Photo by greenchameleon.

It was this thought, that I was literally addicted to food, that made me wake up and start eating to live instead of living to eat. And I can’t imagine turning back.

Addiction - “compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance”

One third of Americans are obese and another third are overweight. So only one third of adults in the United States are at a healthy weight. The mindless eating we exhibit, I believe, can only be attributed to food addiction.

When you hear people or yourself say with a laugh “I really wish I could stop eating _____ but I can’t! I just have to have it!”. What if someone said “I really wish I could stop using cocaine but I can’t! I just have to have it!”? You would think the later is a much more serious despite people die from the results of being overweight several orders of magnitude more than those from cocaine use.

I think “food addiction” is much more prevalent in the U.S. than people think. Historically, only people with gross cases of compulsive eating are considered in this category. But a growing number of scientists believe that food addiction is more pervasive and subtle and therefore more widespread. All the overweight people I’ve known in my life have a certain mindlessness to the way the eat. They do it out of habit and for irrational emotional reasons. Confront them about why the eat a donut every morning and they unabashedly say that they just “have to have it”.

I’ll admit, I had read blurbs and articles talking about food addiction but it never really sunk in. I wasn’t that overweight — according to my BMI I was not obese — and I have crash dieted down to healthy levels over ten times. I never realized I was addicted to food. I never really went “A-ha!”.

On my weight’s ascents up I would gorge myself for lunch at Outback on Saturday, finishing off my wife’s plate and ordering dessert (”I drink your milkshake (slurp) I drink it up!”). Then praying that my stomach would stop hurting so that I could still savor the deliciousness that is Chilli’s later that night. I would snack constantly at work. “Ugh, I’m stressed, let me go grab a bag of peanut M&Ms and then come up with my Next Action list”. Dave Allen has no greater ally than Peanut M&Ms and Baby Ruth in my life.

I was fixated on food, I lived for it. I not only loved eating but everything associated with it. Eating out for dinner, partying, lunch every day of the week with co-workers, ordering pizza on nights if either my wife or I had a bad day, etc. A very unhealthy delusion. The food in all of these situations had nothing to do with the payoff.

I have yo-yo’d up and down many times, this should have been a red flag. Since I was 18 I have went through periods of compulsive overeating remedied with short periods of starvation — like a diet I went on of flax seed oil and whey protein where I ate less than 1000 calories a day for 3 weeks while taking ephedrine, caffeine and clenbuterol. I would get down to my goal, or rationalize about half way, and then slowly go back to my old habits. When I think back, I always knew I’d go back to my normal unhealthy eating habits and that I’d have to do another diet in 6 months.

Hold on for another often stated, new-agey, cliche. I have now learned that the key to dieting is to not diet at all. I have read that sort of statement a hundred times. The idea is that it takes a “lifestyle change”, a term I hate, to really lose weight and stay healthy for life. What this really means is that you have to make changes you plan on maintaining for the rest of your life. If you are changing your eating habits but still think of a day when you can “eat like normal again” you are not ready. Eating healthy should be the norm.

This is not to say that if you are at a very unhealthy weight you shouldn’t make drastic changes to your diet as a lot internet writers I’ve found recommend. Small changes for someone obese may not be the answer. Counting and reducing calories to lose the weight with a transition maintenance plan would be better for motivation and health in general in my opinion. The mental change is that you’re ready to do whatever it takes to get healthy and to maintain it for life.

I had the epiphany that I was addicted to food in early January this year. It made such a big impact on me that I have had no problem “dieting” since then. I am easily limiting my calories and no longer crave foods the way I used to. I get hungry of course, but a healthy snack can go a long way — especially if it is protein and/or fiber rich. I have made a change and as far as a healthy diet for life I know that this is it. I have better things to focus my time on now — like this blog.

If you are at all unsure if you are addicted to food or not, I am betting you are. The question is: Are you going to be addicted to food for your entire life? Is it worth it?