Food addiction

So here's the question, how does a guy get to 320 lbs in the first place?  Then how does that same guy lose 130 lbs and get down to 180lbs only to find himself close to 320 again?  Then how does that same guy get down to 240 only to find himself back to about 290 in less than 6 months?  How does that happen?  

It’s an addiction…..

I am addicted to food. As surely as a person can be addicted to anything I am addicted to food. I know, I am speaking from experience as a person addicted to nicotine. The reaction is exactly the same. Now many people who poo poo about the notion of food addiction, well, bully for you, it must be nice to have that luxury. I appreciate your point of view, I note it, and I know you are entitled to it. I don’t share the same views, we’ll leave it at that and move on shall we?

The difference, and it’s a huge one, is how addictions are treated. The ultimate goal for addictions is total abstinence from the substance, behavior or otherwise to which you are addicted. It can’t be that way with food. You HAVE to eat, you have to be exposed to your addiction on a daily basis, you have to be around it, watch other people consume it, watch endless commercials about it… it’s everywhere because it MUST be.

Can you imagine the success rate of an alcoholic who was told that you must consume 6 beers a day? Or a smoker who could never have any less than 6 smokes a day? Or a heroin addict who must shoot up everyday? Just to live? Just to exist?

Thats the dilemma that a food addict faces…

You have to adjust, wean back, substitute the bad for good, but the chemical reward, the rush of eating, the joy of chewing, the feeling of something sliding into your belly, all the old markers that released all those happy and content feelings, they are there ALL the time. And like any addiction, you get a taste, you get that rush and you want more and more.

It’s a real struggle, it’s hard to do, it’s the hardest thing in the world to reconcile. Also, like any addiction, the possibility of lapse is very real, only more so because of the things I discussed above.

I will do it, because I have to in order to live, I just want people to know that it’s not easy, it’s a war….

(this is a repost from an earlier blog, but worth posting again)