BIG FAT PEOPLE!

[blondegal_ 1,028]

Thanks. That was helpful information.

[Arts137 1,811]

Or. food is your first thought of the day, your last thought of the day, and many thoughts in between. Social events mean food and drink. Family events mean food and drink, alone time means food and drink, entertainment is food and drink. You look to food when you are sad. ...and happy, and angry, and...

well you get the pix.

But Laura's post is way more professional (and happy Uno year to you, love...)

Art

Hi personally I was/ am a sneak eater binger.


FOOD ADDICTION


Food addiction manifests itself in the uncontrollable craving for excess food that follows the ingestion of refined carbohydrates, primarily sugar and flour substances that are quickly metabolized and turned into sugar in the bloodstream.
Due to those uncontrollable cravings, a food addict's quality of life deteriorates when he or she eats sugar, flour or wheat. It can deteriorate physically, emotionally, socially and/or spiritually.
If any of the following symptoms are familiar to you, you may be a food addict:

Physical Symptoms of Food Addiction
• Do you think you cannot control your intake of food, especially junk food or high sugar foods?
• Have you tried different diets or weight loss programs, but none has worked permanently?
• Have you found yourself vomiting, using laxatives, diuretics, or exercising a lot to avoid a weight gain after you have eaten a lot?
Many food addicts are obese and have tried numerous methods for weight control (diets, drugs, surgery, etc.) yet nothing has created a permanent solution. Other food addicts have never been obese. Their physical weight has been controlled by extreme measures such as excessive exercise, purging through vomiting or laxatives (bulimia), or the severe and unhealthy limiting of food substances(anorexia). No matter which version of food addiction fits you, all of these symptoms become more severe with time and eventually lead to physical problems that can create an early and sometimes painful death.
Emotional Symptoms of Food Addiction
• Do you find yourself feeling depressed, hopeless, sad or ashamed about your eating or your weight?
• Do you find yourself eating when you are upset or reward yourself with food when you do something good?
• Have you ever noticed after eating sugar, flour, or wheat that you become more irritable?
Food addicts notice that their emotions become more severe, intense, or unreasonable when eating the addictive substances. For many food addicts, emotional life may deteriorate into despair, depression, or thoughts of suicide.
Social Symptoms of Food Addiction
• Do you eat in private so no one will see you?
• Do you avoid social interactions because you feel you do not look good enough or do not have the proper fitting clothes to wear?
• Do you steal other people’s food?
• Are you more interested in what food is served at social gatherings than looking forward to the warmth of being with the people attending?
A food addict’s social life is affected by intense obsessive thinking about food. Making eye contact with people and taking an interest in developing friendships or intimate relationships become secondary to locating and eating addictive foods. Food addicts often hide or steal foods and eat in secret.

[buplee 556]

Hi personally I was/ am a sneak eater binger. food ADDICTION Food addiction manifests itself in the uncontrollable craving for excess food that follows the ingestion of refined carbohydrates, primarily sugar and flour substances that are quickly metabolized and turned into sugar in the bloodstream. Due to those uncontrollable cravings, a food addict's quality of life deteriorates when he or she eats sugar, flour or wheat. It can deteriorate physically, emotionally, socially and/or spiritually. If any of the following symptoms are familiar to you, you may be a food addict: Physical Symptoms of Food Addiction • Do you think you cannot control your intake of food, especially junk food or high sugar foods? • Have you tried different diets or weight loss programs, but none has worked permanently? • Have you found yourself vomiting, using laxatives, diuretics, or exercising a lot to avoid a weight gain after you have eaten a lot? Many food addicts are obese and have tried numerous methods for weight control (diets, drugs, surgery, etc.) yet nothing has created a permanent solution. Other food addicts have never been obese. Their physical weight has been controlled by extreme measures such as excessive exercise, purging through vomiting or laxatives (bulimia), or the severe and unhealthy limiting of food substances(anorexia). No matter which version of food addiction fits you, all of these symptoms become more severe with time and eventually lead to physical problems that can create an early and sometimes painful death. Emotional Symptoms of Food Addiction • Do you find yourself feeling depressed, hopeless, sad or ashamed about your eating or your weight? • Do you find yourself eating when you are upset or reward yourself with food when you do something good? • Have you ever noticed after eating sugar, flour, or wheat that you become more irritable? Food addicts notice that their emotions become more severe, intense, or unreasonable when eating the addictive substances. For many food addicts, emotional life may deteriorate into despair, depression, or thoughts of suicide. Social Symptoms of Food Addiction • Do you eat in private so no one will see you? • Do you avoid social interactions because you feel you do not look good enough or do not have the proper fitting clothes to wear? • Do you steal other people’s food? • Are you more interested in what food is served at social gatherings than looking forward to the warmth of being with the people attending? A food addict’s social life is affected by intense obsessive thinking about food. Making eye contact with people and taking an interest in developing friendships or intimate relationships become secondary to locating and eating addictive foods. Food addicts often hide or steal foods and eat in secret.

Great insightful posts as always Laura. Your posts are always thought and conversation starters.

[BrandNewBrandy 79]

I am a food addict. My trigger is anything sugar or bread. I love most things carb related and will eat them even when I do not like the taste of them (because there is nothing else in the house to tame the craving at the time) Also some artificial sweeteners trigger me.

I am slowly realizing that it is not just because I am hormonal that I react this way. For example, tonight we bought sweet rolls. I ate one. It didn't really trip my trigger. I wasn't hungry when I ate it, I just wanted sugar. An hour later, still not hungry I ate another and felt some acid reflux a bit from over eating, then about 20 mins later I picked up about 10 crackers and ate them trying to make the acid reflux go away when I was the one who caused it in the first place and I didn't even really "enjoy" any of that food and now I just had to take tums to help the extremely full indigestion I have going on.

Before now I would not have picked up on this. It was my normal, as sad as it is. I will not eat anymore sweet rolls tonight BUT there is a good possibility that I may finish them tomorrow, even though I didn't really like them. At least now I am aware of what I done after the fact. Now I need to stop it before it happens.

Sugar/carbs + mindless eating is one of the reasons I am morbidly obese. At times when I was thinner I had issues with how much alcohol I drank. I grew up in an alcoholic home. It was better to stuff our feelings with food than to be verbal and deal with the wrath of my dad on a non happy drunk day so I know there is an emotional connection as well.

[WildGrits 101]

I can say without a doubt in my mind that not only am I a "Foodie" but I am also a food Addict.

I gained weight in my early twenties when I replaced drinking and "partying" with food.< /p>

Addiction is when you aren't even hungry, just sitting there watching TV, and way in the back of your mind the thought of going into the kitchen to get, lets say, that bag of chips the kids opened last night. 'I know we have some cheese in there and maybe there a some refired Beans too. Oh stop, your not even hungry! Well there isn't really anything healthy in there for lunch anyways.' And as this conversation runs in my head, I am literally starting to feel a mini panic attack coming on. I am slightly shaking inside.

There is not other way to say it except IT SUCKS!!!!

[Arts137 1,811]

I am a food addict. My trigger is anything sugar or bread. I love most things carb related and will eat them even when I do not like the taste of them (because there is nothing else in the house to tame the craving at the time) Also some artificial sweeteners trigger me.

I am slowly realizing that it is not just because I am hormonal that I react this way. For example, tonight we bought sweet rolls. I ate one. It didn't really trip my trigger. I wasn't hungry when I ate it, I just wanted sugar. An hour later, still not hungry I ate another and felt some acid reflux a bit from over eating, then about 20 mins later I picked up about 10 crackers and ate them trying to make the acid reflux go away when I was the one who caused it in the first place and I didn't even really "enjoy" any of that food and now I just had to take tums to help the extremely full indigestion I have going on.

Before now I would not have picked up on this. It was my normal, as sad as it is. I will not eat anymore sweet rolls tonight BUT there is a good possibility that I may finish them tomorrow, even though I didn't really like them. At least now I am aware of what I done after the fact. Now I need to stop it before it happens.

Sugar/carbs + mindless eating is one of the reasons I am morbidly obese. At times when I was thinner I had issues with how much alcohol I drank. I grew up in an alcoholic home. It was better to stuff our feelings with food than to be verbal and deal with the wrath of my dad on a non happy drunk day so I know there is an emotional connection as well.

I believe you have figured out something important.

I am at the point wher I just EXCLUDE sweets and simple carbs... all of them. I don't mind not eating them (and I am lucky that I do not get cravings) BUT if I have Just ONE, I am a MESS for days, with cravings and longings and physical hurt. Generally takes 3 or 4 days to recover.

[mokee 588]

Adaisyandarose,

You sound so much like me. I simply love carbs. I am a yr out and the monster is back again. The holidays did a number on me. I ate so many carbs and am having a hard time giving them up. True, I can only eat so much not nearly what I used too but I have to stop before I start gaining weight back. I love that I have lost 90 plus lbs and my diabetes is controlled and the smaller clothes is a real plus. I have filled my closet with stylish comfortable clothing. I can shop anywhere now. Shoes are a regular width now instead of a WW. This is the truly fun part. The surgery was well worth it for me. Now I have to maintain until I decide to start losing again. I would like to lose another 16-25 lbs. best of luck to you.

[BrandNewBrandy 79]

I know this is a battle I will fight long after I get the surgery. I'm sure the addict in me will test the theory that I can have just a small piece of a brownie and be ok, while my logical mind knows a taste of it will put me into a spirial of wanting more and more and more.

Edited January 4, 2014 by adaisyandarose

[JeanaLuvsKisses 110]

lol Nice topic. I my friend can not help you with an answer, I am like you ADDICT!! I also do my best work at night alone. On top of addiction I also can throw in emotional eater. I hope those staples they put in me are tight. lol Just kidding . I am hoping once I start to loose weight it will all finally click for me . How is it being a food addict and not being able to eat? Is it getting easier with the sleeve? I hope im one of those people that just dont feel hungry. I can only pray, you have great weightloss so you must be doing ok with it. Btw JUST1GIRL, I am so jealous I have been jumping through hoops taking days off work to still have to wait for May !st for last visit then they have to submit everything .....and then I will get a date, so over this waiting already. Been going on since Dec 4. UGHH

I started my journey last January and had my surgery in July. My insurance required six months of weight loss/nutrition classes along with a battery of physical and psyc exams. Once I jumped through all the hoops and paper work was submitted I had a surgery date within a week. May will be here before you know it!

Edited January 4, 2014 by JeanaLuvsKisses

[*Misty*Raine* 192]

I don't think anyone has denied at least some of their problem is owed to good addiction. I think what I and others are trying to say is, 'yes, food addiction is part of the problem but not the whole picture.' I had problems before I developed a 'food addiction.' Am I saying that food addiction is not part of the end result, absolutely it is part of where I am now. Gaining weight didn't start with a food addiction for me though. It was a series of things that made it all but impossible to maintain my healthy weight and made it very hard to lose weight and then spiraling into a food addiction as a result.

I agree with this! I am not an emotional eater. I don't eat when happy or sad, but rather the opposite. I skip meals and tend to get so absorbed in the stress that food is the last thing on my mind. BUT.. I am in the category of the person with an illness that led to over weight body and then to an obese body. I have a lung disease that required a lot of steroids, and many hospital stays. I also have copd, asthma, and emphysema. I have been hospitalized numerous times with either copd exacerbations, (requiring high dose steroids) 4 times last year! And with the lung disease 3 other times, again requiring high dose steroids all 7 times I was in the hospital. The drs knew that I was going to gain weight, they even warned me. As the weight piled on, I lost my drive to take off the 45 lbs I was over weight at the time. (At the time I was very slowly taking the weight off) After many high does of high dose meds, I packed on another 50lbs. As I was spiriting outta control on the meds... I started to feel like well screw it... If the meds are gonna make me pack it on... Why bother trying?! And needless to say now I have a total of 108 lbs to take off. I'm terrified that I am stuck in this fat body forever! I don't want to be that's for sure!! So surgery was the only option for me. This way even if I have to go back on them, I can't over eat. I can't feel hungry all the time, and even if I do, I won't have the belly to hold it! Please pray this works!

[*Misty*Raine* 192]

Did I get your attention??? Ok, curiosity... when I answer posts here, I am always coming from a perspective of a "food addict" But many times I have people write back... "But I don't have an addiction to food" Which I always think to myself YEAH RIGHT! Don't beat me up I'm being honest!! What can I say I'm pessimistic, I also laugh when people say they don't eat TO MUCH so they don't understand how the are fat.. I AM FAT BECAUSE I EAT LIKE A PIG (alone mostly) Today I thought about, "what if I'm wrong?" I mean...I am me and I am addicted, how do I know how the next person is??? I'm curious as an addicted fat person how is it for those of you who are not addicted? Oh and on a side note if I am wrong, then I'm also jealous because I would give anything not to have this problem (addiction)

Hello my name is Misty Raine and I am a pop and sweets addict!! Lol I became one in the last year and it's really unhealthy! Ty for this thread!!!

[*Misty*Raine* 192]

Definitely a food addict here....and still am. I feel the urge to pull into any convenience store I pass and buy a candy bar or 2 every other day. Leave me alone in a room with a box of donuts? Some of those donuts are going to end up missing. I hate it....but there it is. But it's not just addiction for me and many others. I've seen it over and over again. So many people really have no idea HOW to eat healthy. We see naturally skinny people eating burgers and fries and we feel like we ought to be able to eat that way. Well, for some reason, my body takes every french fry I eat and packs it away somewhere. It's not about metabolism or my thyroid. It's about blood sugar and insulin response. I suspect way more people here are insulin resistant than are aware of it. Being insulin resistant makes you way more likely to store carbs as fat rather than burn them. And if you eat a high carb diet guess what? Just look at the nutritional information on a Lean Cuisine sometime. It's advertised as healthy food, but it's really a big box of microwaveable starch that promotes fat storage and literally blocks our ability to burn fat for fuel....ESPECIALLY in insulin resistant people. But I'm getting off subject here. The point is, we have no idea how to eat properly, but we think we do. We eat stuff that we think is diet food (like lean cuisines, life Cereal and wheat bread) and we wonder why we can't lose any weight. Metabolically we're broken and nutritionally we're ignorant (and by we I certainly include my former self).

I too am ignorant on how to eat right. I am used to eating what I want when I want and I too am insulin resistant. I have been on a pump for the last 7 years. It's high time we all take our lives back and learn how to eat right.... And not feel (like I do) that if my kids leave a half eaten plate of food that we have to eat it or it's just wasteful! I'm learning slowly that it's ok to waste! love ur post!!!

[*Misty*Raine* 192]

I agree with you butter in regards to the "healthy" food people THINK they are eating... It definitely plays a part. I'm more interested at this point in the mental aspect.. You say you still have those addictive thoughts. It doesn't surprise me. As a matter of fact I think you fight really hard to keep it straight. And have, in my eyes transferred some of your addictive qualities into your exercise.. I've seen it so many times with addictions. My brother had addiction issues (not food) And when he was working his program I saw the same person but he was just addicted to something else (AA and exercise) it scares me because... Well it scares me on a lot of different levels.

It scares me that I'm going to find another addiction! I have never been into drugs o drinking so I in wit wouldn't be anything like that.... But it has to be replaced with SOMETHING! That's what scares me! And I already know. Have an addictive personality, or I wouldn't be a smoker or over weight! So how do u keep from developing another addiction?!?

[*Misty*Raine* 192]

In regards to Pelekania's second post should of quoted her... We do! The one thing I'm happy about is that as a parent I do everything opposite with my children than what was done with me! The one easy thing about a crappy childhood, you know what not to do My children are healthy and active and eat for the most part what I make and are aware of labels and know that junk food is just that " junk" food. I have a friend who is morbidly obese (she was not happy with me doing this) and I've always felt so sad for her daughter because she has grown up on her mothers believes that it's ok.. I never thought being morbidly obese was ok. And it's been my battle not my children's thank god!

This is one area that thoroughly pisses me off! Seeing parents that are already over weight, making their innocent babies over weight! Wth is wrong with ppl today!? Do they not get that it is killing themselves not to mention they're doing it to their child!?!

Not that I'm a perfect parent but NONE of my kids are over weight (except the one living on her own... That's another story ... And she wasn't til she left home!) my kids are healthy and active. The drs all say they are all in the 50-60th percentile.

As a parent I don't wants kids to battle what I am ... I want them to make healthy choices and NOT over eat. If they say they're full... They're done! There's no clean ur plate rules in my house. I want them to have healthy relationships with food. Why can't all parents see what I see? It just burns my ass!

[LouiseC 1,031]

I don't know how I missed this thread previously, with it reaching 36 pages! But here is something I wrote in another thread earlier today that provides my perspective. I do not consider myself a food addict.

I don't identify with the addict label either. Not even a little bit.

Food addiction is basically layman language for the psychological condition known as compulsive over eating. It is controversial to throw the 'addiction' word in there as addiction means to have a compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance - and when it comes to food, we all have a physiological need. We need to eat in order to live.

Compulsive overeating, on the other hand, is where the individual frequently has sessions of binge eating, during which they may feel out of control. They eat past the point of being comfortably full and then feel depressed or guilty post binge. This never defined how I ate. In addition to binge eating, compulsive over eaters graze throughout the day, I wasn't a grazer.

There are also neurobiological factors in addiction, and in compulsive over eating, that relate to the release of endorphins or serotonin post binge that create a 'high' for the over eater. I don't relate to this at all. I am rarely hungry since the surgery and do not suffers from cravings. I have had no 'head hunger' and don't really miss anything. I think this further confirms that I was never a compulsive over eater, a.k.a food addict.

So why was I obese?

I think years of yo yo dieting, based on a false self perception initially, really did screw up my levels of ghrelin and leptin production. As I came off a diet I would regain what I lost and then more as it took longer to reach satiation. I had no idea, zero, about Portion Control and now look back in horror at what I used to consider 'normal'. Despite all the diets, and all the years focused on diets, portion control never really took hold in my wee brain.

I also formed some bad habits, like a couple of lattes or mochacinos a day. I may not have drank soda much I was certainly drinking a heck of a lot of calories every day. I travel a lot for work so there was a lot of restaurant food, Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Big portions (because that's what restaurants tend to do) and foods high in all the shite our bodies don't need like poor quality fats and crappy sugar.

I would exercise in bouts, usually while dieting, but was never consistent with this once the weight came off. I sucked at maintenance. I know that now that I am looking at maintaining with the sleeve that I have to be super vigilant about this. This is danger time for me as I have lost the weight before (though never this much). When I. Look back I was not a conscious or a mindful eater. I am now and I know I have to maintain this in order to maintain my weight.

It wasn't addiction that made me obese. I made me obese by not being conscious, not being mindful, and not taking responsibility for the choices I made each day about what went into my mouth and what I did to burn it off.

I will add to this in that I do believe there can be a physiological addiction to refined carbohydrates. That said, I also firmly believe (from my own experience) that the physiological addiction is broken with three days of abstaining from all refined carbs. I have experienced this, however once broken there was no psychological need to fulfil and I did not/do not crave carbs. I fully accept that many, many people may have a psychological addiction that makes the three days abstinence that much harder and then impacts on their ongoing resolve to not scoff the sugars. Thankfully, I am not one of them.

I hope this provides some perspective from the 'not a food addict' side of the fence.