Thoughts on food as an emotional drug

Around six and a half years ago, I said goodbye to sugar, white flour, potatoes, pasta, rice another other starchy, sugary foods. Over the next four years I also said goodbye to 187 pounds.

When I started menopause just under two years ago, first 4 and then 7 of those pounds kept trying to come back. I'd starve them off, and a day or two later they'd return. I experimented with a thousand things -- more exercise, different exercise, strict calorie counting, portion control, attitude adjustment... no matter what I tried, the result was the same: I'd gained 7 pounds that I could lose, but not keep off -- even if I didn't alter a single thing I was eating or doing. The minute I lost them, they'd bounce back on.

I spoke to a number of other women who'd lost large amounts of weight, and several of them said the same thing had happened to them in early menopause. "Just focus on not gaining weight during the first couple of years," their advice ran. "You should be able to start losing again after that."

I personally know women who lost weight during menopause, so I'm sure this isn't universally true, but it was for me. So I sighed and decided to give it a try. I gained and lost those 7 pounds so many times they must have been metabolic boomerangs.

Then my mother became ill, and I descended into hell. It began last June and hasn't really ended yet, although she's been gone now for 9 days. And while I held steady through the first hellish months of her illness, the relentless stress, the constant sleep deprivation, the agony of grief and loss and fear, of hypervigilance and kneejerk protectiveness, of the unending need to be her advocate in the totally dysfunctional medical system as well as to manage all her finances, were all just too much for me. I started eating to control my stress.

At first I just overate, or ate erractically, or ate carelessly. But eventually I ate some childhood comfort food -- pizza from the place my parents used to take us when we were kids. Note to my readers: If you don't eat grains for several years, and then you eat some? You're not going to feel very well.

Now, when I first cut out starchy and sugary foods, I realized that I didn't really have a problem with emotional eating. I had a problem with my blood sugar, and once that stabilized because I wasn't jacking it up and crashing it down with high carb foods all day long, that problem was gone. And so, amazingly, was a lifelong problem with over-eating. I just didn't care anymore. I mean, I got stressed out all the time, but it never seemed that food would be a solution for that. I figured it would just stress me out more, what with the remorse and feeling of failure I'd undoubtedly experience.

Dr. Atkins, whose eating plan I follow, wrote in his first book that the Atkins plan doesn't help with emotional eating problems. I would talk to other people who didn't have that reaction; they still had problems with emotional eating, no matter how carefully they controlled their carb intake. I knew what they were experiencing was very difficult, and I was just grateful that wasn't what was going on for me.

Until now. Because I am using food now to manage my suffering. And it's working. It worked in the hospital, because it modulated the stress and made me able to function in a situation that was really beyond my ability to cope with. And it's continued to work as painful realities and obligations keep slapping me in the face with every breath I've taken since she died.

That's the seduction, really, of food as drug. Unlike alcohol, it allows you to function. And while some drugs, like cocaine, also (temporarily) improve your ability to function, it's perfectly legal and socially acceptable to eat a cookie in a hospital cafeteria. You can even operate heavy machinery, and no one's ever been pulled over by the cops for driving while under the influence of cake.

Other than that very upset stomach after the pizza incident, I didn't actually feel the avalanche of remorse and self-loathing that I expected. If it was there at all, it got lost in the baseline agony. But now I'm trying to emerge from the vortex of caregiving and tentatively try to remember who I am when I'm not protecting my mother.  And so now I'm feeling it, slow and creeping and debilitating. Remorse, regret, self-loathing -- demons I thought I'd laid to rest years ago.

I know I need to sleep. I need a massage. I suspect I need to cry for a few thousand hours, and grieve, and let myself recover from the trauma of the last few months, which is separate from my sorrow at losing my mother, with whom I was incredibly close.

But I also need to find my way out of the food mess I'm in.

I've tried to remember how I did it the last time. The week before I began, I ate a few favorite foods for the last time, gave away all my starchy and sugary non-perishables, and stocked up on healthy foods. I wrote down everything I ate. I joined some online support groups. But I don't remember how I felt, or my state of mind. It's a blank.

In a perfect world, I'd have some great plan or idea to share here, but I don't. Maybe I'll just stick with the sleeping and the crying for one more day.

Comments

[Barbara Saunders]

"Now, when I first cut out starchy and sugary foods, I realized that I didn't really have a problem with emotional eating."

Same here! I didn't even cut out the sugary foods. I added protein, leaving less room for carbs, and voila! - same emotions, no food cravings.

[Sue Cosby]

There is no plan for this. Be good to yourself. It will come together in time. I'm using a group support site. You're welcome to join me there or share the food challenges with me anytime. xoxo

[EmilyS]

I agree with Sue.. there is no plan and there are no rules. Chocolate, for example, is a drug, a placebo and genuine comfort. Sometimes cold turkey is all that works... Or it may be that eating without control is what works for you (temporarily). It sounds like you're afraid that you'l gain back all of that 187 pounds you lost. But 4/7//10/15 pounds is not 187. You need some time just to "be" and to be with your feelings for awhile. Try not to be so hard on yourself. When the time is right, the pieces of your next life will start coming together.

[Cheryl]

The problem with food is that you can't avoid it. You have to eat to live. Sometimes the problem is we don't focus on what we are doing and find we have swallowed something we didn't need or want. You might want to change things up completely. You might try taking a yoga or meditation class. It will help with the stress, calm your mind and give you something to focus on that is soothing.

[Dorene]

You have been through A LOT and it ain't over yet. If the food thing is really bothering you, maybe you can order meals from a personal chef? Here in Philly, you can get personal chefs that will cook up a week's worth of any type of special diet you can think of -- I wouldn't think it would be hard to find such folks in SF. Then, you would be eating healthy and not have to think about food at all.

If that doesn't work financially, just let the food thing go for awhile and focus on getting yourself thorough the grief, etc. If you don't know of any labyrinths in your area, use the World-Wide Labyrinth Locator at http://labyrinthlocator.com/ to find one.

If you can't think that far, get on a plane to Philly and you can use the one we built. :-D

[Susan]

I kept my weight off for three years after my gastric bypass in 04. Then I crashed into a depression and the pounds started piling on.

They haven't stopped. I have to get off this merry go round before I am back where I started. Food has always been a drug for me. It's entertainment, it's comfort, it's a high, it's social activity. I don't know. If you find an answer, tell me.

[NA]

First, I think crying, sleeping, massage, crying, hanging out with Kyrie, yoga, and getting out of the house, like a nice Starbucks run, is what you need first.

Second, I think you need to change it up entirely as far as an eating plan goes.

My experience is that as our bodies continue to um ripen, how we gain and lose weight changes.

[Shari]

Christie, Christie --

You'll be fine, when enough time passes. Those boomerang pounds are normal enough for hormonal storms. Add the level of stress you've been under for months, and it's a wonder you're walkin' around, Girl; at any weight.

Have you ever, in your life, suffered this amount of stress, for this long? Yeah, that's what I thought. At the beginning of the level of physical change you're undergoing just makes it harder.

You'll be fine, you'll get through this; you'll know who you are again and how to be in the world. And even how to laugh and have fun. Trust me.

In the meantime, one practical suggestion: Take 3 - 5 mg. of melatonin daily. No, not to help you sleep; to help you balance hormonally.

Big Motherly Hugs from your much older friend.

[Susan Fox]

Whatever is going on, whatever you eat or don't eat, you're perfect just as you are.

[Gina Spadafori]

Wish I had the answer, but know I'm thinking of you.