Hello all, longtime lurker here, but have always found advice on this site really helpful so I figured I'd pose my question to you:
For the past few years I have been financially independent from my parents (since graduating college). I finally have a job now that pays a decent enough salary for me to even think about indulging on more expensive and healthy food items from the grocery store, ie fresh fruit and veggies, etc.
The problem is-- after years of living paycheck to paycheck and never having enough cash on hand at one time to do a REAL trip to the grocery store (you know, the kind where you actually buy enough food for a week or two), I have developed a strange new bad habit: I find myself succeeding in weight loss only when I have no food available to me. If I have a fridge full of options (even healthy options), I will binge as if I expect it to be taken away from me.
This may not sound like a big deal, but the issue here is that living this way has caused me to be a scavenger... I'll only eat when I'm REALLY starving, and then I'll eat whatever is available (ie if boyfriend or roommate is cooking I'll have some of that, or Medifast meals my mom doesn't want and gives to me, or whatever I can find at work, etc). As a result, I'm eating mostly processed, unhealthy snacks and stuff... it's few enough calories for me to lose weight, but still totally not a healthy and sustainable lifestyle.
But the thought of actually going grocery shopping and having food at my disposal totally overwhelms me!
Has anyone else fallen into a habit like this? And if you have, how did you break it?
I was like this when I lived in my first place alone after college. I would often take all of the food in my house and bag it up to bring it to my parents' house across town. While I only had healthy foods around, I would binge on vegetables, egg whites, and anything I had in the house. I once ate a sliced and baked onion in a binge. I also once ate an entire carton of eggs, disposing of the yolks as I cooked them.
I went to OA, and the program was okay for me at that time. Several years later went to therapy and nutritional therapy, and that coupled with being pregnant and becoming a mother helped me a lot.
If I could make a suggestion that helps me now and may or may not help you - cook an entire dish and freeze it in portions. This may help because it's already portioned, it's homemade/unprocessed, and it's not as easy to go back and binge on it.
Are you sure you're eating enough? Most of my binge episodes were because I wasn't eating enough during the day to fuel my body. If you sit down and make a meal plan for the day, you may find that it makes your life easier.
start out by just doing small shopping trips. like, just take a hand basket. fruits and veg don't have to be "expensive", buy in season! if the thought of a huge cart with a stockpile of food overwhelms you, just go to the store once or twice a week with a small handbasket.
to combat scavenging, and if you'd like to stop pilfering from everyone's food, just get into the mindset that what they have is "not yours"! so don't grab for it.
Last edited by valalltogether; 07-11-2012 at 11:35 AM.
I'll second valalltogether's advice to make smaller, more frequent shopping trips. I've been hitting the farmer's market and the store, probably making 2-3 quick trips a week, and it's kept me on point with food. I'm excited about the food I have, and it motivates me to eat fresh fruit and veggies before they go bad. And it doesn't give me weeks worth of food to go crazy with. It's kind of helping me "reset" how I think (and feel...) about food.
In many parts of the world, it is normal to stop at the market every day or so, and I'm finding a lot of wisdom in that.
I use to find 'real' grocery shopping very overwhelming. I couldn't stand the grocery bill that came with it (despite the fact that we could afford it) and I hated the responsibility of all that fresh veg, fruit and meat that I HAD to do something with in a reasonable time.
I'd advice you to gradually work yourself up to full grocery shopping. Decide on one or two dinners a week you want to make for sure, buy those ingredients and some extras for the rest of your food. Don't go all out and try and stock your fridge for EVERY meal right off, I never found I could manage that myself.
I finally managed to be comfortable with the whole process but it did take time and easing myself into it so I didn't get overwhelmed.
My advice would be to make a list BEFORE you go shopping, so you are not overwhelmed by so many choices. Think about what you'd like to buy before you go. You stick to your list, and the anxiety will hopefully! disappear somewhat.
I tend to be the same way. I'm alright with frozen foods like veggie burgers, morningstar corndogs, Amy's burritos...and I freeze my go-gurt. The stuff in the fridge is what I feel the need to consume all at once for some reason.
So I go to the store about every other day for fresh foods. Maybe I'll get some pre-made sushi while I'm there (under 300 calories? fresh fish and veggies? yummy? yes please) along with some strawberries and cherries. Grab stuff for salad, perhaps the fixings for guacamole if I'm feeling indulgent. That way, even if I do eat it all in the next day or two...its okay.
I find if I buy all my fresh foods for the week at once, inevitably it goes bad and I feel wasteful.
A strange new (bad) habit
