Avoidance and Imperfection - Compulsive Overeating Overtakes Me

It's been a rough couple of weeks...or months depending on how I look at it. when you're in denial it's hard to determine exactly when things started going south.

Food has always been a struggle for me. Our whole family struggles with addictions...smoking, alcohol, gambling, food...it runs through my veins to be addicted to something.

Just like an alcoholic who sucks up drink after drink after drink with no thought and no care for consequences...I eat. And eat. And eat more. And then a little more.

I only stop when I'm so full I could throw up (which I don't...I have never been able to binge and purge which would officially make me bulimic). The first phase of Bulimia definitely applies to me:

"Recurrent episodes of binge eating, with an episode characterized by (1) eating in a discrete period of time, usually less than two hours, an amount of food that is significantly larger than most people would eat during a similar period of time and under similar circumstances; and, (2) a sense of lack of control over eating during the episode, such as a feeling that one cannot stop eating."

Oh yeah. That's me. I clearly fall into the Binge Eating or Compulsive Eater category.

"Compulsive overeaters will typically eat when they are not hungry. Their obsession is demonstrated in that they spend excessive amounts of time and thought devoted to food, and secretly plan or fantasize about eating alone."

I'm pretty sure it's a miracle that I'm not over 200 pounds. I was...at the beginning of the year I was 207 and I dropped down to 175 but I've slowly been seeing that number creep back up and I know it's because I've lost control ... again.

For six months or so I was doing okay. Tracking my food and calories...staying within my limits most days. I wasn't perfect and I still had episodes, but for the most part I was moving the right direction....which was a smaller and healthier me. It's not so much about how heavy I am. It's MUCH more important that I'm not giving myself diabetes and that I'm able to keep up with an active little boy.

When exactly I stopped focusing I'm not sure...but I know that it's been worse than it has been in a LONG time. I'm absolutely miserable but at the same time ... even though I know I could logically stop ... I can't.

I've actually been avoiding blogging this because if I ignored it I could pretend that I could control it myself. Which I obviously can't.