Food Addiction

I now understand the phrase mentally hungry.  When people would talk about it and food addiction I would kind of laugh and convince myself that I did not have that problem.  I was wrong.  My name is Tagyourit and I am a food addict. 

I don't know why but food means more to me than just nutrition.  It is memories, fun, sad, happy, life and that is what makes the addiction so much harder to recognize.  I noticed it a couple of years ago.  I would be full, almost to the point of sickness, but because I knew how wonderful something tasted I would keep eating.  This is not right!  If someone was spinning in a circle because it was fun they would stop if they got sick, or I would anyways, so why did I not stop eating.  I would even focus on the cake that was on the TV show and wish that I was part of the show so that I could eat the cake. I know crazy, right?  Like any good southern girl I believe that you cannot entertain without a huge amount of food and that is the mentality of all of my family too.  Anytime we get together there is food.  Yummy, wonderful, great food.  No one in our family is a bad cook we all take it very seriously and enjoy cooking and sharing our creations.  This doesn't help either.  I have noticed over the past couple of weeks that even when I am not really hungry I am still wanting to eat something.  To snack all night.  This has been one of the hard parts of the journey.  I am having to learn how to do things without food.  It reminds me of those quit smoking ads where they tell you that a smoker has to relearn how to do things without smoking.  Food is the same way for me. I have to relearn how to watch a movie, sit and talk with family, play a board game, go to activities and even how to eat. I never realized just how much food was a part of me and how much I depended on it.  Crap, I am most worried about learning how to be PMS without brownies!  My poor family is going to kick me out of the house when that comes around.  I am taking the steps to learn how to function without a feed bag attached to me for the rest of my life but I am not very happy doing it.  I miss food.  I miss the taste, texture and social aspect of it.  It doesn't help that I am also drinking most of my daily intake and so things are a bit exaggerated now but I know that if I am to lose weight it will have to be a forever thing.  Not just some crash fad diet and then gain it all back in a month.  So I will start at square one and say, I am addicted to food, and I will overcome it.