In my personal experience it has affected my life in similar ways to drug addiction or alcoholism just without the legal consequences. It has isolated me, damaged my health, damaged my finances and hurt my children. The weight I carry has many social consequences. I know all the rational reasons not to eat the foods I do, heck I could teach a class on nutrition.I know how much better I feel when I eat clean but when food is in front of me all the rationalization in the world can't stop me. The hardest part of food addiction is that I can't just go 'cold turkey' like I did with cigarettes and alcohol, I have to eat to live. I can't avoid places where food is because it is everywhere. I can't even limit it at home because I am a single parent and solely responsible for feeding my kids.
I have been battling this for over 24 years now and have still not found a way to overcome it.I have journals dating back to middle school. I have hundreds of "before" pictures, I still can't claim to have the answer but I feel that with each attempt at 'sobriety' I make I am one step closer to finding my answer.
I am hoping that sharing my journey I will be able to help myself as well as show others we are not so alone in this.
So I think the first step is defining what sobriety is. I think this will very from person to person as trigger foods will be different. Although as a baseline refined white sugar and flour, unhealthy fats and salts should be off limits for everyone. It has been shown that the right combination of fat,salt and sugar are especially addictive, That knowledge is used by food companies to hook us on their products.
For me sobriety is sticking to the foods allowed on a raw vegan diet, that is fruits, veg, nuts and seeds. Meat is a trigger food for me so that is out, others may be fine eating meat. I am not going to be 100% raw as I really prefer cooked vegetables and being able to eat well within the perimeters I have set up is important. My most recent attempt I made it 13 days before the other foods won. I love fresh foods and noticed this relapse that even though I was bingeing on other things I didn't even like how they tasted and hated how they made me feel even more. But I couldn't stop. I'm not even sure if I will make it through today. But I am going to try, and I will keep trying until I am dead because I am determined to beat this and show others they can too!
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