Hey Everybody,

As you know the moderating team reads literally hundreds and hundreds of posts every day. If you are a thinking person like I am, sometimes you begin to see what looks like a trend or form new ideas based on what you read in more than one place. Having said all of that a question has come to mind and of course an opinion (yeah I know, I have a lot of them).

So many of you talk about eating addictions. And in truth the more I read and the more of your posts I read I don't think there is any such thing. I am not saying that eating addictions do not exist or that they are not a huge part of the problem, I'm saying they are a symptom and not the cause. It's a little of the what came first, the chicken or the egg. I am saying that addictive eating is something that needs to be controlled not by will power but by the proper balance of nutrients for our personal metabolism. Our industrialized diet has caused a disordered biofeedback system as to what we really need to eat, which has resulted in disordered metabolism and the resulting food addictions. Depending on shear willpower to control eating which is a powerful, powerful biological urge is something you can't win at long term. Treating obesity with a "diet" is like treating a chronic infection with a round of antibiotics. It will help you out for awhile, but eventually you will require another and another round of those antibiotics. You have not treated the source of your problem, you have put a band-aid on it. That's why diets don't work and lifestyle changes do. It's the reason obesity has the dismal long term cure rate of probably 10% in the overall population. Obesity is not born out of uncontrolled eating and lack of willpower, it's a chronic disease that needs continuous intervention.

I'd like to know why you do or don't agree with my statements based on your own personal experiences. Let me know what you think!

I agree that the scenario you just described is the case for many people--and understanding this can completely solve their food problems. And understanding this and beginning a repair of my own "disordered biofeedback system" has been extremely helpful.

But I do know that there is a heck of a lot more to the story for some of us--especially those with severe anxiety problems, a history of sexual abuse, a history of eating disorders, and/or a history of other trauma.

For some, just changing the food that goes into the mouth does not give the happy results that you are now experiencing. Deep seated psychological problems sometimes have to be resolved first--or at the same time as changing the composition of the food.

If a low carb/high fat diet was all I ever really needed, then I would have succeeded years ago at stopping my eating disordered behavior. The problem is, I was not over eating just because I ate too many carbs. I--and many others--overeat because stuffing huge amounts of food down one's throat is a compulsive, learned behavior that alleviates debilitating anxiety. When I say huge amounts of food I don't mean some donuts and candy bars. I mean up to 4000 to 5000 calories consumed in minutes.

This experience is probably foreign to you. But, trust me, it is not uncommon. After years of therapy, years of school, years of reading and talking to people with eating disorders, and four months of eating low-carb, I am clear now on what I think and how I, personally, feel about food. I have lost so much of my pre-occupation with food and eating in my daily life.. I hardly think about food in between meals. I am satisfied most of the time after I eat a meal now. We are probably experiencing similar results in that respect. But I am still tempted by those huge binges. I had to leave the house the other day because I was close to eating two boxes of cream cheese. My mental problems are far from over. I had these problems before I began to abuse food.

Another thought is this. I am not an alcoholic or drug addict. There are some, though, that quit their addictions and then find that they also are "addicted" to sugar. These people know what a legitimate addiction is and some of them do feel that sugar/carbs qualify as an addictive substance. There is also evidence from fMRI results that show changed patterns in brain activity. The patterns are not the same as in alcoholics, but the fact that there are abnormal readings in the obese is significant, I think. The patterns for alcoholics and meth users and heroine users are all different from each other.

Now, all that to say, I do not think that I am "addicted" to sugar/carbs. I think that I have a compulsive disorder that is related to my extreme anxiety. My "addiction" is not an addiction per say, but a learned behavior that I have been conditioned to perform to relieve anxiety. Fat works just as well as carbs when one wants only to stuff one's stomach. I did, too, have a legitimate addiction. I was addicted to nicotine in the form of nicotine gum. I know that my problems with food, though deep seated and disordered, are not the same as the physical addiction I had to the nicotine.

That's my opinion!

Hey girlfriend,

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm glad that you are experiencing some relief from the food addictions. While I think you are right I still think there are 2 facets that have to be delt with. Even when the psychological issues are sorted out, if you are still "hungry" in a physical sense then it will be harder to know what's driving your hunger.

Thanks for sharing your personal story. It will give me something to think about. Glad you are doing better!

Kristi,

It is kind of like diabetes. While the proper amount of insulin will initially control the blood sugar problems it does not immediately heal the damaged receptor cells, but over time once the problem is corrected there is a secondary healing of those cells and they sometimes recover.

I think the same is true of the appetite feedback system. Your Mom is experiencing that first glimmer of control but the healing of the underlying problem hasn't had time to occur yet. I really believe that will come later. Let me know how she is feeling and of course I talk to you all the time, so let me know if you begin to experience something like that over time.

I think nutrition is a very important factor. I actually have more cravings and feel hungrier when I forget to take my vitamins.

For me, it was mostly physical. I wasn't getting enough nutrients, especially essential amino acids and fat. Plus, all the hidden sugar I consumed with those low fat products and all the starch I ate added to the cravings. There were, and still are emotional issues, but now that I don't have the intense physical cravings, I am in better control. I still want to clean my plate at meals, but don't feel the need to snack (pig out) in between.

I can understand that others may have more intense emotional & psychological issues that make control much harder.

Seems like concurrent problems are the most common, but of course when the physical aspects of hunger are balanced, everything else gets a lot easier.

I find that when I have a particularly tasty meal, I still overindulge occasionally. I have to stop myself from eating nuts the way I used to eat crisps. Yes, the sugar cravings have stopped and I have only recently discovered (edit: understood the science) that carbs are my addiction, but the urge to munch the day away is still there at times.