WARNING: FEMALE BODY FUNCTIONS ARE MENTIONED.
I don’t go into a great amount of detail but it is mentioned. Use your own judgement- Thank you.
This is a section of a paper I wrote for a class at school about my addiction to food.
The development of an addiction starts rather slowly. One allows themselves to indulge just a little bit until they allow no restraints on whatever they have choose to satisfy their ‘need’. Mine was food. You need food to live so I didn’t really have a nonuse period. It turned from a liking to a negative mindset. I have always loved food. I remember once hiding a few chocolate in my dresser drawer when I was still in elementary school and I remember eating them one right after the other.
When we would go out to eat I would always want more desert and would eat my meal quicker so I could have some. Then as soon as I got what I wanted I would quickly eat it up without a second thought. As I got older our family would go out to eat at the Chinese buffet quite frequently. At thirteen years old I would begin my ‘eating to excess’. I would have three plates of food and try to fit in desert.
I would get disappointed when I could feel my stomach stretching and hurting from all of the food I was cramming into my body. I knew it meant that I couldn’t hold much more. But it felt so good to eat and so good to taste everything. It was like a drug. Almost worse then a drug because one needs food to live.
When I got into my sophomore year of high school I remember being excited to eat. My parents weren’t around so they could not try to make me feel guilty by eating a lot. The school lunches didn’t help either. Even though they say it was balanced we did have a choice to not eat the food that was good for us. Plus I had access to candy machines.
I was excited for my new found freedom, until my clothes began to fit tighter. I assured myself that it was normal and that I would take care of the few extra pounds later.
HERE IS THE PART I WAS WARNING YOU ABOUT
I found out that taking that mindset is just as bad as being in denial. My monthly menstrual period began to skip to happening every other month. My mom told me that it was normal and that I should worry about it. When I found out that irregular periods were normal I continued to over eat.
Then for parts of my junior year to senior year I went ten months without having a menstrual cycle. At first I thought that my body was just being the imperfect body that I have. But about half way through I told my mom, who then again reassured me it was normal, every month after that I told her. At about the ten month part. She decided to call my doctor.
Throughout this ten month stretch I also had bad cramping in my legs at night. I recall waking up out of a dead sleep not knowing why my legs hurt so bad. So I just took pain killers to try to reduce everything. But they still persisted.
After my mom talked to my doctor she told me that I would have to go to the OB-GYN. She told me what tests they might have to do, I was extremely scared. I didn’t really link my woman problem to my extra bulk, so I could place my finger on the cause of it. This made me very worried. I began jumping to conclusions thinking that I would become barren and not conceive children. One of my life goals is to have a family so this was very heart-breaking for me. It had gotten so bad one time I remember seeing a baby and I would want to cry.
Eventually I made it to the OB-GYN. They had me answer a standard question are. “Are you sexually active?” “Do you smoke?” and so on. Then came the physical tests.
Without going into too much detail, I saw the equipment that they were going to use and began to shake and cry. My doctor understood completely and didn’t go through with it. Later on in the appointment she told me that my irregularity was due to my rapid weight gain.
For the next few years I would struggle to find my perfect weight. At my heaviest I was about 195 pounds. I dropped down to 180 and stayed there for a few months. Still unhappy with my body image. Still jiggling when I walk. My periods started to appear again but with more pain than I have ever experienced.
In August of 2008, I woke up feeling the queasy stomach ache I usually had. I proceeded to take a shower, because I heard that hot showers were good for those type of cramps. I looked at my face in the mirror and began to feel light headed. I got dressed as best I could, quickly told my mom I felt I was going to faint. She rushed me over to Covenant Express. I was in so much pain they had to give me a shot to make me calm down. My body was having trouble adjusting to the positive changes I was making with my eating habits.
At the beginning of college I was about 175. I continued to remain at that weight, still unhappy about the way I looked and felt. And ashamedly I’ll admit I was still struggling with over eating. By the end of my first year of college I was ready for a change. I took a walking class with a friend of mine who was ready for change in her life too. We became accountability partners and by September 2009 I was near 165.
Today I am an extremely smaller 150 pounds. How did I shed the extra pounds so fast? I finally realized what was holding my mind captive for so many years. Food. That was it. I had an addiction and didn’t even know it. I didn’t realize how much I thought about it on a regular basis. How much I could eat, when I could eat, and what I could consume. It was only about a month ago I had been released from this negative mindset.
Now I feel like I am not bound by food anymore. I don’t have trouble resisting temptation. I eat smaller portions, a variety of healthy food, and I am exercising with more vigor. Another way I could have avoided this addiction is by just listening to my body telling me that I am full. Since it does take our stomach about 20-30 minutes to tell our brain it is full, when I began to feel full was actually a sign that I had went over my limit.
I could have avoided years of health problems and emotional turmoil if I wouldhave come to grips with my addiction. Finding out sooner would have saved me the stress I felt when I was beating myself up over ruining my body.
I also give credit to God. He made me. He knows what my perfect weight is. He also knew I was struggling with making food an idol. I really had no idea how bad it was until one day I realized that I thought about food quite a bit more then I should have. I also ate way more then what I needed to survive.
God has been showing me that I do to constantly be full to be happy, and that I do not need to eat in access because He will provide enough food for me to eat the next time I need it.
Anything can become an addiction. Our job is to recognize that even though it may be pleasurable, like eating five different deserts in one sitting, it isn’t always the best for us.
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