Addiction gets such a bad rap societally. It is one of the most difficult things to recover from, yet it is so socially stigmatized that we don’t often talk about it freely.
Food addiction is the most difficult addiction, in my opinion. Think about it:
what other addiction do you have to wear on your sleeve?
Alcoholics can drink to excess without anyone being the wiser. Pain pill addictions go unnoticed for years. Even people with addictions to cocaine, methamphetamines, and other hard drugs can go unnoticed for years. Gambling and sex addicts also go freely into society everyday without anyone raising as much as an eyebrow.
In addition to having to “wear their addictions on their sleeves,” - food addicts can’t ever have the luxury of quitting “cold turkey.” We can’t quit food. In OA they say, with drug and alcohol addiction recovery- you slay the dragon, with food addiction recovery- you still have to take it for a walk three times a day.
This is why understanding why we eat vs. just focusing on what we eat is so paramount in re-establishing a healthy relationship with food. If you’d like to take my free online course that helps you with this very concept, click here.
Author Laura McKowen talks about the concept of the “pregnancy principle,” when people are recovering from alcohol addiction. She talks about the idea that when a woman is pregnant it is societally acceptable to say “no” at any time. A woman can go to a party for a mere 15 minutes and say “hey I’m really tired, I think I am going to go home now,” and everyone responds with “of course, you need the rest,” or “you are caring for two now- you have to listen to your body.”
So why can’t one treat themselves with the same courtesy when recovering from food addiction. If you are at a party that has a bunch of triggering foods, a co-worker’s birthday party, a potluck, a restaurant where everyone has decided to order dessert- why does it feel so unacceptable to say “hey guys thanks for the great time, but I’m going to head home now.”
This is much in part due to inherent shame surrounding addiction. One feels that they should just be able to be like everyone else. Yet study after study has shown there are key genetic factors that often play into overeating, food addiction, and obesity.
We shouldn’t have to have another person inside of us to give ourselves permission to take care of ourselves.
Aren’t you enough?
Whether you are in the beginning stages of your weight loss surgery, or 6 years post- this month, try to look at your recovery the same way a pregnant woman looks at taking care of herself. If you know something is going to be too triggering, not fun, exhausting, mentally draining- either bow out politely, or go for a short period of time and excuse yourself when you’re no longer feeling it.
If you are interested in receiving more free weight loss help with the psychological part of recovery, please check out my free course here.
I have worked as a psychologist, providing psychological evaluations prior to bariatric weight loss surgery for the past eight years. For the most part, people need a power tool to help them lose and keep off the weight they have lost over and over again in their lives. The gastric sleeve, bypass, and now balloon are those tools. However, every once in a while, I will encounter someone who believes these procedures are the magic bullet.
I can pick this up in five seconds when I learn that:
this person has no exercise plan to maintain their weight loss
a barrage of excuses as to why they can't exercise anymore
zero insight into why they are overweight ("I don't know why I am overweight, I just eat steamed vegetables and grilled chicken mostly.")
a lack of motivation or understanding for why they also have to engage in behavioral modification in addition to the surgery
"Why would you reveal all of this?" you ask. Aren't I giving away the keys to the kingdom to anyone who reads this and wants to pass a psychological evaluation? Perhaps- but who are you really cheating if you don't go within and face the real demons that got you here in the first place?
When I ask people about their eating styles, I tend to group them into four categories:
1) emotional eater- someone who uses food when they are bored, stressed, tired, lonely, sad, or even happy in addition to eating when they are hungry
2) skip and binger- someone who fails to think about food until it is too late, and when they are ravenous end up going for whatever is available which is usually some type of carb and calorie laden fast food
3) miscellaneous- someone who just recognizes that they eat too large of portion sizes and/or the wrong types of food
4) food addict- usually someone with a history of other addictions, trauma, and a significant amount of weight to lose. They usually have comorbid psychological diagnoses that have been unaddressed or ill-addressed.
Out of the four categories, the 4th is the most troubling for a psychologist. This particular person is most correlated with the patient who fails to address their core issues, eats "around the sleeve," or bypass, experiences dumping syndrome, comes back a year later and asks for the bypass, or a different procedure.
This is the person who, ironically, is usually the most resistant to my recommendation that they seek therapeutic support prior to the surgery. They want it done YESTERDAY. They want it NOW. It is this type of thinking that got them into trouble in the first place. The impulsivity and lack of emotional regulation.
I've witnessed people fail to address their maladaptive eating patterns and never quite get to their goal weight. I had a male that would buy a bag of pepperonis at the grocery store and snack on them all day and couldn't understand why he wasn't losing weight. This daily "snack," which was a mental security blanket, served as a veritable IV drip of fat and calories throughout the day.
I've had a woman who figured out how to ground up her favorite foods into a liquid form because she never quite let go of her attachment to "comfort foods." One of her most notable liquid concoctions consisted of chicken and Cheetos. I'll just leave that for you to chew...er swallow.
They say with drug and alcohol recovery- you "slay the dragon," but with food addiction recovery, you have to take it for a walk three times a day. If you don't fundamentally shift your relationship with this dragon, you're going to get burnt when you are walking it.
My number one tip for transforming your relationship with food is to start looking at eating the same way you do as brushing and flossing: You don't necessarily salivate at the idea of what type of toothpaste you will use, where you will do it, who you will do it with, right? You just do it twice a day because you don't want to lose your teeth and you want to maintain healthy gums.
Food has to be thought of in the same way. You fuel up. You don't use food as a place to define your quality of life. You don't use food to celebrate. You don't use food to demarcate the end of a long day. You don't use food to help you feel less alone. You figure out healthier coping alternatives to meet these needs.
Loneliness-call a friend for support
Celebrate- get a massage
Demarcate the end of a long day- start a tea ritual and use essential oils
Another reason you must say goodbye to comfort food is that it triggers the pleasure center of the brain, which ignites our dopamine, which perpetuates the addiction. Many people think we are just telling them to get rid of the comfort food because of the carbs or calories, but there are unique and harmful chemical consequences to ingesting these types of food we know are bad for us.
If you are ready to take a modern approach to weight loss and stop dieting for good- check out my wls/vsg psychological support course here for free.
