On Life, Death, And Fighting Food Cravings
My father has been on my mind a lot this week in conjunction with this blog. He passed away a week ago Monday, and so it has been a rough two weeks. In addition, his major ailment was diabetes; otherwise know as the food addiction disease.
I remember back to the days of my childhood. My dad and I used to have a grand old time together sharing fun, sharing food- ice-cream, donuts, and cake being our favorite things. When I was with my dad, there was always a treat in store. In those days I had never even heard of food addiction or the concept of immense cravings.
My dad and I both loved to eat, and it was one of the ways in which we bonded.
But as I watched my dad in the last years of his life, I remember thinking so frequently "What a price pleasure in food can exact." As time went by my father could hardly walk due to his diabetes. He couldn't see very well. Food began to have no flavor at all and he had a hard time swallowing. He spent his days dozing listlessly in a chair, and was sad beyond measure at the loss of all that he had ever enjoyed in life.
And one could arguably say that he starved himself to death in the final weeks of not even being able to eat.
So what is there to say about all of this? I know for me I lived a full seven years with no traces of sugar, wheat, or flour in my body- as well as a whole host of other ingredients. And it took a lot of work because in truth there is hardly a box, can, or jar on a grocery store shelf that does not contain at least one of these ingredients, and usually they have a lot more than one. Now I live mostly craving- free, perhaps because it also takes seven years for the cells in a human body to replace themselves. Considering that the cells in your body literally become addicted to those substances, I probably don't have any addicted cells left.
Most food addiction plans will tell you to stay away from all of those foods permanently. And I don't disagree. Why play with fire after all? Although I will say that during the week of my dad's death I lit the match a bit by eating some onion rings and some ketchup with sugar. In some ways I think it was a last feeble attempt to connect with my dad again. Still, I have had my days of intense cravings- and I don't think I am any too smart to play around in that arena.
So where does that leave us, as masses of us still experience cravings that seem almost debilitating and as we step closer and closer to a slow, dehumanizing decline like the one my dad experienced. The first step is to learn about food addiction and how it operates, one person at a time. And we hope that the more people that learn about it, the more we will be able to find healthy, tasty, and non-addicting foods in the grocery store. Right now, it seems to be a bit of an uphill climb to find and eat non-addicting foods. But today I feel healthy, and vibrant, and fully alive- which is more than I can say for all of the years when I ate all that stuff. And I honor my dad's love by not going down the road that he did. And my father was an amazingly loving man, so I am sure he would have wanted that for me.
For more help with addictions go to the blogs of renowned writer speaker and Second Hand Addiction expert, Lorelei F at fightingfoodcravings and at helpful-hints-for-quitting-smoking
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