I just packed up and brought all my food to my mom’s house. I’m only going to eat when I’m over here, which is about once a week. My apartment is completely devoid of calories. All there is is tap water, coffee or tea.
Might sound drastic, but this is me ripping off the bandaid. I’m not strong enough to be in my apartment with temptation so close. This drastic approach has to sever my unhealthy relationship with food once and for all.
I envy that. I live with roommates and I’m good when I’m at work and can only eat on my lunch break but at home the temptation to snack is strong. We entertain often so there are always chips and sweets in the house that are ‘for everyone’ so fighting that temptation is real. Good luck!
Okay. But like, what’s the plan for when you’re done doing week long fasts?
I’ve seen plenty of posts from people that did extended days because they couldn’t control their eating. When they stopped doing extended fasts .. they went back to the only way they’ve ever known how to eat. So they gained it all back.
This is certainly one approach. Very drastic and dramatic solution but still a short-term solution.
The question remains…. then what? Eating once a week is not sustainable over the long haul. You need a followup strategy.
Removing all food from your house doesn’t address the addiction issue (if it’s truly addiction) more on this in a minute. How are you dealing with your food issues for the long haul of living?
I have reservations about calling food and eating an ‘addiction’ because, let’s face it, you have to eat sometime. Even if it’s only a few meals a week, humans must eat to survive.
There are two parts to problematic food relationship. 1 is mental and 2nd is physical. I have found that once I started removing problematic foods from my life, I stopped craving them. Cutting carbs and really upping fat in my food intake Cured the physical addiction part. Which in turn cleared up 80%, give or take a few %, of my mental and emotional issues with food.
So before you beat yourself up and call eating a food addiction you might want to consider 1) figuring out what foods are problematic for you. And 2) figure out what habits you can and are willing to change.
Examples:
Anything that comes up for me, outside these two examples, is usually an emotional or mental issue I need to process.
Not telling you how to manage your food or yourself. Merely giving examples for an alternative way of looking at the craving to eat constantly. And one approach for long term eating plan.
This isn’t rocket science but neither is this an ‘all or nothing’ approach to living
Good luck on your journey and let us know what your solution is
Have you gotten blood work done for nutritional deficiencies? I know that when the system is deficient it can actually tell your brain to keep seeking out food because your body is desperately looking for the missing nutrients. It’s hard to get certain nutrients even in foods rich in them, because a lot of times they are not bioavailable meaning there are inhibitors blocking our bodies from absorbing and utilizing the nutrients.
Also would recommend getting hormone levels checked. Leptin is the hormone that regulates appetite and fat storage while also signaling the liver what to do with sugar stores.
Just two suggestions for long term that may help you.