Addict

I think every human has some level of addiction to something, excluding the very most enlightened Buddhist monks... maybe.  Cigs, booze, coke, porn, shopping, sex,  whatever- we all seem to have a vice or two (or three)

My monkey is food. Hi, I'm Barb and I'm addicted to food. Crunchy, salty, creamy, chocolately, greasy, comforting GLORIOUS food. Who knows how this starts? Let me go on the record that I am not blaming my folks for my adult behaviors, but I come from the 'clean your plate' era, where food was also a soothing or rewarding mana: "Oh, you poor thing!  You had a bad day- here's some cake."  "Good job!  Let's get ice cream to celebrate!"  Spend your entire childhood this way, and the wiring is in place. Stressed? Eat. Scared? Eat.  Sad?  Eat. Happy or celebratory? Eat.

Tricky thing about this addiction is that you can't go cold turkey because, well you kind of starve and that's sort of counter productive to improving your life... yeeeeeaaaahhh.  So it's all about changing the relationship with food from a comfort to a sustenance. Easier said than done, baby. Easier said than done.

My friend Lucy a few years back said, "I'm breaking up with food.  We'll be friends, but the love relationship is OVER."  Lucy battled obesity throughout her childhood, and now here at the tender age of 22 or something, she made a concerted effort to completely change her behavior towards eating.  She carefully selected and measured fresh foods, lean meats, started running, did yoga, and now is a yoga teacher, in a relationship with a yogi, and very healthy and happy. Was it easy? NO.  Does she still battle with it? My guess is yes.

Because with food addiction you are fighting the ancient biology of the brain that descends from that feast or famine time of the nomadic, cave dwelling, feral homo sapiens.  Back then if you had food, you ate as much of that shit as you could because you didn't know when it would be around next time.  You had enough food to get fat?  Great! Get as freaking fat as you could so you could bear healthy babies, stay alive in cold weather, and withstand disease or infections.  Trust me, a hat rack fashion model would NOT have survived those times, or have been desirable to the tribe leader either.  Child bearing requires fat.

Food makers know this is still in our deep instinctive natures, and like the pushers they are they manufacture foods that will light up the addiction centers of our brain like Christmas trees with perfectly engineered colors and crunches.  These also just happen to be the foods that are least expensive to manufacture, with the highest level of profit margin. These processed brilliantly colored 'foodstuffs' are also the least healthy consumables for our bodies even if our brains are fooled into thinking the opposite.

So I'm addicted to food.  Given in to the shiny goodies.  I've yoyo dieted, lost and gained more times than I can count. Five years ago, I went on a quest to get in shape- I was 80 lbs overweight, couldn't jog a tenth of a mile, and panted when I walked up stairs.  Within a year and a half, I ran 4-5 miles a day, had lost 74 lbs, lifted weights three days a week, and looked and felt better at the age of 46 than I had my entire life.  Weighed less than I did in high school, loved to exercise.... it was great. I really thought my days of being obese were behind me forever.  Cleaned all the 'fat pants' out of my dresser and closet and closed that chapter of my life for good.

Not so fast.

Here is how addiction works- at least for me.  I gained all the excessive weight in the first place because I gave in to my addiction. I was divorced with two kids, little money,  frequent stressors, scrambling every day to get by blabity blah blah.  The one thing I could count on at that chaotic and frightening time in my life is that for the few minutes I was noshing on some high calorie decadent munchie, I felt good. Never mind that afterwards I was bloated and miserable.   While eating, the happy place in my brain was on fire.

When I made the decision to work out, things were looking up in my life.  My freelance business was doing well, I had met someone, my kids and parents were pretty stable.  I made an effort to use running as my stress reliever INSTEAD of food, and it was working.  The more slender I became, the easier that got. Stressors, as always, came along, but I was dealing with them in a healthy way and all was well.

Watch me change this!

But then I got smacked with 'big stuff stressors' in spades. A layoff here,  a child moving out of the house, death of a beloved pet, a breakup, and another breakup, a daughter in the hospital three times, a father in the hospital, money problems,  and then taking a second full time sit-down job because my art wasn't cutting it. And that's when it crept back in.  "Wow, that was an awful week. I DESERVE pizza."  "I can't get to the gym, I've been working all day and have to work tonight on artwork" "I NEED chocolate after this day"...

It doesn't happen overnight. It sneaks up on you gradually, silently. One day a favorite pair of pants seem a bit snug.  Then you notice your workout clothes that once hung on your slenderer frame have become like sausage casings.  That's the day you realize that you are 'back there', eating whatever and whenever unchecked.  Giving in to the addiction. Using it to feel better. The result? I gained back 50 lbs.

So, I am back on the wagon, so to speak, fighting the valiant battle of an addict.  A battle almost every one of us wages. One day at a time, denying my cave woman impulses to eat everything in sight, shoving that donut, chocolate and Cool Ranch Doritos® carrying monkey off my back and trying to outrun the temptations on a treadmill. One day at a time.