Before I tell you how I stopped snacking, let me give you a crystal clear picture of what my life was like BEFORE. Because then you’ll understand how DIFFERENT my life is now and how significant the impact is of no snacking and no cravings and my appetite being forever changed. 

For most of my adult life, I was on a diet. Seriously. 

I was on a diet from the time I moved back home to Columbus Ohio (from Pensacola FL ..that’s a whole hot mess story I’ll tell you another time….why I decided to move to Pensacola when I was ONE QUARTER AWAY FROM GRADUATING FROM college– to chase a boy who could not care less about me) and realized I was the HEAVIEST I’D EVER BEEN. Gulp. That’s what happens when you live in the South and drink every single night and live at Old Country Buffet during the day –eating nothing but. carbs and never working out. 

So, I started reading up about working out and dieting and that began my FITNESS FANATIC LIFE. I loved it! I started doing step aerobics and eating a fat-free diet and I lost about 20-25lbs. I graduated college, moved to Chicago and started working corporate life. Gained the corporate 10lbs and started working out again. I just went through CYCLES of fitness. 

But the point is this: I was always dieting. I never really felt that I reached my “goal weight”. I was never happy with my body. Never comfortable in my body. So I was CONSTANTLY DIETING. Always searching for how I could become a BETTER VERSION of me. I was perpetually dissatisfied with myself. 

I spent an inordinate amount of time online researching blogs and forums to find out how to get more fit. The more I read the more obsessed I became. I thought it was a “healthy obsession. But it clearly wasn’t. 

The more books and magazines I read, the more I looked at food as “good” or “bad”. I thought everyone around me was judging my body the way I was judging my body and therefore I felt they were judging my food choices: paranoia set in. 

This is when the unhealthy eating behaviors started. I’d binge a lot; go to Burger King drive through and order a Whopper with Cheese and large fries and eat it all and then throw away all the evidence. Then I’d stop at the grocery store and buy Oreos and a bunch of sweets like Pop Tarts and you name it. But I’d add distractions in the cart like chicken breast and vegetables so that the person checking me out would think I was shopping for a family. Yes this is how my mind worked. 

Then I’d get home and eat the Pop Tarts and Oreos and feel so sick. And then I’d cry and be so depressed. I’d wake up the next day and berate myself mentally all day for what I’d done and then I’d usually give myself permission since I’d “ruined everything” by cheating– to “just go ahead and enjoy the weekend”– and I’d do just that. I’d binge all weekend. And the guilt and shame would build and grow. 

And then Monday I’d throw out everything in my fridge and start some extreme detox diet that would last 4 days. These cycles were the bane of my existence. I was desperate to get in shape but obsessed with food. I was dieting obsessively and didn’t see that I was creating a situation where I was setting myself up for disaster all the time. 

The more I denied myself all these foods the more my mind obsessed about them, and then when I would secretly binge on them on an empty stomach, I’d set the chemical reaction in place that happens when you consume carbs/sugary snacks — it’s literally beyond your control. 

Your cravings are like, not your fault. It’s chemical. Do some research. All those years, I was a walking insulin response. Sounds crazy but now I see it. The harder I worked at dieting, the harder my mind fought it and the more my mind and body pulled me in the other direction toward cheating. And each time I cheated, both the insulin response (crash and burn) and the guilt and shame afterword were enough to put me in a constant state of feeling like a failure. 

How do you ever WIN when you feel like a loser every day? The truth is, this just seemed to be the way I would always be. I was that person who was always dieting, always unhappy with her body, always thinking about food, always thinking about ways to making fitness food taste like non-fitness food, always bingeing, always eating in secret and then punishing herself for doing so, always being CONTROLLED BY FOOD. I was that person who had an uncomfortable relationship with food. I was that person who said “I can’t be left alone with a bag of Oreos” — you know — that person. That was me, then.