Overeating as an addiction

automatedeating · Post by **automatedeating** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 2:34 am

Hi all:
I just finished a book called Hungry, by Allen Zadoff (published 2007). I found it on WalkerLori's thread from somewhere in 2011, I think. Well, you can get it on your kindle for $2.99. Wow, it was a fascinating read. In it I kept finding the same things about struggling with binging that I frequently read on these forums. He compared his compulsion to overeat with an alcoholic's compulsion to drink.

Very interesting to me was how he tackled his problem: 3 meals a day, no snacks! He also banned forever "trigger" foods.

Anyway, I recommend you read it, whether you are a normal eater, problem eater, or food junkie. It is really short, too. I just started it yesterday and already finished.

Oh, BTW, he says that in hindsight he used food to avoid feeling emotions (both good and bad). However, he said that while he was overeating, he could never see the real reasons for his problems with food. Again, he said it was like asking a drug addict to think rationally about why they shouldn't go get more drugs.

Ramona · Post by **Ramona** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 6:15 am

I'll definitely read the book because it sounds like I could've written it.

I've had disordered eating since I was a child. My single mother didn't cook during the week--we ate out at a cafeteria where we could choose anything we wanted. She went to the grocery store on Fridays and bought a ton of junk. I was sick every single Saturday night because I had eaten nothing but crap all day. I mean I started out at 7:00 am (watching cartoons) by biting both ends off a piece of cherry licorice to use as a straw in a bottle of Coca-Cola. And it only got worse after that. By the time evening rolled around, I was lying on the bathroom floor waiting to throw up. I didn't know then that could be accomplished by sticking my finger down my throat. I discovered bulimia in high school.

I've binged and purged on and off--along with tons of other whack stuff--since then. It became impossible to tell if I was more addicted to food or the crazy behavior surrounding the food. Although it's gotten a lot better, I'm still confounded. I have to learn to separate physical hunger from the insatiable urge to use food for a myriad of other reasons. I think that's why the clear guidelines of NoS will be so great--they're something I can believe in and lean on while I'm stumbling toward a new normal.

Perhaps I can substitute rambling posts for incorrigible eating!

Kookie · Post by **Kookie** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 9:44 am

Hi Ramona!

I too have had disordered eating since I was a child and then at age 14 developed bulimia which turned into anorexia then back into bulimia then just plain old binge eating then bulimia and on and on and on...

I have tried every single recovery approach to heal from my bulimia and it has been a long, hard journey. I have had a myriad of therapists, even checked myself into an eating disorder unit when I turned 30...I've been in 12 step programmes too for years but they seemed to fuel the bulimia like crazy when I finally 'relapsed' which I always eventually did because I was on the most strict food plans given by whichever sponsor I had at the time.

Anyway, just to say that although everything I have done up until now has been part of my healing, NoS feels like for me it is the final stage in my recovery...I still speak to a therapist every week and have a lot of supportive friends but NoS suits me SO well. I have tried everything and this is the perfect blend of freedom and structure. I think I am too broken from years of disordered eating to ever eat 100% intuitively all of the time but I also need the freedom of satisfying my desires too. NoS provides this so beautifully. I can participate socially on either N or S days - it is so practical and 'normal' and yes there is discipline but there is not deprivation. Discipline feels very different to deprivation. And after a while, I know the discipline will turn into habit. I'm already experiencing this so much, nowhere near as much food obsession. It's almost a year since I last purged - that is my absolutely no go bottom line - and I do have to watch it on S days but it feels so different to before.

Good luck and yes, ramble on here instead of eating between meals is working for me!!

Ramona · Post by **Ramona** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 6:39 pm

Kookie...I appreciated your reply to my post. I'm going to cut it out and paste in my journal and reread it daily. It's such a relief to know someone else really knows what it's like. I've been in OA and went to a treatment center and still see a therapist.

I totally relate to the idea of being broken when it comes to intuitive eating. Yesterday I realized I don't have a clue how to eat 'normally' for an extended period of time. The groove in my brain that shouts things like, "CHEESE IS OF THE DEVIL!!" is deep. The thought of having a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich makes me anxious. This is the area I know I'll most have to trust the process.

The thing that zinged straight to my heart was how discipline is far different than deprivation. What freedom to know I do not have to be deprived while cultivating self-discipline.

leafy_greens · Post by **leafy_greens** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 1:29 am

Thanks for the recommendation. Has anybody thought about making a book sticky thread?

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 5:49 am

Reinhard has to be the one to make a sticky thread. It has to be pretty applicable to most members.

I almost can't believe I haven't seen this one, esp. since I just looked and it has a ton of reviews. How did it get passed me? Though a lot of books have since my marriage to No S just after Christmas of 2009. And I did give up trying for awhile before that.

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 6:43 am

I just looked at the table of contents. Please tell what the chapters on Red, Yellow and Green, and The Traffic Light are. Any relation to Habitcal?

clarinetgal · Post by **clarinetgal** » Sat Oct 19, 2013 7:56 am

I have this on my Kindle, and I really enjoyed it! I'll have to reread it soon. Oolala, it has been at least a year since I read it, but if I recall, I think the traffic lights have to do with foods he allows himself to eat, or doesn't allow himself to eat, because of being trigger foods.

LoriLifts · Post by **LoriLifts** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 9:55 pm

I'm so glad you liked this book as much as I do. I bet I've read it at least 4 times.

This book was one of tools I used to give up certain foods, even on S days. It was tough to admit, but some foods I can't do in moderation, dang it.

The current book I'm reading is Big Brother by Lionel Shriver. It's fiction, about a sister who hasn't seen her brother in 4 years. He was always slim, now he's obese.

It's a good read and semi-autobiographical. The author did have a brother who died of obesity-related causes.

I need to re-read Hungry again...

clarinetgal · Post by **clarinetgal** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 6:20 am

Walkerlori, I'm starting to get to that point, also, where there are certain foods I have to forbid myself to eat, because of being trigger foods.

I'll have to look up Big Brother. It sounds interesting!

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 2:08 pm

I'm pretty sure 3 meals a day and banning flour/sugar foods is an underpinning of OA, though they didn't ban anything when I went. I could just never accept that I had to go through all their steps. I know for alcoholics, they say you have to have hit bottom. That I think I did, and after that, I could accept the strictures of No 'S. I still had all the same urges and reasons to eat. I just ignored them.

It took me over two years to have S days calm down, and even longer to find a way to handle sweets. It's funny; I think they will play even less and less of a role in my life as time goes on-it's still amazing to me how few I eat, given my former habits for decades-, but I was willing to go through the process of learning moderation because that seemed less painful to me than thinking I could never have them. It was ironically harder, but less painful. I guess I never believed, even when I kept eating a bag of Hershey's kisses or a package of chocolate chip cookie dough at a sitting, and still grazing or more the rest of the day, that it meant I couldn't eat moderately at some point. I can't say I'm completely carefree about all foods, but it's peanuts in the big picture, and worth it, so far.

I read through the table of contents in the book. A lot of familiar ideas! And it did look attractive. I keep saying I'm not going to BUY any more books on the topic, but my library doesn't have it. Actually, I say I'm not even going to read any, but THAT I haven't been able to give up yet! I just don't read ones about strict food plans of imposed drastic cuts in consumption, like juicing or such. Terrible odds of working!

I guess it's better to binge on "eating issues/habits" books than food itself.

Interesting to me is that Zadoff is a writer by trade, and, like Reinhard, hasn't turned his experience into his life's work.