Did I get your attention???

Ok, curiosity... when I answer posts here, I am always coming from a perspective of a "food addict"

But many times I have people write back...

"But I don't have an addiction to food"

Which I always think to myself YEAH RIGHT!

Don't beat me up I'm being honest!!

What can I say I'm pessimistic, I also laugh when people say they don't eat TO MUCH so they don't understand how the are fat.. I AM FAT BECAUSE I EAT LIKE A PIG (alone mostly)

Today I thought about, "what if I'm wrong?"

I mean...I am me and I am addicted, how do I know how the next person is???

I'm curious as an addicted fat person how is it for those of you who are not addicted?

Oh and on a side note if I am wrong, then I'm also jealous because I would give anything not to have this problem (addiction)

Hehe, I thought you might figure that out. I did 2 years as a contractor on Windows 98 and Millenium back before the Blue Wave, then another 7+ plus years as an FTE with a couple other groups on campus. But I was commuting from Bremerton for the first year I was a contractor. Oy!

Spent 16 years at MSFT as a blue badge. Had more jobs than I could count. Burned out, went to culinary school, opened my own cafe.

Spent 16 years at MSFT as a blue badge. Had more jobs than I could count. Burned out' date=' went to culinary school, opened my own cafe.[/quote']

I am comforted by the softies on this forum you are right that the software industry is easy to burn out from with the insane hours. That is really something that you opened a cafe you ought to tell us that story sometime on a different thread. Not fair for Laura to hijack her thread.

I've been thinking about how to respond to Laura's thread. I have a long history related to addiction (not necessary the food type). When I can pull my thoughts together, I'll post something.

MSFT was great in a lot of ways, but the grind was something fierce. I missed a ton of my kids growing up, cost me my first marriage and so on.

Wow this went to an even weirder off topic place than I expected... This forum is like the telephone game I used to play as a kid but worse!

Sorry, my fault, (again ). Must stay on topic, damn, where are my focus drugs...

Uh are you quoting silence of the lambs?! When buffalo bill says "Was she a great big fat person?" Cause Laura your scary....ing me

Naw fiddle don't sweat it.... I mean how many threads have I fucked up?

It was just my crazy mind thinking out loud again.

Oops I swore again!!!

Oops I swore again!!!

Heh, you beat the censor system. Again. Way to go! You need a prize for breaking the software. how about a free IPad? Wait a few days and I bet you will not be able to do it again.

Hope Alex is reading this. Seriously I think it is because the AI behind the censoring does not know how to conjugate or analyze per slang and urban lexicons. Something like that.

by the way, did you get the answer(s) you were looking for / hoping for as the OP? I think there is a lot of good information In this thread. We should all get honorary psych degrees from a university for our in depth psychoanalysis and introspection. Who needs to pay for therapy when you can get it for free on VST!

Oh Laura, I am such a food addict! So, I can't help with the extenuating/underlying medical reasons question. Little kid who was the fat one in the family, middle child, peacemaker, only girl, regularly rewarded with food, comforted with food...hit adolescence and realized I was fat and getting fatter, dieted, cried, ate...tried most every diet under the sun, lots lots of weight with WW three different times, with Optifast, three babies, three C-sections, plantar fasciitis, exercising, dieting, eating...food has been my friend, my foe, my lover, my abuser, my life. I do feel hope, because at 11+ months out I don't feel the drive to eat. I feel comfortable with my food choices and less controlled by food. The times that have been the hardest post-op are the holidays where everyone is overeating. I'm learning that its the all-day grazing thing that sets me up for the big fall on those days. On Easter I knew that going in and was able to hold it together this week, even in the face of Reese's and Jelly Bellies. Hey, food is here to stay, and I just need to continue working on interacting with it in a healthy way. Good luck with your quest; unfortunately, I think the food addiction is something I'll always struggle with.

It is hard NOT to be a food addict whether you are fat or thin. Food is life. Very few people are indifferent to food and eat solely for life sustenance and not flavor, social, and deliciousness in your mouth reasons. It reminds me of how babies become attached to their bottles and most go through a giving it up stage which can include lots of tears but yet they move on and have lives beyond their bottle

Well I'm gonna jump in. I'm sure I have big food issues but I started putting on big amount of weight when my diabetes got so bad, I was put on a 5 times concentrated insulin. Gained 80 lbs right off the bat. I had the surgery to go down on insulin, when I eat carbs, I want more carbs. Food addiction! Not sure but I'm Italian so I do love food. I was a chubby child, thinned out during high school, chubbed a little during child birthing years. Thinned out then the diabetes took over, still not sure I'm an addict.

This is the way I eat. If I want something I have a few bites of it and then I don't feel deprived. I decided to do this from the beginning so that I learn to eat like a regular this person' date=' I didn't want this to be a diet where I couldn't have this or that. That never worked for me in the past.

I have had to work on my food addiction and emotionally it was so difficult at the beginning when I couldn't eat and had head hunger. I had to learn how to deal with my emotions without food. Now that I am almost 2 years out and my addiction is much better. I still have times where I eat when I am emotional but those times are few and far between and I can now stop myself.[/quote']

This is exactly where I want to be

ad·dic·tion /əˈdɪkʃən/ Show Spelled [uh-dik-shuhn] Show IPA

noun

the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics(or food), to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

By definition I believe that everyone who consumes more food than their body requires is an addict. So by definition I was an addict......................WORD here is WAS.

But on that note I'm still curious about the

People that say they don't have addictions to food,

And are fat (and not because of medical problems) and are getting this surgery.

I think there is a good amount of denial with some folks, coupled with some very poor behavioral habits. A learned behavior is not an addiction (I don't think anyway). But anyone can learn to eat for comfort, out of fear, or boredom. Many people have learned to eat when they are tired or fatigued....that's a learned behavior that has very real biological enforcers. When we eat certain foods, when tired, we wake up. Therefore we subconsciously crave those foods when tired. Not an addiction, but a very poor eating behavior that will definitely lead to obesity in people who are chronically fatigued or never get enough sleep...and I imagine this is very common amongst folks here (including me).

My point is that yes, food addictions are very real. But very poor eating habits are just as dangerous and very rampant. Come to think of it, that was kinda my point in the post about the lean cuisines. Perhaps I didn't make it very clear then.

But I can't imagine ending up here without one....or all.... of those 3 things (addiction, poor eating habits, thyroid disorder). I've heard many people in the past mention their "slow metabolism." But unless they've had a Resting Metabolic Rate test by breathing into a tube hooked up to a computer, they really don't know.