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.
In the days of my childhood my dad and I had a great time together, and our time always included goodies. Ice cream, donuts, and candy bars were among our favorites. We laughed and sang and ate in a fairy tale world where I had never even heard of food addiction or cravings.
One of the ways my dad and I bonded was through food, and there was no question about it.
But in the last years of my dad's life as I began to grapple with my own food addiction, and my dad began to lose all of his health and vitality, I began to wonder- did we really need all of that? We had something special together; no question about it, and it would have been there even if we weren't eating the junk food. So was it all really worth the loss of my father's mobility, eyesight, and vitality in the last years of his life. This same sickness eventually had him doing nothing but sitting listless in a chair for days on end, alternating between sleeping in the chair and sleeping in his bed.
And one could arguably say that he starved himself to death in the final weeks of not even being able to eat.
So what does this say to us, the masses of us, as we go about our lives? The pat and easy answer would be "just don't eat so many complex carbohydrates." But with food cravings, and nearly every label on every food container in the grocery store having some sort of sugar or flour product listed in the ingredients- and usually high up- this seems nearly impossible. I know it took me nearly seven years of eating absolutely no trace of sugar, wheat or flour to feel that such things no longer had a draw for me. Oddly enough, this is about the same amount of time it takes for the body to regenerate all of its cells- and I have often pondered that perhaps I am now literally 'a whole new me' with mo more cells that are addicted to foods.
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.
Article Source: http://www.orbitaloc.com/
For more assistance with addictions visit the sites of renowned writer activist and Second Hand Addiction Specialist, Lorelei F at fightingfoodcravings and at assistanceful-hints-for-quitting-smoking
Please Rate The Above Article From The Root Category Category
Article Title: Fighting Food Cravings- a Life and Death Issue
Not yet Rated
Syndicate Root Category Related Articles Via RSS!
Subject to Orbitaloc.com's Publisher Terms of Service, you may reprint this
article on your own website, blog, and ezine. (English only) You may also syndicate
the article via Really Simple Syndication (RSS). It is free of charge.
Free Articles on Root Category and Other FREE Content Article Topics
The preceeding is an informative article from the Root Category category.
