Kinda OT: Food Addiction??

[ErinENj]

I was thinking about this tonight and wanted to get your thoughts on this. Do you think that there is such a thing as food addiction? And just for fun, what food do you think you could easily become addicted to?

The reason I was thinking about this is because I think I may have one! I've noticed that lately I've been trying to figure out a way to make sure I have enough money so that I can get this certain food item. Last weekend, I actually chose this food over putting gas in my car. For someone who gets really, really nervous about letting her gas tank get below half full and has only seen the light go on about two or three times in the two years I have had my car, this is a substantial thing!

What's my food of choice you ask? It's the most amazingly delicious, decadent food on the planet. Starbucks Iced Lemon Pound Cake! It is so, so, so, so incredibly GOOD!! There is no better food on the face of the earth, well, besides yorkshire pudding and Applebees' sizzling apple dessert. Unfortunately, since it is from Starbucks, it isn't exactly cheap. Actually, it's really expensive. The only good thing about loving it so much is that the people at the Starbucks I always go to will give me a deal here and there, or if a batch of loaves are expireing that day, they'll give me whatever they have for free. When they're expired, they're not really expired. It's just the standard thing where it expires before it's unsellable, so when I get it, I actually can wrap it in plastic wrap and stick in the fridge and it'll be fresh for two weeks or more. Not like loaves last me that long. A loaf is seven pieces, so it'll last me about 3, maybe four days. :o Yeah, I'm a pig!! But it's just so good! And it's a good compliment to a King-size snickers bar (I can't really stand the smaller ones because I can't have that much chocolate without really bothering my teeth, so with the king-size, there's just enough chocolate to where my teeth won't start screaming at me, but enough to keep it tasty.). :D Oh, and lets not forget Cold Stone Creamery. There's not much better than a nice big container of french vanilla with gummy bears and lots of reeses peanut butter cups!! Ugh! I'm so badly craving it right now but I don't have the money for it!! :rolleyes:

I'm just wondering if I'm alone in this. Anyone else have a weakness for a certain food that takes some will-power to control the craving? And I thought this might be a fun thread that you all might like! :D

[Mark N]

Erin, no I don't have any food I can't do without but there are a few I love to have. Mine are ice cold cokes, homemade donuts, and homemade strawberry icecream. I got a countertop ice cream maker for Christmas and it only takes five minutes to mix and twenty minutes to freeze. I have had to restrain myself because my activity level is almost nonexistent and I don't want to roll around the house.

[Bobbi]

The Iced Lemon Pound Cake sounds delicious. You've given me an idea what to get a friend for her b-day in a few weeks, since she loves lemon - and lives 5 hours away: a gift certificate for Starbuck's :).

Salads are the food I crave lately; there's a little deli not too far from my house and it carries an assortment of salads. It's a temptation I can't resist.

[curiousforever]

Oooh. Ice cold cokes. Mark hit the nail.

[BrokenBladder]

I love ice cold Mountain Dews!! My other weakness is chocolate brownies with vanilla ice cream on top, YUM!!
Of course I can't leave out my other two favorites, smoked mullet and a really good rib eye steak!!
Okay now I'm hungry so I better go make somethng to eat, LOL!!

[curiousforever]

I can't be without chocolate. If there is none in the house I start to shake. If it's actually here - I can do without it.

Coke that has been in the freezer - slushy is my fave....

Everything else - I can take it or leave it.

I've noticed that since my pain has been under better control - I've had a better appetite.

I'm just as happy with chocolate now as I am with those microwavable broccoli steam packages - some good broccoli in there!

[buriedinbooks]

My Bad Foods List ;)

BK Frozen Cokes (save these for major occipital headaches...ice hits the back of the throat and WOW pain lifts for a bit)

PF Mint Milano cookies and not the mini size

HD over B&J chocolate ice cream BUT

B&J vanilla ice cream with a trickle of Creme de Menthe on top

and last but certainly not least: Peanut Butter TandyKates!

Guess I go for the sweet treats over salty treats!

Note: I am supposed to be GF and CF and really do the best I can :) MOST of the time.

I used to stash an emergency package of mint milanos on the top pantry shelf...just in case!

Low pain numbers all...Carly

[Mark N]

CF, slushy coke from the freezer is what I, talking about:) . I use the plastic bottles and try to watch it so it doesn't freeze too solid.

[GardeniaGirl]

I definitely have foods that I crave and eat often.

Pudding and cheesecake are probably my top two.

I just made a coconut rice pudding recently, a new recipe, and it is very addictive.

We have Trader Joe's where I live and they sell a small, 8" New York Style frozen cheesecake for about $6.00. I keep one in the freezer and cut off slices as needed.

Yogurt is the other thing I eat tons of.

I guess I crave creamy dairy products in general!

My theory about this is that due to CP, my options for getting boosts of feel-good chemical surging through my brain are greatly diminished (can't exercise anymore), and eating a yummy food is a way to get that little buzz of chemicals like serotonin, etc.

So, I indulge myself without guilt.

I am going to try a frozen coke this summer when it gets hot. I have never heard of those before, but they sound really good!

[ErinENj]

Sorry I haven't been back to post...it's been a rough few days...and I ended up breaking down. I ate an entire quart of coldstone ice cream today. It's completely shameful, but boy was it GREAT!! Unfortunately, my right arm has been giving me some trouble for the past day and a half (lots of shooting pain...for those who don't know, my issues have always circled around L4/L5 and L5/S1, never in my neck, but for shooting pain that is nearly identical to what I get in my legs, I think it's related. It's just terrifying for me. It's always the last thing any of us need though right?) so last night, my parents went out to dinner and I had them bring me back 2 of my favorite sizzling apple pie thingies from Applebees. Then, I had a dentist appointment (some good news though: I only had 3 cavities at my last cleaning a month or so ago, and they were all taken care of today! Yippee!! The only problem is that I feel like I've been boxing and have taken numerous shots to the face! He had to double the usual novocaine he gives me for my upper right cavity, and I know he already gives me more than most. And it still hurt. The shot didn't hurt, but the tooth hurt! But, having them done is good. And it's been going down for my last few cleanings. I have them every 3 months because waiting 6 is too long. The last time I waited 6, I ended up with 9 cavities to fill, some of which ended up being root canals by the time he got to them. So 3 is fantastic! I do wonder though if my cavities are going down because I don't have many teeth left that aren't already filled or capped. :rolleyes: )

Okay, back to food...so I couldn't feel my entire face for most of today. It took the two shots 7 hours to wear off, so my entire right side of my face was putty all day. Luckily, I didn't drool at all! Coldstone was a good idea. The gummy bears weren't. I only had a few of them before it was just too risky. I had just had a filling done on my bottom front tooth because I had chipped it with my obscene overbite and my dentist told me to be careful for the next few days. But, I did finish it all today. I had 3/4 for lunch (it took me nearly a 3 hours to eat!) and 1/4 for dinner. If I had had the energy, a Frosty would have been there too for dinner.

Also, I went to Starbucks today (Oh, and Bobbi: Don't do it! Don't start off like me! My best friend gave me the same thing, for the same purpose, and she got me hooked! I had a $25 gift card that she gave me for christmas. It lasted a sum total of a week, if that long. All pound cake. That was about 2 months ago, and I've been hooked ever since! :D All kidding aside, I'm sure she'll love it! I was so happy to get mine, and my friend sent it to me because she knew I had a thing with lemon cake, especially with their lemon cake. One day at school, when she knew I was having a really rough time, she surprised me with lemon cake from starbucks. And I loved it! The last time I saw her, I actually brought her some. She didn't finish it, and I looked at her and said, "Um, are you done with that?" She said yeah. I told her, "I know you're not planning on throwing that out." She said, "well, maybe." That was too much for me! She ended up giving me what she had left. It's so sad! hehe!! I hope your friend likes it as much as I did!). I kinda bought a lot of it. 12 pieces. They have loaves that are 7 pieces that I get with such regularity I had to make up a story about a job so that the people there wouldn't think of me as a fat-butt. They think that I buy it for my office every week, and sometimes buy it for myself. I can get away with going in there a few times a week because I've started to get to know people's schedules. I know, I know, that is so sad! I just really like it! Those 12 pieces will last me like 6 days probably, depending on how hungry I am when I get ready for bed. I have to eat with my sleepy meds or else they hit me a bit too hard. But it was really expensive. I think it was something like $32.00 including tax. I realize exactly how sad that is. I spent something like $45 on just food today. Ugh!!

Mark: That's good stuff! It's a must for a hot summer day! I have a fridge in my room (there's 2 reasonable explanations for that: 1- It makes it a lot easier for me and my parents at night. That way, I have water and whatever else I need to keep cold in the fridge and I don't have to go downstairs and wake them up whenever I need something. The stairs really creek, so they both wake up, even though they sleep on opposite sides of the house from each other. Those stairs echo through the house at night! And 2- my brother and his girlfriend had it here before they moved out, I moved into their room, which is much bigger and has a walk-in closet, but is missing a window so it's kinda dark. Anyway, Mom didn't want to bother moving it. I have a great shelving unit from Ikea that it fits right in and that hides it pretty well, so it's really convenient and great to have, especially when my back is killing me. The only thing I need is to remember to bring up bottles off water before I run completely out. It's rough trying to take my pills on less than an inch of water from a water bottle. Almost everyone who comes in here says something about how this is my little apartment. There are only 2 things I don't have: access to a bathroom without leaving my room, and an outdoor entrance.

Okay, back to my point....The fridge has a freezer, so I can throw a bottle in there in the morning and by the next day, it'll be nice and slushy, and with my window AC unit, I can keep it cold for a bit.

But for every day, I have to have a nice cold fountain Coke. I can't do the canned stuff unless I'm desperate (which I rarely am. There's a 24hr HessMart around the corner that's great for a holiday fix if everything else is closed). It has to be a fountain soda. I have one large one fron McDonalds every day. I rarely finish it, but there are days when I do, so I always get the big one just in case. It's gotten to the point where I can even taste if the mix is a little bit off. There are some days when it's just too syrupy and some days when the soda is close to flat. If I don't have at least one soda a day, I tend to not feel so good. It works for me though. I'll buy it at lunch time and it'll take me until about dinner time, but with a bottle of water in case I need it or just need something to rinse my mouth out with when I'm having a bad dry-mouth day.

Well, I'm off. Time for bed. My mom is having some woman over our house tomorrow to look around, take notes and pictures, and let us know what we need to do to in order to give our house a better chance of selling. We've already had it on the market for nearly a year. We took it off over the holidays just so we didn't have to deal with it and because it's a really dead time of the year. So, we've fallen off of our upkeep rituals and this woman will tell us where we need improvement. I know my room is going to have quite the list, so I'm trying to do some things tonight and tomorrow to make sure that list is shorter that it would be now. We'll see how much I actually get done by then. All I can say is Ugh!

[Jo6]

don't mean to be a wet blanket but this topic is hard for me. Daughter was anorexia and Bulimic for years. It's a very sad disease and it can destroy a family.
She is an adult, still goes to councling off and on , but she will always be recovering. It is an addiction.

There is an Eating Disorder forum here. It's been awhile since I was there.

I kinda of lost my taste for food, I had to work on it hard to eat to keep alive.
It's a very long story but this is what flashed thru my mind.

Now, You put a platter of Chrissie's Brownies in front of me and you will have to fight for the last crumb!:p Well, nobodys perfect:D Jo

[Kira]

Haven't been able to eat much lately. I get cravings still, but usually if I give in to them, it ends up with me puking.

When my stomach is okay, I crave cheesy things or I crave ice cream. Sometimes chips. Just your usual junk food stuff, mostly.

Even with an upset stomach, I have to have my ice cold Coke, too. I agree that fountain Coke is better. Wonder why we all like it so much?

[Kathi49]

I don't know that I really have any cravings. Maybe chocolate sometimes or ice cream.

But if I had to say, it wouldn't be food it is Iced Tea or Coffee. But I have to watch the caffeine intake according to my Neurologist, Gastro and Uro Gynecologist. So, I can have it...but only once a day. The rest of the day it is plain, boring water. Oh, well, just something I have to do...drink a lot of water. :) I know it is good for me and a good thing to do...but, boy, can it get boring sometimes. :)

[curiousforever]

don't mean to be a wet blanket but this topic is hard for me. Daughter was anorexia and Bulimic for years. It's a very sad disease and it can destroy a family.
She is an adult, still goes to councling off and on , but she will always be recovering. It is an addiction.

There is an Eating Disorder forum here. It's been awhile since I was there.

I kinda of lost my taste for food, I had to work on it hard to eat to keep alive.
It's a very long story but this is what flashed thru my mind.

Now, You put a platter of Chrissie's Brownies in front of me and you will have to fight for the last crumb!:p Well, nobodys perfect:D Jo


My dad and I will fight over the last radish believe or not. I have some growing out back and am just waiting. might mail some to dad.

Sorry to hear about your daughter. Must be tough....

[Mark N]

Jo, sorry to hear about your daughter, I understand how it can hurt the family.

Kira, I will have to gently disagree on the ice cold coke, give me the small 6oz bottles or any other bottle any day of the week:) . Fountain cokes are too inconsistent for me. I have an old Coke machine in our dinning room. I looked for years to find one at the right price [cheap] and happen to admire one that I was walking away from and the owner offered to sell it for 1/3 of the price. It holds 6 oz bottles but it is too expensive to run or keep with cokes; of course the cokes back then cost 10 cents.

Other cravings I get are for shrimp coctail and iced tea.

Reading this post makes me hungry but with inactivity I have to watch how much I eat.