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Gluttony and Food Addiction

Feb20

In all the the articles I’ve read about food addiction and in the numerous references to food addicts, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word “gluttony” used.

It’s a simple word that means excess in eating or drinking, according to Webster, yet somehow it doesn’t fit with the other words in the food addiction lexicon.

There is an article in the current issue of The Week about Foodies and gluttony. Talk about excess! And I thought I had it bad!

Of course, there are different kinds of foodies just like there are different kinds of food addicts so I’ll keep that in mind and try not to be too judgmental.

Somehow the idea of “spending 36 hours cooking for a single dinner party” or “extolling the virtues of poached bat and roasted guinea pig” makes me feel like a food addiction is not the worst problem I could have.

There is excess and there is excess. Overeating, emotional eating, compulsive eating–they are all examples of excess, and yet they are not vulgar.

That’s an important distinction if you’re thinking about how your food addiction is affecting your life and how you feel about yourself.

I believe that it comes down to who you are spiritually when you do the things you do, and that includes eating.

Somehow, gluttony seems vulgar and food addiction does not.

Go figure.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Five Ways to Help a Food Addict

Feb19

There are many things you can do to help a food addict. Here are are my top five favorites.

1. Look them in the eye. Food addicts are invisible to those around them. Even if they have grown larger in size and take up more space, to most of society, they are invisible.Being acknowledged is important to everyone.

2. Listen when they speak. When a person speaks to you, don’t mentally plan your monologue so you’ll be ready when it’s your turn to talk. Active listening is a form of respect, and we all want that, don’t we?

3. Be courteous. Hold the door, offer to carry something when the person’s arms are full. Demonstrate kindness. Your actions tell people who you are.

4. Ask questions if you have them. Be honest. Listen to the answers without passing judgment.

5. Send a card or a flower on a special occasion like a birthday or at a sad time. There are cards for everything, physical cards, not e-cards. Physical cards which can be purchased for as little as 99 cents say you care without overstating your intentions and embarrassing you both.

You might think, “Well, how the heck does that help?”. It’s an easy question to answer.

Self-worth, self-esteem–however you want to label it–is so important. No matter how high an opinion we have of ourselves, or how many times we find the hero in ourselves, it is vital to be acknowledged by others.

Not for fame or acceptance, but for validation that we matter, that someone cared enough to be kind, that we are valued. Acts of kindness have become acts of convenience.

Sending a card through snail mail is expensive and a waste of time, right? Wrong, In fact, it is quite the opposite. Those few moments, collected and pieced together in an effort to tell someone they are not alone are precious.

I cannot count the many times I have revisited cards I received decades ago. I remember the time and place and all the wonderful feelings those words ignited in my heart.

Help need not be delivered in the form of advice. Food addicts get plenty of that.

The inspiration that comes from being acknowledged fills your heart so completely that, even if only for a brief time, you don’t feel like you’re starving anymore.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Walking Works! Start Today!

Feb16

This is just a quick comment to say once again that walking works. This isn’t about food addiction, but it is about being overweight and losing weight.

I had lunch with a friend of mine the other day. We taught in the same classroom a few years ago and we still meet for lunch from time to time, less often than we did when we taught in the same school.

Debby is retiring from teaching this year, along with her husband who is also a teacher. After more than thirty years in the school system, they will be moving into their retirement home in North Carolina is just a few months.

I was thrilled to see her, as usual. She looked fabulous. As we looked at pictures of their new home in progress, she told me she had lost more than forty pounds.

She said that she and her husband walk together every day and that he had lost over thirty pounds himself . Obviously, the walking is working. I envied her having a constant walking buddy.

I see retirees out walking all the time. I used to think about how they have all the time in the world to walk, but it’s really about making the commitment and sticking to it.

Even though the semi-retired and working folks have other things to do, getting out there and moving is very important. The discipline of taking thirty or forty-five minutes out of your busy day to go for a walk will be greatly rewarded.

As we age, we gain weight. Our bodies shift and respond differently to our lifestyles. We have to be more diligent in the way we take care of ourselves.

Things get harder to do when we get older. Walking is something most everyone can do, but you have to make time for it.

Regular people–short and tall, thin and thick, old and young–benefit from daily walks. The sooner you start, the stronger you will be when age tries to slow you down.

Add walking to your to-do list every day, and start working on your own success story.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

When You’re Ready to Leave Your Addiction Behind

Feb15

One of the real challenges in the fight to overcome an addiction is leaving your old life behind.

Food addiction, drug addiction and alcohol addiction have one thing in common. You have to leave a big part of your former self behind in order to move through your addiction and get on with your life.

I don’t drink except for a sip of Newcastle Brown Ale every now and then, and I have never “done drugs”. Getting drunk or high never appealed to me.

My parents didn’t drink or smoke or do drugs. Maybe that had something to do with it.

When I was growing up, there were lots of jokes about drunks and Jesus, people walking into a bar or driving off the side of the road. Every comedian told jokes about drunks.

No one joked about drugs but they weren’t popular then, and of course, alcohol wasn’t really perceived as a real drug.

I laughed along with everyone else when my brother did an imitation of our banker who we saw inebriated on more than one occasion. The impression was so hilarious and true to life that I would laugh until I cried. Forty years later, it’s not so funny.

I don’t know any jokes about drugs or drug addicts.  Lots of things that seem funny when you are under the influence lose their comedic value when you live sober.

Why can’t there be a place where you can go and specific things you can do to end your addiction once and for all? Then you could just leave your addiction behind, walk away and never look back. If only.

I can’t compare my food addiction to the horror of a drug or alcohol addiction, but I can see some parallels. As I move forward spiritually in my life, it becomes more and more necessary to leave people from my past behind. If you want to leave your addiction behind, that’s part of the deal.

When you make the commitment to begin recovering from your addiction, you have to give up the life that went with it.

You can’t go out with your former drinking buddies. When you do, you feel bad because there is nothing to say. You don’t fit in anymore.

I imagine it’s the same with the people you used to get high with. I can’t go out with some of the people whose company I used to enjoy. When I’m around them, I eat things that defeat my efforts to live healthy.

Being around them makes me want to eat. It makes me become that person whom I no longer wish to be. I am becoming someone else now and I like this me better. They don’t.

If I put myself in stressful situations, I know I will respond with food if I seek support from certain people.

Even though I have to leave my food addiction behind every day, it will continue to pop up. Sometimes I will win and other times I may not. Recovery is ongoing. I’ve learned to be okay with that.

If change is to occur, however, I cannot surround myself with people who will not allow me to change, no matter how much they love me or I them.

If your support team makes you want to overeat, get drunk, or get high, you have to leave them behind. That’s the only way you will be able to leave your addiction behind.

Do what you have to do. Make new healthier friends. Move on. Don’t ever give up.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!