Totally agree with this. The addiction model (or framework) is just a model. If it helps, great. For my part, I prefer to believe that I can do things I once considered impossible, like keeping Nutella in the house and eating only a spoonful or two every couple of weeks, leaving a portion of a delicious entree on my plate, etc.

I find moderation more freeing than abstinence, so I'm inclined toward models that support moderation. But that's just me.

F.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I haven't solved my issue but recognizing it as an addiction has helped me a lot. FWIW, here is what I am finding helpful lately:
1) restricting sugar/refined carbs to social occasions, ie weddings, graduations, parties, get-togethers. My social life makes these no more than once/week usually. It might not work if you have more frequent events
This keeps me from feeling deprived and also takes away the stress of white-knuckling while others around me indulge. The rest of the time I avoid those things. Sometimes I slip, but generally not.

2) Three books have been especially helpful The End of Overeating by David Kessler; Addiction & Grace by Gerald May (there are references to religion in this one that don't fit me at all but I find the book overall very helpful). Brain over Binge by Kathryn Hansen.

3) acceptance that I will have to work at it every day--it's hard work. I still relapse into thinking I deserve or can get away with or "need" my fix. That's hard-wired into my brain. I'm working on strngthening the other part of brain that goes for delayed gratification.

Btw, many alcohol rehab professionals view alcohol addiction as fundamentally an addiction to sugar.

I didn't read you as saying that, quite the opposite FWIW!

Moderation is not seen as a tool, but it's a powerful one.

Exactly! And by denying that food addiction exists (which is exactly what YOU said), you not only diminish those who've experience it, you deny their very experience.

If you found the right method by denying YOUR addiction, then you were never an addict.


I also did not say that you did not face your own struggles, just that you cannot fully understand mine, nor can I fully understand yours. That's not diminishing either.

If you've never eaten food from the trash or gotten into a car accident because you were more interested in the donuts on your passenger seat than the road ahead, you cannot possibly understand the extreme power food can have over a person's life.

It's one thing to say "I am not a food addict, just because some people thought I was," and an entirely different (and deeply disrespectful and offensive) thing to say food addiction does not exist, especially directly to the people experiencing it.

And moderation as a tool doesn't deny or diminish the addiction model. Many addicts are able to use moderation, especially for the soft addictions without strong physiological dependence.

Shopping addicts HAVE to use moderation, unless they are able to turn all their finances over to someone else. Sex addicts generally do not abstain from all sex their entire lives, they have to either redefine abstinence or learn some form of moderation.

Clinically there's a distinction between eating disorders, substance abuse, ocd, and impulse control issues, but there are more similarities than differences, making the addiction model useful in treating these disorders. So useful, that "addiction" has become the term many people with these issues self-identify as addicts. And the usefulness and use of the term, make it real.

That doesn't make all addictions equal. There are few situations in which a food addict will face severe legal consequences for their food abuse (not that it couldn't happen).

Clinical addiction isn't identical to the colloquial use of the word addiction, but that doesn't make the layman's definition nonexistent, especially just because you haven't experienced it.

Neither does the ability to use moderation (with lots of hard work, and perhaps not possible for everyone) negate the possibility of addiction (or something so much like addiction that the difference is inconsequential).

I've stayed out of this (i think, LOL) but i agree. I believe that i am a food addict and HAVE to take measures in my life to manage it which is how i lost 100 lbs, facing that fact and realizing i have to put restrictions in place, much like how i had to quit smoking because at age 19, i was headed toward 3 packs a day addiction but with food obviously there cannot be abstinence. I don't think calling food an addiction takes away from the struggles others have with substance or alcohol or tobacco abuse or whatever else, how could it? Its MY personal experience, having an addictive personality. And I KNOW... food is an addiction of mine.
FWIW.

Actually, there is compelling evidence on both sides of this debate, and I'm quite familiar with it.

I think if someone experiences their own battle with food as an addiction that is perfectly valid from a psychological viewpoint and may turn out to be true from a physiological viewpoint-- but the jury is still out.

You should feel free to speak to your own addiction if you feel that you have one. I made it quite clear at the top of the post that I'm speaking for myself and I would not characterize my relationship with food as an addiction.

But there actually can be abstinence, because not all food is addictive. You can completely avoid all the foods that trigger the physiological response. Whether you want to, need to, or choose to is a different matter.

The 12 step abstinence program developed by Alcoholics Anonymous is often used in eating disorder treatment, but it's not the only model. It's just one of the more common.


There are "moderation" programs even for illegal drug abuse (some view AA and other 12 step programs as a "dangerous cult").


There's more commonalities than differences between substance abuse and addiction; eating disorders; and other impulse control issues like sex addiction, compulsive gambling, hoarding, animal hoarding, compulsive spending, or other compulsive thrill seeking.

There are many models for treatment besides abstinence, though absinence is possible for all of them. It's just a matter of defining abstinence and the behaviors which are to be abstained from.

Virtually all food addiction is an addiction to either non-fiber carbohydrates or the combination of carbs, salt, and fat. Insulin resistance appears to also create the strongest physiological component, so in some cases abstinence can completely break the addiction cycle. Control blood sugar and insulin and you control the pathological hunger.

Insulin and blood sugar may even be the critical component on most food abuse/addiction situations.

Complete, permanent abstinence may or may not be necessary, but abstinence may be easier for many than trying to surf the blood sugar waves trying to get to moderation.

Some alcoholics can hang out at bars and have booze in the hous. Some can even drink socially (use moderation). Some can't. Food addiction is no different.

Choosing abstinence (for today) t doesn't have to be about food hate or paranoia. It can just be about making the path easier. I find that some of my trigger foods I can keep in the house, but it's not worth it to me to do so. For example, for some reason I can have Hershey's chocolate almond spread in the house, and use it in moderation, but not Nutella, even though they're very similar. Why? I have no idea. Possibly because the Hershey spread is not as salty. I might even be able to learn moderation if I needed to.

But even though I can, or could doesn't mean I should have to. They're both unnecessary temptations. It's easier and less stressful for me to abstain completely from the salt/sugar/fat trifecta that is my addiction.

I know I would have even more success if I just committed to abstinence completely and didn't keep trying to "learn moderation."

Food-related abstinence is difficult to accept and embrace, especially with the mainstream view that it isn't even possible (or isn't physiologically or mentally healthy).

I get that you don't like the term addict applied to yourself & I certainly honor that. When you draw the disctinction between addiction and bad habits I'm confused since this view of addiction does not contradict the models to which i referred. When you added the further distinction that you would not hold up a convenience store as if that is why you don't consider yourself addicted, that's perfectly fine but does not reflect an understanding of addiction by any definition ~ perhaps a distancing from the stigma associated with a stereotype.

That's how I interpreted your remarks and did not mean to offend in any way, just carry on a lively discussion about something that interests me, and apparently a lot of others. Over and out.

If I seemed to indicate that I believe that you can't be an addict unless you hold up a convenience store, then my bad.

But obviously there is a great deal of debate about the meaning of the word addiction when it is applied to drugs and alcohol. The water is even murkier pertaining to food.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...t-is-addiction

I don't use the addict label for myself because it is not a useful construct for me. I used to think that I simply couldn't control myself around food. At that time, I weighed over 300lbs and thought that there was nothing I could do about it. Since 2009, I've managed to hold onto at least a 10% loss of my initial loss, but I've had my ups and downs... obviously. I do not have it all figured out, but I do have it figured out that approaching it as a bad habit helps me more than thinking of it as an addiction.

Maybe someone else would find it helpful to consider their own struggles with food as an addiction, and maybe their own struggles with food are an addiction. In any case, it's an interesting subject.

Boy am i finding this out, not really on this forum but another forum with an emphasis more on fitness and exercise.

A lot of them will rail against people posting on abstaining or moderating certain foods saying that that mindset pretty much equals an eating disorder. I stay out of those discussions. If i choose to eat very healthy, very portion controlled meals 6 days a week and go "whole hog" so to speak on the 7th and it works for me and they feel that equals an eating disorder, so be it then. I suppose i can sit down and REALLY make it into a disorder if i ponder it into oblivion enough whether what i'm doing is mentally and emotionally healthy but i choose not to saddle myself with that guilt, ironically enough...

I would say that twenty years ago the jury was out on food and behavior addictions, but I would argue that the jury really is starting to come in, especially with the brain scan data that finds the same area of the brain being involved with eating disorders, substance and behavioral impusle control issues.

I don't think the day is too far off that eating disorders will be at least partially diagnosed by brain scan.

If we could change the focus from disease/disorder treatment to prevention, I suspect that abstinence might never be an issue because we would stop the snowballing addiction cycle in earlier and earlier stages. I strongly believe that the earlier the intervention, the more likely that moderation is feasible.

That's just a guess, not even a scientific hypothesis, reallt. Though there's certainly evidence that earlier intervention does tend to be more successful.

A strong support system is also a huge component. And that's were overeating disorders fall flat. There are a lot of mixed messages with food. Food pushing is everywhere, along with pressure to be thin. Somehow you're supposed to eat a lot of crap and somehow magically be thin.

This isn't always true, but it does happen a lot. Try to eat healthy, even at 300 lbs, and you're often encouraged to "splurge a little" or even straight-up ridiculed for it.

Food can be poison. Should I take poison in moderation? Maybe not for everyone but carbs are poison to me. They killed my grandmother who had an awful last few years with legs amputated.

My uncle got diabetes and dementia. I was 340 lbs in my 20s and barely able to walk. Close to 300 most of my 30s and 40s.

Whether or not they are 'addictive' or not, for me not as important as the physical to me. One, for my body, poison. Two, for my body, kept me always hungry. Three, for my body, produced* large amounts of insulin leading to fat storage, inflammation, and many diseases. Fourth made weight loss virtually impossible because for many if you eat carbs your body uses carbs and will never use its stored fat.

Best analogy. Carbs are like little pieces of paper and twigs on a fire. Fat is a big log which can also be burned. But it never will as long as the paper or twigs are there.

So whatever I think of food or not, whatever mental approach or not, carbs kept me physically always hungry and physically always storing fat and never burning it.

They were the perfect 'poison' for keeping obese and unhealthy for the rest of my life.

The irony now is my mind followed my physical. I can just eat one potato chip now. Because I fundamentally changed my biochemistry and I am a fat burner now. But trying that first? Just trying moderation while my insulin and metabolism were out of whack? I would have and did fail many times. And I probably would have become full diabetic in a few years.

Instead in the best shape of my life, better than 19, and turning 49 this month.

No, I did not deny that addiction exists, please don't put words in my mouth. In fact I said "Bottom line is that if thinking of food as an addiction helps frame your solution then who's to argue the efficacy of that?" I never claimed to be addictive to food, that is quite obvious to me now. But there are alot of people just like me who search out the right solution and we stumble upon this theory of addiction. If you're on a weightloss forum long enough you'll hear it on a daily basis, and I thought it was applicable to me. I tried to fit that round peg into the square hole for many years, probably as long as I've been on 3FC, it's a very common current here. If addiction was my problem then the solution would have worked, it wouldn't have backfired. But if you know your underlying issues and you have found the solution then go for it, nobody will try to dissuade you or argue about what works for you.

Science does not have a solution, not an adequate one and certainly not a universal one. When I follow a weight loss program that leads to weight gain I can't follow that program anymore, that's as simple as it gets for me, it doesn't matter whether there are scientific studies to prove that it's "the right way," if it causes me to gain weight it's obviously not the right course of action. Drastic change needed to happen and I'm finally under 200lbs for the first time in 3yrs. I hope that you find the solution that works for you too.