The Frazzled Scribe

Ever wondered if you are a “food addict”? Here’s a glimpse inside my head. I am a food addict. Are you?

In general I don’t use alarm clocks. For some reason if I want to wake up at a specific time, all I have to do is look at a clock before I fall asleep and my eyes pop open at the time I want them to.

My mother, before she died, theorized that my brain actually counted down the seconds, minutes and hours.

This could be true. Addicts focus on things like that. And I know when I am awake I literally count the seconds, minutes and hours. Until I can drink after I eat. Until I can get in another meal. Until I’ll be hungry enough to eat. Unfortunately in that order.

But when my internal alarm awakens me at 6:15 a.m. I’m not hungry. At least not physically hungry. And on good days that means I wake up, go to my dresser, where I always stash a bottle of water mixed with a drink stick (so as not to have to go to the kitchen) and have a long swig to wash that “just woke up” feeling from my mouth.

On good days, I’d then proceed to awaken the children (who have the responsibility of feeding the dog in the morning, again, so I don’t have to go into the kitchen) and then go and take my shower.

And on a good day, I’ll have finished that bottle of water and will be ready for my protein shake when I arrive at work, then physically hungry, an hour later.

But then there are the not-so-good days.

On those days I awaken and if it’s been a bad week then I never mixed the bottle of water and put it on my dresser. So now I have to go to the kitchen, you see? And I do so with resignation. Resignation that not only will I leave the kitchen with a bottle of water, flavored with a drink stick, but also having consumed between 3-400 calories while in the kitchen. But it’s not my fault. It’s the kitchen’s fault. You see, kitchens do that to me.

At this point I usually have a bit of a stomach ache. I have a pouch just like any other person who has undergone Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery. And just like most of us RNYers my pouch doesn’t particularly like food in the morning. But my brain does. And my brain says it’s been 10 whole hours since we last encountered food. That’s FAR too long. What about our metabolism? Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And studies show that when you eat close to waking you see a bump in your overall metabolism.

This justification would be convincing if I weren’t scarfing handfuls of Honey Bunches of Oats.

Eventually, after fighting traffic and dropping off my two children (who are perfectly content with a granola bar for breakfast), eventually I land at work.

Here’s where things get interesting.

I had a “meal” when I awakened but it was mainly simple carbs. Now I’m kinda hungry again. So I could have my protein shake (which would probably offset the impending blood sugar drop). But I want a nice cup of coffee. I don’t like protein coffee. It’s what I call an “un-meal.” It fills me up without my brain feeling like it ate something. And that drives me just a little bit nuts. I avoid un-meals at all costs.

Now one of the weird things about me is that I cannot do successive meals of similar tastes. That is to say that if I have the coffee (which is sweet) then I won’t want the shake (which is also sweet). I think about this a moment and decide that since the coffee is lower calorie, I should go with the coffee and ditch the shake.

And this justification might work if I didn’t already know what would happen come lunch time.

Come lunch time, on a bad day, I’ve not packed ahead. I probably had everything I needed at home to pack something nutritious BUT since I went off the rails with cereal I avoided the kitchen at all costs. Kitchens are dangerous. The make me do things I don’t want to do.

So now I’m left to order something. A co-worker asks if I want to go to sushi. Sure! I love sushi. Yes, it has even more carbs but it’s not that unhealthy and besides I have an exercise class this evening and I can work the excess calories off. So off we go to sushi. Where, on a bad day, I can fit an entire sushi roll (sometimes two) into a pouch designed to only hold about a cup of food at five years post-op.

After this I feel full. So full I feel uncomfortable sitting upright. It feels like something might bust open. It feels like maybe I might throw up. And although this is not a good feeling it’s actually a relief. Because it’s not hunger. When I am this full of food, even my brain gives up the ghost. All day long its mantra, running through my head, behind every conversation and thought has been, “foodfood foodfood foodfood foodfood foodfood foodfood foodfood foodfood foodfood foodfood.” It only stops when I am chewing. Then briefly after I eat. Then about an hour later it resumes. But not when I’m full like this.

Getting full like this buys me an extra hour or two.

And getting full like this enables me to do what I probably needed to do all along — become engrossed in something else! And I do. And the rest of the day passes with nary a thought of food. And so does the ride home.

Once I am home, things get interesting again because I’ve always been averse to dinner (as a post-op, that is). It seems so…final. You mean, I can’t eat anything else for the rest of the night? Or just a measly little snack? How the hell is THAT gonna shut up the mantra in my head.

Instead I tend to do the “bits and bites” which I justify by calling them mini-meals. In between those mini-meals I go to work out. And I come back. And eventually my pouch sends some signal to my brain that it’s done for the day and honestly I am relieved. Because between you and I, I’d give my right arm for a few solid hours where some part of my brain was not focused on food.

Interestingly enough, running my food blog helps. Thinking through recipes is more of a problem solving exercise than a food exercise. Food is more scientific than people know. Certain things work together, certain things do not. There is a thrill in finding a combination of things that will work together that create something that is healthy instead of unhealthy. As such, when I plan my food, when I blog my food, when I photograph and write about my food, ironically enough, I eat quite normally.

But on a bad day, this is how it is. That unrelenting mantra in your head. The inability to throw away that last two bites. That inability to go into the kitchen in the morning or late at night. The fact that you had to stop bringing peanut butter into the house because you’d eat yourself sick.

These are all reasons why the cavalier use of the term food addict kinda bug me. But I don’t say so most of the time. I wonder, when people say they are addicted to Cheetos, if they literally go through anything near what I live with each day. But I try not to judge. Because on the outside looking in, I don’t want people judging me.

And in my head I can’t decide which days are harder on my psyche — the bad or the good. On bad days, at the end I feel regretful and sick. Tired and frustrated with myself. On the good days I feel exhausted, because on those days I listened to that damn mantra all day and fought it. I took the paths that avoided temptation but always find they are the “long way around.” I did what I was supposed to do even though I didn’t want to.

While I can’t speak for the mind of every food addict that ever existed, this is the daily reality for me.