Are you a food addict? How can you tell?
. How can I tell? I can tell because before food was ever an issue for me I was addicted to other things. I've spent over 20 years in recovery and all I did was switch from one addiction to another. My new addiction became food. How do I know? Because I ate cause I was hungry, but I didn't stop when I got full. I ate because food tasted good. I ate just to be eating. I NEVER considered nutrition. I didn't want to eat the way I did but I didn't know how to stop. Am I a food addict. I AM AN ADDICT. I need to remember that on a daily basis, because the last thing I want is to pick up some other unhealthy habits. 
Linda
London and Area Support Group Leader
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I finally accepted (could tell) that I was a food addict when......
-- all waking thoughts centered around meals for the day!
-- I found myself munching on my dog's kibble thinking it was such a "nutty" snack!
-- I literally dreamed about food (swimming in chocolate, diving into whipped cream, walking through a lake of mashed potatoes and gravy.
-- I took my grocery list to the store with healthy food on it but never purchased any
-- I found myself in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open with no memory of going there.
-- I found myself grazing at holiday meals: before, during, and after even though I felt "stuffed"
-- I cleaned out my office and found Ho Hos, Twinkies and small chocolate bars stuffed into drawers and nooks.
-- I discovered I packed a snack bag when I had to run errands around town
Have a blessed day!
Pamela
RaeAnn
RaeAnn 
OH Support Group Leader Tri-Cities, WA meet every 2nd Wednesday each month located 500 Amon Park Dr. Richland, WA 7PM-9PM
Open RNY 3/30/01 260lbs - 130lbs 
Yvonne McCarthy, CLC. Health & Wellness Coach (full time volunteer). I am happy to help if I can. Visit www.bariatricgirl.com and see the Bariatric Girl blog! Also check out my Facebook Bariatric Girl Page. Photography site www.yvonnemccarthy.com .„ø¤º°¨ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ¨°º¤ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨„ø¤º°¨ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ¨°º¤ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨
http://post-op-princess.blogspot.com/2010/07/three-kinds-of- hunger.html
It talks about the three kinds of hunger but the last one is really good. It addresses part of what many addicts experience when they are "restless, irritable and discontent". She explains the restlessness so perfectly. I think it is truly one of the best written pieces on restlessness that I've seen. I hope others will enjoy it too.
Heart Hunger
This is the most complex and complicated of the three hungers because so often we don't know exactly what triggered it. This is not due to actual physical need or being triggered by outside stimulus. Rather this hunger lives in our hearts. This is the hunger that is so hard for so many of us to see or even feel because by quenching the hunger with food we subdue whatever it is we are really craving, at least for a short while.
This is what so many over eaters call boredom, but what I prefer to call restlessness. If we were truly just bored, we'd go do something, not eat something. Instead we are restless, we don't know what we want so we eat to fill the void. The problem with this? Food isn't really what we want. Since it's not what our heart truly desires, we just keep doing it and doing it and doing it to no avail. Eventually our hearts are weighted down with so much restlessness and lack of satisfaction from our eating that we feel shame and guilt. How do we cure shame and guilt? We eat. And the cycle begins again.
How do we break the cycle? (I am still working on this part of the theory!) We must learn to sit with our restlessness for a moment. Talk to it. Be nice but firm. Asking it what it really wants. Write to it, if talking doesn't work. Hell, sing to it, if that works. Somewhere deep in our hearts there is an answer to our question. There is truth. We do know what we need, we've just anesthetized it for so long with food, it may take time and patience to get to the truth.
It won't be easy. It will be uncomfortable, and scary, and frustrating at times. Feeling our true feelings can be truly overwhelming after so many years of eating them away instead. When we eat to fill our heart, we become numb. Numb to what it and we, ourselves, really need. Deaf to what it's saying and blind to what it's showing us. Once we begin to patiently ask our hearts what it needs from us, we begin to learn that it's most definitely not food.
Today is a day I need to talk gently and listen carefully to my heart as it's been trying to tell me something.
I am listening little heart and I promise not to try and shut you up with food.
Open RNY 3/30/01 260lbs - 130lbs Yvonne McCarthy, CLC. Health & Wellness Coach (full time volunteer). I am happy to help if I can. Visit www.bariatricgirl.com and see the Bariatric Girl blog! Also check out my Facebook Bariatric Girl Page. Photography site www.yvonnemccarthy.com .„ø¤º°¨ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ¨°º¤ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨„ø¤º°¨ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ¨°º¤ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨
Now, for the post: You know, I'd simply never heard it referred to as "restlessness," so when I read this today, it struck me at my very core. It was as if someone were shining a bright spotlight into a heretofore unexplored, very dark recess of my soul.
My heart HAS been SO VERY weighted down by restlessness and lack of satisfaction from my eating that I truly have felt shame and guilt -- but didn't understand the source. I do now and, while I know the journey toward healing will be difficult, at LEAST I have a starting point on the path.
I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Remember how she put her little Ruby Red Slippered toe on the exact point in the middle of the spiral, then followed that yellow brick road to the Emerald City?
Yup. That's me -- uh, with Barbie Pink Pumps, naturally.
Thanks, doll! Muah :-*
Cari • Discount code for OH 2011 Events! Save $$$: bariatricafterlife
RNY 12/10/07 • Dr. Mir Ali • Reconstructive Surgery • Dr. Timothy Katzen
WT (Starting) 316 / (Current) ±160 • HT: 5'8"
Blog: bariatricafterlife.com • Facebook: facebook.com/bariatricafterlife
Twitter: twitter.com/caridlc • Youtube: youtube.com/gastricbypassbarbie
Jen
Thanks to TheShrinkingWoman for being my angel 
