What Is The Hunger About? | Food Addiction Series Part Four

Food Addiction: What Is The Hunger About?

By the time I finished reading Listen to the Hunger by Elisabeth L., I understood clearly for the first time that I was using food, mostly sweet foods, to mask various issues in my life.

I was desperate as the author said to get “unstuck” from this behaviour. I was ready to learn the answer to the question “What is the hunger really about?” I called the woman who’d recommended the book and we had a good chat at the end of which she invited me to accompany her to my first “Greysheet Overeaters Anonymous” meeting.

Greysheet Overeaters Anonymous is a 12 step program and like all 12 step programs it is based on the principles and traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and believes that the first step to recovery is to first admit that there is a problem. I knew I had a problem and I was desperate to find a solution, so I had absolutely no reservation about getting up during that first meeting and saying: “Hi I am Nona, I am a compulsive overeater and sugar addict.” That evening I got a sponsor (someone to support and guide me) who gave me a low-carb food plan known as the Greysheet food plan and the next day I began the most amazing journey of my life.

When I started the program, I had reached an all time high of about 86kgs/190lbs. Over one year at a consistent rate of about 5-6 pounds per month I lost 31kgs/70lbs to achieve 55kgs/120lbs. for the first time in my adult life. I maintained that weight for 5 years.

In order to lose the weight and maintain it I ate 3 meals from the Greysheet food plan which consisted of fruit, vegetables, and protein. I weighed and measured everything I ate without exception even when I ate out. It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life but it was also the most freeing. I also ran for ½ an hour five days a week and lifted 5-10lb free weights in my apartment. I stayed in Greysheet for 5 years and then switched to regular Overeaters Anonymous because I wanted a less rigid food plan.

OA did not recommend a specific food plan and my weight fluctuated a little as I tried to figure out what food plan would work best for me. Finally I decided to use the Greysheet food plan and continue to weigh and measure but with exception. I returned to my optimal weight of 55kgs/120lbs.

Attaining and maintaining a healthy weight changed my life in several ways. for the first time I felt comfortable in my own body. I was amazed at it … at what it could do. I loved to run, jump, skip move. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to move. Having been overweight my entire life, movement didn’t always come easily to me. I loved the way my clothes fitted and I loved the confidence looking great gave me.

As great as the impact on my body was, the impact on my psyche of doing the 12 steps program and seeking therapy was more profound. Slowly over 10 years I was able to excavate, examine and resolve in the minutest of detail the debris of my life. Finally I understand what the hunger is about for me.

After 10 years of “recovery”, I thought, “okay this is it. I’ve got this thing all wrapped up.” Well, I was to discover that when it comes to addiction you never have things all wrapped up.

Listen to the Hunger | Food Addiction Series Part Three

Food Addiction: Beginning Road To Recovery

Moving to the USA to attend graduate school, was a big change for me. Moving is generally recognised as one of life’s big stressors, and this move was no exception. It wasn’t just the challenge of getting used to a new environment that was problematic for me, I’d lived in Paris for two years preceding my move to the USA and so was prepared for that challenge. The thing that made the move most difficult for me was America’s racial politics which depending on one’s temperament, can generate more distress and heartache than any human should have to endure. My sense of displacement, alienation, disillusionment, hurt and anger manifested themselves as a gnawing hunger which eating did not satisfy.

This hunger grew more and more insatiable as time went on. I felt as though a huge hole had opening up in my soul and I needed to fill it to survive … to be whole. At first I would make myself little treats that I’d always enjoyed at home over conversations with my friends. I was trying I guess to recreate the warmth and connectedness of those moments. When that didn’t work I increased the quantities and when that didn’t work I began to branch out, trying one thing after another in larger and larger quantities. By the time I was consuming 20,000 calories a day in cakes, ice cream, sweet biscuits, chocolates and growing larger and larger, I realised that I was locked in a destructive cycle from which I desperately wanted to escape.

Every morning I tried to start fresh. I’d promise myself that I would not eat as I had done the day before. Sometimes I made it until 10am, sometimes noon but always I caved in before the day was over. It often started with having just one chocolate bar and that one would lead to 10 within an hour, which would lead to whole cakes, pints of ice cream, boxes of sweet biscuits etc.

Luckily for me, I happened to be invited to a party about 6 months into my binging career, where I overheard a women talking about her problems with compulsive overeating. I was not that familiar with the term then but I recognised it immediately as one that fitted my behaviour very well. I managed to catch her alone later on that evening and asked her how she managed to stop compulsively eating. She suggested I read a book called Listen to the Hunger by Elisabeth L. and gave me her number to call her once I’d read it. I got the book a few days later. It is quite a small book. Only 84 pages and I read it in one sitting as I cried and binged on chocolate bars.

The introduction read:

If someone habitually overeats, it is safe to say that person is hooked on using food to do things food cannot do. Habitual overeating is an addiction as powerful as the addiction to alcohol or other drugs. In many ways, it is even more difficult to deal with food abuse, since no one can stop eating completely. We can put alcohol and other drugs out of our lives. We do not need either substance for survival. We do need food. We must find a way to identify our legitimate hunger for food without letting it expand and absorb other hungers that need to be fed.

If whenever we feel a twinge of emotion, our first impulse is to put something in our mouths, we are misreading our inner signals. The key to getting “unstuck” is learning to pay attention to what is behind the craving for excess food. What needs are being masked or covered up by the desire to eat more? What is the hunger about?

The path away from food abuse leads out of the boredom and despair of compulsion into a many-splendored world of feeling and participation. The way out is sometimes steep and twisting, with temporary roadblocks, detours, and slippery places. It is a path to be travelled daily with all the aid and assistance we can get. Professional healers can help. So can fellow travellers. Our greatest resource – which is always available – is the inner voice that tells us who we are, what we feel, and what we need. If we will take time to listen and learn, we will slowly discover what the hunger is all about. The hunger will lead to an ever-increasing knowledge of what life is all about. We will grow through our hungers into greater understanding and strength. Each day will be richer and fuller. We will not cease to be hungry, but will learn what satisfies.

That was the beginning for me of a long and arduous journey of recovery from compulsive eating and sugar addiction to a healthy and balanced life.

Read The Entire Food Addiction Series

I’m A Compulsive Eater And Sugar Addict | Food Addiction Series Part One

Compulsive Eater And Sugar Addict

A long time ago I came to the realisation that I was a sugar addict and compulsive overeater. This realisation did not come overnight. It took years to understand myself and my relationship with food.

I was a pretty normal eater and average sized kid up until the age of 8, but around 8 I developed an abnormal and unconscious relationship with food. Abnormal because I used food particularly sugary foods not just to fuel my body’s functions but to comfort, nurture and protect myself. Unconscious because for a long time I didn’t understand that that was what I was doing.

I have lived in Barbados, France, the USA and Britain and though these are very different societies in many ways, two of the things they have in common regarding obesity is their lack of understanding of many of the psycho-social issues that create obesity and their assumption that overweight or obese people are simply greedy, lack willpower, don’t care about ourselves, have not pride, are lazy, stupid etc. and therefore can be ridiculed subtly or overtly and generally discriminated against.

I’m not a doctor, dietician, psychiatrist or psychologist and I don’t pretend to know everything about obesity. What I do know from my own experience however, is that obesity is a symptom and the most successful way to treat it is to identify and address its root cause(s).

Thanks to Sweet Potato Pie for affording me a space for this weekly post sharing my history as a compulsive eater and sugar addict, and my journey to living a healthier life.

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