relationship with food doesn't need to be a secret, tormented affair. Food and I can be good friends and socialize together in the open.
Posted by Poet on January 27, 2007, at 12:10:57
In reply to My relationship with food. Messed up., posted by Llurpsie_Noodle on January 26, 2007, at 12:53:42
Hi Li,
bingeing on sweets and carbs:
-when under stress to perform
-to numb anxiety or other negative feelings
-cope with problems
-to supress emotions
-to deal with stressThis really resonates with me. My binges are anxiety invoked, though I purge, too, which doesn't really help the anxiety that caused the binge.
I think your solutions and affirmations are well thought out. My affirmation is *Bingeing and purging will not eliminate my anxiety.* Though I haven't listened to myself much lately. My bulimia is really out of control right now. Repeat affirmation, Poet, repeat, repeat, repeat.
I really think you've nailed what triggers your binges and how to slow them down or better yet stop them in their tracks. Really good self analysis.
Poet
Posted by Llurpsie_Noodle on January 28, 2007, at 14:19:36
In reply to Re: My relationship with food. Messed up., posted by Poet on January 27, 2007, at 12:10:57
Hi Poet,
sorry you've got a bad cycle going on right now. I think I neglected to include a few of my triggers.Oh well. forgive myself and move on from right NOW.
take care of you, okay? The purge thing must be really hard. I bet these behaviors are very very associated in your mind and it must require such extraordinary control to interrupt it once it's in progress.
I think of these things in terms of animal behavior. Tinbergen studied animal behavior as Piaget studied children's behavior and wrote about Fixed Action Patterns.
I think that humans have an ancient brain that operates on many of the principles of ethology, such as Fixed Action Patterns. Then we've got this giant neocortex sitting on top, constantly trying to impose conscious control over maladaptive automatic behaviors.
Some of the characteristics of a Fixed Action Pattern are
1) once initiated will continue to completion
2) cannot be modulated (in terms of the amplitude, duration, etc of the behavior)
3) seems to be "hard-wired" in all members of a species, although the specific form of the behavior may be specific to an individual. Also note that the FAP may require a trigger (such as seeing the momma goose on day 3 after hatching) that not all individuals will be exposed to.Maybe this helps you think about your struggles a little better. You've probably trained yourself to react to certain kinds of anxiety using the binge and purge (just as I have trained myself to react to certain kinds of anxiety with overeating). Now we have to EMPOWER our conscious choice. We have to give ourselves an opportunity to work on changing our patterns. UNLIKE baby birds (who may "imprint" on any moving thing they see at the right time!) WE have a neocortex (YEAH!!!! go BRAIN!!!). We can fight our urges, and eventually set up better habits.
the old ones will always be there. If you've gone for some period without these behaviors (I have... briefly, I think?) then we have a NEW pattern TOO. We just have to rediscover it.
Okay. I'm going back to knitting now. I taught myself how on Friday, and I'm already doing quite well, if I may say so myself. Note: hands busy. Note: eyes busy. Note: no opportunity for cuticle picking. aha!
Racer, somewhere, out there-- the fiber artist in you has inspired me. I wish I could show you my lumpy little creations. you might even say "wow!" And I'd be good enough to pretend that it was a "wow you are so clever!" not a "wow, I'm SO glad I'm not expecting a Christmas present for 11 more months"
-Ll
Posted by philyra on February 10, 2007, at 9:33:07
In reply to Re: My relationship with food. Messed up. » Poet, posted by Llurpsie_Noodle on January 28, 2007, at 14:19:36
Hi Llurpsie_Noodle,
I have a lot of shame around food that I'm trying to work with these days. I can't stand to eat around people - I was eating a bag of cheezits (a treat! because I was stressed!) and thought I was eating them alone, but a bunch of my classmates walked in and I just felt this awful wave of shame and urge to put them away. It was horrible - I hate feeling that way. I made myself keep eating them. Then I saw another classmate had a bag, too (we must have hit the same vending machine), so I didn't feel so bad. I'm generally OK if everyone else is eating, too. But I'm also a slow eater so if everyone else finishes I start worrying, do they think I'm eating more food? Are they wondering about how much I'm eating, watching me eat etc?
But I'm starting to notice more about how I eat - like you, sort of distracted, in front of TV, etc. A therapist told me a few years ago to try eating at the table without TV, without reading. It's really hard for me to do that and I'm not yet sure why. It feels 'safer' to be doing something else. Maybe because I struggle with restricting and am anxious about eating, period?
But, I love food and I try to eat healthy food. Keeping stocked with fresh fruit & veggies, nuts, healthy frozen food (my new obsession is frozen unsweetened pineapple chunks), etc. Having a variety at home is key, I think, to eating healthy food and resisting the temptation to get junk food.
take care,
philyra
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