Sunday, April 18, 2010

Sugar addiction


  Even before this weekend began, I knew that it was going to be a challenging weekend food-wise.  Yesterday was one of those days where you just know you're going to eat eat eat eat eat eat, and well, eat some more.  I was so excited to see all my friends, but I was honestly dreading all the food and all the thoughts and issues that come with it.  Thank God I have J to talk to because sometimes I feel like a crazy person.  And most times I feel so alone in my battle with disordered eating.  

  Friday night was fine.  I made J and I shrimp stir fry over brown rice and it was a great and healthy dinner.  One of my best friends was in town, so we went out for drinks and dancing.  We had a few drinks and we had an amazing time.  
  
  Saturday was the hard day.  We had a surprise birthday party for J's cousin at a place called Pizza House and then we had a going-away dinner party for one of my friends.  While we headed to the Pizza House I told J that I was going to order a chicken salad because I didn't want to eat 'bad'.  But that all changed once we got to the pizza place.  By the time we actually got around to ordering the food it was 3 pm and we were STARVING!  And everyone was ordering pizza and it smelled sooo good.  And it would've been cheaper if we just shared a pizza with J's cousin and his girlfriend.  So that's what we did.  We ordered a big salad, some break sticks and a large pizza.  By the time the breadsticks got there we were so hungry that we scarfed it down.  And when the pizza came, I had two slices.  Afterwards, we had a medium sized slice of chocolate birthday cake.  Everyone was eating, so I ate right along with them.  I was full, but I wasn't exploding.  I felt OK and the food was pretty yummy.

  A few hours later we headed over to my friend's dinner party and there was  A LOT of food.   Everyone was chatting and there were snacks on the table.  One of the snacks was a big bowl of potato chips.  So I decided to have a couple.  And a couple more and a couple more until I was practically inhaling the chips between talking with my friends.  Then dinner was served.  We're Persian and we eat a lot of rice usually, but every single dish was a rice dish!  So I went around and go a little bit of all the dishes.  About a half hour later, they brought out dessert: cheesecake and cookies (with tea, of course!).  So I had a little bit of cheesecake and one cookie.  5 minutes later, I had another cookie, then another and another and another.  By the end of the night I felt so disgusting and fat and bloated.  All in all, I ate like complete crap yesterday and now I feel like my face is as round as a basketball and I feel like a tub of lard.

  What is it with me and eating?  Why the hell do I have this crazy binge eating/addiction to food, especially crappy foods and sweets?  Well, a recent study from the Princeton Neuroscience Institute may have an answer.  The study demonstrated that adding sugar to the diet of rats caused a marked sugar addiction for the rats.  And taking away the sugar caused withdrawal symptoms very similar to those associated with drug addiction.

  So what does this mean for me?  I really believe that I have an addiction-like relationship with crappy foods.  As long as I am in a mindset of not eating crappy foods, I don't eat them.  I can ignore a bowl of chips with resilient will-power.  But once I start eating junk foods like chips or cookies, an addiction-like quality appears in my state of mind.  I believe that part of it has to do with guilt: I feel so guilty that I ate one cookie, that I eat 3 or 4 more.  The other part of it, I really and truly believe has to do with sugar addiction.  I can't stop at just one.

  After the party last night, I talked to J about what had been going through my mind the whole night: the addiction, the guilt, the feeling-like-shit.  And I came to a conclusion: if I can't handle sweets or crappy food right now, I should just cut them out of my diet.  I have resolved to just completely cut sweets and junky snacks out of my diet for the next few weeks and see how I feel.  The way I feel now, I think it might just be easier to not even eat one, than to try my hardest to stop at one.  I mean, it's not like I'm cutting out foods that have any kind of nutritional value.  I'm just going to not eat junk and see how I feel.  Both J and I think that this is a good experiment, so I will be giving you updates of how it's going.

  So my question for you is:  have you ever cut any foods out of your diet?  How did it go? 

4 comments:

  1. I have been reading your blog...similar issues, ESPECIALLY with junk food. I can't control myself, and often don't even let them in the house (which is really hard, since my husband is a junk food junkie)!!

    I unfortunately made the unwise decision to make "Southern food" on Friday night for my husband, brother, and his girlfriend. This included BBQ Pulled Chicken, creamy Frito Corn Salad, and Potato Chips. Needless to say, we have leftovers, and I've eaten this for dinner the past two night. It's left me feeling gross, and bloated too. I made the resolution last night to not eat any chips today...but once the bag was brought down from off the top of my fridge, I had one handful, and then a second.

    Yup, not buying any of those again anytime soon. For me, that's the only way to keep me from eating it...and it's SO frustrating!

    Good luck!

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  2. First off, thanks for reading :) Ohhh man the Southern food sounds amazing. I don't know what it is, I just can't control myself. Either I resolve to not touch 'bad' foods and I don't, or I just binge on them.

    Either way, it sucks.

    Good luck to you also!!

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  3. Omg that sounds just like me, when i have one i just cannot stop and i eat loads more, then i end up feeling sick, i think im going to reasearch this study on the web some more so thanks for the heads up, ive not really tried cutting any foods out but starting tomorrow im tihnk im going to cut out chocolate and biscuits, i think if i take it a few foods at a time ill be able to manage it more, thank you x

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  4. Yes, this study was REALLY interesting because I really do think have a crappy food addiction. And this study practically proves it. I'll keep you guys updated on how the 'cutting out the crap' is going :)

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