Sometimes I really feel like I am over my food addiction. I feel like if all foods made me feel the way protein and fat do (no hypos, no carb problems) that I could eat whatever I wanted without problem. Certainly I have no problem controlling myself around "mock foods" these days.

Other times I feel like it's all an illusion because I binge and totally feel out of control. Being in a binge space is the worst feeling in the world - by binge space I mean those moments before and after binging when you are no longer "dazed and confused" in the moment of the act, but when you are feeling the debilitating guilt and shame of what has transpired. It is like being lost in a cold forest or floating free in chaos. You feel such a profound disconnect between yourself and everything else.

I have decided the truth is somewhere in the middle. I have definitely made progress with food addiction, without a doubt. On the other hand, I am most definitely not over it, as I am prone to feeling like "JUST SHOVE IT ALL IN AS FAST AS YOU CAN WHILE YOU CAN" for those moments when I give myself "permission" to eat whatever I want. On yet a third hand I wonder if maybe this is not food addiction, but the natural repressed response to so strictly controlling my intake for a long period of time. It is expressed when I "drop my guard" of restriction, and would go away in time assuming I continued to control carbohydrate sensitivity and continue making an effort to really eat only when hungry. Like, at first I would binge every day and gain 30 pounds ... but eventually I would stop doing that and maintain weight. Know what I mean?

:therethere:

One glimmer of hope is perhaps the dim possibility that those periods when you were "not dieting", you were actually just a dieter NOT on a diet, NOT an intuitive eater... know what I mean?

For example when I give myself permission to enjoy holidays, I AM most definitely a dieter "not on a diet". As much as I tell myself to not be that way, I cannot help it, as dieting is a fundamental part of who I am. Quite simply, my body does NOT make me eat, I make IT eat 9 times out of 10.
By this I mean I am programmed to eat only "certain things". "Certain things" is a variable which is subject to manipulation by my mind and it's goals. Certain things might be, for example, just one slice of bread with half serving fat free cream cheese. Certain things might be 1200 calories. Certain things might be nothing substantial and then a normal dinner with post meal snacks. Whatever it is, "certain things" always has a definition. Always.

The bottom line is my eating is something I must define with my logical mind to give it any coherent rational structure. So when I define "certain things" as "everything with no hard rules" (this is to say, fail to define it), obviously I will proceed to do just that. I will eat and eat and eat and there will be nothing to stop me. I do not know to stop eating when my body says so, and I do not have a "program" to follow in my head, either, so basically I will just eat until I cannot physically fit in more food. I have done this virtually every time I have completely and totally given up all control of intake.

If I were not programmed (i.e. a dieter), then I would find it possible to eat normally because then I would be more accustomed to listening to my body to tell me when to or not to eat.

It's like if you have a a little toy car, if you take it off its track it will just keep driving into the wall aimlessly... put it back on its track and yes, it can move just like a real car - it looks like a real car, seems to have a destination like one too. We dieters also, at times, seem like normal eaters in that we are normal weight and eat relatively normal portions for that. However the difference between them and us is that we are following an artificial structure and this process is by no means the natural and logical one it is for a regular person. We are a little toy car on a pre-programmed track.
Take it off its track and it loses it's direction, and just keeps going and going and going. When we take away our diets, we too will just eat and eat and eat with no limit.

On the other hand, a person driving a REAL car will never do that because the driving is intelligent and purposeful, not artificial. Does this make sense? Being a dieter off a diet is like taking that "fake" toy car off its tracks. Yea you will eat ridiculously and never learn to eat right until you take the keys in your own hands and start driving with a real logic. By this, that means resigning total and complete control over to your body for food - which means eating as much as possible when your body says its hungry, and as little as possible for any other reason.

I think a major obstacle is people tend to confuse hunger pain with other pain (it is a bad feeling you want to go away) so they eat even when body doesn't need food. But I think, with time, one can learn to tell the difference if one is mindful to look for it.



I refuse to give up hope that it might be possible.

However, I have come to the conclusion that it will be like "recovering" from an addiction or disorder. This is implicit with making changes that have the net effect of profoundly changing who we are as people. For me, I know the following two road blocks are what is primarily preventing me from being an intuitive eater:

1) I know it is not possible to be an intuitive eater if you hold weight of high importance. Viewing the state/shape/size of your body as significant implies that it is something that says something about you as a person. This implies it is your fault, the result of something you can control, which would then further imply that it is something you can change. This is false, and it is at the root of us being non intuitive eaters. Trying to control/change our bodies is the same as refusing to validate them, and thus, eating non-intuitively.

2) I also know it is not possible to be an intuitive eater if I maintain the conviction that controlling my food intake (quantity) is something I can do without forcing my body into a state of non-expression in regards to regulating food intake. It's one of the few things in life that IS black and white. There is no "grey area". In other words, either I'M telling my body when it's going to eat, or it's telling ME. You can't just "some of the time" suppress/ignore your hunger signals, it doesn't work like that. Once you validate the notion that it is okay to not listen to your body for one purpose, you validate the notion that your body is not an ally (and an authority figure when it comes to food) at all. You have now reduced your body to this foreign, alien, impersonal state of being this inconvenience, this nuisance, this enemy that wishes to make you miserable and fat and unhappy and steal your dreams from you.
I must embrace it as a law of the universe that what my body says about food is always always always as valid and as worthy of being shown respect as the sincere wishes of my soul mate. I must either fully accept I cannot do anything about my hunger EXCEPT accept it, respect it, validate, and eat healthfully in response... or I will continue to be a non-intuitive eating dieter. Period.

So you see, at this point in my life I cannot be an intuitive eater. My identity is to profoundly wrapped up in those contradictory ideas (of dieting, "controlling" weight, "making myself" thin) and I cannot fathom not believing them. It would be like erasing a big part of my identity, a sort of suicide.

However I can consciously recognize WHY I cannot be an intuitive eater, and that is most definitely progress. With understanding comes hope. If one day I really do want to get along with my body more than I want to control it, I have the seeds of power in my head to facilitate this...