This Is What It’s Like To Confront A Food Addiction

I’m Compelled To Constantly Eat Delicious Garbage Food Like Some Kind Of Raccoon

It’s weird to accept and admit something as confusing as, “I’m addicted to food.” Yeah, aren’t we all, kind of? Eating isn’t an option, it’s a necessity. But I confess that I have very little control over what I eat.

For as long as I can remember, my diet has sucked. It’s gotten better over the years, but in general, it’s pretty bad. Most of my meals are bread with a side of bread. I look for cheats and ways to be able to eat more sugar and let it be O.K. I seek out articles about how sugar isn’t actually that bad for us, and revel in self-righteousness and reward myself with snacks when I discover facts that confirm that without fruit, humans wouldn’t have ever evolved to walk upright, or that thinking burns calories too, and that carbs are what athletes and Olympiads a.k.a. winners eat! These are justifications for me to binge on exactly what I wish. Meanwhile, the Kate Moss quote lurks around in the back of my head, and haunts my psyche. You know the one — that condescending and succinct, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” I don’t know about that. Gorgeous, slight, successful Kate has surely never eaten a tear-stained warm brownie in the dark after a break-up.

For me, it’s not just bread that easily overrides my decision-making faculties. I also overeat cheese, nuts, fruits and certain small birds and water creatures. I even overeat salads, if that’s a thing that can be done. For most of my life, I took serving suggestion to mean just that, “suggestion”, and ignored it, instead implementing my own awful version of the meal, usually 3–4x the size of whatever they recommended. Who eats a cup of cereal in a sitting? Maniacs, that’s who. Serial killers. Models, anorexics and toddlers. Not this lady right here. You got the wrong girl, cereal.

You know those big black and white cookies that you can buy in the good New York City delis? The ones that are the size of a personal pizza? I’ve eaten them alone in a handful of bites within moments of unwrapping them, many, many, many times, as a mid-day snack, for fun. And that’s my true weakness: sugar.