Food insanity - The beginning of the end

How I overcame emotional eating and started to regain sanity around food (Spoiler alert: it was messy but worth it)

I came across a book one day... 
(It’s beginning to feel like this is how all my major transformation stories usually start! lol 🤭)

It was back in 2009 or 2010 (…ish) and I was going to the movies with my family. As we always did back then, we went to hang out at a nearby bookstore until it was time for our movie.

The book in question was Geneen Roth’s Breaking Free from Emotional Eating. Although I’d had some struggles with overeating in the past, at that time, I had been feeling pretty OK in my relationship with food. I did not follow any one specific diet, but was into healthy eating, and experimented with not eating different types of supposed “bad” foods for the sake of being health conscious. I wasn’t really feeling restricted or bad about it though. I was very much into cooking and having a blast playing with all different types of cuisines and dishes and substitutions.

So, to be honest, I’m not 100% sure what drew me to begin reading that book about emotional eating. I just know that once I did, Geneen’s voice and storytelling had me instantly hooked.

In her own struggle to overcome emotional eating, she came to a place where she decided to give up dieting completely and gave herself permission to eat whatever she wanted. At one point in her book, she describes how she allowed herself to have chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner… for two weeks straight.

As I read this cookie part, something inside of me cracked open. I felt deeply moved, and to my immense surprise, I started to cry… right there, in the store! Not like sobbing or a big wet sloppy cry, but more of a getting-all-choked-up sort of thing.

😮 Wait, you can do that?!? I want to eat chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for however long I want to, too!!!! 😭 My emotions could barely believe such a thing could ever possibly be allowed to happen. It sounded like pure joy.

I bought the book on the spot.

I needed to read the entire thing.

My body vibrated in insane resonance with her words.

Well.

I read the book.

And decided that I needed to follow in Geneen’s footsteps… that I needed to give myself that same permission… my body was crying out for it.

But I also must admit that a part of me felt a little terrified of letting go like that.

There was a hunger - no, a bottomless DESIRE!! - inside of me that made me feel like I would devour the world if I didn’t hold myself back.

Eating as much as you want of whatever you want! Pffft. The very idea!! You know you’re going to end up weighing like 5,000 pounds and only be able to wear moo-moos for the rest of your life, right?! That’s what my mind had to say about that…

And, honestly, my emotions believed that might end up being true, but a beastly monster had inadvertently been unleashed and there was no going back.

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I started with chocolate chip cookies. (Is that at all surprising?! 🤣)

The soft, little Entenmann's chocolate chip cookies, to be exact.

I sat and ate exactly as many as I damn well pleased, thankyouverymuch.

It tasted like glorious heaven.

And I did the same later that day.

And the same the next day.

I don’t remember how many days in a row I had the cookies, but I know that there were way more delicious treats that I needed to indulge in… so I soon moved on to others…

As a kid, I had loved Little Debbie Zebra Cakes, so that was absolutely going to be happening.

I think I had those for a few days… which was an interesting experience because they did NOT taste as good as I remembered them tasting when I was a kid lol. I still ate them… an emotional part of me was quite attached to the idea of them, so I let it have them.

Then there were more cookies… cakes… pies… ice cream…

But it wasn’t only sweets.

I indulged in whole blocks of mozzarella (it’s always been my favorite cheese).

We had a bread maker, and ohhh did I make use of it. I made mouth-watering, fancy loaves and barely could manage to let them cool enough before obliterating them almost completely in one sitting.

You know… it’s funny, I’m trying to remember what else because I know there were so many other things, but I am having trouble recalling the specifics!

But anyway…

This whole experiment is not something that went on for a just a few weeks. I had opened up and embraced the insatiable monster inside of me with no intent of caging it back up. Ever. I was done with controlling and keeping it at bay.

What would happen? Would I actually gain so much weight that I’d only be able to wear moo-moos for the rest of my life?? I had no idea what might be the result of this kind of letting go; I only knew that this was what I needed to do. The pain and emptiness that wanted to devour the world would have devoured me instead… so, well, I figured I might as well let it have at “the world.”

Of course, none of this came without physical consequences.

From the get go, after my “meals,” I experienced headaches, queasiness, upset stomach, body aches… all kinds of physical discomfort. But the monster was not concerned with the aftermath of its feedings. It wanted what it wanted… and ate it. Nothing else mattered.

I (obviously!!!) also started to gain weight. A lot of weight. Fast. I went from eating quite light and mostly very low calorie, with a huge emphasis on veggies, to eating large quantities of heavily processed, sugary, oh-so-bad-for-you junk and mostly calorie-dense foods… with a huge emphasis on desserts and carbohydrates.

All the things I had desired but held myself back from eating in the name of health, wellness, and weight-management… oh, it was all on the menu. And the monster my emotional body wanted it all with a vengeance… almost like a literal kid in a candy store.

GIVE ME ALL THE THINGS!!! *👈 please read this in a deep, almost demonic voice to get a more accurate sense of what it felt like*

I used “food insanity” as a prompt in Substack’s Ai image generator. This was one of the results… it’s rather horrifying but also quite accurately portrays the feelings… 🫣🤣 I kind of can’t stop looking at it lol

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Ok. This is probably deeply slightly horrific to read about lol 😬🤭 I mean, I dunno, maybe you are like me when I first found Geneen’s book and it stirs a sense of recognition… who knows… but regardless…

At this point, I feel the need to step back from my narrative to say that I chose to lean into this whole eat-whatever-I-want-however-much-I-want-all-else-be-damned thing with a resolution to do so with my eyes wide open. With complete and total awareness in order to consciously observe myself through it all. Accepting and holding space for it. No shaming. No guilt. No “shoulding” of any kind. Just be there and experience what it’s like to allow myself to… be there, present in all that I am in those moments. What does it feel like?

And here is what it felt like…

👉 It was delicious at times. Oh god, it was stupendously delicious!! To take away all barriers and just let my taste buds relish the tastes they wanted to taste in the quantities they wanted to taste them!! It was SO freeing.

👉 But it was also kind of desperate. The first few bites of anything were pretty fucking amazing. And even a good many bites after those were great too. And then my body would start to feel full… but my taste buds were still going full force. WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE ARE GETTING FULL??? No, no, we must keep tasting this taste!!! Please don’t make us stop tasting this taste! Just a little more… one more bite… wait, one more bite. NO, WAIT. ONE more bite. Okokokok… ONEEEEEEEE MORE?! One more! Then more! MOREMORE MOREMOREMORMEORMOEMREOMREOMROERMOEMROE (Yep, the letters are getting jumbled there. It’s how it felt!!)

I watched this all unfold. I gave myself the “more taste” until my body hurt. And even then, I shoveled in a few more bites because… the taste!! It’s too good!!

👉 It was actually quite physically uncomfortable… ok, let’s be real… it was often downright painful afterwards! It is not possible to indulge in that insane amount of sugary processed junk, especially in the amounts I was ingesting all at once, without having some very real and unpleasant (to put it mildly lol) physical side effects. But by choosing to be present for the entire experience, what I ate and the physical-consequences-thereof became very deeply and consciously connected for me. Or, in other words, causes became obviously, directly, and undeniably linked to effects. On an emotional level.

Normally, our minds will know and be able to understand the link of cause and effect between the foods we eat and the physical consequences of what we are eating- whether good or bad. However, emotionally, we tend to connect much more (if not only!) with the pleasure of the experience of ingestion… the yummy taste of the present moment… and not feel the connection to the effects of what was eaten in our bodies at some later time. We will eat half-conscious or block out parts of the experience due to guilt and shame and shoulds, as if only our minds matter… we are doing what we shouldn’t be doing, so maybe if we just don’t pay attention to the fact that we are doing it, it will count as not doing it?! You know, the broken cookie has no calories, right?!?!!?

Mentally… intellectually… rationally… we understand that it doesn’t work that way. But oh, my friend, the emotions know no such thing. The emotions know the present moment and the pleasure or pain of the present moment… only.

By removing the blockages to conscious awareness and accepting that I was going to allow my emotions to eat what they wanted - that I was going to let Baby¹ have free reign - I was able to hold open the space of continuous awareness necessary to EMOTIONALLY connect cause with effect.

And yeah, ok, the fact that I was consuming ungodly amounts of sugar and processed foods in one sitting certainly had a big hand in creating the connection. It would have been hard to ignore the direct connection between the physical effects and the foods eaten because of the extreme nature of it all. But the above still applies in this situation as well… the unavoidable physical effects only added to the depth of emotional understanding I was gaining.

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There was one particular instance that always stands out to me when I recall this period of time. (Buckle up cuz it’s a kind of a doozy lol 🫣🤭)

I’ve always been a huge ice cream kid. I mean, chocolate chip cookies, cake, and ice cream… all my weaknesses… but I want to say that ice cream was slightly more of a weakness than the rest… the one to rule them all lol. I could never get enough of it.

So… I got a liter of Breyer’s Slow Churned ice cream. It was probably vanilla because it’s always been my favorite and no I don’t think it’s boring so hush now, if that makes me boring then so-be-it. I did not get out a bowl. I was going to eat as much of it I wanted until I wanted to stop, so I set the entire liter in front of me on the table and allowed myself to Have. At. It.

And oh. Have at it, I did. I ate more than half of it while sitting. More of it than my body was comfortable containing. Eventually, I told myself that I had to stop because my body was way too full. So I got up, put the lid on it, and walked over to the fridge. But the taste was too good and the consistency so perfect (soft and kinda melty, after it’s been sitting out for a while 🤤), so I set the tub on the little counter beside the fridge and took just one more spoonful. But it was too good to stop - regardless of how badly my body was crying out that it had no more room and could take no more sugar - and I took another bite. And another bite. And another. And suddenly it devolved into a desperate shoveling of “just a little more” after “just a little more” because it STILL. TASTED. SO. GOOD!!! 😵‍💫🫣☠️

I ate almost the entire liter of ice cream in that one sitting. It was horrifying. It was fascinating. It was delicious. It was disgusting… and (eventually) physically agonizing.

I did it with complete and total conscious awareness and permission.

It felt insane. I felt insane.

Afterwards, I laid in bed for hours in what I suppose I could call a sugar coma- yet that does not seem like a label that even comes close to doing justice to the agony I felt.

All I could do was lay there. It felt like my blood was made up of teeny tiny shards of electrified fire glass that scraped my insides and made my blood itself hurt. Yes. I know. Blood cannot hurt. But it sure felt like mine did that day. My head also pounded, but that probably does not need to be stated because… well, teeny tiny shards of electrified fire glass coursed through my veins instead of blood, so, you know, headaches maybe go without saying 😅

Now, a sane person might think that this was quite the learning experience, never to be repeated again.

Well, they would be wrong…

I did it again. A second time.

But let’s have it be enough to say that the second time was the last time. Thank god for small miracles, huh?!

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The ice cream liters were sort of the pinnacle of the insanity.

But there had been plenty of other ridiculousness… not sure I’ve really done justice to just how ridiculously insane it all was…

All of the things I always loved to taste, I tasted and tasted with complete abandon.

As I observed myself and how I felt throughout these experiences, I came to realize that I could not seem to stop eating because it never stopped tasting good. Unconsciously, I kept looking for the taste to of the food I was eating to signal me that I was done eating.² Even when my body was screaming that there was no more physical capacity for more, I felt a desperate, clawing inner demand to satisfy the need of the taste. Which NEVER ended up happening.

After the ice cream incidents, I was able to consciously and concretely form an understanding of what was happening… of what I had been unconsciously seeking… and I was able to start bringing myself back from the desperation through that understanding.

Although I have now understood my relationship to taste more profoundly and have begun to see an even deeper level of meaning in this desire for the signal of “I am satisfied by the taste, we are done eating now” - at the time, 15ish years ago, I came to the conclusion that I would never come to “the end” of the good taste. That it would always taste good, so I had to stop trying to use the satisfaction of taste as my signpost.

I realized I needed to learn HOW to be ok with stopping even though my taste buds still wanted more; emotionally ok, that is. Which wasn’t too hard to begin seeing after experiencing how even when it felt like I would physically burst, it still didn’t stop tasting good.

So I became familiar with the amounts that were satisfying enough to my taste buds, where they could be happy enough stopping. Two cookies of this one kind? Meh. Nope, definitely want more than just that. Oh, but two double dark chocolate Milano cookies with some milk?! Mmmm ya, that satisfies enough.

And so it slowly went with all the foods, not just desserts.

There were things I discovered really did not suit my taste. Like the Little Debbie snack cakes (all kinds), which had a taste that felt… flat… off… it’s hard to describe, but I’m sure that probably makes sense, intellectually, to you, dear reader, as they are highly processed and laden with fake stuff. I learned I did not much care to taste them and was happier never taking any bites at all.

With plenty of other foods, whose tastes were still desirable to me, I was able to learn an internal balance of honoring the yummy taste AND the body’s fullness… hellooooo delicious mozzarella cheese 🤤

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This was a long process. It took me a few years to fully move beyond that feeling of desperation and find that balance. It wasn’t easy; it was about having experience after experience of eating too much and then slowly and viscerally discovering what satisfaction felt like in my body.

The worst of it… the dessert for all meals, every day… the entire liters of ice cream… shoveling food for the taste in spite of my body… that went on for some months in the beginning… thankfully NOT years!

And I never did end up weighing 5,000 lbs and have to wear only moo-moos… 🤭

Up until then, I’d always been quite slender and petite. But as is to be expected when eating with abandon, in no time, I packed on the pounds. I won’t go into the exact numbers as it’s really not important; suffice it to say, I got to be the heaviest I have ever been in my life during that time.

It forced me to face self-judgements about my body. Interestingly, though, as I stopped holding myself back from the truths of my desires, I actually started to feel more accepting of myself… and my body. It felt less important to worry about the size and shape I was inhabiting. I will be honest- I did not like being bigger. But I also was able to allow that dislike to exist without having to make it into something I needed to fight against. It was what it was. It didn’t need to be a big hairy deal.

I started to realize that I didn’t want my life beholden to and molded by the body I wanted to have; I wanted my body to naturally reflect my life. I was eating a lot, so naturally, my body would reflect that. Ok. So be it. That was my truth at that moment. And I was tired of trying to hold back the tides… my “tides”… my emotions.

“I let go of everything that is not truth. I give up all pretenses.” 👈 I had made this commitment to myself in the previous year (ish?) and I had meant it. (Ooohh, I don’t think I’ve shared that story yet… that’s a good one… it will have to be told soon!!)

By embracing this kind of acceptance of my momentary truths, however messy they might be… without recriminating myself…

By understanding that I am an ever-evolving being… that whatever and wherever I am right now, it does not mean I necessarily will be as such forever…

I was able to stand in the insanity that was my emotional eating and not feel hatred for myself or for my body.

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Fast forward to 6, 7, 8 years later.

I was working at a restaurant and always surrounded by delicious food. Yet I had this inner balance in which I was grounded. I knew when it would best for me to forgo eating this or that. I knew that eating particular foods - or amounts of foods - did NOT feel good in my body afterwards, so I did not even want to eat them. I ate whatever I wanted and stayed thin- I had long since gotten back to my old normal weight… and stayed there with no trouble at all. Most of the women I worked with were amazed by my “discipline.”

LOL.

No discipline needed here, ladies!

I had faced that inner monster that wanted to devour the world… and had let it.

And I had come out on the other side.

I didn’t have to hold back the monster.

There no longer was any monster to hold back.

There was just me.

Eating to live but also enjoying what I ate.

Living my life and allowing my body to reflect the life I was living.

🌀

The story of my relationship with food does not actually end here.

It has evolved to even more amazing depths.

I have recently discovered that finding the satisfaction of taste that says “We are complete” is not only actually possible, but it is part of my body’s natural, healthy functioning. I just couldn’t get there from where I had been.

I can’t wait to tell you more about it… I’ve already even started writing it, so it will be coming soon.

But for now, it is complete.

I didn’t want more than two ice cream tub images, but as I was playing around with the Ai image generator, I ended up with three I liked. I cannot bring myself to delete this one… these black and white style ones have this really satisfying compositional vibe³ to them that I thoroughly enjoy… (and omg… so much LOL at the messed up Ai writing 🤭)… so I am leaving it here at the end. Because the ice cream story, oh man, my body still cringes at the memory all these years later 😅 I suppose it deserves to keep its extra image 🤓

1. I recently wrote about an experience I had with then-toddler niece that taught me a huge lesson in being me and self-acceptance. I often think of the part of me that wants what she wants as “Baby.” You could say it’s kind of like an “inner child” thing. I think of Baby more as my body/emotional self… Check out my story about the experience here.

2. Which, as I think about all this now, it kind of blows my mind… but that’s a Human Design thing lol, and I wasn’t planning on going there in this writing. The story I am telling in today’s piece pre-dates my HD experiences by over a decade… yet I can now clearly see how parts of my design shine through and how I was beginning to decondition myself without being aware of it.

If you are familiar with PHS, the tones, and cognition in Human Design, I am taste cognition. It makes so much sense that I would be unconsciously expecting the taste of my food to inform me of when I’d had enough of what I was eating! Looking at it now, after having been experimenting with my PHS and really beginning to understand what it’s like to eat according to my body’s truth and design, I can see so incredibly clearly what was beginning to take shape back when I chose to start to let go of the (conditioning!) mental reigns around food. I have A LOT more to share on this subject, but that will be its own post- coming soon, probably 😁

3. Does this conglomeration of words (“satisfying compositional vibe”) make sense to anyone but me?!? Lolol Sorry not sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯