Food Addiction Quotes

“Don't ever think you're better than a drug addict, because your brain works the same as theirs. You have the same circuits. And drugs would affect your brain in the same way it affects theirs. The same thought process that makes them screw up over and over again would make you screw up over and over as well, if you were in their shoes. You probably already are doing it, just not with heroin or crack, but with food or cigarettes, or something else you shouldn't be doing.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Bad Choices Make Good Stories - The Heroin Scene in Fort Myers

“Sometimes it's hard to see the rainbow when there's been endless days of rain.”
― Christina Greer, Two-Week Wait: Motherhood Lost and Found

“Black-and-white thinking is the addict's mentality, which can be a bar to recovery when one is still active. But an addict who finds the willingness can then rely on the same trait to stay clean: "Just don't drink," they say in AA.
How's that going to work for an addicted eater? Food addicts have to take the tiger out of the cage three times a day. I've read that some drinkers have tried "controlled drinking," and it hasn't been very successful. Eaters don't just have to try it; they must practice it to survive.
Having a food plan is an attempt to address that, and having clear boundaries is a key to its working. But the comfort of all or nothing is just out of reach.
...
I'm saying that food addicts, unlike alcoholics and may others, have both to try for perfection and to accept that perfection is unattainable, and that the only tool left is a wholesome discipline.
The problem is, if we had any clue about wholesome discipline, we wouldn't be addicts.”
― Michael Prager, Fat Boy Thin Man

“Santiago thought about how at Slim Again, Begin Again the group talked a lot about why people ate, the hunger that was beyond food. They ate because it reminded them of their parents feeding them and the times they were taken care of. They ate because their parents did not feed them, and it’s how they learned to take care of themselves. They ate because they felt less alone when eating. Because they wanted to feel full, then wanted to feel nothing. Dominique said it was like that Bruce Springsteen song “ Hungry Heart ” from the 1980s. Everybody’s got a hungry heart. The trick is to learn when you’re eating to fill the heart instead of the stomach. Feeding the stomach, she said, is easy. That’s just diet. It’s learning how to feed the heart that’s hard.”
― Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

“From food addiction to food serenity - freedom tastes great!”
― Vera Tarman, Food Junkies: The Truth About Food Addiction

“When we are true to ourselves, all that is toxic and burdensome simply falls away”
― Dina Hansen, Stop Eating Your Stress!: Discover the Secret to Inner Calm, Comfort & True Nourishment On and Off Your Plate

“Today I say am an addict. A respectable addict, of course. Not like the desperate addicts who have cashed in their mortgage... After all, my drug is cheap, the cheapest of all drugs, and therefore the most pernicious... And my drug is everywhere I look: in the drive-through gas station's convenience store, in the supermarket, on the lusciously displayed menu of an exclusive restaurant.”
― Vera Tarman, Food Junkies: The Truth About Food Addiction

“The cakes and pies and casseroles beckoned like gastronomic sirens, and there was no one to lash me to the mast.”
― Chris Fabry, The Promise of Jesse Woods

“The bond between food and me is like other relationships in my life: complicated, evolving, demanding, and in need of constant work. But together we’ve come so far, moving from my childhood obligation to clean my plate, to a mindless need to fill up, to a truly nourishing and pleasurable exchange. That’s the real reward.”
― Ashley Graham

“I realized that I couldn’t knowingly look to food for a way out when it had so clearly led me here. It wasn’t hunger that beckoned me to eat more. It wasn’t my stomach that needed to be reconciled. It was shame. It was guilt. And food can’t remedy such things”
― Andie Mitchell, It Was Me All Along

“. . . SPAM is my god. It's the only deity that can be eaten raw or fried. The stuff of Holy Communion." -- Hayden Upchurch”
― Neal Shusterman, UnDivided

“For the first time in the history of the world more people will die from overeating than undereating this year.”
― Michael R. Bloomberg

“One's prescription can seem extensive--even overwhelming, depending on an individual's circumstance--and I can imagine the prospects exciting few people of any stripe. Lots of eaters are going to balk at abstaining, but to learn that recovery is going to require rigorous honesty, or more attention to spirit, could be far more off-putting.
Then again, who gets excited about any serious treatment prescription? Certainly not the cancer patient told she'll have to undergo radiation, or the back patient ordered to a month's uninterrupted bed rest, or the lung patient told he'll need a double transplant.
To some, the flaw of those comparisons will be their being equated with food addiction, and that is the rub, entirely. The medical profession and the public at large don't see that they are equivalent. The consequences of obesity (the chief consequence of food addiction) constitute the fastest-growing, and soon the gravest, threat to public health. Obesity is suicide on lay-away: It has plenty of time to degrade quality of life before finally ending life prematurely.”
― Michael Prager, Fat Boy Thin Man

“That was when it became abundantly clear to me that simply eating in a way that avoided hurting others was never going to be enough if my eating habits were still hurting me.”
― Jasmin Singer

“The brain chemistry that drives the addict to seek pleasure beyond the point of satiety is similar, whether the user favours Jack Daniels or Jack-in-the-Box.”
― Vera Tarman, Food Junkies: The Truth About Food Addiction

“Addiction is a term that's used a lot these days. People claim to be addicted to everything from romance novels to cars. They feel guilty when they enjoy something just a little too much. When it comes to food addiction, the misunderstanding is epidemic...

Until now, scientists and clinicians alike have been reluctant to acknowledge that food addiction even exists. Yes, abnormal eating behaviours have been identified throughout history, but there has long been a resistance to labelling it an addiction.”
― Vera Tarman, Food Junkies: The Truth About Food Addiction

“Obesity, eating disorders, and chemical dependency on food are three distinct and very different diseases -- and demonstrate different behaviors around food. We can categorize the corresponding behaviours of these conditions as problems that occur within the normal eating, emotional eating, and food addiction spectrums.

Obesity is entirely a physical problem: a result of eating too many calories while expending too few... Normal eaters simply eat too much... Normal eaters represent a large proportion of the obese. They can regulate their obesity by learning how to change the circumstances that foster poor willpower: better sleep, stress management, improving social skills, and changing a toxic good environment are only a few of the modifications that can be made...

Certainly, people suffering from eating disorders and food addiction can also be obese, but their primary condition is not obesity. In their cases, obesity is just another symptom of their emotional disturbance or their food addiction. The underlying emotional trauma that drives the bulimic to stuff himself needs to be addressed first before the physical aspects of obesity can be seriously addressed; likewise, the sugar that is propelling the addictive overeater needs to be removed first before tackling any weight issues.”
― Vera Tarman, Food Junkies: The Truth About Food Addiction

“I believe that food addicts need the same type of support offered to alcoholics and drug addicts. They need to detoxify first first and then learn about their disease, while dealing with the thoughts and feelings that arise once they are off their drug. Quite often, psychological issues do not become obvious until food addicts have been abstinent for a long period of time. That's why ongoing support is needed to prevent addicts from relapsing in a panicky effort to cope.”
― Vera Tarman, Food Junkies: The Truth About Food Addiction

“Withdrawal occurs once a person stops eating any addictive food. Though abstaining from foods is a contentious subject in the scientific literature, there is no question that it will cause a level of discomfort that often drives addicts back to eating...

Feelings of deprivation, obsessions about food, and anxiety arising from unresolved trauma that was being 'medicated' by the addictive foods may appear like spectres that linger, worsening before they get better...

It may seem that life without one's comfort foods is simply not worth living. Even problematic eating is seen as better than feeling bereft to the point of suicidal thoughts. But others might find the symptoms so common they are not even recognizable as withdrawal...

The good news is that detoxification is not a long process; it only lasts for a relatively short period - between one week and four weeks...

Cheating by having a bite here or a spoonful there is also an excellent way to suffer withdrawal in perpetuity. Withdrawal will not end if the substance is constantly being reintroduced back into the brain reward pathway.”
― Vera Tarman, Food Junkies: The Truth About Food Addiction

“The restless longing for food can only be truly satisfied when we allow God to fill that desire.”
― Allene vanOirschot, Daddy's Little Girl

“Our fleshly desires bind us in slavery; Christ holds the key to freedom.”
― Allene vanOirschot

“fluoridation: Communist plot for dental health to get your ass nice and fat on Chinese and Indian before I go in and Slaughter it. hehe. Possibly not a joke... (Dd, 2011)”
― Dmitry Dyatlov