Thoughts.com Blogs - TO CURE OVEREATING, I AM ALLOWING MYSELF TO EAT

On the positive side, I have already begun a lifestyle change - in terms of making the first moves to alter my compulsive eating syndrome.

I have decided to allow myself to eat.
In this post, i am not telling you what it is that i am allowing myself to eat, nor what quanitities. I'll tell you that in a later post - porbably tomorrow.

The way i have tackled my out-of-control eating in previous projects, has been to go onto those liquid diets of soups and milkshakes with all vitamins and minerals added - and eat nothing else at all.

If one does it properly, as instructed, with no cheating, then masses of weight-loss happens. For example,
i lost 2 stone (28 pounds) in 6 weeks,
and someone else that i know lost 3 stone (42 pounds) in 10 weeks,
and someone that my friend knows, lost 4 and a half stone (50 pounds) in 14 weeks.

Obviously, i didnt address my eating compulsion, and so after a lovely short spell of being a lower weight, when i went through a stressful period, some time afterwards, i put the weight back on (not all, but about a stone of it - i.e. 14 pounds). Then after the break-up of a 5 month long relationship (that i had held high hopes for) i threw myself into work and activities, dropped some weight and then dropped from exhaustion,. And as i rested, in a matter of 3 months i gained it back and more. So that now, i am quite heavy indeed. And very miserable.

So lets go back to the start of it.
When i first found the liquid diet I was ecstatic. - I'd lost 2 stones in 6 weeks. So why then, later didnt i just go back and do that again?

During the course of the last 3 years, after initially losing that 2 stone in 6 weeks by the liquid formular diet, I have done that diet again. I congruently intended to do that diet again and get the same result. But each time i have failed!
Maybe i lasted two weeks,
maybe not even the first day,
sometimes three days.
Then somehow i switched immediately into a binge of a few days or weeks and ended up weighing the same as before i started and, no doubt, my body composition has been a whole lot more unhealthy.

When i do that switching, i eat ridiculous things, you see.
We are talking about a loaf of uncut bread from the deli counter, so it would be one of those delicious fancy breads.
Along with half of about three different blocks of types of cheeses.
Then maybe some potato chips - huge bag -
and perhaps a potato salad, a coleslaw or somthing creamy such as that.
After that has settled, say half hour or an hour or two hours after finishing eating, then cakes,
chocolates,
biscuits
- you name it.
It would be a family sized cake, and i would eat half in one go.
Then during the course of the evening, i would nibble away on the rest of it as snacks,
maybe with some cashew nuts,
and a couple of pastries.
Or, i may go to a take-away,
i love english fish and chips,
and order large chips,
a battered fish
and a potato fritter,
gravy
and a buttered roll.
I'd eat it all!

This sort of behaviour would generally go on for a few days.
Sometimes it would be weeks.
In this last eating phase I havent stopped at all.
So since i started at the beginning of february, and it is now end of April, I just havent stopped. It has been constantly 3 months.
In that time i have gained one and a half stone (well, from 11 stone 5, my lowest weight for about 7 years, up to now almost 13 stone).

I am so pissed off with myself now.
While i was doing it, i didnt feel bothered at all! I knew what i was doing, i knew it was crazy. But i just kept thinking that i would go on the liquid diet and that would correct it. But i just couldnt bring myself to go into deprivation mode. Even if i started, i didnt get past a few hours before i would rush up to the shops.

Sometimes i feel as though something is controlling me.

For example: I may be in a meeting at work and i keep having flashes of the kinds of foods that i gorge come into my mind. I am good at what i do. And i care about doing a good job. So, I didnt want to be not-concentrating on the discussions and problem-solving that we were doing. How I managed it then, was to tell myself that I would have it later. As soon as I did that, then it would stop popping into my mind and distracting me, and i could get on with my work.

Sometimes, as soon as the meeting was over I was able to get out to the shop and get the stuff straight away. Othertimes I had further meetings or I was in a different location and had to drive home. If it was the latter I would drive a reasonable distance away and then pull into the nearest supplier of such goods - usually petrol stations with mini supermarkets (i never like the quality of the cheap foods in corner shops) and buy a couple of packs of sandwhiches, crisps, chocolate or blueberry muffins and then some things to eat once i got home, e.g. breads or cakes or packs of bisciuts.

Isn't it disgusting?

I just sort of tuned out, though.
While i was munching away, i was completely oblivious to any sense of inappropriateness.
There was absolutely no attempt at eating a meal.
No - it was purely the taking of a substance - food.

There was the craving, the obsessional desire - that sense of having to have it - OR ELSE!
Then the battle in the mind about giving in to having it, or not (which i mostly did)
Then the tracking down of the places that sell the food
Secretly going in there and getting it as quickly as possible (while pretending to be a normal shopper casually buying, but really having mini panic attacks)
And feeling a sense of excitement at the bags full of the stuff.
The opening of the packets was a ritual style thing (even though done quickly)
And eating was a routine behaviour. - you would think that the sensation of eating would be everything, wouldnt you? But no. It was nice, of course, but only as much as a drug addict loves the process of snorting the powder. Its part of it, yes, the build up - but its all done for the hit at the end.
Only when i started to feel the effects of the food, (i.e. the sugar from the carbohaydrates, and all the other substances in the foods) did i get that magical feeling inside.

Sigh.

I have known this for years now - about 5 years I would say.

Well, then, why dont you go and get help?

Want to know a joke?

I am a clinical psychologist.
Truth.

I see clients and I cure them of their crazy behaviours.
I assist them in stopping sabotaging their lives.
I help people to find healthy ways of living.

I have been to many therapists about this.
I told my therapists about the problem. I told them that was what i wanted to solve.
One therapist I had for 2 years
- Another one for a couple months,
then another for about 9 months,
then another for a few weeks,
then i went into a group therapy
then i started trying to sort it out by myself and thats when i went on the liquid diets
the first one was liquid diet formular foods along with group therapy every week for 14 weeks - i did the whole 14 weeks, but only lost weight for the first 6. The therapist didnt pick up on this. I told her about my behaviour (by then i was binging on the products, but not on food)
Then i did the liquid formular diet by myself.
I am now a counsellor and agent for the formular diet and i am coaching others in their use of the product and their weight loss journey.
Ha ha, that was the punch-line!
Ha ha ha ha hah!

No, not very funny, is it, really?

So - well - i decided I had to take action - and if i keep sabotaging doing the liquid diet then the action has to be of a different kind. Doesn't it?

So, as i said at the start of this post, I am allowing myself to eat.

Can you see why?