Reply #47: I've known someone with a food addiction [View All]

[dalaigh lllama]

And they described it to me just as you have. This lovely person became overweight in high school, then lost the weight via a vigorous diet and exercise program in college. She then spent another year continuing to obsess about controlling her weight with a rigid adherence to a strict diet and hours of exercise, becoming very depressed in the meantime. At a particularly low point one evening, as she thought about how tired she was of obsessing about not eating all the time, she tripped across an author on the internet that she says saved her sanity. Have you ever heard of Geneen Roth? This person bought all her books, stopped the rigid diet and exercise regimen (although she continues to eat sensibly now and does still walk quite a bit), and has maintained a healthy weight now for five years. Even so, to this day she is a self described food addict. She could probably make a living doing before-and-after ads for the myriad weight loss programs, but because of Geneen Roth's books, she is opposed to "diets" of any type.

I've known lots of folks with various types of addictions, but it seems to me this would be one of the toughest to deal with.