An examination of a world colored by food addiction and its outward manifestation, morbid obesity. A soul destroying world filled with obsessive thoughts, mind-numbing fantasies, and pain, mental and physical. But there is recovery in the 12 steps. I'm living it.
Saying a prayer of gratitude for the gift of recovery today, and sending a healing prayer to this woman and everyone else who is trapped in the hell that is food addiction.
The highest weight I saw on a scale was 400 pounds. I hadn't weighed myself for years, and the typical bathroom scales back then (around 2000) only displayed weights up to 300 pounds. I was obviously over that. But I needed to know how much I weighed because I felt that if I saw the numbers, it would shock me into taking action. My opportunity to see the numbers came. One day I was in grocery shopping in Safeway, and I went to the ladies room. On my way there, I saw a huge scale that I assumed the store's butchers used to weigh huge pieces of meat that was brought in from their wholesalers. It was a digital scale. After looking around to see if anyone was nearby, I stepped on it. The LED display briefly flashed at 400 pounds, and I very quickly stepped down. Then I left as fast as I could. Looking back, I can't believe the amount of emotional pain and worry I caused my family. There are no words to describe the amount of regret that I have about that. But the best thing I can do is continue to recover and work on accepting that I can nothing do change the past, but I can do a lot to make sure that I am living in recovery today. Just for today. I don't know about tomorrow; it isn't here yet. But just for today, I have a program, and I will work it to the best of my ability. Thank you, God. Food Addicts In Recovery
I'm in a 12 step program for food addiction, and most of the people come in with anywhere from 40 - 100 pounds excess fat that they often say is the result of eating "a ton" of sugar. For those of you who don't know, the word "sugar" is used in the food addiction recovery meetings to indicate food like candy, cakes, pies, donuts, cookies, ice cream--you know, the sweet stuff. Now, I'm not averse to eating sweets myself, but only after I have had what my family called "real food", which was usually high fat protein (steak, fried chicken or pork chops, homemade hamburgers or meatloaf), LOTS of bread slathered in butter and some kind vegetables as a side dish. Then it was dessert. Snacks could be anything from a soup bowl filled with cereal and milk or a hot link sandwich with mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup and hot sauce. Oh, you thought I meant potato chips or popcorn for a snack? Yes, but that stuff was usually paired with the hot link sandwich. And I topped it all off with cookies and milk. THAT, my friends, is how a person eats their way into a 400+ pound body by age 40. By the grace of God, I don't eat like that anymore. It's truly a miracle, but I have to remember that it's a one day at a time issue. I can't afford to forget that I am a real hardcore, self destructive food addict who, without the help of a Higher Power Who I don't really understand (but pray and ask for help with this addiction all the time), and the food addiction recovery program, my family would have buried me a long time ago.
Here's some food related stories and videos that I recently found. Please read the Huffington Post story that I've posted, and watch the Jamie Oliver video that's posted below that. By the way, I was more than appalled that even though the kids in the video knew that those chicken nuggets contained ingredients that they all said "EWWWW!" and scrunched up their noses at when Jamie showed them what goes into the nuggets, when Jamie asked them if they wanted to eat any, they all raised their hands and said "yes". Why? "Because we're hungry!" Wow. Nice, Madison Avenue. You've effectively brain-snatched America's kids.
I nearly fainted one day when a young mom with a toddler in a stroller asked her little one "Do you want Wendy's or Taco Bell for dinner?" I saw another one giving her infant some Fanta orange soda one day. The child couldn't have been older than six months. That's like shooting diabetes into your child's veins! I kept my mouth shut, but I was screaming inside. In my opinion, this what mass marketing does--encourage people to become zombie consumers. The messages to buy that garbage are so persuasive that there isn't much resistance to keeping large quantities of it in their homes. My parents didn't feed me that stuff all the time; they did everything they could to limit my portion sizes, encourage me to eat all my vegetables (which I HATED), and stop me from drinking more than one soda a day.
It bears mentioning that the sugar content for sodas was different back in 60s because the soft drink companies used cane sugar instead high fructose corn syrup. Cane sugar still creates "sugar cravings" and metabolizes the same way in the body, but there's something about HFCS that seems to cause people to pack on the pounds faster and put them into hard core sugar addict mode. One example: when school districts were voting to take HFCS sweetened sodas out of their vending machines back in the late 90s/early 2000, a very obese teenaged girl who was being interviewed by a local Sacramento (CA) news station claimed that she was going to stop coming to school if they got rid of the sweet stuff because she HAD to have her sodas. (Unfortunately, I can't locate that news story, but I believe it was done by either KCRA Channel 3 or Channel 10 in Sacramento.)
However, I think I was one of those kids who was genetically predisposed to food addiction. There's nothing my mother and father could have done to prevent me from being a food addict, and they spent a lot of money trying. No amount of diets, nutritional consults with doctors, hypnotherapy or even locking up the refrigerator worked for long. I became a sneak, creeping into the kitchen to get another slice of my mother's meat loaf for a sandwich, or grab a bowl of her amazing (and VERY rich) homemade macaroni and cheese. My mom would yell, "Get out of the kitchen, now! You've had enough to eat!", but that didn't stop me from coming back when she was busy doing something else. I learned to wait until she was caught up with arguing with my father, which usually happened as soon as he walked through the front door. Yes, there was a connection. But that's a whole 'nother story.
Families these days are at an even greater disadvantage when it comes to trying to preventing food addiction and childhood obesity. We didn't have the overwheming sensory overload of food commericials or the abundance of high fructose corn syrup and chemically additives in food like we did now. Couple that with the fact that many parents grew up eating even more of that non-nutritional junk than I did, add that with the fact that they never learned to cook well balanced meals for themselves, you have the perfect recipe for childhood (and adult) obesity. A lot of parents probably don't realize this, but they are potentially taking 10-15 years off their kids' life span by feeding them all that junk. Unless they make a very determined effort to provide very nutritious meals with no processed ingredients in them, their children stand a good chance of developing nutritional deficiencies that could lead to obesity at an early age.
That's why I don't let my grandson watch television (and feed him the same food I eat), and I insisted on unleashing my critical analysis of food (and toy) commericials when my three children were growing up. Of course, they didn't appreciate it at the time. ("Mom, can we just watch T.V.?!!") But they know how to keep away from the Kool-Aid as adults, and I'm taking credit for that. :) Yes, they wanted to eat the junk food like all the other kids, and I did give in sometimes. But none of them had the horrendous problems with obesity like I did growing up. And I'm very grateful for that.
FORMER "BIGGEST LOSER" CONTESTANT BEING SUED OVER WEIGHT GAIN
All right, I shouted the headline with all caps too. Bad writer, bad, bad writer (slap). I've never been a fan of "reality" television shows since they have been gained a stronghold in American pop culture by exploiting what is inherent in every single one of us who is a member of the genus and subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens: character defects. None of us have been spared from having these, in fact, I say that it our journey in life to discover what they are and, over a lifetime, dispell them by any means necessary. It's hubris for some people to think that they are the fortunate ones who are inhumanly perfect, and have the indisputable right to judge, ridicule and cast aspersions on the hapless lots baring their personality warts before millions of people. Yes, it's so easy to do from the comfort of one's living room couch. I haven't been a fan since the first season of MTV's "The Real World" aired, which I watched with my then teenaged children. After two seasons, I started going back to my bedroom for my beloved reading time, which my children interrupted with "Real World" updates during commercials. But that was enough for me. Little did I know that the barometer of "reality" shows was about to dip far below what I consider the lowest point on the debauchery scale. And even worse, people would eagerly sign up to be humilitated in front of their peers on a weekly basis. I'm sure money has a lot to do with it. During an economic downturn, people become willing to do anything, a point that I feel was very aptly made in the Sydney Pollack disturbing 1969 movie, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?Altough it is not a reality show, it demonstrates how hopeless people can be easily manipulated into debasing themselves for the entertainment of others.
Now, I don't know if "Biggest Loser" star Tara Costa was hopeless when she joined the reality show cast. Moreover, I don't know if the producers consider their show to be debasing. I wouldn't know; I've never watched it and I never will. However several media sources have been reporting that Ms. Costa apparently lost a lot of weight and, as that infamous web site TMZ has declared, "...if re-gaining a bunch of weight wasn't bad enough, former "Biggest Loser" star Tara Costa is now being SUED for porking up again." Porking up, huh? Yeah, that's really clever "journalism", folks. (Don't get me started on the current state of my once beloved profession; that's a topic for a different blog.) However, if Ms. Costa is a person like me, a food addict, then it was only a matter of time before the pounds would start coming back on. In fact, it won't matter how many Iron Man triathalons she runs, how many laps she swims or miles she cycles--it will never be enough to stop IF she has what I call "The Beast" pounding away at the sensible parts of her brain like I do. Furthermore, I don't know her and I can't rightfully refer to her as a food addict like me. Now, for the logical question: what is a food addict? I can waste a lot of time describing what it is, but Dr. William D. Silkworth, author of the article "The Doctor's Opinion" that is included in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous", does a much better job of describing the addiction process than I can:
We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.
Now, if you substitute the words "flour, sugar and excess portions of food" for "alcohol", and "food addicts" for "alcoholics", the meaning and implication of the above quotation will make more sense. Hence: "...the action of flour, sugar and excess portions of food on these chronic food addicts is a manifestation of an allergy: that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate eater."
What does that mean? For the food addict, eating flour, sugar, and excess portions of food creates this disturbance in the brain in which the addict keeps eating, and eating, and eating, even when the actual physical hunger has long ceased, and the stomach is so packed with food that it becomes painfully distended. Now, normal eaters do this from time to time during special occasions such as holidays, birthday, wedding and retirement parties, travel cruises...many people do "I can't believe I ate the WHOLE THING" scenario at different times in life. Dr. Silkworth would call those people "temperate eaters". But chronic food addicts do this kind of eating on a daily basis, even when they are watching themselves go back for more, and a part of their conscious minds screams out, "NO! What are you doing? You're going to eat yourself to death; you can't possibly fit anymore food in your stomach!" Yet, to their own horror, he or she fills up another plate, or stands at the refrigerator or stove eating out of cartons, containers or pots and pans until passing out, much like an alcoholic does. This uncontrollable behavior is the result of what Dr. Silkworth describes as "the phenomenon of craving":
I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control. I have had many men who had, for example, worked a period of months on some problem or business deal which was to be settled on a certain date, favorably to them. They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and then the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests so that the important appointment was not met. These men were not drinking to escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control. There are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight. (From the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, "The Doctor's Opinion")
How many times has a person who is fat/obese or morbidly obese been told to "have some will power" or "self discipline"? Or, "I know the PERFECT diet for you; my cousin/best friend/coworker lost 85 pounds in three months!" And the overweight person tries these methods, and sometimes they work--for a short period of time. They lose 85 pounds, then to their dismay, gain 100 pounds back within six months or a year. What happened? Didn't they follow the dieting instructions and use all kinds of mental discipline to prevent that weight gain? Do they like being fat? All it takes is some will power; what kind of weak-willed "loser" goes through all that trouble to take off the weight, then gains it all back? What's going on here? Why can't they lose the weight and KEEP it off?
And, how many times has someone with a binge/purge disorder ate until they were in extreme pain, then "got rid" of the food through vomiting or laxatives or excess exercise (and in some cases, all three methods) because they KNEW they couldn't stop eating and dieting didn't work for them? They do this in spite of the fact that purging throws the body into extreme disarray, causing a multitude of potential health problems. Not to mention that purging really isn't an effective method of weight loss or maintenance.
IF Ms. Costa is a food addict or has a binge/purge eating disorder, I feel very badly for her. Unlike her, people with serious food issues can recover within the safety of a 12 step program's anonymity, and they don't have to go through the added stress and anxiety of people whose motives were to capitalize on her reality show popularity for their businesses. Sure, sure, she was a willing participant and received a considerable amount of money by signing that contract. However, IF she is addicted to food and had no awareness of that, there was no way she could have predicted her inevitable weight gain and, as many food addicts have experienced, the unraveling of everything she had worked so hard to create for herself in her life. Gaining weight is miserable enough, but to also watch helpless misery as your life spins out of control and all the commitments and promises you have made to yourself and others go unfulfilled? Nightmarish. On top of all that, the various news outlets have been reporting and broadcasting statements made by chief executive officer of FC Online Marketing Michael Parrella, which probably feels like someone pouring a salt and vinegar mixture into a gaping chest wound. I'm sure Mr. Parrella doesn't understand anything about food addiction or eating disorders. Even if he did, he probably wouldn't care. Just like the manager who fires the alcoholic/coke addict after repeated warnings to "get it together", his concern is the solvency of his business. And that is as it should be.
I can't help but wonder that if Ms. Costa or Mr. Parella had received some information about the devastating physical, mental and emotional effects food addiction and eating disorders can have on a person's life, that this situation could have turned out differently. Perhaps none of this would have been hashed out in the public; both parties could have met and discussed the issues involved, agreed that Ms. Costa would need some additional support, and resolved everything without the public airing of legal dirty laundry. But that doesn't satisfy the public's hunger for titillating gossip and scandals, does it? I mean, who needs to shoot horses when the entire world can read about the details of your professional and personal life crashing down around you with impunity?
“Recognizing obesity as a disease will help change the way the medical community tackles this complex issue that affects approximately one in three Americans,” AMA board member Dr. Patrice Harris said in a statement." This statement made the usual rounds on many news sites like this one and this one AND including the Today Show. Impressive, isn't it? I'm not being sarcastic, for once. Obesity has been in the news from time to time, and a lot of people have opinions about it. Unfortunately, these same people don't have many facts about the recently named disease, other than "fat people need to diet and exercise" or "push away from the table, Tubby, or even worse, "They caused it on themselves; all it takes is willpower!". (There are other caustic observations that I've read on the various websites, but they are variations of the aforementioned themes. I know all too well the physical, mental and emotional torture of morbid obesity, as I have shared on this blog. I've done way too many diets, and the inevitable failure of each one became unbearably depressing. And I tried the "fat and happy" approach to life. It didn't work for me. Not when I was doing things like sobbing in excruiating pain becuase the cartilidge in my left was completely gone, and my hip bones were grinding into each other so much that they resembled a pretzel more than a normal hip on X-rays. And I haven't even got into my back and knees, which still give me a lot of problems, even though I've taken off a total of 158 pounds (It was 230, but I'm now coming out of relapse.) I couldn't resist to responding an NPR story in which made one of those variations on the same theme comments:
Beg to differ. There's a lot of research linking the escalating rate of obesity amongst children and the proliferation of fructose corn syrup in soft drinks and many processed food. If you looked at the labels of soft drinks prior to cane and beet sugar shortage in the 70s, you would have found NO high fructose cane sugar in the ingredients.But corn syrup is easily processed and a much cheaper ingredient for the beverage industry. Obvious translation: higher profits. Same thing with snack foods, which does really good business these days. The beverage and snack food industry intentionally put ingredients in food that will appeal to the senses in a very profound way, creating a longing for their products. (NPR had a story about this not too long ago.) How many people haven't craved a Snicker's or a Pepsi when they are tired? (I've learned that a nap works much better.) That craving is precisely what the food and beverage companies are going for with their products. And young people, with their still-forming brains, are particularily vulnerable to addiction to that junk. When they grow up, do you think they'll suddenly become spectacularly healthy and fit? No. They are hooked. Even if they diet and exercise to a normal weight, the research shows that they will gain it all back within a year plus 10-20 percent more. Yes, parents have a responsiblity to monitor their children's food intake. But it doesn't make a difference if the child is hooked on Cheetos and Cherry Cokes or cocaine, as the imaging done on people's brains after eating sugary products has demonstrated. A 14 year old brain hooked on high fructose corn syrup is no different than a 14 year old brain hooked on crack, legal issues and moral judgments aside. Both kids believe they ave to have it, and they will lie, cheat and steal to get it. Ask any mother who has an obese child. She will tell you all about how all the treats she bought for a party "just vanished", according to her very overweight child. This problem runs far deeper than anyone can imagine. This decision by the AMA is a step in the right direction, in my opinion, but that's all it is. One step.
So, will this decison made by the American Medical Association make a difference in the lives of obese people? Time will tell. But I really think it will make a monumental difference in the income of the pharmacuetical companies. They have several weight loss drugs lined up, just waiting for the doctors' prescriptions.
Last week, I started reading David Sheff's book A Beautiful Boy, and his son Nic's book, We All Fall Down. I tried reading both of them at the same time, meaning, read a chapter of David's book, then a chapter of Nic's. But for some reason, I didn't want to read Nic's book. I told myself that the reason was that David's book was well researched and beautifully written. I come from the same generation, and I'm accustomed to reading the concise, descriptive style of writing the elder Sheff displays in his book. The more in-your-face, raw style of his son was jarring to me, or that's what I told myself. My first reactions to books and life situations aren't what they seem at the time. There's often something rumbling underneath the surface of my initial reaction. Usually, it's something I don't want to face.
I wish I could say that since David Sheff is from my generation and a journalist that I identified more with his story. I admire his writing and his dedication to setting the stage, providing the research that is necessary for understanding the most complex pressing social and health issue facing this country right now. And, for the sake of pride (which, as we all know, cometh before the fall), I would like to say that I belong to his group of esteemed journalists. But that would be a lie. My food addiction and extremely low self-esteem obliterated every dream I ever had of working for a major newspaper or magazine when I was younger. And, he managed to earn a living doing what he obviously loves. That would be another no for me, for the reasons stated previously. And, if that isn't enough, he lives in Marin County (California) with his wife and two children, who are Nic's step-siblings. Yes, Marin County. I don't know if I would have lived there, but if I had pursued my journalism career to the best of my ability, I probably wouldn't have lived in the high crime, low income places as consistently as I had over the past 25+ years. And I probably wouldn't be broke now. However, I still would have been an addict, so my long term effectiveness in the career of my choice would have been questionable.
Even though I am 55 years old, have been married and divorced, raised three children as a single parent and now have a grandson, I realized that I had much more in common with twenty-something Nic than his father. The reason is simple: even though David Sheff was going out of his mind with worry and doing everything he could to help his son, he doesn't appear to have the same kind of problems with addictions that his son and I have. He's human, that's for sure, and he made plenty of mistakes. But when he discovered that his son was most definitely an addict, he approached the problem in a way that most addicts wouldn't...he gathered up all the information that he possibly could, and he asked for help. Would an addict do that? Absolutely not. No matter what the particular substance or behavior any addict is into, we all share some pretty basic characteristics: denial and a lifelong membership in the I-can-take-care-of-this-myself-so-leave-me-alone club. To sum it up, addicts are people who desperately need help, but they won't get it until some catastrophe, life or mental health-threatening situation happens to them and they have to say, "All right; I give up. Help me."
And sometimes even that doesn't work. I can tell you all about that. I've been in relapse. And, I think, so can Nic Sheff. He has relapsed countless times. Here's a few quotes from his book that echo my thoughts and feelings about myself, addiction and recovery a little too much:
Page 20, paragraph 8: "Writing my book--finishing it--getting it published--that's like the one thing I have to hold on to. I mean, really, since I was, like, six years old (age four for me, and I was frustrated because I didn't know how to write the alphabet yet), my dream has been to get a book published." Nic's treatment center counselor tells him to stop trying to write and talking about writing and publishing with other clients in treatment. I remember telling sponsors that writing was the only thing I do well, and it's only thing that keeps me sane during recovery. I had a lot to learn.
On top of page 139 is the ubiquitous "your addict is in control" speech. Unlike Nic, I never said anything whenever a sponsor or another recovery fellow ran that one down for me. But inside, I was fuming. I have to give Nic kudos, at least he voiced his discontent to his treatment counselor: "I can't talk about having doubts or anything? I mean, I'm telling you, I'm genuinely freaked about this whole thing. Should I just, like pretend I'm not feeling this stuff?" I always said, "Yeah, you're right." And I still did whatever I wanted to do anyway.
I also heard, "you are not unique, you just you think you are." That really pissed me off. I don't know if it's right, but at times like that, I automatically switch into "children should be seen, not heard" mode and clam up so tight that minutes of silence goes by. What I was thinking was, "Bitch, how do you know what I think? You don't know me!" I don't think saying that to a sponsor is appropriate, however. I guess those "I" ("I feel really angry right now.") statements is better than popping off with a smart-ass remark, which I never did because my mother drilled it into my brain to "be respectful" aka, shut-up-when-folks-who-know-more-than-you-do-are-talking. Hence, the silence. Actually, at the behest of some of my recovery fellows, I did try one of those "I" statement things about how I felt on a sponsor. Her response was, "So? Feelings come and go. They don't matter. What matters in recovery is taking the next right action." All right? Recovery folks say "take the next right action" a LOT. But what does that MEAN, exactly? I need some definitions for these terms, something I can understand and hang onto. After all, I know I am a low-bottom, gutter level food ADDICT. But what I don't know is how to "do life" without flour, sugar, and excess portions of food. The problem was, when I did ask, I didn't like the response: "Pray. Make phone calls. Read the Big Book. Write, not your kind of writing (as if "my kind of writing" had the cooties), but recovery writing." Well. That's not a whole helluva a lot of fun now, is it?
On page 177, first paragraph, Nic writes, "As much as I try to just be like everyone else, I always end up leaving feeling hollowed out, fucking gutted--like I need a drink--like I must be some entirely different species from the rest of humanity. I swear, sometimes I really do wonder if I'd be better suited as a hermit living off in a cabin somewhere--away from all people and pressures and judgements and responsibilities."
Yeah. Of course, I would rather have a deep dish pizza with garlic breadsticks or some fried chicken with greens and super-buttery cornbread (even though this kind of food would make me do the "vomitus projectus" thing because of my gastric bypass surgery), but other than being addicted to a different substance, I relate to Nic's sentiments about being better off living in a cabin somewhere 100%. In fact, whenever I read about people being locked in solitary confinement, I would think, what's so bad about that? At least no one would be bothering me. And being like everyone else? Yeah, I've always been hopelessly inept at that. I don't know how to do it, even with people in my recovery groups. I know it's me and my messed up thought patterns, but it's difficult for me to come up with something to say. Someone approaching me and saying, "How are you, Angela?" completely freaks me out. Do I tell them what I think they want to hear or the truth? Like Nic, I've always opted for what I thought people wanted to hear. Life seems so much safer that way.
And finally, this little gem from the second paragraph on page 326: "My whole life I've been looking for the easy way out. It's like I've been wearing those little plastic water wings, pretending that I could swim but never actually taking the time to learn how. So here I am, twenty-four years old, and I can't even swim. The water wings are gone, and I'm sinking--I'm going down and I'm gonna die if i can't get someone to teach me how to swim."
At fifty five years old, I feel exactly the same way. Sad. But Nic pulled himself out. And others have, too. I'm going to have to swallow my pride and ask for help. I have to let someone throw me a life preserver instead of sinking by myself. And also like Nic, I need a lot of help, not only from my food addiction 12 step program, but also from mental health professionals. For people like me with "grave emotional and mental disorders", there has to be more than one source of help: God (of course), my 12 step fellowship (who I will have to learn how to trust), psychiatrists and therapists. After all, it is MY recovery, no one else's. For the very first time ever, I recognize that I need to do this, and to stop being ashamed of the fact that I do need extra help. Thanks, Nic, for sharing your story and helping me see myself reflected in your words.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that some people develop after seeing or living through an event that caused or threatened serious harm or death. According to the 2005 National Comorbidity Survey-Replication study, PTSD affects about 7.7 million American adults in a given year, though the disorder can develop at any age, including childhood. Symptoms include strong and unwanted memories of the event, bad dreams, emotional numbness, intense guilt or worry, angry outbursts, feeling “on edge,” and avoiding thoughts and situations that are reminders of the trauma. National Institutes of Health report: PTSD
It was my oldest daughter who insisted that I show signs of the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I scoffed at the idea. That's what my father has, and for good reasons. He's served in both Korea and Vietnam. I really didn't see it as being an issue in my life. Besides, don't I have enough "issues" already? Recovering from food addiction, in my experience, is quite enough to have to deal with. But after many up and downs in my recovery, I finally had to concede that maybesomething is going on within my mental/emotional processing that keeps causing depression, anxiety, despair and finally, the inevitable "first bite" of food that I have for years had difficulty restraining my consumption. So, I got on my computer and did the research. Unfortunately, I didn't like what I uncovered.
Since I'm a Kaiser Permanente patient (sorry, I can't link to their site; but you can go here,here or here for more information), I went to their website, read everything I could about it, and found an self-assessment form. I filled out the assessment and looked at the scoring ranges, which was: If your score is: 0 – 16 = No symptoms of PTSD. 17 – 20 = No to minimum symptoms of PTSD. 21 – 29 = Mild symptoms of PTSD. 30 – 49 = Moderate symptoms of PTSD. 50 – 86 = Severe symptoms of PTSD.
My score? 73. Pretty solidly PTSD. Who knew? I sure didn't.
Suddenly, the memories began rushing in, and even though I was extremely upset and sad by their appearance, I felt like I had finally found the missing puzzle pieces. I'm not "constitutionally incapable of being honest with (myself) themselves" , as the book "Alcoholic Anonymous" states. Nor am I looking for the "softer, easier way" to recover from food addiction. Just because I could have PTSD doesn't mean I expect special consideration, i.e., a "pass" on eating "weighed and measure meals with nothing in between, no flour, no sugar, and no excess portions" or using the tools of the program to get from one meal to the next. It simply means, as far as I'm concerned, I get counseling that focuses on decreasing the effects PTSD has had on my life, and especially, my recovery.
But what does PTSD look like if you aren't a military veteran who has been in combat situations? I don't know about anyone else, but mine began with a military veteran--my father, who had served in Korea and Vietnam.
I was fourteen years old in in the spring of 1972, and already in the point of absolutely no return as far as food addiction goes. At that time, I weighed anywhere between 210 to 220 pounds, and I was ashamed of my body and miserably depressed about my inability to stay on diet most of the time. One day, I sitting on my bed listening to my radio, and I heard my mother saying something to my father. As usual, I ignored them and continued gazing out of my window while listening to the music. My father appeared in the bedroom doorway and told me to turn the music down. Like most teenagers, I was annoyed with that directive, but I reached over to turn down the volume. Next thing I knew, something that felt like large rock struck the right side of my face, and I went flying backwards across my bed. Stunned, I looked up and saw my father glaring at me. He pointed a right index finger in my face and snarled, "You better move faster when I tell you something to do, you hear me?" I couldn't say anything. My throat closed up and I could feel the tears dripping off my chin. He had never, ever done anything like that before, and fortunately, he never did it again.
I don't remember much of what happened after that. I know I stayed in bed crying, and I wasn't allowed to go to school until the black eye had completely healed. Maybe my mother gave me an ice pack for my eye, maybe she didn't. Maybe she came in my bedroom and tried to explain my father's irrational explosion to me, maybe she didn't. All I know is that nothing was ever said about the incident. The message was unspoken, but clear. I was to act like it never happened and tell absolutely no one about it at school or anywhere else. And I didn't, until I wrote this blog forty years later.
Being addicted to food is catastrophic to one's physical and mental health, but over the years, I found it to be an excellent temporary balm to any emotional wound, including my father hitting me in a sudden fit of rage . The downside is, like drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling or shopping, it takes rapidly increasing amounts of the substance or behavior (for me, it was food like a double cheeseburgers with bacon, lettuce, tomatoes and onions, large fries and a large chocolate shake) to get that calming, drowsy relief from the mental and emotional storms that raged (and persist to this day) inside me. By the time I graduated from high school, I was stuffing down enough food to bring my weight up to 240 pounds. When I was an English major and a supposed to be a graduating senior at California State University at Sacramento, I weighed 265 pounds. I rarely showed up for my classes, and when I did, all I could do was either think about what (and where) I was going to eat as soon as I got out or I fantasized about having a boyfriend. My once honor roll grade point average dropped to 1.85, and I was on academic probation. So I left school, went on a starvation diet that made me drop 57 pounds in four months, found a job as a newspaper writer, AND...lo and behold, a boyfriend seemed to magically pop into my life. I thought I had found the answer to all of my problems. Lose weight, get a job and a man--life is good.
As that old saying goes, history has a way of repeating itself. In my case, I didn't see the signs or recognize the familiar patterns.Like many people who grew up in alcoholic families, I had no idea that I was repeating my past, and even if I had some inkling, I would have denied it. "I never saw my father hit my mother," I would have told a person who might have suggested that I was turning into a carbon copy of my mother. And that would have been an absolutely true statement. He didn't my mother. And he only hit me once. Yeah, it was pretty harsh; my eye closed and it was red, black and blue for almost two weeks, but so what? He never did it again, and that's all that matters. It's in the past.
Well, that boyfriend became my husband (now ex) and the father of my three children. I didn't know it back then, but he had, and still has, one the most maniactypes of bi-polar disorder, a heavy addiction to cocaine, marijuana, crack and sex with numerous women, and an aversion to finding and keeping suitable employment to help his growing family. Worst of all for me, he had been severely abused by an insane, autocratic step-father. No, I didn't see it coming. Repeating the past? No way! My dad not only hit me JUST that one time, but he ALWAYS worked and provided us. How could anyone say I was repeating the past? Besides, that's all over and done. I've "moved on".
During the six and one half years we were married, he slapped me numerous times, usually because I didn't respond to him "with respect", or I wasn't "paying attention" to him. It was true; I didn't respect him, or to be even more honest, like him. Pay attention to him? Please. He was a full grown adult; his "attention time" should have happened with his mother, so as far as I was concerned, his neediness was not my problem. Our children, however, were a different story. They needed to be cared for by at least one rational thinking adult. Not only that, I had a household to run with whatever money I managed to hide from him to pay the bills. He hated holding down a job (I did that most of the time), took what little money we had and spent it on drugs and all kinds of women, then expected me to be his adoring fan, no matter what he did. I found very little to respect.
(By the way, the behavior and attitude that I've described in the previous paragraph is known as "codependency". In this excerpt from the WebMD article that I've linked to, you can read what kind of codependent I was):
Still, the codependent partner often finds some type of reward in this setup. "Probably the most significant theme is a sense of control," Bochner says. "The other person plays the out-of-control person, and so the codependent partner gets to be the person who is in control and thus respected."He says the partner who is codependent can be "the better person, the smarter person, the person who's recognized as having it all together. They're defining themselves as strong enough to deal with it when actually they need to realize that maybe they should be taking care of themselves instead of proving their strength."
I won't go into detail about the physical abuse involved in that marriage because even though it has been nearly 30 years of numbing out the pain and stuffing the memories down with food, reviewing that period of my life feels very raw. But this is what happened:
1. He became angry because I had to go to a work related event, and he wanted me to stay home and cook for him. He shoved me down on the ground, grabbed the still-hot iron that I was using to iron my clothes, and held it over my face, telling me he would burn it off unless I promised to stay home.
2. After a July 4, 1981 argument, he pinned me down in the back seat of his mother's little Datsun beater, and smashed his fist into my face repeatedly. According to the x-rays, his fist came within a millimeter of crushing my temple, the doctor in ER said. He was upset and wanted me to call the police. My parents did it for me. A few days later, I entered the hospital to have reconstructive surgery on my face.
3. After another argument, he grabbed our oldest daughter, who was about 16 months old, and our son, a one month old infant, held them over the balcony of our two floor apartment and threatened to drop them. I completely broke down to the ground, crying hysterically. He told me, "You know I wasn't going to do that. You know I would never do that." He frequently said after threatening me or the children.
4. He broke down the front door after being on the run for two months with a teen-aged girl who was a foster home resident, screamed at me about how I was "keeping him away from his kids", pulled out a very long, serrated Bowie hunting knife out of his pants pocket and tried to stab me with it. I fought him off with a closet pole.
After we split up, I numbed the pain withKing Henry VIII sized portions of food, and ate my way up to 400 pounds. I'm no longer anywhere close to that weight, but I've been struggling with my recovery for almost two years now. Hopefully, with therapy and support of my 12 step friends, I will be able to "trudge the Road of Happy Destiny."
John Bradshaw - Healing The Shame That Binds You (Part 2)
I received this from a friend who is also a food addict. It's a humbling reminder of what I and so many other people are dealing with. Recently, I have been experiencing the thoughts expressed in this article (I have no idea who wrote it, but whoever it was nailed the target). This is quite frightening because I can't afford to let up on my program, especially with my health issues and history of family addictions. It's no joke. Food addiction KILLS.
I Hate meetings....I Hate higher powers. I Hate anyone who has a
program. To all who come in contact with me, I wish you death and I
wish you suffering.
Allow me to introduce myself, I am the disease of addiction,. I am cunning, baffling and powerful
Thats Me. I have killed millions and I am pleased.
I love to catch you with the element of surprise. I love pretending I am your friend and lover.
I have given you comfort haven't I? Wasn't I there when your were lonely?
When you wanted to die, didn't you call on me? I was there. I
love to make you hurt. I love to make you cry. Better yet, I love to
make you so numb you can neither hurt nor cry. When you can't feel
anything at all. This is true gratification. And all that I ask from
you is long term suffering. I've been there for you always. When
things were going right in your life, you invited me. You said you
didn't deserve these good things, and I was the only one who would agree
with you;. Together we were able to destroy all the good things in
your life. People don't take me seriously. They take strokes
seriously, heart attacks, even diabetes, they take seriously. Fools.
Without my help these things would not be possible. I am such a hated
disease, and yet I do not come uninvited. You choose to have me. So
many have chosen me over reality
and Peace.
More than you hate me I hate all of you who have a 12 step
program. Your program, Your meetings, Your higher power. All of these
things weaken me, and I can't function in the manner I am accustomed
to. Now I must lie here quietly. You don't see me but I a growing
bigger than ever. When you only exist, I may live. When you live I may
only exist. But I am here....
Now until we meet again, If we meet again, I wish you death and suffering.
Whatever happened to Kenneth Brumley, also known as the "Half Ton Dad" on TLC/Discovery Health shockumentaries about morbidly obese people? Is he dead? Or if he's still alive, has he re-gained all of his weight, plus more?
I'm not a doctor, but in my years of experience as a food addict, I can tell you that unless some very DRASTIC changes took place in Kenneth's life, he had weight gain and/or death to look forward to after he left the Renaissance Hospital. I wish I could say something different, but I know how powerful food addiction is. It's way too much for any one person to handle by him or herself. Besides, Kenneth didn't have a supportive environment waiting for him at home after he was released from the hospital. Granted, the program only provided the audience with glimpses of his home life. For all we know, his girlfriend, her children, his children and grandchildren all eat lean protein, plenty of fresh veggies and fruit, and whole grains on most days. I doubt this, however. Although some of the family seemed to be of a normal weight, they were shown heartily chowing down on very high fat/calorie fast food. In the first video, Kenneth talks about eating three cheeseburgers and drinking two liters of soda. He didn't specify what kind of cheeseburger, but one Big Mac provides nearly half the calories that a healthy person should eat in one day.
Don't believe me? I'm not a dietician of course, but here's the nutritional breakdown:
My guess is that when the Big K said three cheeseburgers, he wasn't talking about the small ones that come with onions and pickles. He was talking about the BIG ONES, the triple cheeseburgers, or the "Angus" burgers that come with heaping amounts of extra stuff--extra cheese, grilled mushrooms, the proverbial lettuce, onions and tomatoes (personally, when I thought of vegetables, that is what I thought of--the stuff on top of a burger.) Yeah, you get the idea. That's what I was talking about when I said the word "cheeseburger". I could only handle one with some small fries and a medium chocolate shake. Even THAT was a helluva a lot of food, and trust me, that wasn't my only meal of the day.
This is what Angela used to eat when she went to McDonald's (pre-food addiction recovery):
Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese: 9.8 oz; 740 calories, 380 calories from fat(or 42% of the total daily amount of fat recommended for a healthy diet);
small fries: 2.5 oz; 230 calories, 100 calories from fat or 11% of the daily amount of fat (we are now over half the amount of fat that a person should have in one day)
AND one 16 fluid ounce Chocolate Triple Thick Shake: 580 calories (we are now OVER the recommended amount of calories/fat for effective weight loss for one day with this meal!); 120 calories are from fat, or 14% of the daily amount.
That's JUST one meal! And I ate three big ones every day!
So, you want an example of breakfast and dinner? Let's see...on the same day I might make a large cereal bowl of grits with LOTS of butter or margarine (Don't ask me how much; I never measured anything!) four scrambled eggs with green onions and mushrooms (scrambled with a LOTS of butter or margarine) and four pieces of whole grain, honey wheat toast with LOTS of butter or margarine. Do you see the pattern here?
For dinner I might "take it easy" and get a large bowl of creamy tomato soup, about 4-6 more slices of that honey wheat bread, and slice up a half pound of extra sharp cheddar cheese. Sometimes I would make a grilled cheese sandwich (with LOTS of butter or margarine); sometimes I would be "too tired" and just eat the bread and cheese.
I'll let you figure out the calorie count for my three meals. I am now officially depressed. And more than likely, I had ice cream or cookies and milk at some point during the day, too.
What I'm showing you, folks, is Angela's recipe for packing on 400 pounds of weight. Kenneth said he ate THREE cheeseburgers, and he thought that was eating light. Well, basically, BOTH of us are very sick food addicts, in my opinion. I was headed down the path that Kenneth was on (and perhaps still is). I pray that this isn't the case, but people being who they are, change is extremely difficult for most of us. It certainly has been for me. And I still stumble and fall back into some of my old behaviors. Thank God, nothing like how I used to eat. But if I wasn't in a program that has been helping me recover from food addiction, I wouldn't be where Kenneth is,(or was, whatever the case may be). I wouldn't have made it that far up the scale. Dead. That's where I would be. I KNOW this.
As for the second video, I included this because I thought what brotha man (Larry Cooper) said about his food summed up why I ate addictively:
This is me and MY world. I love my food; I appreciate my food. Once you eat, everything goes away, all the pain,all the misery...(Points to the various food items on his plate, but what he says is unclear at first)...everything is gonna be all right. Everything is gonna be all right. This is like "home sweet home"; it's like another dimension, "The Twilight Zone".
Yep. I hear you, Larry. I understand what you're saying, believe me. And "there by the grace of God go I..."
Post script: I searched for an update on Larry Cooper, too. Nothing, not even on the former-TLC-now-known-as-Discovery-Health channel. What's up with that, Discovery Health? Do you have any intention of providing follow up programs to see how these folks are doing? Do you even care, or are they just the perennial "circus freaks"? I think I know the answer to that.
More cutting is on the way--I have yet another surgery scheduled for Wednesday morning, September 1. I don't what the deal is with me having surgeries scheduled for the first day of the month. I have a complete hip replacement on October 1, 2009, and a hernia repair surgery on April 1. I guess God just wants me to get it out of the way up front. This will the third one in less than 12 months. So, what is it THIS time? I have posterior tibial tendon dysfunction,otherwise known as PTTD. What is that? The website "Your Orthopaedic Connection"explains it much better than I can:
Tendons connect muscles to bones and stretch across joints, enabling you to bend that joint. One of the most important tendons in the lower leg is the posterior tibial tendon. This tendon starts in the calf, stretches down behind the inside of he ankle and attaches to bones in the middle of the foot.
The posterior tibial tendon helps hold your arch up and provides support as you step off on your toes when walking. If this tendon becomes inflamed, over-stretched or torn, you may experience pain on the inner ankle and gradually lose the inner arch on the bottom of your foot, leading to flatfoot.
For those of you who are toting around 100-500 plus pounds on your body and consider yourself "healthy" because you don't have high blood pressure, heart disease or diabetes, think about how much extra pressure you are placing on your bones, joints and connective tissues like the tendons and ligaments. Check out this excerpt from The Importance of Foot Orthotics:
The human foot is a marvelously complicated yet efficient machine, comprised of over 100 working parts, including as many as 28 bones working in conjunction with ligaments, tendons and muscles. All of this supports and balances our entire body, and in the course of normal walking bears up to 1.5 times our body weight on each foot. This pressure is enormous, and with the average foot traveling 1,000 miles a year, it is no surprise there are many injuries.
The feet act as shock absorbers for the entire body, and in the course of a one-hour strenuous workout will cushion nearly one million pounds of pressure. As a result, many people feel the pain of this stress, usually caused by foot imbalance. This pain shouldn’t be ignored as it is not a normal result of foot function.
The passage above is talking about people who are at a normal body weight. Extra pounds places extra pressure on those 28 bones and 100 working parts in the feet. At 400 pounds, I was asking my feet to carry a lot more than what it was designed to do. In addition to that, I was born with very little arch in my feet. I remember feeling the arch in my right foot collapsing when I around 10-11 years old and playing baseball in the backyard. It doesn't feel good. But I ignored it, which is what the article says a person shouldn't do.
Over the years, I gained more and more weight, which added even more pressure to my weakened arches. Finally, when I was about 26 years old, I felt a tendon snap in my right foot. I didn't know that was what happened. But I've learned more about what's been going on with my feet over the past six months, and now I can recognize when the tendon is tearing. And it's been doing that a lot these days.
Now, I'm a visual/audio learner, so seeing pictures helps me to conceptualize new material. I don't know if this helps you, but I appreciate the graphics available on the Internet that have helped me see what my podiatrist has been talking about. The first picture is a normal foot and arch. Here's the medical description of it from www.arthroscopy.com :
The navicular bone is a key structural component in the formation of the arch of the foot. When this bone is in the proper position, the arch is maintained. However, if this bone moves out of position, towards the bottom of the foot (plantar surface), then the arch begins to sag and disappear. As this occurs, the patient develops a flatfoot deformity.
And now, a picture of the foot that has begun to develop a flatfoot deformity. (Mine looks worse than this on the MRI.):
The posterior tibial tendon is essential to the normal functioning of the foot by maintaining the navicular bone in the proper position. By doing so, the arch of the foot is maintained. However, if the posterior tibial tendon fails to function properly, the navicular bone begins to drop, the arch falls and a flatfoot deformity begins to develop. When this occurs, the foot may develop pain with weight bearing.
This is kind of what my feet look like right now (picture courtesy offootankleinstitute.com):
With increasing deformity of the foot, the joints in the foot get very stiff, and little in and outward movement of the foot is possible.
Obviously, I want to have the surgery before my feet become badly deformed and essentially useless. I asked my podiatrist if I would be able to walk if the tendon completely ruptured. He said that I could, but I wouldn't want to. I understood what he meant immediately. The pain would be excruciating. No, thank you.
This is yet another example of the wreckage of my addictive eating past--it has wrecked havoc on my body in ways I never could imagine. Even though I've lost an awful lot of weight, I'm still paying for the damage done. As bad as that seems right now, it could be so much worse. I could be still into the food, gaining even more weight, and becoming one of those people that you see on programs like "Two Ton Mom".
If you are suffering from morbid obesity, you HAVE to lose weight in order to get the treatment you need for the various health problems that incur as the result of out of control eating. I strongly recommend this program: Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous The life you save will be your own.
With much love and sincere thanks to Al-Anon Family Groups, for pioneering the way to keep substance abusers and food addicts accountable for their actions.
I am a food addict. I do need your help, but not in the ways you have tried in the past. The best way you can help me is to leave me to my own devices. Believe me; I have a lot of them.
Don't lecture, blame or scold me. I know exactly what I’m doing to myself, even though I eat as if I will never get another meal. I berate and demonize myself almost every moment of the day about my obsession with eating large quantities of highly refined, processed sugar/flour/high fat food.
Don’t show me the latest magazine diet or clip out articles about obesity risks and weight loss treatments from the newspaper. I will thank you politely on some days, become surly and distant on others. But I won’t do anything more than glance at the clippings before tossing them in the garbage. Please don’t take it personally.
Do not buy me diet books; I’ve bought enough of them over the years. Do not get angry if you’ve noticed that I haven’t opened those books. I am sick. You wouldn't be angry with me for having cancer or diabetes. Food addiction is a disease, too.
Don't throw away my “secret” stashes of food when you find them; it's just a waste because I can always find ways of getting more.
Don’t hide the bathroom scale from me; I will find it. Or if I hide the scale, don’t put it out in the open again. I know this doesn’t make any sense, but there is nothing rational about food addiction.
Don't let me provoke your anger. If you attack me verbally or physically, you will only confirm my bad opinion abut myself. I hate myself enough already.
Don't let your love and anxiety for me lead you into doing what I ought to do for myself. Don’t bring me food, cook my meals, help me get dressed, or call my boss when I feel too depressed to get out of bed and ready for work. If you assume my responsibilities, you make my failure to assume them permanent. My sense of guilt will be increased, and you will feel resentful.
Don't accept my promises and solemn pledges to lose weight. I'll promise anything to get off the hook. But the nature of my illness prevents me from keeping my promises, even though I mean them at the time.
Don't make empty threats, as in you will send me to one of those fat camps or reality shows to force me to lose weight. I know you’re not going to do that, and the fact that you would even say that to me just compounds my shame. But if you do decide to do those things or anything else, stick to your decision. Do not let me talk you ought of it.
Don't believe everything I tell you; it may be a lie. I’m not going to Weight Watcher’s or start the latest magazine diet on Monday, and even if I do, I will only half-heartedly follow those programs. I will tell you that another family member or a friend ate all the entire box of cookies, the gallon of ice cream or the whole bucket of fried chicken. What I tell you about my eating may even sound plausible, completely rational. But my word can’t be trusted when it comes to food. Denial of reality is a symptom of my illness, and I am in so much denial that I don’t always see how much more weight I’ve put on. It’s unfair of me to require you to be in denial about my food issues the way I am. Moreover, I'm likely to lose respect for those I can fool too easily.
Don't let me take advantage of you or exploit you in any way. Love cannot exist for long without the dimension of justice. It doesn’t matter how much I yell, scream, cry or make you feel guilty. Don’t give into my overt or passive/aggressive machinations.
Don't cover up for me or try in any way to spare me the consequences of my addictive eating. Don't lie for me, pay my bills, or meet my obligations. It may avert or reduce the very crisis that would prompt me to seek help. I can continue to deny that I have a a serious problem with food as long as you provide an automatic escape for the consequences of my eating.
Above all, do learn all you can about food addiction and your role in relation to me. Go to Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) meetings when you can. Attend Al-Anon meetings regularly and adapt whatever they say about alcoholism and the alcoholic to food addiction and the food addict. Read the literature and keep in touch with Al-Anon members. They're the people who can help you see the whole situation clearly.
First, the !@#$%ing drive-by spammers who took over this web site (and many others here on Blogger): a pox upon you and those of your ilk, unkind and barbarous sirs! Okay, that's lame, but I'm working on keeping the old Aries temper within reasonable boundaries these days. For the sake of my continued recovery from life-long food addiction, I can't afford to have lingering anger and resentments to fester and boil over. (Even though the drive by spam took place when my Internet connection was down and my health was on the downside; oh, those low down, dirty sleaze-suckin'!@#$oles taking advantage of a lady when she's down and out! No class!) Anyway, I have to try my best to refrain from such actions because they might lead me to consider Domino's newly revised pizza with the improved crust that once tasted like cardboard.
Now, you are probably asking yourself, Angela, how do you know what Domino's pizza crust used to taste like? Obviously, I ate it. Can't lie. Domino's was cheap and they delivered. When a food addict gets into the "phenomenon of craving" aka a serious need of a fix but has very little money, a cardboard crust seems better than nothing at all. Of course, that's in the opinion of a desperate addict in need of a fix, as pathetic as that seems to me right now. I used to say that I never ate anything I didn't like, but that's not true. I had that flour/high fat protein jones going on, and if I couldn't afford Zelda's (pizza heaven here in Sacramento, IMO)I was willing to pay for a knock off version of my drug. It's kind of like the drunk who's low on cash and buy cough syrup or vanilla extract to get a buzz. Disgusting, but hey, that's what addiction does. Warps the mind to do unreasonable things.
Hmmmm....now that I think about it, THAT'S what I should wish upon those website-crashin' Neanderthals! Yeah! May your nights be filled with a thousand cardboard crust pizzas with anchovies that tear up the roof of your mouths, and your mornings be filled with acid indigestion and clogged bowels! Heh. That'll learn ya!
I have more to post, but I have to get to bed. I have to have a tooth extracted tomorrow, Act 4 of Angela's Teeth Opera that started last June. Hopefully, the finale will be an exhilarating success, and I walk away with a minimum of the AlvinandtheChipmunks look in effect. Catch y'all later in the week.
PHOTO: I'm at Bosch Baha'i School with the Rancho Cordova Baha'i community, about six months before I entered food addiction recovery. I may have weighed more than 306 pounds, from the way I look in this picture.
I can’t recall the exact month or day that this happened, but I know the season and the year—it was late winter, 1987 that I entered the rooms of Overeater’s Anonymous and stayed for a while. (For those of who are familiar with the traditions of 12 step programs, please be assured that I am not breaking my anonymity by revealing this because I am no longer a member of OA.) I had attempted to attend the meeting a few years before, but I wasn’t ready.
The entire experience seemed completely surreal to me, from the circle in which people sitting to the way they said “My name is Janice (or Susan or Betty) and I’m a compulsive overeater.” Why did they do that? And why the rest of the group keep saying “Hi, Janice (or Susan or Betty)” in response? Then there was what felt to me to be an interminable silence following the short testimony given by Janice (or Susan or Betty), which was quite uncomfortable to me. The silence lasted until another person raised her hand, and I felt like I could breathe again. I was hoping they didn’t want me to say anything because I had no clue what was going on. Besides, nothing I heard seemed to relate to the reasons I came to OA in the first place, which were: a) I wanted to lose weight and, for the first time in my adult life, live in a normal sized body; b) stop my then-husband from sleeping with other women by losing weight, since he told me that was the reason why he did it.
An aside pertaining to the letter “b” in the previous paragraph: I know this is a hot topic with many women, and I promise it will be the subject of another blog when I get enough serenity in my recovery to stop referring to my ex-husband as a “piss-colored bastard” and many other “choice” monikers that I have retained for him over the past 20 years.
Every single word coming out of the mouths of those OA members were incomprehensible abstractions to me. When it was over, I decided to ask a few of them some burning questions: “What is abstinence? Does it mean you just stop eating completely?” (The thought of that kind of abstaining from my best friend and lover, was terrifying to me.) The ladies smiled graciously and told me that the OA program suggested that they eat three moderate meals a day with nothing in between, avoiding white flour and sugar. Since I was well over 350 pounds at the time this made no sense to me. Did that mean that I could eat as four huge slabs of thick crust pizza for lunch and a plate filled with macaroni and cheese for dinner, as long as those items were made whole grain wheat? Yes, they responded. OA does not endorse any food plan, and what you eat is between you and your Higher Power. I liked that concept because it seemed to me that I would get to continue eating the foods I loved and still lose weight. If that program could do that for me, I was all for it. Eating whatever I wanted, even though it was supposed to be in moderation, seemed heavenly to me.
But the skeptic in me wasn’t convinced, so I asked them, “Is that how you all lost weight?” Again, they smiled. “Yes, that is part of it, but the program also promise release from the pain.” Inwardly, I scowled. What pain? What are you chicks TALKING about? But that’s not what I said out loud. “So what you are telling me is that if I eat three moderate meals a day with nothing in between, I will lose weight.” “You will, if you keep coming back. It works.” Well, none of them were particularly large; in fact, one lady looked down right skinny to me. Even more importantly, she told me lost eighty pounds by doing the three-moderate-meals-a-day-with-nothing-in-between deal, and kept it off for five years. That impressed me somewhat. I had reservations about whether I could do the same because I had a lot more than eighty pounds to lose. But for the first time in my life, I had some hope about what to do about the most difficult issue in my life, which was my weight. An idea was planted in my mind about recovery from OBESITY (versus compulsive overeating or food addiction), which was that I could lose the weight and eat whatever I wanted as long as it was limited to three moderate meals a day.
After all, as OA explained to me, my food plan was between me and my Higher Power, who is certainly powerful enough to change my body chemistry so that I would experience miraculous weight loss on that food plan. I was going to slide into home base, free and easy. Since I didn’t hear any objections from the heavenly realm, I proceeded to define moderation as a large dinner platter or bowl heaping with whole grain pastas and/or breads and cereal products with sauces, protein and fats. And I could have dessert, as long as it was made with whole grain flours and natural sweeteners, like honey, raw sugar, agave nectar, brown rice syrup or molasses.
Wow, where was Overeater’s Anonymous when I was suffering through that contemptible Armed Forces Diet! I would have been saved from all that agony! OA was, indeed, a miraculous program. The prospect of being able to lose weight without going through the horrible deprivation, mood swings and stomach growls, not to mention being able to eat food that actually tasted good, was extremely appealing to me.
“I lost weight WITHOUT dieting!” I heard some of the ladies in OA enthusiastically proclaim that, year after year. I believed them; they were living proof. But there was something very faulty about the way I translated those words while applying them to working my program. So I ate my three large feasts a day with nothing in between, avoided all refined white flour and sugar, went to Overeater’s Anonymous meetings faithfully each week, and waited for the miracle to happen.
To my dismay, I gained more weight. My body became overwhelmed with the very serious health consequences of carrying over 200 pounds of excess weight. After while, I could no longer work because walking for more than two feet at a time caused daggers of pain to sear through my lower back and left hip. I became wheelchair bound and mostly dependent of my family to get me around town for shopping and medical appointments. I came to realize that the three meals-a-day-without-anything-in-between and eating unrefined sugar and flour was not working for me. But what else could I do? I had tried everything, Weight Watchers, hypnotherapy, protein diets, liquid fasts, Nutri-System….you name it; I’ve done it. I even had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery in 2002. That did work for a little while. But I began re-gaining the weight after I was one year out of the surgery. At that point, I became severely clinically depressed and placed on very strong anti-depressants under the care of a psychiatrist.
Another aside: My unofficial pre-gastric bypass weight is 400 lbs, which I can't statistically verify. At the time, I refused to get on a scale, and most bathroom scales didn't register weights over 300 lbs anyway. However, I was massive enough to bust the zipper on a pair of size 54 waist jeans, which I paid big dollars for from Irene's Sport Shop on Arden Way, Sacramento. Irene's is a specialty clothing store for large women that carries up to a size 8x. I wore a size 5x, and I was still attending OA meetings during this time. When I entered Kaiser Permanente's gastric bypass program a year later, I had lost about 30 lbs through CEA-HOW, which was another 12 step for people with food issues. In order to qualify for gastric bypass surgery, I had to lose another 10% of my body weight, so I went a strict vegan diet and lost 30 pounds. I weighed 331 pounds on the morning of my surgery, which July 11, 2002. My lowest post-operative weight was 235. I entered my current recovery program in October, 2007 weighing 306 pounds. I now weigh 183 pounds.
It has been one hell of a journey, but I’m no longer on that road spiraling downward. I'm now working a 12 Step program that addresses my particular brand of total insanity around food. I thank Overeater’s Anonymous for introducing me to the 12 Steps, but I am too far gone to work a loosely structured program like that. It works for some who don’t have the completely bizarre mental twists that seem to justify destructive eating behaviors, like filling up a dinner platter to an overflowing capacity and considering that mountain of food a “moderate” meal. And I thought I would lose weight by eating that way! Only an insane person would hold onto such delusional thoughts.
There are a lot of people like me who live every day of their lives in the same kind of delusions. They are FOOD ADDICTS.
Hi, my name is Angela, and I am a low-bottom, gutter level food addict.
The old one is out, and I'm feeling better every day! I'm just filled with joy and gratitude because a)I feel that God has granted me so many chances to make things right in my life, and even though I can't fathom why He would be so patient with me, I am awed by His endless bounty of love. I mean, how many people wake up in recovery room from a major operation feeling totally HAPPY! It's insane, but just feel this energy bubbling out of me that feels better than chocolate, or any relationship I've ever had with the opposite sex (actually, the latter part isn't very difficult to best).
b)I've never felt so loved and supported by people that I've never would have met while I was eating addictively, and these folks, along with all of my family members have become an integral part of my life right now. I was feeling the love and prayers in that hospital! It's real, people, I swear it is!
c) I'm also humbled by the fact that my life now has purpose, and even though I've always known that, I didn't feel I could fulfill it because of my morbid obesity. Who wants the big fat woman around taking up more than her share of space in the world? It doesn't matter that these thoughts were an insanely unjust condemnation of my basic humanity, but that's how I felt and thought about myself. Not anymore. No, not anymore!
Well, it's getting late, and I need to fulfill my end of the bargain by getting to bed on time. Life doesn't wait for those who stay in bed mourning about events or people that, in summation, don't make a damn bit of difference. My job is to heal my addicted mind, body and soul so I can carry out what God has ordained for my life. No, I have no idea what that actually means in terms of precise details. But I know what God has given me for tools to work it out. The rest is just putting the pieces together, a little bit at a time. And enjoying the journey.
Side note, and one that isn't nearly as important: I weighed in at 189.4 two days before surgery. And I weigh less than that now. So how big was I, actually? I don't have any pictures of myself at my very highest(serious camera ducking); I think the one I shared in my previous blog shows me a bit under 400 lbs. So I searched the internet for pictures that come somewhat close. That's what you see up above. I apologize for crass ghetto-izing, but that was my best guestimate of how big I was. Trust me--I never dressed like that. I was wearing tent dresses and muu-muus at age 28. Putting it all out there like girlfriend was never part of my daily thought process. And it isn't in my thoughts now. I choose to honor my body and spirit these days.
Pictures from left to right: Me at about 198 lbs on 8/24/09 (celebrating my grandson's birthday in William Land Park), and me at about 400 pounds circa 2000, and suffering at home.
Ain't no hokey pokey going on...it's hip surgery on October 1. Finally!!! I'm more excited about this than I was about gastric bypass over seven years ago! Maybe God, who, as I am beginning to discover is more connected to my "higher self" than I ever believed, knew that my tortuously food addicted mind would resist weight loss surgery. I sensed that while I was having my so-called "last meal" (what a joke) at an Indian restaurant with my family. Looking back, it seems so odd that I was much more excited about eating Chana Daal with rice and naan the night before surgery than the prospect of becoming "thin" for the first time in my adult life.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Indian food, "naan" is the bread that's served with entrees at most Indian restaurants. Without indulging in food porn,I have to admit that I would probably eat naan for hours without stopping if I wasn't in recovery. Considering what happens to a post-op gastric bypass patients after eating any kind of bread, I would seriously overdose on naan (or some other kind of bread that I'm tragically addicted to). Can you imagine THAT postmortem conversion in between the medical examiner and the assistants in the coroner's office?
Coroner's assistant 1: So, what killed that 400 pound woman we brought a couple of nights ago?
Medical examiner: Her records showed that she had gastric bypass surgery in 2002, and she kept stuffing her face. It was filled with some kind of bread that swelled up in her stomach, and stretched it beyond its capacity. It exploded under pressure and she hemorrhaged to death.
Coroner's assistant 2: I'll be damned. OD'ed on bread. At least it wasn't 4 pounds of steak like that guy who weighed 700 pounds!
Medical examiner: Yeah, don't remind me. I thought I'd smelled everything, but even I gagged when I opened him up!
Forgive my morbid digression. It's my way of reminding myself of the numerous reasons why I'm in recovery.
So, I'm scheduled for hip surgery on October 1, 2009 at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Roseville, California. I'll be up and walking within a few hours after surgery, and released in 2-3 days. I'm betting on two days. I've had more than enough of hospitals in the past decade. But Kaiser has worked out the total hip replacement process to the degree that patients do not have to stay in convalescent care after surgery. They have a team of home visit nurses and physical therapists who come to the home and work with post-op hip patients. This was very good news to me;I get to sleep at night in my own bed and not bother with the staff and other patients making too much noise at night and waking me up! Sleep is a very precious commodity to me these days.
After three or four weeks of physical therapy at home, I'll be ready for...everything, LIFE! I can walk, in fact, I've been using my cane much less now that I weight 190 pounds (probably less, but I won't be able to weigh myself until the day before surgery). But there's a limit to how long and how fast I can walk. The pain is still extremely bad if I do too much. I'll still have pain in my severely messed up lower back, but at least I'll be able to balance myself and take some of the pressure of my right side and lower lumbar area. That means I'LL BE ABLE TO DANCE AGAIN! And finally do some Tae Kwon Do and maybe even some Jeet Kune Do! Watch out there, now! Ready or not, world, here I come, and THIS TIME, I'm not stopping for anything or anybody! I've been looking out at the world from my window and wishing I could be a part of it for too many years. In less than two weeks,I will be able to get out there and MOVE! Yes!!!
Most of all, I'm truly grateful. As the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, "If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through." I'm more than amazed. I'm humbled by the loving grace of God in the life of this low bottom, gutter-level food addict.
Is there any Remover of Difficulties save God? Say: Praise be God! He is God! All are His Servants, and all abide by His Bidding! A prayer by the Ba'b (The Baha'i Faith)
Way too many contradictions for me--A follower on Twitter posted the following bio: "Get weight off fast with the appetizer diet cookie!" There is NO way!!! One bite of that flour/sugar combination (even if it is "organic" and/or natural or artificial)and off I go to the food addict "crack house", which for me is any grocery store or restaurant. Appetizer? It would be my breakfast, lunch, dinner AND snacks for days (in addition to a bunch of flour/high-fat protein items)!
A number of "Tweeters" LOVE to talk about food. No, that's an understatement. There are THOUSANDS of Twitter-lovin' foodies who dream in luscious epicurean tongue-stimulating panaromas, wake up in the throes of horn-a-plenty climax, then wax orgasmal about the experience in 140 characters or less. I call it food porn 101, although they're actually teaching graduate level courses. The title for top gastro-pornographer? @CBCebulski, art editor for Marvel comics. The rest of the @Marvel staff comes in at a pretty close second place, especially @AgentM, whose blog is titled "Agent M Loves Tacos"!
Not a great place for a recovering food addict to be sometimes. But there's always other things to talk about that don't trigger my food addictive brain. But those can become troublesome, too. I'm discovering that I'm transferring my addiction from food to Twitter. (SIGH) It never ends.
Now here's the scientific explanation from the article Scientists Find a Link Between Dopamine and Obesity :
The lower PET scan images, labeled FDG, show glucose metabolism in the brains of obese and control (comparison) subjects. There are no differences. The upper PET scans show where the radiotracer C-11 raclopride binds to dopamine receptors. These images show that obese subjects have fewer dopamine receptors than control subjects.
Brookhaven scientists have done extensive research showing that dopamine plays an important role in drug addiction. Among other things, they've found that addictive drugs increase the level of dopamine in the brain, and that addicts have fewer dopamine receptors than normal subjects.
"Since eating, like the use of addictive drugs, is a highly reinforcing behavior, inducing feelings of gratification and pleasure, we suspected that obese people might have abnormalities in brain dopamine activity as well," says psychiatrist Nora Volkow, who was also involved in the study.
Okay, so in plain language--bottom left PET scan shows the glucose metabolism of a "normie", the normal sized person who can pass by a Cinnabon shop or pizza place in the mall and never think about buying something unless he or she is hungry. And even then, they might forgo those heavenly smells in favor of something reasonable and healthy, let's say, a nice big salad. Yeah, they do that. That's why they're normies, and I'm not. It takes constant prayer and a lot of cell phone calls to other food addicts to get me past Lucifer Morningstar's playground, aka the food court. And I walk very fast.
The bottom right picture shows the glucose metabolism of an obese person, who is more than likely a food addict like me. The scientists say there's little difference in the glucose processing in the brains of the normie and the obese person. They look different to me, but they're the experts. Maybe it's just that everyone's brain looks different on a PET scan, or to coin an old phrase, "as individual as our fingerprints". Glucose, for those who might not recognize the word, is the word for the sugar that's in all of our bodies. There's little difference between the two, the scientists say. Huh. Maybe they should have scanned MY brain.
The top PET scans show where the party gets started. The normie (top left picture) has more open pleasure receptors, which are places in their brains where dopamine (the natural high stuff)is given a VIP pass to get in. Running, playing checkers, skipping rocks, smelling roses, hot-tubbing--all of these activities get into a normal person's "party-over-here" pleasure-seeking receivers.
No such luck with the obese person (top right picture). The bouncer squashes most of the dopamine's action at the front door. Stop right there, buddy. Unless the dopamine is carrying a bag filled with a triple cheeseburger with giant-sized chili cheese fries, an extra large mocha chocolate chip milk shake and a huge slab of Oreo-crust cheesecake, the Big "D" ain't gettin' past the velvet rope. The obese person's pleasure seeking brain, ONLY recognizes Dr. Feelgood when he has Ms. Nasty hanging on his arm looking like a syrupy-sweet concoction oozing with fat.
Angela's aside: No, I do not eat like that now. Not even close! [See note below.]In fact, at 400 lbs I couldn't eat all that. Not at one time, at least. I had to wait at least two hours before I could finish it. It would be gone by 10 pm, though.
This is only a small part of an obese food addiction process. There's so much more to it, and I don't have the energy to delve into all that right now. But I can imagine all those scientists and researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory are trying to come up with the right combination of chemicals to make those dopamine receptors open up and be free. Good people, those scientists and researchers. It's just too bad that food addiction is so much more complex than brain chemistry. Some of those scientific types even think that anti-depressants could get those receptors working. Poor souls. They just don't know the power of the dark side.
More about this later. It's a very long story.
Note: On a daily basis, I eat carefully measured amounts of protein, vegetables and fruit. The only additions to this is one ounce of oatmeal in the morning, 64 or more ounces of water to drink throughout the day, and decaf coffee or tea after breakfast. No artificial sweeteners, either.
