They say addiction starts with a broken promise. You promise not to have a third drink and then you wake up the next morning with no memory of falling asleep in your own barf. You promise not to have a cigarette and then you’re bumming just one more from a friend. You promise not to overeat on Thanksgiving and then you go back for four pieces of cake and a piece of pie.

The fact that you have to make the promise shows that you have a problem. I’ve never had to promise not to take another drink because I don’t care much for alcohol. It makes my headache worse and I’ve never thought the buzz was worth all the calories. There’s a bottle of vodka that has been in my freezer since July and it will probably still be there next year. That’s how I know I’m not an alcoholic. However, I have often promised myself that I will only eat half the meal at a restaurant and then eaten the whole plate. I’ve promised [...]

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I bought muesli at Trader Joe’s because it sounded exotic and foreign, like Vegemite or Weetabix. Then I brought it home and realized muesli is essentially granola’s cousin, only with more cornflakes and dried blueberries and possibly crystal meth. (I’m not sure what those little round things were.) There are certain foods I should not be allowed to buy and muesli can now be added to that list.

Lately, that list has become my grocery list. I was doing really well for a week and then, holy shit, I found myself plowing through the fridge at 11 o’clock at night, stirring peanut butter into ricotta cheese just because I wanted to eat SOMETHING. The next day I gave a coworker a ride home and was relieved I hadn’t left any embarrassing music in the CD player, but was less happy that the Krispy Kreme bag from breakfast was lying on the passenger’s side floor. I felt like I’d left a used syringe on the top of the trash, me, the poster girl for weight loss (literally, [...]

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Here are three tips:

1) Start writing things down

2) Steer clear of unnecessary temptations

3) Find healthy alternatives

I bet you assumed those were weight-loss tips, what with this being a weight-loss blog and all. WRONG! These are tips about how to overcome compulsive shopping. However, when I read the list of tips and the companion article, I was amazed at how similar compulsive shopping seems to be to compulsive eating.

Compulsive Shoppers

Compulsive Eaters

Set up secret post office boxes to receive overdue bills and new credit card offers

Hide stashes of food around the house and binge in secret

Spend more than they make, accumulating piles of debt

Eat more calories than they burn, accumulating piles of fat

Buy a power drill when feeling stressed, experiences euphoria, then regret it

Eat six powdered donuts when feeling stressed, experience euphoria, then regret it

Live in a consumer-driven society and still have to buy things to survive

Live in a world of convenient, fatty, high-calories foods and still have to eat to survive

By the time I’d gotten to the copyright notice at the end of that article, I [...]

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Ironically, now that I’m not really fat anymore I’ve been reading more about obesity than I ever did when I was obese. Maybe I’m more willing to confront the issue now that it’s not so immediate and painful. My latest fat read was Fat Is a Feminist Issue, a phrase I’d heard thrown around without knowing it was also a book. I never took a women’s studies course, so I’m a bit out of my depth when it comes to feminist literature. Written by Susie Orbach in 1978, it examines why women become compulsive eaters, hypothesizing that they might perceive certain advantages to being fat, though they’re typically unaware of them. Orbach advocates forming discussion groups to help women explore and understand these issues so they can overcome them.

There was a lot of information in this book, far more than I could wrap my head around in one sitting. Reading about the different reasons why women may subconsciously want to stay fat was fascinating, if only to see how many different ways people can be [...]

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