Main Entry: en·abler

Pronunciation: \i-ˈnā-blər, -bəl-ər\

Function: noun Date: 1615:

one that enables another to achieve an end ; especially : one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior (as substance abuse) by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behavior

food ADDICTION

Food addiction manifests itself in the uncontrollable craving for excess food that follows the ingestion of refined carbohydrates, primarily sugar and flour substances that are quickly metabolized and turned into sugar in the bloodstream.

Due to those uncontrollable cravings, a food addict's quality of life deteriorates when he or she eats sugar, flour or wheat. It can deteriorate physically, emotionally, socially and/or spiritually.

If any of the following symptoms are familiar to you, you may be a food addict:

Physical Symptoms of Food Addiction

• Do you think you cannot control your intake of food, especially junk food or high sugar foods?

• Have you tried different diets or weight loss programs, but none has worked permanently?

• Have you found yourself vomiting, using laxatives, diuretics, or exercising a lot to avoid a weight gain after you have eaten a lot?

Many food addicts are obese and have tried numerous methods for weight control (diets, drugs, surgery, etc.) yet nothing has created a permanent solution. Other food addicts have never been obese. Their physical weight has been controlled by extreme measures such as excessive exercise, purging through vomiting or laxatives (bulimia), or the severe and unhealthy limiting of food substances(anorexia). No matter which version of food addiction fits you, all of these symptoms become more severe with time and eventually lead to physical problems that can create an early and sometimes painful death.

Emotional Symptoms of Food Addiction

• Do you find yourself feeling depressed, hopeless, sad or ashamed about your eating or your weight?

• Do you find yourself eating when you are upset or reward yourself with food when you do something good?

• Have you ever noticed after eating sugar, flour, or wheat that you become more irritable?

Food addicts notice that their emotions become more severe, intense, or unreasonable when eating the addictive substances. For many food addicts, emotional life may deteriorate into despair, depression, or thoughts of suicide.

Social Symptoms of Food Addiction

• Do you eat in private so no one will see you?

• Do you avoid social interactions because you feel you do not look good enough or do not have the proper fitting clothes to wear?

• Do you steal other people’s food?

• Are you more interested in what food is served at social gatherings than looking forward to the warmth of being with the people attending?

A food addict’s social life is affected by intense obsessive thinking about food. Making eye contact with people and taking an interest in developing friendships or intimate relationships become secondary to locating and eating addictive foods. Food addicts often hide or steal foods and eat in secret.

For me there is still a fine line between having a taste and eating it all. That makes me an addict, so I try not to have trigger food in the house. But on Halloween there was a potluck at work. I ate the fresh fruit. And an Oreo. And then made sure to walk past the table three more times that day for one more Oreo. I just can't be around free food, it seems.

I'm so scared of failing at this. I love the results so far, but this is the easy part, the rapid weight loss part I'm good at. It's the gradual return to eating anything I see that is my fear. That's what I get out of this place: the knowledge that yes it's a struggle but success is possible.

For the most part I experienced shame in public eating and didn't like social food events because I would "starve" and binge when I got home..

With the exception of one friend though..

She threw (actually still throws) parties that are more like an hedonistic food orgy. I loved' date=' loved going and eating there... But it was because we were all obese. She is super morbidly obese.

I am for the most part...

• Do you eat in private so no one will see you?

• Do you avoid social interactions because you feel you do not look good enough or do not have the proper fitting clothes to wear?

• Do you steal other people’s food?[/quote']

We are all different. i didnt have social anxiety and was just as likely to overeat in public as private.

Sometimes i think the whole " i dont look good enough" goes beyond weight. I am curious if people at or near goal ( lets face it some of you weigh less then I do!) feel attractive now or if that feeling persists. I target this question to people who felt alot of shame of appearance pre weight loss. We ALL surely felt some shame but it is acute for some.

We are all different. i didnt have social anxiety and was just as likely to overeat in public as private.

Sometimes i think the whole " i dont look good enough" goes beyond weight. I am curious if people at or near goal ( lets face it some of you weigh less then I do!) feel attractive now or if that feeling persists. I target this question to people who felt alot of shame of appearance pre weight loss. We ALL surely felt some shame but it is acute for some.

I am happy that I have lost 72 pounds but I feel uglier and older. Especially in my face.

Sometimes i think the whole " i dont look good enough" goes beyond weight. I am curious if people at or near goal ( lets face it some of you weigh less then I do!) feel attractive now or if that feeling persists. I target this question to people who felt alot of shame of appearance pre weight loss. We ALL surely felt some shame but it is acute for some.

I felt this way till I had the TT. That changed a lot in my mind even though with clothes on I still look very much the same to most people.

We are all different. i didnt have social anxiety and was just as likely to overeat in public as private. Sometimes i think the whole " i dont look good enough" goes beyond weight. I am curious if people at or near goal ( lets face it some of you weigh less then I do!) feel attractive now or if that feeling persists. I target this question to people who felt alot of shame of appearance pre weight loss. We ALL surely felt some shame but it is acute for some.

Wow that's a good AND loaded question. I definitely can say that weight loss doesn't cure all of my issues of not looking good enough.. And not being good enough to be seen in public...

I also have to say it depends on the day..

I still have down days, as you know from our 5:2 group discussions. I can be hypersensitive about imperfections and fluctuations.

Years of being told (by others AND myself) that I am my appearance will do that. On those days I can feel like I don't want to leave the house.

But I have days that I feel down right great. Hell sometimes down right sexy!

I have been known to get gussied up, hop in the Porsche (ok the car helps with the self image dammit) put the top down and cruise to the pet store to get dog food feeling like I'm the prettiest 47 year old Laura there is!

I think the best days are when I just feel comfortable in my own skin moving about in life not putting to much thought one way or another how I might be perceived.

Like I said loaded question..

Good question...

In the end' date=' each person has to make the choice themselves (do I eat it because I CAN or becuase it's what my body needs) and I sometimes wonder if trying to share insights from the school of hard knocks actually helps anybody at all.[/quote']

Well it completely re-set my thinking and my approach to what I needed to do so yes, I think it helps IMMENSELY. Frankly I've always thought the whole VSG thing sounded too easy. "Oh we cut out your stomach and magically you're thin and stay thin! You can eat whatever you want but you will still lose weight because you can't eat a lot!"

Really??

So why the low bar on what sleevers are expected to lose? why only 60% of excess weight then? Why the low stats on how many maintain? Why do 50-60% of sleevers put back on some weight then? Why do 25% put back on ALL the weight they lost?

It sounded too good to be true. And you know what they say...if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, right?

Lurking in the vets forum, reading incessantly here, I learned about changing habits, about head hunger, about maintenance being the battle, and I learned to accept that I would be in this battle for the rest of my life. I focused on those who had been successful and saw patterns of compliance, strictness with themselves, and consistency--and struggles.

So it really does help. Thank you guys so much for taking time to post and educate. I honestly feel like a vet's job is to educate, help, support, and spank when needed, not to be popular.

Much like parenting

When I was 22 I was blessed to get to know a young woman named Claudia. She was the receptionist at the huge accounting firm I worked for - yes I was right out of college, high pressure job, and gaining weight. Anyway, Claudia was one of those women... drop dead knock out georgous... all the guys wanted to date her. Sweet and genuinely kind, as much as the women felt some jealousy at her perfect looks... perfect hair, perfect nails... and get this - she was an amazing opera singer too... even with all that, the women liked her alot too.

Over the course of about a year I got to know Claudia pretty well. She married the most handsome man ever. They looked like the couple that belongs on top of the cake "that kind of flawless I always dreamed I could be."

Well I eventually realized how damaged inside she was, how sad she was, how low her self esteem was. She KNEW she was pretty but I can remember my shock at her saying this to me "you at least know who your friends are, most people only care about me for how i look"

I didn't think that was true, I think people genuinely did like her, but the point was just that the emptiness isn't about being lovely or not, fat or skinny - it is way deeper than that.

I have often thought about Claudia over the decades. I have recently thought about... with undying gratitude and my many friends who loved me at my most obese. I show them my before pics and they can't ever remember me looking like that. It is like people's affection colors their view. I can remember a friend even telling me that I wasn't really "obese" - seriously at 300#? But, she saw me as this active person living a full life and that wasn't her image of obese. AGain, affection colors your view. I think GG once made a statement about being seen through "the soft eyes of a lover". I like that image - and try to see myself with a soft eye whenever that critical voice creeps up.

So, taking that a step further, I think loving oneself helps color our self image in a positive way. i poke fun at my vanity... but in truth i DO like how I look and I like the person I am becoming more and more all the time. I think that is healthy and I think those positive feelings should be cultivated no matter how heavy or skinny; extra skin or not...

You know what is funny though, i got more attention/looks when I was about 20# heavier. I think there needs to be a study on this phenomena... perhaps it is a lie that the world only likes skinny.

Edited November 3, 201312 yr by CowgirlJane

So a couple of things I've learned on my pre-op diet... 1. I am a sneaky eater - I would eat when my husband and son would go somewhere. I would tell them I couldn't go with them because I had work to do or something around the house. Then I would eat. 2. I ate a lot out of boredom. I didn't realize the extent of either behavior until I started the pre-op diet and I'm not able to eat. It's really disturbing. But' date=' I'm glad I'm going thru this - it is hard, really hard, but I know I'm getting better, not perfect, better.[/quote']

You know what this reminds me of? Some movie I saw where the guy's an alcoholic and wants to stop. And his shrink says, if you want to know why you're an alcoholic, first thing you need to do is stop drinking. That really puzzled me. I thought, how can you stop if you don't know why you do it? And then I realized what you did.

Until you stop drinking, you can't do the work you need to so as to figure out why you drink.

Until i stopped eating, until I started the pre-op, until I had the surgery, I had no idea how much of my time was spent thinking of food, getting food, eating food, planning food, pinning recipes, thinking of different diets to try to lose weight, etc. What a revelation. Suddenly I had all this "psychic space" that I used to devote to food all freed up.

No doctor can prepare you for how the sleeve changes the way you see the world and yourself in it.

When I was 22 I was blessed to get to know a young woman named Claudia. She was the receptionist at the huge accounting firm I worked for - yes I was right out of college' date=' high pressure job, and gaining weight. Anyway, Claudia was one of those women... drop dead knock out georgous... all the guys wanted to date her. Sweet and genuinely kind, as much as the women felt some jealousy at her perfect looks... perfect hair, perfect nails... and get this - she was an amazing opera singer too... even with all that, the women liked her alot too. Over the course of about a year I got to know Claudia pretty well. She married the most handsome man ever. They looked like the couple that belongs on top of the cake "that kind of flawless I always dreamed I could be." Well I eventually realized how damaged inside she was, how sad she was, how low her self esteem was. She KNEW she was pretty but I can remember my shock at her saying this to me "you at least know who your friends are, most people only care about me for how i look" I didn't think that was true, I think people genuinely did like her, but the point was just that the emptiness isn't about being lovely or not, fat or skinny - it is way deeper than that. I have often thought about Claudia over the decades. I have recently thought about... with undying gratitude and my man friends who loved me at my most obese. I show them my before pics and they can't ever remember me looking like that. It is like people's affection colors their view. So, taking that a step further, I think loving oneself helps color our self image in a positive way. i poke fun at my vanity... but in truth i DO like how I look and I like the person I am becoming more and more all the time. I think that is healthy and I think those positive feelings should be cultivated no matter how heavy or skinny; extra skin or not... You know what is funny though, i got more attention/looks when I was about 20# heavier. I think there needs to be a study on this phenomena... perhaps it is a lie that the world only likes skinny.[/quote']

So many things to say to this post!

But the first one is about your last few sentences..

I'm at the point of not "skinny" yet.. But I've had moments...

This is almost impossible to explain..

Where I feel, part of my beauty I feel as a woman right now lies in the weight I'm at... the fragility in the the not fat not skinny... There is something about this stage, this weight this body I present right now that is "real"...

I've even thought about stopping here.

Edited November 3, 201312 yr by laura-ven

I am happy that I have lost 72 pounds but I feel uglier and older. Especially in my face.

Consider that is a form of dismorphia. I went through this feeling and I think you need to give time for the brain to catch up . I finally realized that it is rooted in my sadness over the "lost time". Last time I was thin I was in my early 20s... it was sort of a rude awakening to find my thin face is now late 40s...

So many things to say to this post! But the first one is about your last few sentences.. I'm at the point of not "skinny" yet.. But I've had moments... This is almost impossible to explain.. Where I feel' date=' part of my beauty I feel as a woman right now lies in the weight I'm at... the fragility in the the not fat not skinny... There is something about this stage, this weight this body I present right now that is "real"... I've even thought about stopping here.[/quote']

At the risk of sounding like a pervert, I took a good look at your tummy and scars--and told my husband that you were my height and at what I have set my goal weight at, and that I thought the curves and swoops you have looked very "womanly" to me. You look like a real woman to me, as does CGJ. I don't want to look a 12-year old boy.

Consider that is a form of dismorphia. I went through this feeling and I think you need to give time for the brain to catch up . I finally realized that it is rooted in my sadness over the "lost time". Last time I was thin I was in my early 20s... it was sort of a rude awakening to find my thin face is now late 40s...

that's a really good point. I will be 54 in a few weeks. If I had been thin my whole life, I would have got to this face gradually and not considered it old and ugly (I don't think), just the natural progression in life. With this rapid weight loss revealing the face underneath, I got here much too quickly for my brain to catch up. Thanks for that perspective.!

I was talking to a "naturally" skinny friend about this. (I find myself wondering now a lot about her "natural" habits, but that's another topic.) Anyway, she told me she always looks in the mirror and sees a fat girl. But that recently she saw a photo of herself and thought, "That woman is really bony" before realizing it was her.

I've been in denial about my weight for a long time. When I look at full length pictures of myself I can't believe it's me. In my head, I'm the same person I was before I gained all this weight. I don't know if that's going to be harder or easier as I start to lose. But I think dysmorphia goes both ways. I think because I have a job where a lot of the time I'm out in front of people, I haven't focused on it. I just do my thing and forget about it. On the other hand sometimes I kick myself because I think I don't present enough of an executive image, as an overweight person.

Fluffnomore,

I meant to say welcome before. So I will say it now! Glad to have you aboard

Addict.

And it's all on me. I cook. Folks can have any treats they want. I can't.

I can't have anything except what I plan to have. Period.

I will never be the 'well I have a little of whatever I want' guy.

I enjoy parties and restaurants, I just focus on the people and not the food.

I don't have time to feel sorry for myself, but I'd like to.

I just ate, and ate, and ate some more. All the time, anytime. Can't do that no more...