over eating

Since as long as I can remember I'd overeat. Not just a little. When I was in 2nd grade I remember I came home after a particularly bad day & continued eating a large bag of chocolate bars until I'd ate so much I threw up. I had this horrible feeling of guilt. I hid the wrappers under my bed & tried to clean up & hide the mess so no one would know what I'd done. I knew I wouldn't get in trouble for eating the chocolate. That's what they were there for. But I was afraid someone would find out about how much I'd ate & think there was something wrong with me or think I was bad. No one ever told me or even hinted overeating was bad, but I seemed to know even then there was something not right or normal about what I was doing.

I've turned to food for comfort, stress relief, guilt, feelings of inadequacy, elation, or even to help ease my overwhelming remorse for having just overate. For years I was in a state of denial. I'd just chalk what I'd done up as a lack of inner strength. I'd tell myself I would never do that again. Each commitment to no longer go over board with the food would inevitably end with a binge on food, sometimes in a few weeks, sometimes as soon as the next meal. As long as I just keep telling myself I was weak it made me feel like I was normal. But convincing myself that I had a lack of inner strength made me feel like I was a pathetic excuse of a man. The lack of self control made me beat myself up. The more I beat myself up, the more I'd turn to food, the more I'd gain weight, the more I'd beat myself up. It was a horrible snow ball effect that very frequently sent me into a state of depression. Not to mention a weight of 292 pounds in 2003. In late 07 a guy who read my blog frequently & was also a triathlete with over eating issues tried to contact me. He was emailing me, & leaving messages on my phone. I wanted to talk to him because everything he'd said about eating disorders rang true deep down in me. But I still avoided contact with him because I didn't want to admit to having an addiction. I don't know why I was so afraid to admit I had issues with food. Once I finally opened my eyes to the signs of what I was doing & what it meant I realized its not some horribly dark or evil secret. What I was doing didn't make me bad. What I was doing wasn't even an evil thing. It was not the healthiest thing for my body. But I wasn't doing anything dishonest or hurtful to those around me. Perhaps at times it was annoying to my wife when a treat she was looking foreword to was gone, all of it. But I wasn't hurting anyone.

Once I'd accepted the fact that what I was doing was an emotional response & my way of dealing with issues, not some horrible thing to be ignored & hidden, I started to learn what things triggered my emotional eating. I've learned to figure out what emotions I'm feeling because I eat particular foods for different emotions. All that knowledge has helped me somewhat control my eating disorder. Its by no means "fixed". Simple fact of the matter is that I will never be able to stop my emotional eating, but there are things I'm learning that can help to minimize the overeating to one meal, or even a couple days rather than binging for weeks like I have more times than I'd like to count.

The most important lesson I learned is acceptance. It is a part of who I am. Its the way my body deals with stress or overwhelming situations. That doesn't mean I just say "ok, I'm stressed, I'm going to eat uncontrollably." But it does mean I am learning to accept that when it happens I need to realize it is what I do in these situations. If I beat myself up over it, it'll just get worse. I've learned to try to minimize it, but not dwell on it when I'm doing it, & not to dwell on it after I'm done. I try & stop, or simply slow down the amount of emotional eating I'm doing. If for example I had an entire day of uncontrollable eating. The next day I try & accept yesterday for what it was, not make it worse or happen again by beating myself up. I look at today as a new day. I often tell myself, "ok, yesterday wasn't a good day, but I'm going to make today a better day." No self chastising, no regret or remorse. Just optimism because today is a new day. That alone has helped immensely. I still have my eating addiction, I realize it will never go away on its own or even with help. But with the right mindset I have learned I can minimize the damage I do to myself physically, mentally, & emotionally. I'm now down to 189 pounds & this weekend I fit into a size 32 pants for the first time since my Junior year of high school. There is light at the end of this tunnel if you have the same problem. When you overeat, that is not a "bad" thing. It's how you deal with your problems. There is nothing wrong with you, it doesn't make you evil or abnormal. But most importantly there are skills you can learn to help you minimize it. When you binge eat, you need to learn to still like yourself. There are allot of people out there who do love you knowing about your food issues. There are even more people out there who would still love you if they found out about your food issues. So why shouldn't you like you too? Talk to someone who has a food issue, or talk to someone who is trained to help people with food issues. If you don't want to do that, get into contact with me. I'm not the most intelligent or articulate person, but I understand what its like & I don't want you to feel like I did for years. Don't be embarrassed because I guarantee you there are allot more successful people out there than you & I who have eating disorders. It doesn't make them less successful or likable. There's light at the end of this tunnel. I promise.