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How do I overcome a food addiction without medications?

2K views 16 replies 13 participants last post by  Rains 
#1 ·
I'm an obese female who cannot stop eating even when full or not hungry.
If someone is willing to share stories and advice that would be awesome too. I'm 17 in the prime of my life and am overweight to the point where I can't be happy with myself. :(
 
#2 ·
I stopped buying snacks. If I can't control myself, I don't keep it around. Instead of eating, I drink. Water, diet soda, tea, coffee. This keeps me occupied and full.
 
#4 ·
Hey Flowerlover :) Its good that you are self-aware of your eating disorder (let's call it that). Self awareness is the first step in recovery. I will share my story on how I lost 30kgs (66 pounds) with you and hopefully give you some advice on what you can do to improve your life situation.

Once you realize you are fat, too fat for your own comfort, its time to do something about it. First, you need to figure out what food is to you. A lot of people that struggle with obese eats too much because they find comfort in food. And when they reach a certain weight where it makes real life more difficult, they get insecure because of their weight. They might hear comments from other people. They might get physical problems such as pain from walking far. Out of breath more easily etc. They eat to lower the pain of these things, but at the same time it only adds to the problem.

So here is the time to make the stand. Are you ready? Because you need to make a choice. Do you want to be obese, or do you want to be a better image of yourself?

Second step is what can you do to lose weight without breaking. Here I suggest making a meal diary and meal plan that you can stick to. Try aim for 1000-1200 calories per day. Eat what you want but dont go above that budget. Over time you will notice results and be even more motivated. Meal replacers and great. Bars are great.

Once you start on your diet: First week is the most difficult as your body needs time to adapt to your lower calorie intake. You will feel hungry at times but then its important you just eat a little bit. Maybe a banana (max 100 calories). It will take the hunger away and you can ride along until the next meal. But after a while your body will accept your new diet and it will be easier and you wont feel hungry like before.

When you get results its easier to stay motivated.

What I did to lose 30kgs (66 pounds):
- Cereal with fiber and wheat for breakfast with milk (400 calories).
- Yoghurt + banana for lunch. High in protein and carbs from the banana (250 calories)
- Dinner - Try eat vegetables mostly with clean meet like chicken or fish. Avoid eating pasta, rice and potato. (600 calories)
- Evening snack (200 calories)

- If feeling hungry add another low calorie meal (200 calories).

Total: 1450 calories per day.

You will lose 1kgs per week with this diet. If you add some exercise to it aswell you would lose more. First few weeks you will lose because of detoxing your body.

Things to notice:
- Eat what you want but eating lean, low fat, high protein products is better for you. It covers your nutrition requirement and your body will feel more well with it.

Foods to avoid:
- Grilled chicken with skin.
- Fried food
- Pasta/Rice/Potatos (or max 50-80g per day)
- Frozen Pizza
- Ready made food (Calzone, sausages, hamburgers etc).
- Chips, chocolate, sugar drinks.

What you CAN eat:
- Soft zero calorie drinks (notice it messes with your blood sugar and you might feel more hungry drinking zero calorie drinks).
- Moderation - Popcorn (without butter, use little salt).
- Moderation - Pizza (You can make healthy pizza after reciepts)
 
#6 ·
What I did to lose 30kgs (66 pounds):
- Cereal with fiber and wheat for breakfast with milk (400 calories).
- Yoghurt + banana for lunch. High in protein and carbs from the banana (250 calories)
- Dinner - Try eat vegetables mostly with clean meet like chicken or fish. Avoid eating pasta, rice and potato. (600 calories)
- Evening snack (200 calories)

- If feeling hungry add another low calorie meal (200 calories).

Total: 1450 calories per day.

You will lose 1kgs per week with this diet. If you add some exercise to it aswell you would lose more. First few weeks you will lose because of detoxing your body.

Things to notice:
- Eat what you want but eating lean, low fat, high protein products is better for you. It covers your nutrition requirement and your body will feel more well with it.

Foods to avoid:
- Grilled chicken with skin.
- Fried food
- Pasta/Rice/Potatos (or max 50-80g per day)
- Frozen Pizza
- Ready made food (Calzone, sausages, hamburgers etc).
- Chips, chocolate, sugar drinks.

What you CAN eat:
- Soft zero calorie drinks (notice it messes with your blood sugar and you might feel more hungry drinking zero calorie drinks).
- Moderation - Popcorn (without butter, use little salt).
- Moderation - Pizza (You can make healthy pizza after reciepts)
How do you eat just yogurt and banana for lunch? If I had that at noon, by 2PM I'd be famished and would probably eat junk.

And what kind of cereal are you talking about? I find that I'm hungry 2 or 3 hours after having cereal.

I thought that rice was a lot better than bread since it makes you feel full for a good 5+ hours. Asians eat crap loads of white rice and most are quite skinny.
 
#5 ·
I have food addiction too. Bad, like real bad, I go into a drawback when I don't eat what I want, thinking about that cake for hours and hours and hours for example, being unable to concentrate on nothing else.

Last year my therapy was going well, so my stress levels went down, I was able to overcome my addiction completely. I went on a diet and lost some pounds. And it's not surprising, the addiction is there cause it helps release chemicals in your brain you cannot get naturally otherwise, through social bonding or whatever. Gabor Mate explains more about addiction, he's a specialist that works with addicts for many years: .
 
#7 ·
Yup, I have always suffered from this, and have recently lost 150lbs, and have tried every diet possible over the years, but ultimately, it is just about reducing calories and sticking to it over the long term.

Addiction to food is unfortunate, because you can't cold turkey food ;) - when you eat you are going to be tempted to binge, even if its not very nice food, because it's still food, but what I can say for sure, is that the delicious foods (chocolate, ice cream, pizza, crisps, peanuts, cakes etc) are going to be seriously problematic for you. Those need to go, imo, completely.

As mentioned by the poster above, when you restrict calories, know that you won't be as hungry as you feel forever. In my experience it takes a week or two tops at a lower calorie range and your body does adjust and you get used to the lower food intake (hunger wise). You will always have the urge to binge though, at some level, but you just need to accept it and manage it.

For general weight loss, use myfitnesspal and log calories (be as precise as you can for a while, weigh things etc until you can eyeball well). You need to do this because your brain and body will lie to you otherwise (I estimate typically 500-1000 calories less, if I don't log) . You are a woman so calories will be lower than for a man, (this will depend on height as well), but say, 1200-1500 calories (assuming you are 5ft6 ish) should give you a good rate of weight loss (if accurately measured). Measure accurately, set an average calories, and weigh yourself once a week. If you don't lose weight after 3 weeks reduce average calories by 100 (and ensure your weighing is accurate). If you do this you will lose weight, guaranteed.

So some tips, generally speaking and w.r.t. food addiction:

1. Monitor calories
2. It takes a week or two to adjust to lower calories (but you should adjust and hunger decrease)
3. Remove hyperpalatable foods from your diet (chocolate, ice cream etc).
4. Don't have any delicious foods in the house (important)
5. Don't go food shopping when hungry
6. Do whatever you have to to get through the first few weeks. I would give my car keys to other people overnight so I literally couldn't drive to the shop to binge on junk food. When the first few weeks pass, and you have a string of low calorie days under your belt, and weight is shifting it will be easier to be disciplined.
7. Reduce willpower taxation as much as possible.

Re number 7, you don't want to rely on willpower, you want to put in place things which prevent you relying on it at all. This is especially important when you start out and jump to a lower calorie range.

Good luck :)
 
#9 ·
Asians don't eat small portions of rice. My ex-bfs would eat a crap ton of rice (like twice as much as me) but they never got fat at all. Couldn't even squeeze a fat roll, since there was nothing to squeeze. Maybe it's the metabolism. I'm not sure. Hispanics also eat a good bit bit of rice but smaller portions than Asians....but they tend to be chubby.

I don't know about this yogurt thing for lunch. My overweight (not obese) co-worker would only eat yogurt and nuts throughout the work day. I don't know if she was fatter before or not but she never seemed to lose weight in the 2 years I worked there. But who knows maybe she was packing it in at night, after work.
 
#11 ·
OP, one thing that you might want to try is a decent probiotic. It's helped me with a stomach problem I use to have and other people have said they've had surprising results with their addictions when taking it. (even stuff like smoking)

Something like Kombucha or Kefir I would personally recommend.
Asians don't eat small portions of rice. My ex-bfs would eat a crap ton of rice (like twice as much as me) but they never got fat at all. Couldn't even squeeze a fat roll, since there was nothing to squeeze. Maybe it's the metabolism. I'm not sure. Hispanics also eat a good bit bit of rice but smaller portions than Asians....but they tend to be chubby.
Some of it is definitely metabolism - I'm part East-Asian and can literally eats tons of junk food without weight gain. There are problems though with a fast metabolic rate though that kinda balances it out.
 
#12 ·
I lasted 2 months eating healthy and now I been binge eating for almost 2 months, I thought I was bad but I've seen guys who compete in eating and I would never be able to do what they do, they take it to another level, it's too extreme, it's crazy, how crazy? try over 15,900 calories plus an entire gallon of milk, imagine that

 
#13 ·
eat rice crackers if you wanna snack, they taste like mild version of pop corn. drink water so it will make you fuller, for example before you eat go drink a glass of water. my advice is to simply force yourself to eat less for some time, for example eat 3-4 times a day (normal size meal), eat soup and stuff that doesn't make you too full. after even a week or two of doing that your stomach will get used to getting less food than before and it will be easier for you to deal with it. don't eat while you're staring at the tv or computer because it distracts you and you forget to stop eating. don't eat because you're bored.
for example i'd have 2 or 3 boiled eggs for breakfast (although i hate them ew) because they're healthy and give you energy. then a salad with tuna and tomato and olive oil and a little bit of lemon on top. later you can have a banana and some green tea. that's a good way to start losing weight although you don't need to live on a strict diet, you just need to get your stomach used to normal sized portions.
 
#16 ·
I got really sick and tired of being sick and tired. I remember being so angy one day that I quite literally removed everything from my house that was making me upset. I mean EVERYTHING! Then I took a good long look at myself and realized that part of my unhappiness was my size, I just wanted to be normal. So I started giving up crap and replacing it with other stuff I love. Cheese and ham sandwiches became turkey and avocado. Fried chicken became roast chicken. Stopped sodas cold... They are just bad. Kept a log (online app) of everything I was eating, simply entering the information and seeing how bad things were for me helped me curb my eating habits. Took a while, but I rarely crave junk food anymore. And when I do, it's a small packet of salty snacks. For me, I had to get really angry. Then I decided to stop caring about everything and everyone more than I cared about my self. It sounds selfish, but honestly, how are we supposed to care for others when we don't care for ourselves.
 
#17 ·
I've never been on a long term diet but I did an elimination diet earlier this year (not for weight loss but for acne). This is a very extreme diet where you cut out nearly everything. I lived off brown rice, sweet potatoes, collard greens, bananas and rice milk for a fortnight. This is what I learned from that experience:
1. The first few days are hell and to a lesser extent so is the rest of the fortnight. But it's a privileged, first world problem kind of hell, so if you remind yourself of that you can help motivate yourself.
2. It's surprising what you can get used to. Once you fall into routine it gets easier.
3. Your palate will change, and become sensitised, so stuff that used to taste bland, no longer is, and the stuff that you're used to eating will start to taste like it's jacked up on salt and sugar when you reintroduce them.
4. You crave what you eat. I thought at first I'd never want to eat sweet potatoes and collard greens again after I was done, but nope, I developed a taste for it, and after my fortnight of this diet I couldn't fully return to how I was eating before. There's also some evidence that your diet changes your gut microbiome and this somehow influences what you desire to eat (i.e. the more vegetables you eat the more vegetables you want to eat).
5. If you feel deprived you will probably get quite angry. I was extremely irritable because the diet I was on was so restrictive. My advice is, don't hang around temptation too much (I mostly got angry in grocery stores or when going out for lunch), and stuff yourself with fruit and veggies to take the edge off.
6. Remove all temptation and never rely on willpower. Doesn't work.
7. Watching other people eat may give you vicarious enjoyment. I enjoyed watching mukbangs at this time.

Obviously I know changing how you eat long term is a lot more challenging. I'm also attempting to do this for my skin, because basically anything that's processed and refined isn't good for it. There's a lot of two steps forward, one step back going on. But a lot of good habits have stuck, like I eat significantly more fruit and veggies now than before and have managed to cut back on dairy (dairy also contributes to acne).
 
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