I am a Food Addict

I cannot believe I am about to write this, but I have to.  I HAVE to.
I am 35 years old, I weigh 260 lbs and I am addicted to food.

I have spent my whole life locked in a battle with my addiction to food.  I have over the course of several very successful attempts, lost more than an entire persons worth of weight.  Every time I have felt incredible, been able to express myself throght awesome activities like surfing, scuba diving, sky diving, etc...  Every time something has happened in my life, sinking me into the depths of depression, compelling me to answer the siren's song of the sugar fairy.  Twice I have weighed over 300 lbs, culminating in a tear jerking 313 about  7 years ago.  The most humiliating, defeatest day of my life was the day that my dad asked me how much I weighed one morning while we were tying on the feed bag at the catering truck.  The worst part was that I was honest with him and admitted that I was a knee shattering 313 lbs.  I felt so horribly defeated.  I lost.  I lost the battle.  How the hell had I gotten to this point?  Was this really me?

No, absolutely, unequivocably, not, this was not the real me.  I vowed to lose it, and I did, I also gained most of it back too.  I am a perfect storm of obesity.  Both of my parents are and were obese.  My mom fought the same losing battle I do, up until the day she died.  My dad has been on the yo-yo program for years also.  Not only am I genetically predisposed to be overweight, but I also have a couple of other lovely traits, adhd, and depressive tendencies.  Thank you very much for that mr. creator, just because you know I can handle it doesn't mean that I would prefer to have this battle, couldn't  I just have wierd ears or something?

Many people have asked me how I was able to lose the 50 lbs I have lost since last August, easy answer: I cheated.  I went on a narcotic to help me manage my ADHD and one of the delightful side effects has been appetite suppression.  This is frickin awsome, except for the fact that the second that I am off my meds, I'm tackling a voracious, uncontrollable urge to start eating and never stop.  Yay me, knee problems and diabetes, or stay on meds indefinitely.

Why my mind is chemically addicted to food, I honestly don't know.  I am aware that the chemical cocktail that floods my brain  when I eat Ice Cream is regulated by that same malfunctioning organ in my brain that controls so many other things related to my ADHD,  the Hippocampus.  The narcotics that I take to wake up my lazy hipplocampus help suppress my appetite, thus hopefully helping to avert type 2 diabetes, knee problems, an embarrassingly limited  wardrobe, and the always pleasant, chronic lethargy.  Based on my expereinces with this in the past, I know that once I actually do get more healthy, I will no longer actually crave the poison.  But its the stomach shrinking, metabolism increasing, starvation pain enduring nightmare leading up to that point that makes me dread the process.

Why am I telling you all this?  Well, I am doing a weight loss challenge with my good friend sam and I have committed to lose 45 pounds in 90 days.  I will do it.  I lost 40 pounds in 2 months in order to go skydiving, I can do 45 pounds in 3 months, I really just don't want to.  I feel gyped.  I watch people eating all of the things that I want to eat and I feel like I've been locked out of the club.  I want my drug, after all,it's just food, right?  I mean we're supposed to eat....

Well, I am better than this.  I have been blessed with some of the most amazing gifts that a man could ever dream of.  I love Alex and Annika and Trinity.  Part of love is sacrificing what you want for the greater good.  I need to train myself, again, to remember that that Snickers Ice Cream bar costs so much more than money, than the momentary creamy, caramelly ecstasy.  It costs trust.  Trust from the people that love me and want me happy and healthy, trust from the people that want to share my life and the things I do with me.  I may never know why I have been blessed with such loving friends and family, but you aare all my salvation.

So, I have this favor to ask of anyone that reads this.  Please, if you see me starting to slide, look me in the eyes, feel my struggle, and have the stones to tell me that you love me and want to see me make the right decisions for my future.  Sometimes love means having the strength to say the difficult things.  So please, ask me to go for a walk, or a bike ride.  We can  do this together, it would mean a great deal to me and the kids.

I love you all, and I need your help. :-)

Namaste