Brown Michael L. - Breaking the stronghold of food: how we conquered food addictions and discovered a new way of living

M Y STORY OF overweight (and food addiction) is very different from my husbands. In many ways, I believe his issues with food were childs play in comparison. It was not a cloud over his entire life like it was in mine. Of course, he has own story to tell, recognizing how bound he was by certain foods and also hating to be fat.

There might be some who read his story and cannot relate because of the apparent mildness of what he went through. So throughout the book Ive added my experience for those who say to themselves, He just doesnt understand and truly has no clue what extreme food addiction is. In this appendix you can read my story from beginning to end, all in one place.

I can tell you I understand. For those struggling with it, its a stronghold beyond all strongholds. Its the stronghold in their lives. It permeates everything, controls everything, and affects everything.

Being overweight has dominated so much of my life. I was the typical yo-yo dieter, always dieting and losing weight and gaining whatever Id lost by returning to my normal eating habits. I absolutely despised being overweight and felt terrible all the time. I was exhausted and barely left the house. There was no physical position that was comfortable for me. Whether it was sitting in a chair or lying in bed, my body felt awful. I ached from head to toe and knew I was killing myself with food.

As for my social life, well, I had no life! I barely left the house. I had removed myself from all social functions because I was just too ashamed of the way I looked and felt. I had very little energy to do normal, everyday tasks. My life was on hold. Im not even sure how much I weighed because I didnt have the courage to get on the scale the day I firmly decided to make a complete lifestyle change. I waited about a week before I actually weighed myself. I was 195.5 pounds, so Im pretty sure I was close to 200 pounds when I startedand Im only 5 feet 2 inches!

I usually ate whatever I wanted in enormous quantities, and that certainly didnt include fruits and vegetables. I loved highly processed, fatty, salty foods; pastas; cheeses; cream sauces; and, of course, gooey chocolate desserts. No wonder I felt sick all the time. I needed an absolute, complete lifestyle change, a new way of living and not just some diet fad that would be tossed aside once I reached my goal weight.

In the past, on several occasions I had tried to adjust my diet by attempting to go vegan but never really had all the pertinent information to do this healthfully. I knew I was missing key knowledge. I got to the point where I was feeling so bad that it actually scared me. My cholesterol, glucose, and blood pressure, which were always in normal ranges, were now creeping up (although I didnt pay much attention to this initially).

I knew I had to do something but did not have a clear direction as to how to get the weight off and regain my health. I had decided to start a healthy diet in July 2012, but I knew I needed something different than what Id tried in the past. I was so discouraged because of my past failures and didnt have the heart to start the same old dieting routine all over again. I desperately searched the Internet for some help and came across Dr. Joel Fuhrmans website and his nutritarian way of eating.

My first reaction was, Well, heres just another dieting gimmick. But the more I looked through the website and researched his information, the more convinced I became that this was not just another gimmick. Everything made so much sense to me. I actually joined Dr. Fuhrmans Member Center, purchased his books Eat to Live and Eat for Health, and was on my way. I devoured and made use of everything on the website. The articles and teleconferences as well as the discussion forums were invaluable to me, and still are. (Im not necessarily advocating or pushing that everyone join their online community. Im just saying that along with the nutritarian way of eating, it was useful for me to get support from people of like mind. But of course, you can certainly change your lifestyle without joining an online community.)

MY WEIGHT HAS NEVER BEEN THIS LOW

It took me just twelve months to lose eighty-one pounds and go from a BMI of 35.8 to 20.9 and go from 195.5 pounds to 114.5. My cholesterol went from 238 to 173, LDL from 146 to 108, triglycerides from 103 to 69, and glucose from 109 to 87.

My weight has never been this low, not even when I was in junior high school. Aches and pains are gone, my energy has greatly increased, and I feel absolutely wonderful! I now feel good in my skin now. This is not just about vanity; it is so much more than that. I can sit on the floor and play with my grandkids and not even know I have a body. I am no longer a slave to my appetite. Im at peace with the knowledge that Im doing whats best for my health, and I feel free! I am active and my body feels amazing. My social life has returned to normal, and I have an entirely new wardrobe to boot.

Has it been easy? No. But the small effort I have put forth is nothing in comparison to what I have gained. I have my life back!

What I have learned through this experience is that no food, along with the temporary pleasure it brings, is worth losing my healthnor is it worth the constant shame and discomfort I felt on a daily and even hourly basis. There are so many things we eat regularly that science has proven to be harmful to the body, and yet we keep on eating the same destructive foods over and over. I know this was the case with me. I have become fully convinced that I am a serious food addict. I used to pride myself on the fact that I was not food addicted. Boy, was I wrong!

Its shocking that I couldnt see the true depth of the problem, but as my husband always says, Deception is so deceiving. I would eat plates and plates of food and continue eating way past satisfaction to the point that I would feel physical pain. Why would anyone keep eating when the food has lost it appeal and they are stuffed almost to the breaking point?

Most of the time I ate while not even being hungry and only because I wanted something tasty. And the main ingredients were always the same: foods with fat in copious amounts, and lots of salt and sugar; and of course anything made with white flour. When these items were in my diet, I had zero desire for vegetables or fruits of any kind. And interestingly, overeating and stuffing myself would happen only when I was eating the fat, salt, sugar, and white flour. I could eat doughnuts and white pasta until I felt like I was going to explode, but that never happened with green beans or apples. The healthy foods seem to be self-limiting.

Unfortunately for the addict, you cannot dabble with the item of addiction. An alcoholic cannot have just one sip of alcohol. Pandoras box would then be opened. For the genuinely food-addicted individual, its pretty much the same, and recent scientific evidence shows the brain chemistry involved in this reaction. One bite of a fatty, gooey dessert or a little fettuccine Alfredo could set in motion a complete dive into gorging and overeating all of the wrong things. And from that point it sets in motion an avalanche that is very hard to stop. This is my experience as well as the experience of thousands of people who are food addicted. They do well eating healthfully until they taste something they know is a potential problem for them, and then an eating frenzy ensues.

This is also the problem with so-called balanced eating and the belief that anything in moderation is OK. For the addict, it is not OK. A little bite of this and a little bite of that may be fine for some, but for genuine food addicts it is virtually impossible to limit oneself when eating those highly palatable, fatty, sugary, salted foods. So whats the solution?