Balance in Bites

By looking at me, no one would THINK I have a problem with food. I’m 5′6″ and weigh around 140 pounds. I look healthy.

WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!

It all started back in high school, right after I got my wisdom teeth taken out. I’m not sure when that was – around 9th grade, I think. I got all four wisdom teeth taken out and I couldn’t eat solid food for about a whole week. I lost a good 6 pounds around that time, which brought me down to 117 pounds – pretty slim for my 5′6″ frame.

For some reason – I don’t know how or why or what – I starting binge eating after that. A typical day would involve me eating a normal healthy breakfast, a normal healthy lunch, and a normal healthy dinner. At night, I’d make sure my family members were asleep, and I’d get up and go downstairs and eat, well, really anything. Preferably something with fat or sugar or carbs. Frozen yogurt, cookies, bread, leftover pasta, etc. I’d eat until I was stuffed. It had an immense mind-numbing effect. At the time I had no idea why I needed that so badly. I went through a phase where I’d get bread, spread butter on it, and pour sugar from the sugar bowl on it. I’d go through 4 or 5 pieces of bread like this. Then I’d move on and grab some cookies. We always had the Soft Batch kind. I’d eat maybe 10 of those. Then I’d pour myself a bowl of cereal. I would never toast or microwave anything, though, because I was terrified I’d make noise and wake someone up. I was constantly on the alert for any noise from upstairs, because I didn’t want anyone coming downstairs seeing me eating. I remember my mom making a sandwich for lunch some weekend, and commenting offhand, “Boy, this bread goes fast.” I froze. Did she know? Did she suspect?

Some nights I’d lay in bed and will myself not to get up. I’d tell myself, just don’t get up this one time. Just stay in bed. Go to sleep. Rarely would this mental pep talk work. I’d say on average, I got up and binged on food about 3-4 nights a week.

There were other times I binged, too – going out to dinner with friends was always “good opportunity” for it. It also didn’t help that I was dating a guy who binge ate too (of course, this is all in retrospect here. We didn’t know why or what we were doing, or why we needed to do it). But I remember once he took me out to dinner at some nice place, and we got an appetizer and some big entrees, which we both finished. Afterwards, we commented on how stuffed we were. As we walked out of the restaurant 20 minutes later, he asked me if I wanted to stop at Ben & Jerry’s to get some after dinner dessert. Of course I said yes.

Despite the intake of calories, I gained weight very slowly over my high school years, because I was on running on our school’s cross country and track team year round. We’d log about 40-50 miles a week in long runs, workouts, etc. It was a very intense training program. I took one season off, I think the winter of my junior year, and gained about 10 pounds in 3 months because I wasn’t running as much. Despite all of the difficulties I had being on the track team (long story), it was probably the only thing that kept me from being obese by the time graduation came around.

Why did I feel the need to eat like this? That’s a tough question. I think a lot of it had to do with the amount of stress I put on myself. I was doing a million and one things, and trying to be perfect at all of them. In 10th grade, I had a 98.2 grade point average for the first semester. At the beginning of the second semester, I remember getting a 96 on some English class assignment, and I was crushed, because I knew that it would bring my overall average down.

I was in a nationally recognized school orchestra. I was also on a nationally ranked cross country and track team, where the coaches were mentally and emotionally abusive. I had a boyfriend who demanded much of my time, and I had two very different groups of friends – my running friends, and then my academic/orchestra-type friends. This created a sort of split personality on my part. I’d have to switch between them depending on who I was hanging out with. Even my mother once commented on how she always knew who I was talking to if I was on the phone, because I had an “Annie” voice, a “Mat” voice, and then a “Gabby” voice (Gabby was a track friend, Mat was my boyfriend, and Annie was a music friend). I was trying to be everything to everyone, and in the process, didn’t evolve into a whole real independant person. Who I was depended on what people wanted from me.

However, tons of other people are under similar amounts of stress, and they don’t turn to food like I do. So – why me? Why food?

I come from a long family line of addiction. My mother was a binge eater. Her brother most likely is as well. Her father was a compulsive gambler. My father was an alcoholic, as was his sister, as was his mother. I won’t get into all of the psychobabble about addiction, but in my opinion, addiction is extremely wide reaching, and can’t necessarily be put into a box based on a certain substance. People can be addicted to so many different things – alcohol, drugs, food, video games, sex. You find something that feels good, and you want more of it. If you end up needing it so much that thinking about it/obtaining it/doing it/using it/etc interferes with your normal life on a regular basis – then that’s an addiction.

So for my father, that was alcohol. For my grandfather, it was gambling. For me, it’s food.

The unfortunate thing is that you need food to survive. You can’t abstain from food. You can avoid betting at the track and going to bars, but you HAVE to eat.

There were also various patterns of thinking and behavior that I had back then that served as a catalyst to my overeating:

1. I thought in black and white. For instance, I’d tell myself I was going to eat only 500 calories today (I knew I had some kind of disordered eating, and I figured, if I was going to have a problem with food, I might as well have anorexia, because anorectics are skinny, and have control over what they eat, which is far better than feeling fat and out of control all the time. I know. It was absolutely ridiculous). I’d wake up, nibble breakfast, and then be famished by lunch and spend money on a bagel and cream cheese. I’d eat it, feel like a complete failure, and figure, well, since I’ve blown it already, might as well throw in the whole towel. So I’d go get an ice cream bar. And stop at the convenience store on my way home from track practice for a candy bar. And I’ve have an extra helping of pasta at dinner. And then some cookies and milk after dinner. I’d go to bed feeling absolutely awful.

I thought in these black and white terms with other things in my life, too, not just with food. If I stayed up late at a sleep over with my friends, I’d want to stay up all night. “Come on guys – we’ve stayed up THIS late, why don’t we just make it til dawn!” In cross country, if someone passed me, I might think “Well, I can’t stay with them – this is it. I might as well just give up now,” and I’d basically quit trying.

2. I ate like I would never get a chance to eat again. I remember I used to go over to my friend’s house for dinner sometimes. Her parents made the most delicious food. It would start off with bread and cheese, salad with olive oil, move on to pasta with cream sauce, or mashed potatoes with lots of real butter. And dessert – chocolate mousse, fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies, or just a simple mug of hot chocolate, with extra whipped cream. I relished these visits. The sad part was, a lot of times I relished them because it would mean I could eat two dinners in one night. I’d eat at home, and once I was full, I could go eat more at her house.

When I knew I was going to visit her, all of my energy was spent on figuring out how I could best work in my overeating. I never wanted anyone to know I was eating anything more than a normal amount of food, and sometimes the urge to overeat would strike me at a time when I literally couldn’t do it (i.e, during a class at school), or, at a time when it was socially unacceptable (i.e, after eating a big, late lunch with my friends, we’d go out to dinner but just split an appetizer or something. I couldn’t let them see me gorge myself on a full dinner after lunch). So when a good opportunity to overeat came up, I’d snag it, because I didn’t know when another opportunity would come along. This meant I’d need to lie to my parents about needing to eat dinner before I left, and then lie again when I got there (“I haven’t eaten anything since lunch, I’m famished!”). It was so mentally exhausting.

What happened when I went to college?

The independence boggled my mind. No one was making dinner for me, telling me when to wake up for school, reminding me to bring in money for a class trip. I wasn’t prepared for it, and I didn’t handle it well. I did a lot of stupid things – drank too much alcohol, hooked up with the wrong people, skipped class, became depressed, and essentially blew the entire year. And of course through it all, I ate.

Long story short, I transferred schools at the end of that year. My sophomore year at this new university was easier to handle. I was slowly getting a grip on my life and figuring out that I needed to help myself out before I helped others out. I went to counseling, and after a few different therapists, found one who really shed some light on what I was going through. I stopped dieting, stopped running, and stopped obsessing about food. I gained a little bit of weight during my college years, but nothing major – it was due to poor eating habits in general (“Hey, they serve pizza here at the dining hall!”) rather than binge eating. On average, I weighed about 150-155, but I didn’t actually step on a scale that often.

What happened after college?

I continued with my no-diet life for a while. A couple years ago, I started trying to lose some weight, and lost about 10 pounds, but ended up gaining it back and going back to my no-diet ways. Episodes of overeating were VERY rare, which was fantastic. I was so proud of myself for finally having a normal relationship with food. I probably weighed about 150 or so, until I met Pete a year ago and started to slowly gain weight again. It was mostly because he would take me out to nice dinners so often. =P In April 2009, I quit smoking, and that really did me in. I gained another 5 pounds, and the clothes I had always worn were getting tight. A friend of mine was doing Weight Watchers, and I decided to join.

So what’s going on now?

I have made SO much progress. Not only do episodes strike far less often, but I also am able to understand and deal with them much better. But it is still something that I have to deal with.

When I started WW, I was unstoppable. I dropped weight very quickly – each week was another 1.5 lbs, 2 pounds lost, and my weight just kept going down, down, down. I went from 162 to 142 in about 10 weeks or so, and I had no urge to overeat at all. Then right around 141 pounds, I started having those urges. The biggest, most frustrating thing that I’m dealing with right now is the simple fact that I have not, in fact, beaten this. I STILL need to figure out a way to not overeat. I certainly don’t go and eat 13 cookies in one sitting anymore, which is good, but I do still have episodes where I lack control of my eating.

For instance – I get 20 points a day. I’ll wake up, eat breakfast. 5 points down, 15 left. Then I’ll snack on some more food. “It’s ok,” I tell myself – “It’s like an early lunch. You still have 11 points left.” But then I’ll eat something for 4 points, and then something for 2, and then suddenly it’s 1 pm and I only have 5 points left for the entire day. “It’s ok,” I say. “Don’t throw the towel in. You can stop this in its tracks right now. Healthy eating starts NOW, not tomorrow.” So I pour myself a glass of water. I make sure I track everything I just snacked on. Then I open the fridge. “Why are you in the fridge?” I ask myself. “There’s nothing in here you want. Think about whether you’re hungry or not. Is your stomach empty? No – you’re not hungry at all. Close the fridge door.” So I close the door. “Find something else to do. Keep yourself busy.” Etc, etc, etc.

Sometimes these mind games work, sometimes they don’t. Most of the time, though, I’m just sick of the mind games in general. I wish I didn’t have to “talk myself down” from overeating so often. I wish I could not obsess about food as much. I wish I knew why I have some months where I don’t obsess about it at all, and others where I do. Which brings me to my next point:

Why do I overeat?

I see two possible reasons for this.

1. There’s an emotional void I want to fill. This is what I’ve always figured my problem was, although typically it’s difficult for me to pinpoint a certain emotion. My thought process goes like this: “Hm, I’m getting that urge to binge. What gives? Is there something going on here? Am I stressed? Lonely? Sad? Bored? Hm.” And I’ll think it over. To be honest, most of the time, I can’t actually pinpoint an emotion. “I feel pretty ok. Nothing seems out of the ordinary.” Which is fairly infuriating, because if I could figure out what emotion I was trying to fill/squash, then I could work with it. “Oh, ok, so I’m lonely. Well, I’ll call a friend instead of eating!” Or, “Hm, I’m stressed. Ok, maybe I’ll take a nice hot shower instead of eating.” But most of the time, I just feel fine. The binge-urge just comes on out of nowhere, so it seems. Very frustrating.

2. There’s a physical trigger in the brain that gets set off once certain foods are eaten. This is something new that I’m researching online. I came across some write up about sugar addicition, and how cutting out sugar can help reduce binge eating. Needless to say, I was intrigued. Basically, the theory is that once you eat a trigger food (such as refined sugar), it releases that seratonin and dopamine and all that other good stuff in your brain, and you want more of it – and you can’t stop eating. There’s a problem with this theory, though. I’ve had really strong urges to overeat even withOUT a trigger. I’ll have some oatmeal for breakfast, and then 4 hours later (way after ANY sugar could affect me from bfast), I’ll get that urge. What gives? I don’t know. I DO think that it would help to limit my sugar intake though. For example, when I look I look mindlessly into the fridge, I’ll think, “Well, why don’t you have some peppers and hummus? That will give you something to munch on, and it will still be healthy.” My other brain thinks, “Yeah right. Bahahahahha. That’s fresh. Ok, check out those muffins you just made. You SO want like, 3 of those.” I gotta say that the muffins DO look much more appealing than the peppers and hummus. Thing is, I LIKE veggies and hummus. It’s really yummy! The reason I fell no pull towards those, and I DO feel a pull towards the muffins is because I know the muffins will make me feel good in the short run. Go go brain chemistry.

How do I stop myself from overeating?

I’m still trying to figure out good ways to overcome this, but here are some of my techniques that I’ve had success with.

1. Pausing. Pausing is a huge step that helps quite often. I think to myself, “Ok ,I want that cookie over there. Well – the cookie will still be there in 20 minutes. Why don’t I wait and see how I feel then?” During this pause, I think over some other things:

2.Thinking about how good I’ll feel if I don’t give into the urge. At this point, I’ve been through so many of these episodes that I KNOW I’ll feel amazing if I kick it. Even though I want a quick fix right at the moment, I know that I’ll feel so, so much better when I go to bed at night if I don’t give into it.

3. Recovering RIGHT AWAY. Let’s say I ate that cookie. So? I ate a cookie. Yes, it would have been better had I not eaten it. But at this point, I could think in black and white and throw the towel in, OR, I could get right back on track. Healthy eating starts NOW, not tomorrow. It’s one thing to eat a cookie, it’s another thing to eat three cookies. This technique is really difficult for me – I have to work very hard and use a lot of positive self-talk to get right back into it. It’s the perfectionist in me, telling me that “Since you weren’t perfect for a moment there, you might as well not be perfect at all today.” Bad! Bad thinking.

Well. If you’ve made it this far, you deserve some gold stars or something. Thanks for letting me spill my guts out on this blog, and I hope you enjoy reading about my journey to get and stay healthy. =)