The Secrets and Lies of Obesity
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“I don’t have a problem, I can change whenever I want to!”
“Damn, I don’t have control. Why did I eat that? What is wrong with me?!”
No one knows the internal dialog better than I do. Years ago, my late-night stealth missions to the local convenience store under the cover of buying more cigarettes was really an excuse to get my fix, my distraction, my drug of choice in my obese life – – Two sugar infusing, comatose inducing king sized Butterfinger bars which I would inhale on my short drive back home. As I pulled into my driveway having taken all of 60 seconds to ingest the numbing drug, overwhelming feelings of shame and remorse would invade my brain and heart. My wife is inside, my kids are inside that house – how do I face them or pretend that nothing happened? And then self-contempt takes over, “Who am I? I am so weak and such a mess!” An all too familiar dialogue I’d have with myself many times a week. After every incident, every numbing mission, every sugar coma, I would tell myself tomorrow will be different.
I continued to lie to myself. We all lie. We lie to cover our shame, our guilt. We lie to protect our reputation, our ego, our false persona that we present to the world, but nothing is more destructive then when we lie to ourselves. Tomorrow will be different…..haha ya right! My sugar coma would gently put me to sleep, numb my feelings, my pain, my fear, my anger and I would wake up 6 hours later and go about my day as if nothing ever happened. A glorious ruse I played on myself for many, many years.
I felt trapped inside myself, wanting more but having zero control. I was miserable, diving into the deep end, deep despair day after day. And yet, I continued the path of self-contempt by getting my “usual” lunch – A foot long pastrami sandwich. I would order a 2nd one for my co-worker. I never, not once, gave that sandwich to a co-worker. More shame, more remorse. The hole I was digging was getting too deep to even see the any source of light, any source of hope for change.
Where do we draw the line? Where does our strength become enough to change?
It starts with you being truthful to yourself.
My biggest client success stories come from clients who admitted to me on our first call that they had a problem, that they felt out of control. TRUTH! “Perfect!” I always say. “Now we have something to work on!”
Nothing is more destructive than when we lie to ourselves. Admitting you have a problem, is giving yourself the permission to change it, to change you.
You’re not broken, you’re not lost, you’ve simply allowed some pretty nasty habits to creep in that are self-destructive, but the beauty is we can build some new habits over those old ones. It all starts with identifying what needs to change. Let’s have a conversation, and begin the dialogue of what is true for you.
About The Author
Jeremy Reid
Leave a Reply to Pamela
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sitting here tonight.. reading your post after stuffing my face with water sugar/chocolate/cookies I can find while no one is home.. sitting here wondering what the hell is wrong with me,, putting weight on feeling like crap once i know what i have done again.. bingeing when no one is looking.. but yet its calms me some how.. that sugar fills a hole of anxiousness and depression because i have this problem.. but yet the only medicine i seem to find when feeling like this is that food.. i feel like such a fake .. if people only knew.. if my husband only knew what i eat or stuff my face with when i am alone.. can’t wait to get off work and eat the junk in my car before i go home.. go to the drive-thru park on a big parking lot and eat 2 boston cream donuts before going home because they seem to fix or give me a high or some pleasure to keep going and finish the day when yet.. those donuts/sugar are my number 1 problem. And then i see your post.. seems maybe i was meant to read this tonight.
We behave this way because in the moment of eating, when we’re focusing on that food, consuming it, soaking it up, we are NOT stressing, we are NOT focused on the pains, hurts, anger, etc. that we’re going through. We distract ourselves with these things because it seems that’s the only time in our day or life when we are not feeling the pain. We need to work on the pain, you won’t need to distract yourself if the pain is gone. This seems like a behavioral thing but it isn’t, your problem is 100% mental. I can help you and would love to help you, sign up for my full service coaching and we’ll start to head down the path of success by getting to the root of the “pain”.