[KQiao]

I am trying to develop a healthier relationship with food than what I have... but with limited results so far.

I do have a very unhealthy history with food, and I am fully aware of what my particular triggers allergies are in regards to food. The problem is in trying to get around myself as I sort this out.

Some of my problems include:
I am somehow both picky and completely indiscriminate about my food.
For instance, I like the taste of pickles but I hate the texture. I'm only allergic to jalapenos, but avoid all Mexican food because just the scent now turns my stomach. I suspect I may also suffer from a slight iodine deficiency as I have maybe five foods I am willing to eat salt with, but I refuse to anything else I can actually taste salty flavoring in. The why is kind of gross and triggering so I wouldn't recommend reading it if you've ever had food used as a punishment growing up.

Possible trigger:

When I was younger we were always really poor and didn't have a lot of food. Mom was always trying to support us so she wasn't home very much. Our father was an alcoholic who would "punish us" by making sure whatever lesson he was trying to teach us associative with whatever crime we had committed. In this particular case, our crime was being hungry and trying to help ourselves to canned food from the cabinet since there was no adult in the area who wasn't in a drunken stupor. Since he caught us trying to feed ourselves without permission, he forced my brothers to eat a bowl of pumpkin, and me to eat baked beans. Since my brothers actually like pumpkin and I liked baked beans, he poured insane amounts of salt all over the bowls and forced us to eat. I tried to eat but only got about halfway through before I threw it back up. He forced me to eat everything in the bowl anyway, which of course, I did because the alternative was getting the cattle prod used on me.

I use food as a buffer so that I don't say unfortunate things to people.

Possible trigger:

When I was younger, my family would talk about how fat I was getting (I weight less than half what I do now and was within a healthy weight range even by doctor scales) and everything that they felt was wrong about me over meals. If I argued or tried to defend myself they would just point to that as further evidence that something was wrong with me and that I was being disrespectful. I learned at a very quickly that it was better to keep my mouth otherwise occupied so I didn't accidentally draw any extra attention.

Food is my safety measurement for how bad my life is. On the whole, I really only seem to have two primary gears-- ambivalent or obsessive. If I have a roof over my head and food in my fridge then I don't care how much medical bills or debt I have wracked up, life can't possibly be so bad. The minute food starts getting scarce I go full out Scarlett O'Hara:
"As God is my witness, I will NEVER go hungry again!"

None of this creates an especially healthy dynamic with food. Which is unfortunate because I have a desk job that doesn't pay very much, so I frequently fluctuate between feeling both fat and starving. This last check I tried to buy some healthier foods, but as it turns out meat and veggies just don't stretch nearly as far as boxed starches. I'm starting to run out of food faster than I expected, which serves the unfortunate function of making me want to eat more to assure myself that everything is actually okay.

The obvious solution is to work extra hours at work. The downside to this is a hate my job. Which is weird because when I talk about it, I can almost convince myself that it's a good place to work and that I like it, except I obviously don't because if I did then I wouldn't have to take medication that I have never needed at any of my other jobs in order to just function, and I wouldn't want to cry every day that I wake up and realize I have to get up and go to work.

Unfortunately, I work as a phone operator for the hearing impaired which means that I spend a lot of my time getting yelled at. Which in their defense, most people are doing because they're deaf, but...

Possible trigger:

my brain can't always distinguish or believe that and I react like I am about to be physically beaten even though I know logically that no one is going to hurt me and it isn't even aimed at me in many of those cases. We also deal with perverts and jail callers who sexually harass us. We deal with regular customers and people who don't understand what our service is who verbally abuse us, or who do understand but also know that we aren't allowed to defend ourselves.

There's also a bunch of other little office politics nonsense that makes this job very difficult to deal with, but the main point is, I'm miserable when I have to take calls, which is exactly what this job is. This is also the job that I have held the longest in my life because I found it through a disability rehabilitation program. For a long time, I've been clinging to this job because I don't know if I'm capable of other work at this point. I'm in school again because I want out, but I don't have any other experience that I can apply to other jobs in the now. Frankly I am so out of shape that I'm afraid if I quit my job to get another job that required me to be on my feet or have to deal even more directly with people that I would end up without a job at all. Which leads me back into the problem that by keeping this job, I end up constantly triggering my food/self-reassurance mode.

Does anyone else have a similar food experience? And if so, how do you deal?

[Angelique67]

I don't have any experiences that line up with yours, but I wanted to reply out of caring to say I hope you'll be able to find a job that isn't so stressful. I think the job is really making the eating issues a major problem that otherwise they might not be. I'm so sorry you're having such a rough time. I wish you the best of luck.

ETA: I do have issues of my own with overeating and eating junk food for the comfort factor, and problems with my weight.

[healingme4me]

My best friend would stretch her budget when her and her fiance were living in Boston, by utilizing the farmers market and using rice and pastas to mix the veggies in. She did lose weight that way. They went rather meatless. Pasta veggie dishes can be eaten cold. I mention this because of mentioning trying to eat healthier on a budget. I'd cut out any soda type drinks, diet included since the diet soda has extra sodium.

Sorry your father did that to you. Can you do stretching exercises at your desk or walk on breaks? Grab a coworker types of walking?

Have you had counseling, yet? Childhood wounds, last the longest and are most damaging. To take the focus from food, have you reached out to the survivors of abuse forum? Or the Adult Children of Alcoholics?

[mmherranz]

Eating well is truly important for you to feel good. There are many tips. But basically I'd say to combine properly the right amount of proteins and hydrates is key. Proteins are meat, fish, beans,... and hydrates such as fruits, vegetables, lettuce... this is a very simple thing to do and it will allow you to give your body what it needs and you to feel better, and be on shape. Happy to find out more about this if helpful.

[KQiao]

Thank you. Those are all good ideas. Definitely, I should probably try to have swing by both of those alternate forums as well. Perhaps a combination of surrounding myself with better food and a deeper understanding of alternate issues that are feeding into my eating habits. No pun intended.

good luck!

im deffenetly not a healthy eater at all (and extremely picky!)

in fact i'm starting to think that my body is rejecting healthy foods because of this unhealthy overeating i've been doing

seriously.. if i try to eat a carot, or any type of veg i just gag and that's the end of that.. i can't stomach it

same for popcorn, which is weird because it's unhealthy

[KQiao]

Originally Posted by shattered sanity

good luck!

im deffenetly not a healthy eater at all (and extremely picky!)

in fact i'm starting to think that my body is rejecting healthy foods because of this unhealthy overeating i've been doing

seriously.. if i try to eat a carot, or any type of veg i just gag and that's the end of that.. i can't stomach it

same for popcorn, which is weird because it's unhealthy

Thanks. Maybe it's like a being on any substance for too long. If you pump your body full of medicine, or any chemical really, and then try a sudden detox? There is a withdrawal period as your body both rejects and craves the unnatural substance, but you've been on the sugars and unnatural preservatives that have been pumped into junk food for so long that your body doesn't know how to function without it. I found this link about detoxification that seems to suggest that this may be what's happening to you. It suggests that when changing your diet you need to go through 3 stages: a detox stage where your body purges unhealthy toxins. A second stage where your body stabilizes after the unhealthy substances are finally gone, and then building up to a healthy eating style.

I don't know if it would be better to go cold turkey, as it were, and just force yourself past the detox stage until you purge all the toxins of unhealthy foods, or if it might be kinder to yourself to try to blend healthy with your unhealthy patterns until your body can handle more consistently healthy choices. This one may actually require a health advisors to oversee the process if you are able. If not, you might try to select healthy foods but eat them in unhealthy ways. Start eating carrots with lots of Ranch dressing, or whatever kind you like best, and then start to slowly reduce the amount involved. Try to eat an apple, but use a caramel dip or Nutella and then slowly limit the amount you allow yourself until your body can handle just plain apples. You might need some outside help until you stabilize.

Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by KQiao

Thanks. Maybe it's like a being on any substance for too long. If you pump your body full of medicine, or any chemical really, and then try a sudden detox? There is a withdrawal period as your body both rejects and craves the unnatural substance, but you've been on the sugars and unnatural preservatives that have been pumped into junk food for so long that your body doesn't know how to function without it. I found this link about detoxification that seems to suggest that this may be what's happening to you. It suggests that when changing your diet you need to go through 3 stages: a detox stage where your body purges unhealthy toxins. A second stage where your body stabilizes after the unhealthy substances are finally gone, and then building up to a healthy eating style.

I don't know if it would be better to go cold turkey, as it were, and just force yourself past the detox stage until you purge all the toxins of unhealthy foods, or if it might be kinder to yourself to try to blend healthy with your unhealthy patterns until your body can handle more consistently healthy choices. This one may actually require a health advisors to oversee the process if you are able. If not, you might try to select healthy foods but eat them in unhealthy ways. Start eating carrots with lots of Ranch dressing, or whatever kind you like best, and then start to slowly reduce the amount involved. Try to eat an apple, but use a caramel dip or Nutella and then slowly limit the amount you allow yourself until your body can handle just plain apples. You might need some outside help until you stabilize.

Hope this helps.

thankss for sharing

yes that's helpful

and actually contained stuff i didn't know about... so thanks again