Fighting Food Cravings- A Realistic Look
How many times have you heard people say that they can’t stop eating cookies, or bread, or pasta, or candy? They may even laugh and say they are addicted to chocolate, as they pop the 10th truffle in their mouth. Well it’s time we faced the facts. We are addicted to many of the foods we eat. And when you really look at it, it’s not so very funny. You might even say, food addiction is a debilitating phenomenon.
‘Debilitating,’ you might say. ‘That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?’ Well maybe not.
Let’s take a look at fighting food cravings. You are a size 14. You want to be a size 8. Now we can talk all we want about how society favors thin people, and the model for beauty is skin-and-bones. And all of this is quite true. I don’t dispute it. But the plain and simple fact is, you want to be a size 8, and you can’t get there. It’s you who wants this. It’s not anyone else. And the kick in the teeth is you know you could be there. You know your body on some level wants to be there. But you can’t stop eating all of the cookies, pasta, and bread in order to get there.
At this point you may wonder what it wrong with you. You may wonder why you have no will power. You might try diets and feel your mood swing, as you starve yourself and your blood sugar goes down. You may become irritable and grouchy as you ‘white-knuckle it’ with your family. Then you might give up and go eat all you want for a few weeks. You then might watch the pounds you lost come back on, with extra pounds as interest. And once again you are bound to feel there is something wrong with you.
This is what a low-level food addiction looks like, before it becomes full-blown. As it progresses, obesity and binge eating often set in. The binge eating causes extreme waves in blood sugar, and a feeling of exhaustion and lethargy. This feeling follows food addicts through their entire lives. Binge eating will sometimes lead to bulimia, as the ‘fight to handle’ extreme cravings rages on. And this, of course, is a perilous place to be. Either way, most food addicts’ metabolisms are destroyed and diets no longer work, and self-esteem becomes next to nil.
You may now cross over into the anorexic spectrum. You might decide it is better not to eat at all, than to live like you do. This is when food addiction becomes truly perilous. If you continue the cycle, but without the bulimic/anorexic behavior, then by the age of 60 you will have adult onset diabetes. Your body will deteriorate from the over abundance of sugar producing carbohydrates. It will be worn out from all of that sugar, and you will have completely depleted your life-time’s supply of insulin. It’s not a pretty picture to paint, I know. But it is nevertheless accurate.
And this is the direction in which we are headed, even as we joke about being addicted to chocolates.
Well it may be time to stop laughing and start listening to our own jokes. I want you to know you can stop the roller coaster of fighting food cravings. Where I got off my own whirligig of was through a 12-step program for food addicts called Overeater’s Anonymous. There is also a program called Food Addicts Anonymous. Since this is a true and bona fide addiction that masses of our society live unhappily with, these programs are good places to start. You’ll also need a good Food plan, and a lot of other tools to help you on your way. But for information on this, you can look out for my subsequent articles.
