Having watched Channel 5’s Documentary Addicted to Food: Breaking the Cycle recently, I knew I HAD to write about this. The documentary is a ‘must watch’: whether you are a Personal Trainer, Client, Doctor or Therapist. What made the show stand out from others of similar kind was that instead of trying to stop the woman on the show from binging and to transform her life in 2 weeks, the therapist in charge got down to the roots of her problem. The issues that led to her food addiction and binging were: her being emotionally vulnerable from having her husband left her, she had a lack of support from anyone, her mental health was seriously affected, she had a bad relationship with her abusive father growing up (a catalyst for her vulnerability) and copied many of his habits. Her house reflected that of a hoarder, she wouldn’t eat with her children, she would stay in bed, eat in bed, eat in secret, keep an unmade bed and the aesthetics of her house reflected that of her depression. She explains that hiding food in drawers and cupboards made her feel good in the moment, made her ‘feel naughty’ but equally ‘a treat’ she was entitled to but she was often deceitful to her children about what she ate due to the shame and therefore in an endless cycle.
I admit, when I was younger dinner - time habits were always the same. I would always eat to feel full, bloated and sometimes sick. However, it was only when I started my own fitness journey back in 2015 did I change such lifestyle habits because I realised that doing it never made me feel good. Hand on heart, the closest I have ever come to experiencing what it feels like to have a food addiction and binging was coming out of Prep in November 2019. I will never forget to this day what I consumed the day after my last show:
· Frankie and Benny’s breakfast: muffin, poached eggs, smoked salmon and hollandaise sauce
· In the car on the way home: ¾ of a packet of Biscoff biscuits with ¾ whole jar of Biscoff spread, a WHOLE salted Caramel cake (made for 6 people)
· Greek takeaway: lots of Pitta bread, Dips such as Hummus, Tzatziki and Taramasalata, Pork kebab
· Dessert: 2 big portions of home - made Chocolate fudge cake with sauce and 2 pieces of Baklava
I felt SHIT. I recall a video I took of myself on my phone that I have NEVER shown anyone, telling myself to stop because I was out of control (one day I will have the guts to post it!)
Sadly, after that one binge, the overeating continued for a few months as I kept ballooning, weighing in at my heaviest EVER 152lbs on average, 35lbs above stage weight! The most I ever saw on the scales was 155lbs and I remember crying about it. This is very common for athletes who compete and many others in the fitness industry. Don’t be fooled by the ‘glamour’ of it all and what is shown to you on social media, it made me feel like a fraud. I recall comments I had from acquaintances who when the subject of training, gym and competing came up would ask to see a picture, because admittedly, I didn’t look like I trained and they simply could not believe it. The most common remark: “This looks nothing like you”. ‘No shit Sherlock, I am 35lbs heavier and feel shit about myself at the moment so thanks’ was what I wanted to say. Instead all I could do was agree.
My advice to you if your lifestyle habit is to binge and overeat is firstly IT IS NOT NORMAL or HEALTHY and you must address it. Secondly, discover your roots and the reasons why you do it-is it just habit? Is it long term? Is it down to your mental health? Is it determined by an emotion? Is it influenced or even caused by your partner or others you live with? It may seem like an overreaction, but Overeaters Anonymous is a real support group. If you are someone who is in a similar boat to the woman in that documentary: low confidence, being deceitful with food, hiding food and lying about what you’ve eaten, giving up on yourself and others around you, not caring about your home/environment, thinking about food 24/7, overeating until you feel sick, even feelings of not wanting to live anymore, then it is vital you admit you have a problem. This problem is on the same level as drug addicts, alcoholics and those with other types of eating disorders – and the therapist of over 25 years on the programme also emphasises this.
I was lucky in that my temporary eating addiction was down to hormones (Leptin in particular which registers to your brain that you are actually full was not working efficiently) and was due to coming out of a long - term diet for a bodybuilding show. My body was not working correctly having been on a diet for the best part of half a year and getting down to a very low, unhealthy bodyweight meant it was expected and inevitable that binging and overeating would happen.
WHAT HELPED ME RECOVER:
1. Making sure I didn’t eat in secret and was open about how much I was eating with my coach.
2. Consciously telling myself that I was going to have food again the next day.
3. Going for walks at the times where cravings were at their highest (evenings) therefore I would go for a long walk with the dog.
4. My coach set me small achievable goals. I recall from memory that we started off changing little habits such as ditching snacks and having bigger healthier meals with a structure I could stick to. Then we got onto logging and tracking my food again as well as my weight, starting off at x3-4 days a week with a slow increase in occurrence overtime.
You could say that it was like starting from scratch. Although my situation was not the same as many, or that woman’s in the documentary, the symptoms were still similar. I would eat out of boredom, to make myself feel good because of the temporary happiness I would feel in the moment. Afterwards I would hate myself, often not feel worthy, not wanting to take new pictures of myself because I was so much bigger, self - loathing, not wanting to see people who had seen me at my leanest, having such low confidence and not feeling worthy enough to be working in the fitness industry. You could even say I was eating my emotions; mourning the ‘perfect’, lean body that was admired by many – someone who I was. Setting new goals with other things to focus on such as PB numbers and performance in the gym helped me a lot. Time was also the biggest healer as my body and hormones slowly got back to normal.
The bottom line: long term food addiction IS a mental health illness. Don’t ignore it, find the support to change it.
Food is the most widely abused anxiety drug and exercise is the most potent under-utilised anti-depressant.
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