Sugar Addiction / My Weight Gain / Breaking The Habit
Today we'll talk about my sugar addiction. Its no secret that I have a binge eating problem, and the root in recent times is all things sugar. The last few years I definitely lost control over my will to remain in a healthy relationship with these types of foods and I returned to very unhealthy coping mechanisms, so sugar became a Mainstay of my life again very recently. Last year I definitely snowballed out of control. I could eat anywhere from 3000, 5000 or 10000 calories in sugar a day and then do it all again the next day, and the next, and the next.
The reason could be that I'm upset or happy or that I'm bored or perhaps I'm celebrating whatever it may be, once I'm eating a trigger it just keeps coming. Stopping that is really the issue, and I find that very hard to do. I don't eat for hunger, that I know. I've binged before with absolutely no appetite, hell, even during some binges I've been bored. I most recently gained 60 pounds in just a few months time, even for me that's unheard of.
It's not what route I want to be going in. I don't want to be gaining weight. I'm trying to lose right? But sugar is definitely where everything crashes. In the last few months specifically I have been binging almost exclusively on Reese's Cups, just absolutely absurd amounts of Reese's cups. Yeah, like I mentioned before anywhere, from 3K to 5k a day just to the point to where I was feeling disgusting. It's like an addict you know, once you have a certain amount it's going to take more to get that high because the dose that you had before no longer has the effect it had. So you got to go higher, and higher, and the other problem I found was once I tried getting off of this the slightest thing brought me back.
My Weight Gain
My gain is due to all of the sweet food and the binges I was doing was a daily. I might take two, three days off but the bulk of my days for months were binges, and that's why I gained this weight. I reach a low point, the dark haze returned. I didn't want to live. I didn't know what was worth living for. I embraced food as my sole meaning for being alive. So I did care if I hate my self to death, really that was a perk. Food was all I had to wake up for and all I had to look forward to and I told myself that food was there for me. At that's something right? I was still too aware of the obvious visual changes my body was going through. I had a severe radical idea that resulted was so sudden so prompt that I realized I wasn't thinking right. I finally considered the Partial Hospitalization Program my psychiatrist recommended after I was hospitalized. I got a lot of clarity, made some new friends, and learned some things about myself. I stayed binging for at least a week and a half after I left, but I had so much prospective. What I really done now is kind of decided to restricted myself from sugar right now, or highly limit really.
Breaking The Habit
The first is noticing my habits. One thing I know I did is I use going to my friend's house as an excuse. You know when I'm over there, there's always trigger foods. There's some kind of food that that tends to get me off track and I let that be an excuse and I'm not going to have any more of that. I'm being very vocal about what can and cannot be around. I'm also re-establishing my willpower. I stopped eating the Reese's Cups a few weeks ago when I realize that I wasn't getting any enjoyment or fulfillment out of them. I was just doing it, to do it. The high I reached had hit its peak, and you know I just wasn't sure how I was going to get pleasure out of that anymore without know eating maybe fifteen thousand calories worth. I just felt gross, as I was eating so much and getting nothing out of it. It was just like what am I doing here? I'm sitting there and for x amount of time of a day eating these Reese's cups and I'm not getting anything more self-hatred. So I stopped, and I KNEW I had to stop associating pleasure with the food, and that's really is what helped me move on with my weight-loss journey.
I have not been associating anything I eat with pleasure. It's just food. Admittedly at times I do find that I have kind of bleak moments about life because just earlier this year I had gotten to a point where food was my everything. I took that out of the equation and what am I left with.. but I really work towards my goal which is to lose the weight and to be stronger my mental health and to not fall back into bad habits and into a binge. I eat yogurt, I'm not cutting sugar completely. I don't think it's realistic for me, or anyone in a with a similar problem, to try cutting out sugar 100%. I don't know if someone can specially someone like me, and then think that they're going to function in any capacity and not revert back to a manic-like state of binge eating. I'm eating some yogurts. I'm having sugar free jell-o, some instant oatmeal and vanilla protein powder. Light stuff, no thrills. I didn't realize another one of my triggers was peanut butter. Just plain ole' peanut butter. It snowballs me into binging its also a gateway food, it triggers me to wanting other triggers like honey buns or cookies. Funny, you never notice your triggers until after you've done so much damage.
Avoiding Temptation is a huge area of breaking the habit. We don't know her. When going to the store and I'm in that check out lane and the trigger foods are right there and for some reason on sale. I don't know her, or them. I know I cant have it. I don't have it. The last two years what happened quite a bit was anytime I said I'm just going to have one of this. I'm just going to have this one thing, here, and when I go home it's not going to be a problem. I'm going to pick this up and have me a nice little treat, and it's not going to be a thing. I'll have a cookie here its just one cookie. It always ended the same. The addict in me returns. My mind begins exploding with familiar sensations. Chemical responses in the brain start knocking over the first domino. Everything begins to unfold. Become undone. Months, years even, worth of work erased in a matter of weeks. Total mental deterioration. Relapse.
My temptations are the high sugary junk, my triggers, I cannot indulge in those I know the final result. No reasoning with myself on how "this one time" could be different. Or how just a bite wont hurt. Shut off. That's the key.
whew~
