Food Addiction and Me...

It's true that my Gastric Bypass surgery came about because of an initial injury to my knee over 2 years ago, but more importantly, I had the surgery because it was really needed to save me from what I was doing to myself. I was, and still am, a food addict. Like gambling earlier in my life, I could not control what I ate. A slice of pizza was never enough. One burger was never enough. It was always a large drink or french fries with the meal. And it was almost always from a drive thru. I never ate in moderation and I knew that if I continued on the path I was on, it eventually was going to kill me. There was no doubt in my mind anymore and I had to do something.

All my life I had been a big guy. Always the biggest one in my class. The biggest one at work. The biggest one on the train, bus or plane. The biggest everything. I did all the diets, worked at a fat camp as a counselor after my freshman year of college, even got a gym membership once and pumped the iron for a few months. I lost significant amounts of weight a few times in my life, and it felt great at the time. But, each time, within a year, I gained all the weight back and then some. It just didn't work for me. I was powerless most of the time, and just loved to eat. I just loved food more. Food was always more important to me than anything else. Somehow it always won. My eating could not be stopped.

Most of the time I ate for no reason other than boredom. And I didn't stop a lot of times until I got that, open the top button to your pants, kind of full. I disgusted myself on a daily basis, but after a while it just got to be the norm for me. Eating a whole pizza over the course of a night became habit. I lived alone, was out of work with an injury, and had no one there to judge me. Fuck it. If I couldn't feel bad for myself over a nice meatball pizza in my own living room, then where could I?

I'd imagine there are many reasons why I took to eating at such a young age. Moving 7 times before the 6th grade may be one. I spent Kindergarten and 1st grade in one school, 2nd through 4th grade in another school, 5th grade at another school, and 6th grade in two different schools. It was at my second 6th grade school that I got called a name pertaining to my weight for the first time. It was jelly belly, and I still remember the kids name that called me it. It is amazing what you can remember almost 30 years later. Ming boggling the things that stay with you in your head.

I moved around so much by the 6th grade, that the one thing(the only thing) that was always there, was food. It is so cliche to say, but it was true. Friends came and went, but inside the refrigerator were these things that made me happy. I feel silly writing that now, but that is how it was for me. I imagine that is how I handled all the moving and divorce and going from living with one parent to another. In the 80's there was no internet or email to keep in touch with friends you left behind either. Once you moved away, they were gone forever.

I think about how I handled stuff that bothered me growing up and wonder why I had that something inside me that led me to eat each time. I remember being told I had eaten enough once at Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunt and Uncle's house. It was embarrassing for that to happen in front of the whole family. I could not help but keep running it through my head why I had gotten called out in front of everyone like that just because I wanted some more to eat? Other people at the table had more to eat, so why couldn't I? Things like this just made me want to eat more, because damn it, I'll show you! When you're not looking, I'll eat whatever I want to, and what are you going to do about it then?

Now surely I did not have the best, nor anywhere near the worst story growing up. Somehow though, others with worse upbringings were growing up THIN! They didn't gravitate to food like I did and got through their shit without always eating. I wonder if my upbringing even had any kind of influence at all on how I ate? Was it all in my head? If I had grown up in a perfect situation, would I still have been overweight and eventually obese? I do not know. But I wonder about this.

I have heard that food is an addiction for some people, like drugs or alcohol, and until some time ago I didn't think this to be true. But living my life in recent years, I can tell you that it is. I have had very intense conversations with a very close friend of mine, who denies food addiction as a disease, and doesn't understand it. They think I should just be able to stop and that I just never tried hard enough to. That I didn't care enough about myself or my future. But I guess that's what I think an alcoholic should do too. How hard is it to just put a beer down? Or a drug addict with their drug of choice. Why doesn't their will power get called into question like a food addicts is? It annoyed me that they thought this way, as it made me feel like less of a person coming from them. But inside I knew that they did not understand. If I could stop I would. But I couldn't. I stopped smoking almost 2 years ago and I could not understand how I could do that, BUT, not stop eating!

Since I have been out of work with the injury, I stopped smoking, but could not stop eating as much as I tried. I knew I needed knee surgery, and knew I needed to get my weight down, but continued to overeat almost every day. I went from an overweight guy to a severely obese man over the course of 6 years. When November 2011 came around and I was going in for my surgery, it was the highest weight that I had ever been at. I started working for my company in 2005, and by 2011 I was almost double my original hiring weight. It was serious.

I realized how serious my weight problem was the day I looked in the mirror and couldn't believe how large I had gotten. I guess I never looked at myself, or had a warped sense of my perception of myself. For me it was like as long as I was dating and going out with people, my size was fine. It didn't matter. But then it became not fine. I noticed that I was getting out of breath faster, that I could not walk as far anymore, my feet and back would hurt from standing, and that I couldn't and didn't want to walk up stairs anymore. There were so many more things, but these are the one's that come to mind right now. Everything started becoming a hindrance to me because of my weight. On airplanes I now needed an extension for the seat belt. I flew a lot and dreaded the look I would get when walking on a plane. I knew that every single person on that plane was thinking the same exact thing when they saw me walking down the aisle... "Please don't have the seat next to me." The looks you got spoke volumes. It is not a good feeling and things like this definitely take their toll on you over time.

When you spend most of your time in a house, not working, not getting out much, you have so much time to think about negative stuff. Some days I definitely was not a positive person because of these things that had happened. Some people are just evil-hearted and have no problem driving by you and yelling a name at you for no reason. This happened many times. Even more so in California than in New York. Your self esteem takes a toll, as does your self worth. Again, I knew I needed to change and do something.

It was very tough getting or being positive for me once I gained all my weight. Over the past year and a half though I was lucky to find some strength to really want to get healthier, and to want to be positive, in the eyes of my two nieces Juliana and Isabella. Juliana was born in May of 2010 and Isabella was born in December of 2010. They are the most wonderful, happy, beautiful girls you could ever imagine. And I can tell you from the most honest place, that they really changed my life. I am never happier these days than when I am playing with them and watching them smile. They are two little bundles of pure joy.

When I would go back to California after visiting NY, I would find myself missing them terribly. I started thinking a lot about how my weight would one day take me from them, and deny me the opportunity to watch them grow up. It really got to me. I want to be there for them when they get older. I want to take them to games, give them advice, and be a great uncle for them. If I didn't get help for my food addiction, I would have no chance of making that happen. All these girls would know of their Uncle Keith would come from a picture from their parents wedding and a story of how I keeled over at some grocery store one day in the frozen food section. And if I didn't have this surgery on November 10th, that would have been the story.

November 10th changed my life for the better. I took a risk and I have not looked back since. I still smell the food cooking at local restaurants when I drive by, and I still see commercials on tv for pasta and steak and think how delicious it looks. Only now, above all those thoughts for me, are my two nieces and the thought that those foods would kill me if they had the chance again. I did something to make a change and I am committed to not letting that happen now. It has only been a month and a few days, but I am feeling a lot better mentally and physically already. And best of all, I am now in New York for the holidays, and able to spend time with my great family and two beautiful nieces.

Life is good! :-)