![]() ![]() I jokingly told my roommate that I was “sitting shiva” for the relationship that I was convinced would take me off the market. I have continued that legacy.Īfter a love affair that didn’t work out, I took to my bed with a box of Ritz crackers and two cans of squeeze cheese. I grew up in a family where we didn’t talk about our struggles – we ate or drank them away. Every extra pound represents a pain for me, something I don’t like to acknowledge, not even to myself. I’m more afraid of delving into what is killing me (and trust me I am so aware that it is killing me) than I am of dying. But pinpointing the pain means going places I fear. I was in my kitchen, waiting for dinner to be ready when I read this passage and broke down sobbing: “Compulsive behavior, at its most fundamental, is a lack of self-love it is an expression of a belief that we are not good enough.”Īt that moment I realized that I have been trying to fill my heart by filling my stomach. That was driven home recently when a counselor suggested “When Food is Love” by Geneen Roth. I know that so much of my food and weight issues are really about my emotions. Why should I have to live in a constant state of denying myself when others can eat what they want and be slim?Īnd worst of all: What if absolutely nothing changes at all other than my body? What will I then blame life’s disappointments on? Would the increased attention from men cause my marriage to crumble? Would my more attractive girlfriends like me as much if I were “on their level?” My mind attacks me with thoughts that hurt to even type: It’s not as if I haven’t successfully shed weight before, but the moment I start, I figure out some way to undermine it. I went on to gain about 30 pounds in the months following my surgery and that hasn’t slowed. As I stood, practically drooling, my mother asked, “Would you like a taste?” You know how in cartoons a smell wafts and tickles the character under the nose? That was how those subs smelled to me and I floated downstairs to investigate. Upstairs in my bedroom, sipping soup and still nursing the post-tonsilectomy sore throat, I suddenly smelled the most delicious aroma. I was just home from the hospital and my parents grabbed cheese-steak subs for themselves for dinner. I suffered major problems with my adenoids, tonsils and sinuses and consequently food tasted like snot to me.Īt age 9, I had my tonsils and adenoids removed. I was a short, skinny kid who at the age of 4 was so petite that I was mistaken for a toddler. ![]() It’s a weird place to find myself in given that as a child, my parents had to force me to eat. These days, food is more like my closest friend than a lover, but its influence is just as strong. “What’s the difference if I say I’ll go away when I know I’ll come back on my knees someday? For whatever my man is I’m his, forever more,” I told her, quoting song lyrics when she suggested we join a workplace weight loss campaign. The only “man” who could truly satisfy me. But it makes me so hungry I feel like I undo all of that work the minute I can get to food.īefore I met my husband I once joked to a friend that food was my boyfriend. I hate to exercise, but have managed to use my treadmill and hit the gym more than a few times. The number of diets I’ve started and stopped is not even worth mentioning here because in the end I always go fleeing back to my first love: food. I’ve eaten to the point of getting sick and once I was empty, have eaten again. More of my money has been spent dining in good restaurants and buying groceries than some people make in a year. I have driven a stupid amount of miles to satisfy a craving and even canceled on friends to sit in my house and eat. In my spare time I devour food autobiographies that I attack as lustfully as a porn junkie – often pairing them with something delicious. The food photos there compete only with the number of strategically shot selfies (all positioned in such a way to conceal my fat of course). My Instagram account is evidence of that. You couldn’t find anyone more enthusiastic about food and eating than yours truly. ![]() But my drug of choice is one that will likely elicit more eye rolls and accusations than loving embraces of support.Īccording to the informal definition, an “addict” is “an enthusiastic devotee of a specified thing or activity.” That’s me, all day. Were this a confession of meth abuse or alcohol, I would anticipate an entirely different reaction. But I suffer from the one addiction that doesn’t elicit much sympathy from most people.
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