My Long Battle With Food Addiction (B.e.d.) And How I Fixed It.

[Sam Antics]

Hey Guys, Gals, or Other. Let me start off this post by saying that everything in this may not apply to everyone and for the sake of not appearing edgy or being a narcissist who thinks he is fucking deep, just realize I mean everything here and it comes from a place of hard truths through life experience rather some ideal healing story. I am also putting myself at risk of humiliation and constant teasing from a community that has its roots in a community of the meanest people in the world (gamers), so know that me sharing this is because I respect you guys.

 

Ever since I was a young child I had problems with depression do to some family Related Issues.

 

When I was 8 years old I started attend therapy once a week to deal with the many family issues arising at the time. Some things i'm not really willing to get into. From the time I was 8 until the time I was 18 I was on medications for various things including clinical depression, and severe physical anxiety. As I got older I started to see my friends get into drugs around 8th grade in middle school (pretty young but I come from a stoner town). It was around this time I really started listening to punk music constantly and one of my favorite artists talked about something known as straight edge. It was a lifestyle surrounding caring for yourself and not worrying about other peoples life choices, this essentially meant, no smoking, no alcohol, and no drugs. While I did thoroughly enjoy the thought that punk musicians were advocating for this, I did see some problems with it, for example, there a tense superiority complex between bands and many times people were fearful of their safety if they were known as drug users. That whys I chose employ the mentality while not adopting the title "Straight Edge". As I got older it was one of the few things that kept me from completely losing my god damned mind.

 

"But Sam, the other night on jailbreak you were really drunk. That doesn't make sense?"

 

Well as of lately I had been having some really rough stuff happen to a previous love of mine and made contact with some family member who are not stable enough to be on speaking terms with me and I have been giving myself a free pass on alcohol for the past year since I rarely drink (I have been drunk four times since I was twenty and i'm almost 22). I do try my hardest to stay away from it though as it is self destructive but I have been able to control myself so I am not too bummed.

 

Now here is the real meat and potatoes, and (lol) you will see why.

 

In high school my mental health was at an all time low, and I spent many months and in fact years in and out of group homes in order to try and get the help I needed. Around the time I was exiting my first group home I was at for a suicide attempt, I started relying on sugar and salt and savory foods too combat my anxiety and depression. And boy did it work. I was scarfing down french fries, cookies, and burgers like no tomorrow and the temporary relief was incredible, I felt finally comfortable for even a few minutes and it was great.

 

This continued as I entered in and out of group homes and would exponentially get worse until I was about 19. I would eat a 50 pack of red velvet cookies from Safeway and drink a whole thing of chocolate milk.

 

This eventually caused an obvious health problem known as being fucking fat as fucking shit (aka obesity). In fact when I was 18 I weighed 320 and twenty pounds and had a bmi of plus 35 ( really really bad).

 

I was 19 and recently started a housing program for homeless youth and finally realized I had a problem and I needed to do something.

 

I had reached my peak weight already and was searching for reasons why this horrible shit was happening to me. I looked for anything I could find, and there were many excuses from the meds I was on, to the bullshit Idea that this was normal and that I just had a slow metabolism. All these excuses would never be turned down by anything like my therapist or other forms of support because it was too fragile. I had done some research and found a few articles on an eating disorder called B.E.D. (binge eating disorder). I had spent that night reading up on it and realized this is what was wrong with me.

 

"So What is B.E.D. ? This sound like another excuse for you to be a pussy!"

 

Well first off if you knew anything about the human vagina, you would realized how stupid it is to use that as an insult. Vaginas are the most powerful organ on the planet.

 

Basically B.E.D. or binge eating disorder is a form of addiction where people stuff there face with food that is really sweet or salty which reacts to the serotonin and dopamine receptors in the brain. This is often used to cope to with emotional pain, which was the case for me as described previously.

 

The thing about B.E.D. is once you realize you have it there is not a lot you can chalk up to being an uncontrollable reason. You are an addict to food if you have B.E.D. and that is the fucking truth whether you (I) like or not.

 

How I fixed it and Got healthier.

 

So the year was 2015, and I had gotten into some really good music and bands, my favorite being the band "letlive." I saw them live with my best bud and something there sparked some sort of self responsibility and self awareness. The lead singer Jason Butler, talked about his battle with cancer and how he used his self responsibility and acceptance of death to get better to actually make himself get better. While I did not have cancer I was dealing with my own battle of a similar nature. So I started weening myself off of foods slowly but sure limiting the amount of sweets I could have, and I'm not going to lie to you, there were withdrawals. Holy shit were there withdrawals. I had started to get a crazy headache and shaking the first night I started, but I woke up feeling fine the next day. I continued to this for some time until I had lost about twenty pounds.

 

It was around this time I decided that getting off meds was my best choice, and help get rid of some of the mentally numbing effects of them.

 

While I had always skateboarded on and off I was always too big to do it a lot. During this weening period I did it a lot more and found myself losing weight faster. But being off the meds I was on really made things even harder but I did notice a more mental sharpness that I was not willing to give up. But I needed something to replace these addictive things in my life and I eventually slipped up for a week and gained 5 pounds in two days. There have been many more slips ups like this but this one is the most substantial since it was right in the beginning

 

So I replaced it with running.

 

I started to get back to the process of limiting and I started running as well. While I was really bad at running at first, I was getting this insane high from it and it was really crazy because I never expected anything like it to happen from just running. I quickly became a nightly runner and became more and more addicted to it, where today I run six miles almost every other day. It also help significantly with my anxiety

 

(Minor detail I became vegan during this time, which doesn't really affect your health if you choose to just eat shit vegan junk food like an asshole, which I did for sometime but the vegan health foods help a lot)

 

With this new hobby I was dropping weight like crazy, and PEOPLE WERE FUCKING NOTICING :3. It felt so good to have people ask me how I was dropping weight so fast. And It felt so good to not be out of breath when walking downtown. I was so happy with myself. I had lost 100 pounds in 1 year and and 140 in a year and half.

 

Its so amazing to be able to wear size 30 pants when I was a size 44 before and now I have people checking my cute ass out, and that feels really fucking great as well, i'm not gonna lie .

 

One of my favorite things I remember is visiting my hometown and seeing people I know from high school and them not recognizing me, and telling me I look like a different person.

 

But the Hard truth is I am still an addict, and an addict to something nearly impossible to avoid.

 

I have my slip ups every now and again and have my weight fluctuate in a 10 pound range but I don't beat myself up and try to use it as an excuse to run more. Maintaining my self is hard and I think that's why I reached out to alcohol this past week as stated previously. Mainly Just the fact that I can recover from these relapses is so good to me and helps me maintain self confidence.

 

"So I thought you weren't going to be an edgy loser. What happened?"

 

Ok fuck you Interview Sam. I am on your side as I am you >: ( .

 

No but seriously, I just wanted to share this if anyone else has issues like this and thinks they are the only one. A lot of times people will say fucked up shit behind a keyboard and call you a fat ass. And all I gotta say is fuck them, the shit is one of the hardest things to get out of and most of the people who make fun of people like that have no ideas of hardships or any life experience.

 

Closing statement

 

If you think you can't do it, just remember "Sam Antics Did it, and he can barely lead a jailbreak day without breaking down mid way through and having trouble giving orders clearly." (lol)

[TyGuy464646]

Congrats dude! I'm glad you were able to overcome your troubles.

[ReeD]

Mad respect for you Sam. We kinda met each other only like 1 time but I can tell your a great person, Keep up the good shit.

Well first off if you knew anything about the human vagina, you would realized how stupid it is to use that as an insult. Vaginas are the most powerful organ on the planet.

I like Trevor Noah too.

[Sam Antics]

Mad respect for you Sam. We kinda met each other only like 1 time but I can tell your a great person, Keep up the good shit. I like Trevor Noah too.

 

Oh dude I love trevor noah haha, but I wasn't thinking about that at all. Maybe it was subconsciously quoting him.