Food Addiction Intensified After Years of Meditation

[eTorro]

Hello everyone!

I'm still battling a daemon: my food addiction.

I'm not obese or overweight, but I love eating, and I know I'm eating more than I should.

If I try to stop it, it gets stronger; the craving becomes powerful, leaving me with the impression that I'm missing out if I don't eat.

Sometimes I have no need for food—but that doesn't last long.

Anyone battling this?

It's tough.

[Human Mint]

So, I need more context. Do you eat trash food or healthy foods? It may simply be that your body needs more calories.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

You are avoiding something internally - a feeling, sensation, memory? 

Or food noise?

Have you lost weight recently?

Need to rule out physiological vs psychological.

[Someone here]

@eTorro Is it physical or mental ?  Do you eat because you feel hungry or just to enjoy food ?

It could be either physical or mental as Natasha said .

If it’s physical..try to eat only when you’re truly hungry. Waiting until you feel really hungry can make food more satisfying and delicious which may help you feel full with smaller portions. also stop eating before finishing your entire plate. If you find yourself getting hungry too often eat more filling foods in your diet like  Complex carbohydrates like oats because this can help you stay full for longer periods of time.

If the habit is more mental or emotional then the approach is different but you need to clarify that first .

 

[Joseph Maynor]

How about spirituality addiction?  If we want to broach the issue of addiction, let's get real and do it all the way.

Edited 17 hours ago by Joseph Maynor

[Rishabh R]

@eTorro I am battling junk food addiction. Sometimes I have broken the addiction but relapsed into my habit of consuming it.

[TimStr]

As othet people here said, be sure to rule out the physiological stuff, first. You could have a nutrient deficiency that provokes your body to crave food in order to get that nutrient. If you're not sure about that, do a test with your doctor.

Another reason might be the actual food that you eat. You might be on a diet, that just doesn't fill you up, e.g. if you have a lot of food that is very dense in calories. Just picture 1000 calories of butter vs. 1000 calories of brokkoli. You might very well be able to eat that ammount of butter and you won't even be filled, but there is no way to eat 1000 calories of brokkoli without your stomache exploding. So make sure to eat a diet rich in fibre and foods with low calorie density so that your stomache is full after eating and your body makes you feel sated.

Edit: I found a picture to illustrate this:

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That out of the way, face your addiction:

18 hours ago, eTorro said:

If I try to stop it, it gets stronger; the craving becomes powerful, leaving me with the impression that I'm missing out if I don't eat.

This is an important insight! Notice what is happening here! You are seperating the action (eating) from the motivation (wanting to eat). As you stop the action, the motivation becomes stronger, as you don't cater to it. But they are still two different things, that need to be tackled seperately. 

You can stop eating / overeating right away! But you might still be left with suffering the motivation!

What is there, that you don't wanna miss out on? Why is it a big deal for you to miss out on it? What if you stop thinking that you will miss out on it? Why do you make yourself suffer with that thought?

Confront that! It might not be easy, but you need to see that it's not the actual action of eating that is causing you to suffer but that internal activity that you do to manage how you feel about the action / not doing the action. Get that they are seperate. That's the key to what locks you in your addition!

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Meditation in and of itself might not be useful here, as it does not nessecairly produce that insight.

For me the most important change to get a hold of this was this:

I stopped doing other things while eating. No watching TV/Youtube. I switched to reading books initially and eventually, I started to have my meals quietly by myself with no other activity, helping me to observe my mind more clearly. With that it was way more easy to actually focus on the food, eat more slowly and take time to enjoy it.

And I noticed, as I did that, there is a very distinct point where my body tells me, it's had enough food. So I started to make the rule for myself to take that seriously and never eat any more food after past that point of satiety, even if there was food still left. 

Edited 6 hours ago by TimStr

[Michal__]

Start weightlifting, that way your love for food Is a good thing, not bad.