Reignfyre Recovery

A record of a womans recovery throught addiction. Primarily food addiction using the 12 steps of OA (Overeaters Anonymous). Also includes recovery from sex and love, drug and alcohol addiction.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Food memories.....
Wheat thins were one of my favorite binge foods. I used to eat them with strawberry cream cheese. I remember the first day I tried this combination. It was on the way back from a trip to visit my aunt in Pennsylvania. My parents wanted a quiet car ride home & they knew personalized snacks always shut us children up. I got my very own box of wheat thins that day, and my own package of strawberry cream cheese. I had never eaten cream cheese before and never had any other kind since. I remember the orgasmic feeling of gripping my own box & feeling the sweet chemical taste of slippery strawberry cream on top of salty sugar crackers. I never forgot that feeling and tried to duplicate it hundreds of times since.

Pizza was a favorite binge food of mine. I used to order 2 large pizzas from Papa John’s with several butter sauces & extra cheese. I would devour one immediately and save the second for later when my food hangover set in & I needed a fix.

My favorite all time binge food was ice cream. Especially strawberry milkshakes from McDonalds. Before I got abstinent last year I was up to 4 a day. It would have been more if they served them before lunch. I used to hit 2 – 3 different McDonalds on the way home from work everyday. If I didn’t hit McDonalds it was only because Klondike’s were on sale 2 for $5. That would get me through 24 hours.

I actually had a form of abstinence before I came back to OA. It was broken by soy ice cream. I knew ice cream was a problem for me so I had abstained for 6 months. But I was still ingesting sugar in the form of flour so the cravings never abated. One day, standing in front of the freezer at Ukrops’s I thought….soy ice cream is healthy. It’s a health food…no problem there! I ended up hitting Ukrops daily for months to get 4 pints of tofutti. I just couldn’t get enough. Shortly after trying the toffuti I was eating non-stop again….and gained back ½ the weight it had taken me a year and a ½ to lose. It took 3 months to gain it back.

Pastries are another big trigger for me. Sugar/flour/wheat….the holy trinity. The only thing better than pastries, pastries with ice cream in them. Toward the end of my binging I was eating an entire ice cream cake a day. Pop tarts were my inexpensive pastry of choice. If it was pay day it was the fancy pastry case at the local grocery store that held my attention.

Cheese, hard cheese, is a huge trigger for me…as is wheat. Anything that combined these two was deadly for me. Macaroni & cheese was #3 on my all time binge foods list with spaghetti a close third.
Cool whip was a favorite binge food of mine….that specific brand. I used to buy 2 at a time. One to eat as a dessert with chocolate pudding or strawberries….and one to eat by itself frozen….like ice cream. I got into the habit of eating frozen cool whip because mom used to keep it in the freezer for holiday baking….thawing it out for use. She used to use it…then freeze it. The young coe in me used to sneak into the freezer & take spoonfuls…thinking it would go unnoticed.

4 Comments:

Blogger Dodi said...

Oh my God! I used to sneak spoonfuls of frozen Cool Whip too! What an awful feeling it was when I would realize there was barely any left and I could not hide it. I did the same thing with jars of marshmallow fluff. I was kept in a little-used cupboard with the cookie cutters and Crisco.

I hated sneaking food, but I could not stop.

11:35 AM  
Blogger Lauren said...

great post,a nd I relate to alot of it. I'm afraid to cut things like wheat or flour out of my food plan but if I have to, I have to, I'm just not there yet. On step 3 , and a little frightened of step 4

10:52 PM  
Blogger Sidney said...

I am find it more and more interesting about no-go foods like wheat, flour, cheese, and sugar. Before in OA I used to think that I could cope with these foods when I was okay with my abstinence. However, this time round and a relapse that sent me reeling with a 40 kilo gain - I am realising that perhaps this is a truism - that these foods will kill me eventually if I allow them in my life. Bread is a HUGE trigger for me, so are cakes, fried foods, and all junk foods. I am most peaceful when these are eliminated.
Thanks for this post. Keeps me on my toes.

4:36 AM  
Blogger Carrie B said...

Thanks for sharing this. I appreciate your ESH.

Have you seen this webring for OA blogs? http://www.createawebring.com/webring.php?ring=82&site=

5:52 PM  

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