Binge Eating

Binge eating is the compulsive act of over-eating, I would call it an addiction. I don't use the word 'addiction' lightly, as I'm well aware it has the capacity to ruin lives. I'm lucky (?) to have never been addicted to drugs, alcohol etc. but I was addicted to food. I know this because I sought it to self-medicate. I used it as a tool that it was never intended to be.

Imagine trying to unlock a door with a noodle and doing it over and over and over again for the majority of your adult life. Addictions are in their very simplest forms, trying to fix your feelings with a substance that isn't capable of fixing anything.

People with addictions are fearful, we run from our feelings and we run so hard and for so long that we forget which feelings we are afraid of. All we know is that ANYTHING is better/less terrifying than those feelings. And unless you've felt that paralysing fear, you won't really understand how powerful it is. I once pushed a needle through my grown-over labret piercing just to not feel my feelings. It really fucking hurt. Pain is sometimes preferable to feelings.

I feel like I should also mention the obvious; that addiction to heroin is not the same as one to food as it isn't physically addictive. Although there have been some studies done on the effect of sugar on the brain, I don't think that what I went through is on the same level.

I would now consider myself a recovering binge eater. It took me about 25 years to get here and I genuinely thought I never would. I'd tried Overeaters Anonymous (OA) a handful of times but never really committed to having a Sponsor. I had tried all the diets, all the versions of restriction - just everything. I was fucking exhausted. My eating disorder took up 95% of all of my thoughts, I was always thinking about food. I was thinking about how to get it, fighting with myself about when I ate 'unhealthy foods', feeling guilty and obsessing over it constantly. I would steal food from my family, hide and steal money from my partner and inhale junk food in my car on the side of the road so that no one could see me. I would eat so much food that it was physically painful, wait till I could eat again and then eat some more. There was no pleasure in food, I was just trying to figure out how to get more of it, without anyone noticing, all day, every day. It was my biggest shame and I was completely conscious, silently screaming at myself to stop and being incapable of doing so.

I'd love to write that I found the 'fix' that everyone could use to recover but I just don't think it exists. I ended up on the brink of completely imploding my own life. I was totally broken. So I gave up. I stopped fighting and trying to figure out how to 'fix' myself and let go. I let go of my ego enough to ignore the cheesy and religious side of OA, and began working the steps. I didn't go to many physical meetings but I did go to online ones and I found myself a sponsor who lives in the U.S and I began talking to her regularly.

She guided me through the steps and I slowly began to navigate a way through them that I was comfortable with. I'm an Athiest and OA is not, so it was tricky but not impossible. I read The Big Book, which is pretty old-fashioned (it was written by a white man back in the day) and I chose to ignore the sexism and find the intention behind the differences in values. Not easy.

I've since been asked by a few people about how I got through OA as an Athiest. I now direct them to Russell Brand's book 'Recovery'. It takes you through each step of AA with thoughtfulness, humour and most importantly without the religious dogma that puts so many of us off. I wish I'd done my programme with that book but my Sponsor was my Russell Brand and she was amazing.

I worked the steps, I took my time and I tried to be kind to myself. It took me quite a few months but I still remember the day I realised I hadn't thought about food. I was driving in my car and it suddenly hit me. I was so happy and shocked that I had to pull my car over and rang my sister in Melbourne to tell her. She is a recovering Anorexic so has an implicit understanding of the importance of such moments that no one else in my life has. Her support and understanding has been more than important to me - no one is less judgemental than someone who is a recovering - insert eating disorder here -. 

Those moments grew from there and I haven't binge eaten in a very long time. I chose not to count my days of sobriety, mainly through fear of failure. But honestly, it doesn't matter to me how long it has been. It doesn't mean that I'm skinny or eat super healthily all the time either. All that really matters to me is that my every living moment isn't filled with that shitty voice anymore. I don't think about food constantly and I feel like a huge burden has finally been lifted from my shoulders. I found my recovery when I learnt how to stop fighting with myself, and slowly let myself feel what I was so afraid of.

Potatoes Day 6

Right. So I have had no cravings for other food, no desire to binge and no major issues so far. I have had a few times where I felt a little spaced due to low sugar levels but I just ate a potato and it passed.

Fucking potatoes eh? Down to 100 kilos in less than a week. Am blown away.

Am expecting to gain some weight when I begin eating other foods again but it's pretty great to see some unprecedented progress on the scales. I can't see any difference yet but I'm pretty tall so my weight gets spread across quite a distance. Only 25 kilos to go!

And here is a list of shit fat people get;

• Skin tags (those fuckers are gross and annoying)
• Puffed walking to your car
• Beards growing before you're 30 (PCOS)
• Sweaty all the time!
• Makeup wears off quickly due to oily and sweaty Jess of being fat
• It's hard to put shoes on
• Your arse flopping over the edge of the toilet seat
• Hard to wipe in stalls cause there's no room!
• Saggy ass boobies
• Old man arse
• Random hairs sprouting everywhere, like horrible surprises 
• Scars on the inside of your mouth because your cheeks are too fat for your jaw and teeth 
• Almost impossible to cut your toenails so you pretend going to get a pedicure is something you just want to do
• Waxers commenting on how hairy you are and how sweaty you are because you stick to the paper
• Tattoo chairs drenched in sweat when you get up
• Chairs with the butt sweat on them
• Dark, sore, red marks where your bra, underwear, tights, pants and jackets have rubbed all-day
• Giant boobs that are too big for life
• A sense of humour used to self deprecate before anyone else can

Boom. I'm sure there is more, feel free to add below. 

Potatoes Day 5

I am very tired but it's not because of eating potatoes, I just had nightmares last night.

So headaches gone, weird flushes gone and I still have a good amount of energy.

Going to head to bed now but feeling great about my new diet - also looking forward to eating something other than potatoes in 9 days. :D

Presto Diet - Day Three

My partner showed me a video of Penn Jillette talking about his weight-loss. Said video is here.

I bought his book 'Presto' and started upon a reading rampage. His book is funny and I definitely don't agree with everything he talks about but the main pretence made sense to me.

I've only ever done one diet before, the Liver Cleansing Diet - which my Mum and I did together when I was about 16 or so. I did it and lost a bunch of weight and got a crazy amount of comments and positivity from EVERYONE. It was stupid, because as soon as I began to eat like myself again (binges and all) I just gained the weight back on. Plus I felt like a fucking failure.

Recently I decided to go back to Over-Eaters Anonymous again. I'd gotten to the point of exhaustion with my bingeing - my obsession with food had taken up so much of my energy that I was barely able to keep the rest of my life together. OA is a strange place, you go there because you really don't want to and you keep going because you really really don't want to. It's that type of awful feeling, deep down in the pit of yourself that is just screaming to leave the room - and your rational self realises that sitting in a room for an hour with strangers, telling you about their lives and eating habits should not illicit that reaction. The only reason your mind is reacting like that is because it's trying to save it's addictive self. You and your body want to keep running yourself into the ground because the addiction is just that strong, it has been your coping mechanism for life.

That addiction has both helped and hindered me through almost my entire life, starting back when my relationship with food and my body went sour. Much like how most of my future romantic relationships would go, it was a one-sided, needy-as-fuck relationship. Food was my first love. My second was my friend at Primary School that I used to obsessively stalk whilst he played soccer on the field.

Needless to say, the unrequited loves of my life made me terribly unhappy and food was a comfort to my loneliness, anxiety (that one has become quite the fucking buzz-word lately hasn't it?) and fear.

So this book by a Magician who at best I find funny and at worst I find annoyingly arrogant, felt refreshing and interesting. It also sounded like an bizarre way to implement the Meal Plan which OA recommends as part of your recovery process. A bit like doing an experiment on my fucked up, self-abused body.


At the real core of it all, I don't want to think about food constantly, I don't want to be obese and have all these shitty health problems at 31 years old, and I sure as hell don't want to die early because I ate too much BK.

The Potato Famine part is tough (it's also pretty offensively named). I have done it for almost 3 days now and my obsessive mind has been obsessing about potatoes a lot. And then this morning I woke up and I wasn't hungry, I think mainly because I don't really feel like a plain potato or kumera. That's interesting to me - that because I've taken the choices and pleasure out of my food (it's for 2 weeks), my mind doesn't feel like eating and I can clearly listen to what the rest of my body needs.

So I feel okay, more okay than I expected to feel. Although Penn mentions that the third and fourth days are generally the shittiest for people, so I'm waiting for that. The headaches are shit, the hot flushes are annoying and the puffy face is too but so far that's it. In the meantime I see my weight has gone down - whether or not it's just water weight or something else I don't know but that's cool, I'm in this for the long run. I started at 106 kilos and I'm now 102, my goal is 75.

I want my body to be healthy and live a long time and I'm eating potatoes for two weeks, then a mainly vegan based diet until I reach my target weight. Once I'm there I'll be vegan most of the time and eat what I want every two weeks, for a 4 hour period.

Penn's book may be a money-making venture, it may have more jokes and ego than medical advice (he does mention that he is after-all not a Nutritionist but a Las Vegas Magician) but it has helped me because it led me to believe that with my naturally obsessive and extremist personality (much like his), I needed to make changes that go with my nature, not against it. I cannot eat like a 'normy' and I don't want to. I'm going to eat like a big fat Magician whose trying to heal his body, and so far I feel like this is working for me.

Watch this space...

Beyond The Cock-shots

I wrote the following piece for a New Zealand 'news' (I use that word here very loosely) site called stuff.co.nz as they'd asked for contributions on the subject of finding love online. It was published but changed without my knowledge or authorisation. They retitled it: 'Finally finding wonderful online', added a stock image of a wanky young couple with equally wanky blurb: "SHOE ON THE OTHER FOOT: Why is it so difficult for a modern woman to figure out how to properly romance a man?" That blurb disgusts me on many levels and is completely contradictory to the message I was trying to get across.

I've since written to the editor to try and get it removed although I doubt that will happen. I decided to post it on here so that it could be posted how it was supposed to be read, and so that they get less hits from my friends who might click my link and decide to read it. Hope you enjoy...

BEYOND THE COCK-SHOTS - Geni McCallum

Rob Lowe - 'Parks and Recreation'

I've never had a problem with talking to strangers.

When I was studying and living in central Wellington, some of the most interesting conversations I ever had took place at bus stops, queues for coffee, turbulent airplanes and even within hospital waiting rooms.

When I was younger it sometimes led to me ask someone if they wanted to get coffee sometime, or vice versa, and I met great and not so great people dating that way.

Once I moved back to Christchurch I found it more difficult to meet people, and as I was an already seasoned geek, I naturally gravitated to online dating.

At first it was fun, judging people based on such a tiny bit of information about them, but soon it just felt a bit depressing.

FindSomeone was often full of men and women much older than me, looking for a serious relationship right off the bat. I was more interested in meeting new people and potentially dating them, if we happened to hit it off.

I've noticed that in relation to other countries, we often leave very little time to get to know people before we prematurely jump in the sack with them, and/or label them our significant other. As a woman, dating was often seen as being 'skanky', even though I was very open about it and never led someone on if I felt like it wasn't working out.

I went on quite a few dates, and figured out that a good way to determine whether there was any chemistry between us was to call them up and have a chat.

Gut instincts work incredibly well on this type of dating platform. Personally, if I had always listened to them, I wouldn't have ended up in some of the incredibly dangerous situations that I only narrowly escaped.

If Facebook had been around back then, I probably would have cyber-stalked them a little too, just to feel them out a bit before meeting in public.

I once met a guy who at first seemed really nice, but as soon as I met him I knew I just wasn't attracted to him. I let him know pretty quickly that whilst he seemed like a great guy, I just wasn't feeling it.

He decided to take that as a challenge and proceeded to attempt to 'sell himself up'. There is nothing worse than being stuck in a date with someone who won't shut up about themselves, even after you've tried to say you're not interested in them. Apart perhaps from realising he's following you out the door.

I said goodbye and then he stalked me (while texting me) for a bit, gave up and I walked back to my car, looking backwards every two seconds. Sadly, that's not nearly the dodgiest situation I managed to find myself in, but it's the only one I'm willing to publicly share.

I'd like to note that there will be no victim-shaming or sexist rants here (towards or against either sex). However, it should be understood that not everyone will be who they say they are. Once a guy turned up to meet me - his profile photo was of a completely different person!.

Whether you identify as straight, bi, gay, trans, male, female, or another label, please make sure you meet people in a public place and make a rule to stay there for the first date. It is NOT your fault if something happens to you and you decide to act otherwise, I just know that not everyone will be as lucky as I was to get away safely.

On a more positive note, I met my partner five years ago online.

Bizarrely enough we found each other, wading through the many, many unicorn proposals (a twosome wanting you to complete their threesome), sociopaths (I dated a guy for three months who lived a double life, complete with new-born baby and live-in girlfriend) and general liars on NZDating.

I met someone I never would have dated in real life, someone who turned out to tick all the boxes I never knew I wanted, and un-tick so many of the silly ones I'd naively created for myself over the years.

Despite both the horror stories and generally lovely people, (who mutually just didn't 'click'), I met someone pretty great.

I quickly knew from the insanely cute profile picture of him and his two-year old daughter, long winded, bluntly honest self-description he'd written of himself at 2AM, and effortless five-hour phone call we had before we met.

So while I don't prescribe to 'The ONE' or 'Other Half' mentality, nor do I believe we will necessarily last until one of us is dead (credit Dan Savage), I love and feel lucky to have found and have him in my life.

I discovered my family online, and I will always be grateful for that.

Another Eating Disorder Post?

I've written before about my eating disorder but I'd like to be a bit more honest/specific this time around. Instead of focusing on the food, I'm going to write a little about where it comes from. Why? Because I only just realised that to heal myself I'm going to have to figure out the answers to all the questions about my behaviours, what's sitting behind it all. And perhaps it might help someone else too.

I am a Compulsive Overeater and have been since I can remember. The first time I remember eating past the point of full, without feeling in control was when I was 7 or 8. My Great Aunt and Uncle had me after school every Thursday and they would give me all the lollies, ice-blocks, sausage rolls, hot chips and tomato sauce I could possibly want. We didn't have this type of food at home, except for special occasions and I felt like Augustus Gloop in 'Charlie and The Chocolate Factory'. I hated school and didn't understand the other kids or the point of all the rules and schedules. Apparently I woke up every morning, surprised that we had to do it all again that day. I was classed as 'eccentric' by my family and had few friends, I gradually understood that to fit in I had to stop telling people what I was really thinking and then things became easier. But I ate to fill myself up and numb the anxiety, sadness and loneliness I felt.

I still compulsively overeat for the same reasons. I will eat like that, generally by myself, quickly and secretly. I will eat until I hurt, beyond that I will eat until I hurt, then wait a few hours and eat to that point again. Something inside of me enjoys sabotaging my body, I enjoy hurting myself because it stops me from feeling the other feelings that I can't do anything about.

People often speak of eating disorders as being about control and in my case that is correct too. I eat because I can control that feeling, I can create it and maintain it and I understand it, it has been with me since I was a child. I have scars all over my body from hurting myself this way, scads of deep stretch marks, four more scars from my surgery to remove my gallbladder (I don't believe this would have happened if I'd treated my body with kindness), pre-diabetes and a body that acts much older than it's 29 years.

We all have our addictions, our weaknesses, our Achilles heel, mine just happens to be fed with copious amounts of food. It's a long term journey but over 10 years ago I wouldn't have thought I'd be able to have the life I have now with my Bipolar. I'm strong and I know I'll find a way to treat myself with the love, care and respect it deserves one day - I hope that whatever your self-medication, that you also find your way there too.  

Fuck knows

Robin Williams died today.

I've always just written whatever I've wanted to on this here blog of the times but anything I say about his death or life seems so cheesy and unworthy. So I'll say this; his death has made me sad on many different levels and I'm grateful to have been privy to the parts of himself that he chose to share with the world.

In other news, I am procrastinating the shit out of studying which is BAD. This semester is the most important one I have and the last one I'll have (if I pass well enough) before I graduate. I began University in 2003, keen to become a main titles designer with a Fine Arts degree at Canterbury. Long story short, it is now 2014 and I am finally on the verge of finishing my first degree, a BA in Psychology which will be a massive triumph in the face of many adversities. That is if I manage to get my head out of my arse and study properly.

Fuck.

So petrified of failing that I seem to be failing before I've even started.

On a lighter and more positive note; my hair has been chopped off and I love it.

And... end scene.