Struggles with Food Addiction

I am a junk food addict.

I don’t say that in some sort of joking manner, laughing about a love of chocolate or some such thing. I say that as somebody who can find myself obsessing over junk food all day, having my thoughts completely consumed in a battle between knowing I shouldn’t eat it and wanting it, finding excuses to get it, reasons “I deserve it”. I say that as someone who will literally spend a half hour to an hour doing nothing but waging an internal battle to not get in the car and drive off to get some. I say that as someone who usually ends up in that car and just might in rare circumstances win the internal battle while on the road, turn around and head home, only to find 30 minutes later I am at the gas station checkout M&M’s in hand. I say that as someone who even now while writing this blog is gorging on junk food with the thought in my head that this will be the last final blowout “meal” of it, trying to quietly ignore the dozen or so other last final blowout “meals” I’ve had in the past couple weeks. This is what I mean when I say I’m a junk food addict. I’m not kidding about it. I’m brutally serious.

I’ve been planning to write this blog post for some time because I feel like I need to. I’m hoping it can help me get a handle on and break this addiction by trying to make myself publicly accountable in some fashion. I’ve also, as you may have noticed, been avoiding writing it for well over a month now. It’s a problem that shames me, though I realize there is no reason to feel shame over it. I’ve been avoiding this blog because I don’t want to openly acknowledge what I must do. Yet I find myself getting worse and worse, with less ability to resist my compulsive cravings. I will be in tears, emotionally overwrought at my lack of control as I stuff the trash into me until I feel sick, then take a break just long enough for the sick feeling to subside some before cramming more in until the bag (or bags) are empty.

I know what I have to do. There really isn’t a question in my mind. I just don’t want to acknowledge there seems to be no other way, for me at least.

I am prone to addiction. I think I knew this long ago. My father was an alcoholic, it ruled his life for so many years. I feel so blessed that for some reason way back as a child I was able to observe that he and I were very similar in general disposition. I’m thankful he wasn’t an angry or violent drunk, but I saw how much of his life and potential it destroyed. Somehow I just knew based on how alike we were that I could never ever even for a moment consider drinking any sort of alcohol. If I did it would be a short journey to my destruction. I am so thankful to him for being my father and teaching me that lesson. I just wish it hadn’t been at such a cost to him. I am extremely thankful too that in the later years of his life he found a wife and her extended family who provided him the happiness and emotional support he needed to break free of it all.

If you ever meet me in any sort of social occasions and wonder why I turn down all offers of alcohol this is why. I absolutely don’t dare ever start. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I’m not meaning to be a party pooper and I’m not trying to cast any judgements on others. It’s just a very bad idea for me. The same thing goes for other sorts of recreational drugs. To be honest it’s part of the reason I even avoid all medical drugs if I can help it.

Unfortunately I did grow up on the standard American diet though and many of its hooks got buried in me deep. So while I’ve avoided ever starting in with alcohol and drugs the junk food has been with me as long as I can remember. I understand there are studies that have shown these things can be triggering the same reactions in the brain as addictive drugs. That does make some kind of sense. Many drugs are just the refined essence of some plant. That’s exactly what refined sugar is, or white flour, or refined vegetable oils. These are all purified and concentrated plant products that stimulate our sense of pleasure. They are concentrated calories our bodies have been evolutionarily conditioned to seek out and crave when found. Hence it’s not that there is something fundamentally wrong with me in this regard. It’s just that I’m living in a time when these sorts of foods are unnaturally available practically everywhere. So while thankfully this sort of food addiction is not as serious as a drug addiction, in other ways it’s more challenging to break. The potential triggers are all over, constantly being pushed at me not only by entire marketing industries striving to get me to consume more junk, but also by kind, well intentioned people, friends and strangers, simply offering to share a tasty treat.

I don’t say this to try and shift the blame for my issues off on others. I’m just trying to acknowledge the scope of challenges I face. Most people seem to be able to handle the practice of moderation reasonably well. I seem to fail miserably with this everytime. I know better than to try keeping any such foods in the house. I will inevitably end up eating it all before moving on to actual nutritious foods that support my health. Because junk food is so easy to find I don’t have to travel far outside the home to score some. Ironically when I do go out and get it my desire to not keep it in the house only stimulates me to gorge on it faster. “I can’t keep it in the house, so I’d better eat it all now!”

As I said, I know what I need to do. Many years ago I struggled with my addiction to caffeinated soda. I would be sucking down at a minimum a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew or Coke each day. It got to where I had to be on a steady caffeine drip it seemed to avoid crashing energy levels. I hated it, but kept using and craving it. Periodically I would summon up a big load of willpower declaring I was drinking way too much of this stuff and needed to cut back, to moderate my consumption. No more than a 20 ounce bottle a day would be my rule. I’d stick to that for a few days then things would start to shift. Since it’s much cheaper to purchase in the 2 liter size I’d just pour out “about” 20 ounces each day. Naturally that “about” figure got larger and larger. When the bottle started getting low, well I really should just finish it off since it’s going to go flat if I don’t, and that would be a waste. The excuses and justifications kept coming, yet another instance confirming that as much as I wish to believe I am a rational creature, like so many I really am a rationalizing creature.

In a matter of a couple weeks or a month at best I would be right back to that full volume IV drip of caffeinated soda, downing it by the 2 liter bottle each day. Things went on like this for years, trying to moderate and failing over and over again. I just couldn’t do it. Then one day, for whatever reason, I took a new approach which seems to be the only thing that works for me. I quit cold turkey as they say, deciding I would NEVER have another caffeinated soda again in my life. That was my new rule. I allowed that I could have non-caffeinated varieties, and I think this little bit helped me initially to make it stick. For some odd reason I don’t understand, and am not going to question, the caffeine free stuff which has just as much of the equally addictive sugars doesn’t take over my brain the same way. I can enjoy it, but don’t find a strong craving for it. I still don’t tend to keep it around in the house as I am much more likely to consume it all if it’s right there in the fridge, but I’m never driven to go out and get more.

So anyway, one day I just completely quit the caffeine laden soda pop. The next couple days were a bit rough as I dealt with the withdrawal symptoms, but honestly they didn’t seem that bad. That was it. I was over it. I feel like the big thing for me was that somehow I managed to change my personal identity from someone who struggled with moderating pop consumption to someone who simply didn’t drink it. What I learned was that I just can’t moderate. I’m an all or nothing sort of person.

This gets me back to what I know I need to do, but don’t want to admit and do. I’m no good at moderation on this front. I’ve tried many different tricks for myself. “I’m only allowed to eat junk food one day a month.” “I’m only allowed to eat junk food at social events.” “Never inside the home, only outside.” “I can pick up something when I’m grocery shopping but not otherwise.” These and many more tricks have been tried and work for a bit, but once I get those tastes back in my mouth reminding my brain what I’ve been missing it’s only a matter of time. It’s not the single cookie or peanut butter cup that concerns me. It’s all the ones that will soon follow afterward, each seeming to reinforce my compulsive cravings even more.

So what I need to do, and am declaring here in this blog is that I am no longer a person who eats junk food EVER again. I don’t know if any of you reading this have dealt with similar things and thus know how hard that is to say. I want so desperately to add a ton of caveats like no more ever… for a month, or a year. Surely I can’t mean EVER. I will never eat another peanut butter cup? I can’t mean that can I? What if Aldi finally restocks them? Their’s are not only a great deal, but the best tasting out there. When they are back in stock I have to be able to get just one bag right? These are some of the silly, yet still powerfully compelling thoughts going through my head right now. More insidiously are the ones saying, “You know you are going to fail at this right?” “You’ve said such things before to yourself and failed. Why should publishing it in a blog be any different? It’s probably best to just be a quiet failure in private like normal.”

I don’t really know if publishing all this here will make a difference for me or not. I figure if nothing else it can let those of you struggling with the same or similar issues know you aren’t alone. If I can manage to rewire my brain to make a core part of my identity that of one who doesn’t eat junk food I can beat this. I did it with caffeinated soda so I know I’m capable. I know too there are many programs out there I could sign up for offering advice and support with food addictions which help lots of people deal with these issues. I may try them one day but they just don’t feel like who I am, at least not yet.

I have listened to lots of podcasts and presentations on this general subject so I have some understanding of the challenges ahead of me if I am to make this stick. It will take more than just me declaring it so unfortunately. For example, I have a lot of willpower and perseverance, but I know I can’t rely on these. They have their limits and will fail me. They have failed me in the past. I need to make my eating of nutritious food, or in this case not eating of junk food a matter of rote practice, something that falls outside of decision making. It’s when these options become available for contemplation when deciding what to eat that they take hold of my brain and won’t let go. To that end I need to avoid working long and hard out in the studio to the point of exhaustion without having my daily meals decided upon, if not prepared. When I’m making food decisions while hungry and tired is when my willpower is at its lowest.

So something I’m going to try here for a few weeks at least is at the end of this blog post I will start daily adding what I plan to eat for the next day so my decisions are set ahead of time and I just have to follow them. This may involve also reporting back on what I actually did eat.

In general I want to be eating predominantly whole food plant based meals, ideally including ingredients harvested from my homestead. Because I have been able to mostly stick to this for my primary meals is why I’m not also struggling with obesity in addition to my junk food addiction, though if the candy and such keeps replacing my meals as it has been lately this will soon change. That said, like I allowed myself to have non-caffeinated soda when trying to break the caffeinated soda addiction, I’m not going to declare that all my meals must be of the highest quality. I will still eat out at restaurants or have crappy meals at home from time to time where the sugar/fat/salt content is too high. I don’t feel like I’m out of control with that. It’s the straight up junk food, cookies, chips, candy, and the like that I am cutting out of my life.

The subheading of my blog says “Experiments in Living”. This is my next “experiment in living”. We shall see how it goes. My hope is that as I list the food I plan to and actually do eat here over the next while you might find some inspiration of meals to try out yourself (the healthy ones hopefully) and thus this post might end up being of some use for those of you reading it. So I welcome you to keep checking back to see what I have been eating.

I think I need to finish this up with my studio snippet and get this posted before I chicken out and delete the whole thing (which my junk food addled brain is strongly suggesting I do).

So here are my planned foods for the rest of today and tomorrow, July 15 and 16, 2020: (First I should note that the gorging on junk food while typing that I mentioned at the start of this blog happened yesterday. It’s taken me two days to actually finish this. So far today I have been good.) I already finished off the last of my mix for vegan potstickers made with lots of mushrooms, garlic scapes, milkweed buds, ginger, flax seed meal, some miso paste, and a few other things I forget now. I’ve made a Mexican bean and rice dish for later using brown rice, beans, more garlic scapes, no salt tomato sauce, miso, and various spices. I think it will get a bit more salt after having taste tested it. I’m planning to have this with some bean tacos later. Both the rice dish and taco fixings will form tomorrows meals too.

In addition will be some fruit. I’ve got cherries to eat, as well as some grapes, maybe an apple. I will probably also have some of my chocolate strawberry banana pie. Wait, what?! I’m having pie? Yes, it is a completely healthy pie. The crust was made from date paste, whole rolled oats, flax meal, a bit of coconut flour, and some spices (cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg). I baked this for a bit to firm it up some and then added a layer of fresh strawberries from the local farmers market. On top of this was the chocolate banana filling. This was made with raw cashews, date paste, bananas, and coco powder blended up in a high power blender until smooth. I usually have to add a bit of water to get it to blend smooth enough. Once blended I just spread it out into the pie shell, chill and serve. Ok, I didn’t chill it for the first slice. I just dug in. I believe I will have enough left of this for some today and tomorrow. Then I should probably make some date “cookies” to be ready for an attack of cravings with something nutritious that can satisfy them.

Food report update for July 17, 2020

Well, yesterday was an absolutely crazy, though mostly good, day. I rather expected it would be in that I got my puzzle shipment for the jigsaw puzzle project some of you may know about. (If you don’t know about it you can go here on my other website to see them.) So I was notifying everyone on my preorder/waiting lists then dealing with all the gremlins in a new ordering system trying very hard to keep everything straight and not screw up orders. It was a bit stressful and hectic! That was a prime set-up to slip up with my eating. However, I didn’t! Though my eating didn’t go exactly as planned so for personal integrity sake I’ll report that yesterday I did have the left over bean tacos with Mexican rice, the remaining cherries, a slice of that healthy pie, and some nuts. However, my dinner was quite late. I was quite tired with a light headache going on, which I rarely get. You would think doing more of the tacos would be easy. Everything was prepared in all their separate little storage containers. I just had to assemble and eat. That felt like too much. (How lame is that?)

So instead I went with what is boarder line junk food, but I’m ok with since it doesn’t seem to ever trigger compulsive cravings. I tossed a half bag of frozen tater tots in the oven to bake. While those were cooking I ripped open a pouch of premade Indian vegetable curry and ate it right out of the pouch. Not ideal, but not bad. I feel like keeping stuff like that around is going to be a good idea for me for when I do end up feeling overwhelmed and not ready to do much at all for meal prep.

As a side note I also had to run to the store yesterday to get paper for printing out packing lists. This is my local big box grocery store, also one of my prime dealers for junk food. I was fortified by my resolve and all the wonderful supportive comments/encouragement to be able to walk by all the junk with little more than a wistful glance. Thank you all for the support!

Today, I fear may become a similar stressful, but wonderful day as I work to fill all the puzzle orders from yesterday as well as the ones that keep coming in. There have been a few more gremlins in the system to work out and deal with, but all seems to be going well so far. That said, I’m glad I have food prepared and easy for today!

I expect to be finishing off the taco fixings and moving on to a larger meal of the leftover Mexican rice dish. (I have a lot of the rice left yet.) I’ve already had another slice of the healthy pie for breakfast with a few grapes. I plan to eat more grapes, the rest of the pie, and possibly the remainder of the bag of tater tots if I get too run down. Should packing and shipping go really well then I may make a big salad of some sort.

Food update for the 18th.

Things went pretty much as planned yesterday, except I didn’t get a salad made. Instead while baking the tater tots I also baked up a batch of my healthy corn chips, cooking some cut up corn tortillas until crisp. That was in preparation for today when I’ll be off at a friends house. At some point we will likely be playing computer games and snacking. I needed to be ready with a healthy snack. I have a big batch of my cashew “cheese” made up for the tacos as well as this sort of thing. It’s a vegan cheese dip filled with good healthy ingredients so with that and the chips I can have chips and cheese without any concerns. I’ll have to share how I make that cheese at some point. It’s SO good!

Beyond that I plan to be eating out with my buddy at a Chinese place, or more likely getting take out due to Covid. My usual meal at this place is the sesame shrimp combo plate. I wouldn’t rate it as a health food but I’m not classifying it as junk either. As I noted earlier I don’t expect all my real meals to be ideal. This is an example. It will probably provide lunch and a late dinner tonight when I’m hungry from the long bike ride home.

Otherwise I’ve had some grapes and a few chips and cheese this morning.

Tomorrow I’m planning on more Mexican rice leftovers and I want to make a vegan Indian dish of some sort utilizing garden stuff. The milkweed pods are starting to form and I believe I have some green beans ready to harvest!

Update for the 19th-20th

Yesterday I did make that vegan Indian curry inspired dish utilizing firm tofu instead of paneer cheese with a rich cashew cream/tomato sauce base with lots of spices. For veggies in it I used immature milkweed pods, green beans, a few snow peas that were still good from the garden, and green onions. It was SOOO good! I’m going to have to do that again, or something like it.

I also did have some of that leftover Mexican rice, a bunch of grapes that needed eating, and some raspberries and blueberries from the farmers market mixed in with a bit of left over healthy pie crust mix from the chocolate pie a while back. There were a few nuts and seeds snacked on along the way too.

Yesterday, the 19th, I did have to fight off some strong cravings for junk, but I feel like having made this post and receiving so much support helped. I try to be someone who lives with integrity so publicly declaring that I am someone who no longer eats junk food helped to keep me clean. I don’t want to end up being a liar, or projecting a false persona while secretly stuffing my face with the crap.

Today, the 20th, I plan to have more of that leftover rice. I’ve still got a lot of it. I suppose because it turned out a bit bland. Perhaps I should add something to the mix to spice it up more. I’m feeling deficient on greens so I’ll also make a salad mix with lots of them along with a quinoa/brown rice pasta and a mustard/miso/nutritional yeast dressing. More of the raspberry/blueberry/pie crust mix will be had too, along with some nuts as snacks.

Report for end of day July 20th

I forgot about the leftover vegan Indian curry thing I had. It was so good yesterday I had to have that first today for lunch. Other than that and some fresh cherries I stuck to the above outlined plan for the day.

Tomorrow the 21st of July should be left overs from today, the salad and still more of the rice. There should also be fruit and nuts. I do feel like I’m eating more fruit these past few days, which is all good. It’s sort of the replacement for all the junky sweets, though my taste buds aren’t nearly adapted yet. They are still trained on the hyper sweet of refined sugar and the like.

Update for July 22

Yesterday was just what I planned, though oddly I didn’t eat much, basically just a large lunch. Then later I made up something similar to the raspberry/left over pie crust thing, but using blueberries and mixing up some oats, date paste, molasses, ground flax, and spices. That was pretty good and I have leftovers of that for today too. Still I expected to be eating dinner later, but got so busy it became quite late and realized I wasn’t all that hungry anyway.

Today I do plan to finish the pasta salad and have more of the Mexican rice, hopefully to finish that off. Just how much rice did I make initially!? I feel unprepared for the day though because I expect to need more to eat and I don’t know quite what I want. That line right there is what can land me smack dab in the middle of junk food!! So I need to decide now while I’m not starving, only sort of hungry. There are beans out in the garden ready for harvest, along with some garlic scapes that are really past due to be harvested. (I’m actually starting to harvest my garlic bulbs!) I’d like to try the Indian curry thing again, but am out of firm tofu. Since I’m also running short on fruit I might make a grocery store run. That’s a bit scary due to the temptations there. Obviously I am not yet “someone who doesn’t eat junk food” when I am actually a bit scared of going to the grocery store. I know I could get delivery, but the frugal part of me balks at that. I can handle this. I will probably get another bag of frozen tater tots to placate the monster in me without dropping all the way down to full on junk food. That means though that tater tots might be dinner today. If I don’t go to the store then a bag of frozen vegetables with a miso/nutritional yeast sauce will be the order of the day. I’ve been missing this quick simple and cheap meal since I’ve been focused on using what is growing on the homestead.

Update for July 23

Yesterday went just as planned. The leftovers were all finished and the grocery run was made, complete with the tater tots that formed dinner. I had to physically avoid looking in certain areas of the grocery store, only to find other candy displays set up in the line of sight I was averting my eyes too. I wonder just how deliberate that is on the part of the store?

It’s funny that this morning I’m feeling slightly lost as to what to eat today even after getting groceries. What do I want to eat today? I’m glad I am forcing myself to sit down and type this out now when I am not that hungry or tired, rather than waiting to face the question when I want food NOW. I know where that leads, and it’s not good.

Since I now have more tofu, and I already have the cashew cream that needs to be used, plus a bunch of green beans in the garden ready for harvest I WILL put forth the effort today to try another vegan Indian type curry. What I did before was so good. I think I’ll use less tofu this time though. I should be able to make the block supply two or three such dishs if I up the volume of fresh vegetables instead. Eating more fresh vegetables is what I want.

I am struggling right now to make firm decisions on what else I am going to eat today, knowing I might not have time/energy to do much with the studio work load planned. More fruit will certainly be eaten. I may still do the frozen vegetable thing, or do some air popped popcorn. I need to do better planning ahead, but that’s where I am for now.

Studio Snippet

This is the piece currently on my chasing stump getting slowly picked away at. I’m returning to a design style I’ve done in the past, but making the top sections of these “island” shapes more complex.

I’m also working on planishing a bunch of raised vessels out in the studio in preparation for finishing off a new batch of work. I don’t know if this chased piece will be ready for the final finish work in time to be a part of the new batch, probably not. It may wait for final finishing until the next group.

I’m happy to have a site where I can again allow comments. (I had to shut them off on my old website because the spam was simply uncontrollable!) So please I encourage you to share thoughts of your own. My general rule about comments though is just to play nice. Differing views are fine, but I’m not interested in engaging in or moderating verbal fights. If I feel things get out of hand, by whatever criteria I decide, I’ll just start blocking or deleting things.