I have a food addiction. I think I have my whole life, except that when I was younger I was more restricted to what was available to me (by my parents and money) and I was also far more active. However once I started my final two years at school (Sixth Form in the UK, although I was in military Germany for it) extra curricular activities of sport, and playing outside when home pretty much stopped.
When I was little I was always outside playing with friends. Running about, climbing trees, playing football and many other sports. At school I was always in the sport team of the season, football, netball, hockey, athletics. When I hit my teens I joined an Athletics club and trained twice a week there, plus 2 lots of sport at school for class times (I took GCSE P.E. which wasn’t just playing sport but physiology too 
) AND sport teams for tennis, hockey etc. At 16 my parents and I moved (back) out to Germany where suddenly I knew not a lot of people. I cycled a lot however, as I couldn’t drive and needed some form of transport. However my fitness was starting to dwindle really, compared to what I had been doing. But at this point my weight still wasn’t an issue.
I then went to University. I ate relatively well, often in the uni restaurant that did proper jacket potatoes and other nice meals. I cooked occassionally but sharing a diddy fridge/freezer with 5 others wasn’t easy. I lived in Wales, in the valleys, were the hills are like mountains! Constantly walking up and down to get between the main Uni buildings and my room (on the 3rd floor of the flats) kept me reasonably fit.
I think it was my 2nd year at uni, I was 19/20 then. I was living with a guy I’d been going out with for over a year. We were partial to a Chinese or Pizza so I think I just started to eat too many of them. I wasn’t big into cooking then. I did enjoy it but I couldn’t do much, not compared to now. Bolognaise wasn’t made from scratch, it was a pound of mince and a jar of Ragu! This coupled with taking the bus or being driven to Uni, I started to do less and less exercise. As time went on the weight started to go on. We then split up and I moved out and in with friends. However that’s when my eczema, which is usually pretty much timid, covered me from head to foot. It was a horrible time where I was in so much pain, I was on antibiotics every week for a month or two, and I started living off takeaway food. Pizza one night, Kebab the next (yes sober!) and Chinese the next. I ate so much crap I’m suprised I didn’t get worse than I did. I eventually started to get well again and a few months later was back to normal except now my weight included an extra 2 stone (about 13kg). I started to diet, lost a little weight but not a great deal.
After leaving University I was unhappy at about 11.5 stone. I tried a diet off and on and just couldn’t get into it. I then moved to London where I lived alone for a while. For no real reason other than being addicted to certain foods I started to pile more weight on. Every Thursday night I can remember walking home from work along Chiswick High Road. I’d pass a Sainsbury’s and I’d go in for a Cheese Feast stuffed crust pizza and a tub of Belgian Chocolate Haagen Dazs Icecream. I’d then go home and eat the lot. Why? Because I kept saying to myself that it’d be the last one. By the time I moved out from the studio flat and in with a friend I was up to 86kg, about 13.5 stone.
When I moved in with my friend I decided it was time to make a change. I wasn’t happy at work and I was considering going to Austria and ski instruct in the Winter. So I needed to get some fitness back and lose some weight. I got my bike up to my new place so I could cycle to work, quicker than the bus and free! About 20 minutes along the cycle tracks, 20 minutes each way which was a good distance. Shame I didn’t do it daily. A couple of months later I quit my job in London to just see what happened. I had some freelance work to keep me going for a month or two, luckily I got 4 months of contract work too which kept me going until I left at Christmas. Once I’d quit my job I had time at home so I joined the local gym. I started going 2-3 times a week. I was eating healthily, sticking to no more than 1500 calories a day and 30g of fat. I weighed 86kg and 44% body fat when I first went there. After 6 months of gyming it and dieting 99% of the time I had lost no weight or body fat – suddenly I started to wonder what the point of it all was! I mystified my personal trainer, especially after a couple of times when I climbed off the cross trainer with a heart rate of 192, when my max heart rate should have been 196, and I was just a little red faced! I then went to Austria feeling semi fit but still heavily over weight.
I have to admit being in Austria was fantastic. I spent 3 full seasons there and loved every minute. However being overweight in Austria isn’t so great, similar to this country I guess, but out there they made you realise this. Probably not trying to attack you but I was made more aware of it there than I ever have here. I think I proved my fitness, teaching 6 out of 7 days a week, skiing almost every day for 4-5 months. However by the time I returned from Austria I was on 90kg, roughly 14 stone 4lbs. I felt disgusted with myself and went into strict diet immediately. I also came off injections I was having to see if that made a difference. I lost half a stone in the first week – this I believe was muscle weight however, as I’d gone from being active every day to sitting behind a computer again. I tried a few different diets that year, the typical low cal, low fat diet; the slim fast diet (lasted two days on that); and then I moved on to the Atkins diet when I’d given up on everything else. Suddenly I started to lose weight. Not much, in total I lost 3kg, but I slimmed down a lot. Whilst I’m not a major fan of a permanent Atkins Diet, for short term solutions I do still believe that it can be used, with a few minor tweaks to the methods used first.
As the years have gone by I’ve been on and off diets. I’ve read so much about nutrition and fitness. I know what I should be doing and how I should be doing it, but I have one small problem – I’m a food addict. Just as you get people addicted to cigarettes or alcohol I am addicted to food. Last year I hit my lowest weight point for some years – 177lbs. That’s just over 12.5 stone. 2 stone less than my highest point. I now tend to fluctuate between 180 and 190lbs.
Despite being reasonably short I seem to hide my weight semi well. I still feel disgusted by what I see in the mirror and therefore have nothing that goes below my shoulders. I’ve been a member of the Fitness First gym for over a year and I do get a kick out of going. People say that you cannot say you have no time for the gym, well I’m sorry but that is true. I don’t right now. I’ve not been too well, just recovering from a kidney infection and still getting twinges of pain in my back. I’m also working from the minute I get up until the minute I go to bed. Yes I do take breaks, during which I tidy up a little, put on washing, hang up washing or cook. I really do not have a great deal of time right now and I know I’m running myself down with work and stress, hence how I got ill. It’s a typical cliche but I intend to get Christmas out of the way and will start back at the gym in January. Same with my GI Plan diet, which i’ve found to be the easiest diet to follow and the best one medically and nutrionally.
But to the subject of this post, I do have a food addiction. They say don’t shop on an empty stomach. To be honest I’d say just don’t wander. Write down your list before going, walk in and go and find them. The more you wander the more your eyes catch something not on the list, and you’re more likely to pick it up – full stomach or empty stomach. This evening I went to the Post Office for stamps and to post a parcel. I left with a loaf of bread (nothing wrong there), 2 tins of low fat Pringles (low fat means 25% fat so not necessarily less fat than other crisps, just other Pringles) and a chocolate bar. Why? Well I’d not had dinner but I just felt like it. I also checked the freezer cabinet but there was no tubs of icecream. I may make myself a lowfat chocolate milkshake later, lowfat because the icecream is lowfat, the milk is semi skimmed. The chocolate power however is normal cadbury’s.
I refuse to eat/drink sweetners. I think they taste foul and are definitely not good for your insides. I’ve heard of people fainting off the amount of aspartame building up in their system. These diets that say have as many diet drinks as you want – it’s not good! I live off water and fresh fruit smoothies/juice. I believe in eating real food and not something with a million chemicals in, so I usually avoid anything that says low cal or diet in. That way if I do have something that I don’t fully agree with, it’s hardly like I’ve had much of it. My main problem is Pizza and Icecream. I love both, usually one after the other. When I was at my top weight point I could easily eat double what I eat now. It’s sickening to think back to how I was and what I ate. I look at pictures from 4 years ago and my heart drops. However I can also see myself now and see how far I’ve come. I know I’ve got a lot further to go and that I may possibly be battling with my weight for the rest of my life, but I want to be happy and right now I’m not, not with myself.
Come January things are going to change. They have to.
