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I am 28 years old and I eat everything and without stopping: compulsive overeating what is it, treatment
Compulsive overeating is a scary beast. Falling into a kind of wild state, you, practically without thinking, sweep away everything. There is no sense of satiety, I want to eat without stopping. I am 28 years old and have suffered from food addiction for ten whole years of my life.
In the distant 18 years, I did not know what to call a temporary food craze, a kind of food binge that visits me almost daily in the afternoon. And it all began quite innocently – it is not for nothing that they say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I just wanted to lose weight, becoming the most beautiful, and suddenly became carried away.
Before the start of her long-term epic, she weighed 96 kilos with an increase of 170. This is my peak, a personal record in those years. I was plump since childhood. I didn’t overeat, but my mother prepared very high-calorie meals. Fried potatoes, dumplings, cakes, buns. At school, I was often offered to do liposuction, which probably also played a role – there is an opinion that all our problems are from childhood.
Interestingly, I initially decided to lose weight with proper nutrition. I was on diets at school and I knew for sure that they did not help. She began a new life on September 16, 2008, and she herself did not notice how the hobby turned into a real mania. I ate once a day – at about 12:00, but everything in order to definitely fill up. After that, the mouth was closed with a lock. An hour in the morning and two in the evening I was engaged in fitness – I was delighted with my own successes and a prettier body. However, the psyche suffered. So half a year passed. I lost weight up to 70 kg, and then it began …
I used to think that binge eating was not about me, I was always calm about food. I knew that at any moment I could eat a treat, so why gorge on them for future use? But after six months of poor nutrition, a crisis began. The weight stopped leaving, and I, having already managed to get hung up on losing weight, could not eat for a couple of days – I hoped that it would help. The breakdowns began closer to June, just during the preparation for the exams. Apparently, the body simply could no longer withstand the load on all fronts.
I lived in a vicious circle. She ate, looked at herself in the mirror, reproached, went to training and ate again
I still didn’t eat in the morning. But after dinner, she began to sweep away everything that was at hand. Chocolates, packs of cookies, rolls, sausages, cheese – everything was used. To prevent my parents from finding out about my shame, I went to the store and bought anything there, hid in my room and quickly ate it. When my stomach was swollen to pain, I went to a white friend and, as it seemed to me, quite quietly parted with what she had eaten. I lived in a vicious circle. She ate, looked at herself in the mirror, reproached, went to training and ate again. I ran out of steam early to buy sweets, soda, and then learn everything as soon as possible, empty my stomach and eat again.
At some point, I was completely desperate and went to a psychotherapist. It was he who explained that at first I had bulimia, which developed into compulsive overeating. After long conversations and on pills, obsessive thoughts about food and constant stress were gone. Closer to autumn, with a weight of 80 kilos, I managed to pull myself together and switch to proper nutrition. This was facilitated by the onset of problems with the gallbladder. Experimenting with food caused me stones, and with them terrible pains. At first, life seemed like hell to me, it was very hard to restrain myself. But I got involved. Over time, the wild feeling of hunger disappeared, but the habit of eating for future use appeared. I live with this desire to this day.
The picture of the next breakdown looks like this: after spending the whole day in a disgusting mood due to the obsessive desire to eat everything at once, I fly to the store with a bullet and buy the largest can of nutella, nuts with condensed milk and juice. It’s a shame to talk about the problem: many people suffer from hunger, and I – because I constantly eat. The last time I managed to get away with a packet of chips, two chocolates and an ice cream. Before that I dabbled in bagels, ice cream, snickers and sandwiches with doctor’s sausage.
How to live if all thoughts are about food?
The ritual helps to pull yourself together: go to the shower – to cleanse. The correct nutrition is connected in combination with the dosing of sweets. Although this habit provokes breakdowns. Everything seems to me: now I am too big, and tomorrow I will start a new life.
Binge eating disorder and bulimia are very serious disorders that are extremely difficult to cope with. Self-awareness and self-control are important. You should not allow too much hunger or build a wall of prohibitions, in which case there is a very high risk of breaking. I constantly want to seize failures, bad mood, boredom, but just eat enough. A very important point – you can not spread rot on yourself, despite the setbacks. Before you go into the next “jam”, you need to have time to ask yourself: “Do I want to spend my whole life like this?” Cleaning, the Internet, walks, hobbies, work are great help to avoid sinful thoughts and switch.
Sometimes I meet people with a similar problem, but listening and talking about my painful things myself is suicide, so you just get hung up more.
I consider food addiction to be one of the worst. Half of the population suffers from it in one form or another, although they are not aware of this.
What is going on in the head at the same time cannot be desired by the enemy. Most people with bulimia are not very overweight, and binge eating is more difficult. This is not life. People torture themselves in training and hunger, and then they sweep everything away like the last time in their lives. And also in my head there is a constant struggle between good and evil.
What is going on in the head at the same time, you cannot wish for the enemy
It is important to be able to identify your ailment and work on it. My husband says that I am a person with great willpower. But I could not cope on my own. At some point, the realization came: if they do not help me, I will go crazy in this vicious circle.
An important point: if my parents instilled in me the right habits from childhood, it is quite possible that there would be no problem. You need to eat in moderation and with joy, not to make food an end in itself. If there is no urine, try to fool yourself by overeating fruits and vegetables.
Now my eating behavior can be called almost normal. Serious congestion is extremely rare. I eat normally, exercise moderately. But it is worth noting that all this is a constant work on oneself. I try to drink 2,5 liters of water a day, eat lean meat, fish, milk, eggs, vegetables and fruits. True, I never refuse dinner – for me it is a kind of ritual, a pleasant end to a busy day. Calmly eat sweets in the morning. Sometimes I drink wine with my husband while watching a movie and the next day I don’t go hungry. He helped me a lot in this matter, being one of the few who steadfastly endured agony with me. I am sure that everyone who wants to recover from any addiction is very important to have such a person nearby.