My Unhealthy Relationship with Food

There’s been something that I’ve been thinking about in my head for a long time. I’ve never said anything to anyone about it, but I think it is time.

I have an unhealthy relationship with food and I have a problem.

A few nights ago, I was talking with my wife about how I just feel disgusted with myself. When I first met my wife I weighed in at a solid 205-210. I was in shape. I was going to the gym.

13 years later at my last doctor’s appointment, I weighed in at 292.5 pounds.

I have never publicly shared this weight before, so as I am typing this, I am feeling embarrassed, ashamed, anxious and a mix of other feelings.

You can do the math, but that is over 80 pounds in 13 years.

How did this happen? How could I let myself gain over 80 pounds?

Well, it was actually quite simple and easy.

I was lazy.

I ate like shit.

And when I would feel depressed, down, anxious, or any uncomfortable feeling, I would turn to food.

And, I would eat a lot of it.

Chinese food and purposely order more than I needed so that I could eat the leftovers (most of the time, I just ate it right then and there).

Here’s an example of a time that I did this.

I went to lunch with 2 coworkers. We went to the mall next to our job and went to the food court. Food court Chinese food is one of my top 2 or 3 comfort foods. I ordered two whole meals. I said the second one was going to be for dinner.

I sat down at the table and finished off the first one pretty quickly. I was obviously still hungry because of how fast I ate it. My coworkers weren’t done eating and I was having an extremely stressful day at work, so I just said, fuck it, I’m going to eat this second one right now.

It was instances like this that occurred way too often over the last 13 years. This didn’t just happen once, this happened a lot.

Vicious Cycle

Here is how the pattern works:

1. I get stressed out or super busy, so I just want to go out and eat something unhealthy.

2. I eat the unhealthy food and usually too much of it.

3. I then bitch and complain about how I feel and how disgusting I am and can’t stand the way that I look and why did I allow myself to eat like that.

4. Then just end up saying fuck it and continue to eat like shit for the next few days.

5. I finally snap out of it, go back to the gym, eat healthy and will lose a quick 5-8 pounds….. until I get stressed out.

I have an addiction and food is the drug.

It took me 13 years to finally come out and say this and to admit it to myself. I knew it was really a problem when I said the following the other day…

“I know I can stop whenever I want to, I just keep going back to it.”

The famous words of an addict.

I have these cravings for food and I will fight them and fight them hard. And then I get set into a mood where the only thing that will make me feel better (for a very short period of time) is food….lots of it.

As I’m typing this, I am saying to myself…. “wtf man, how did you let this shit happen to yourself.”

I have been working on de-stressing and calming anxiety and I have gotten a lot better at it….. A LOT. But the food thoughts still creep into my head.

A quote from a book that I have read “Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable” says:

“Teach the mind to train the body. You can’t get anywhere without first training your mind to get you there. Physical dominance can make you great, mental dominance is ultimately what makes you unstoppable.”

I am only two days in right now of knowing that I have some sort of problem and working on fixing it. It all starts in my head. My reality is the way that I perceive it to be.

I can fix this.

I have the mental toughness to be able to work myself through this. I think that writing this blog post is the second step after having the conversation with my wife about it.

Meditation and Breathing

I am working on replacing the food rages with meditation.

Meditation and breathing exercises have been my go to method over the last 9-12 months when I would begin to feel overwhelmed, or anxious or depressed. It was in those moments that I didn’t put those actions into play that I turned to food.

One thing that I heard from Tony Robbins in the past (and I do not condone his latest #metoo actions and think they were despicable) was that when we stress out and want to eat unhealthy food, why not train your brain to think that you should eat a salad or an apple when you feel stressed out.

I truly believe that our brains are the most powerful things in this world. When you can train your brain and control the way that it thinks, is when you can truly do amazing things.

This has felt great writing this post. I know a lot of people will not actually read this, but to know that I got it off my chest is a big relief. I feel like I have been holding this in for so long.

Here is to becoming a better version of me.

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