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Paul's Story

Food was a major event as I was growing up. My dad’s favorite mealtime phrase was, “It’s better to bust your bellies than to let good vittles go to waste.” So we never wasted anything. I think that comes from people who’ve lived through the Depression. At mealtimes, seconds and thirds were always encouraged. Lunch and supper always had to have a dessert of some kind. We always had candy dishes out with candy in them and there was more in the buffet drawer so that when that was empty you could fill it up again. At holidays you would keep all the food out and pick at it constantly. I guess that’s common for a lot of Americans but in my house there was so much food it was ridiculous. There was never a sense as I grew up that you could ever eat “too much”. You just ate until you bust your bellies. Full was normal. Full was the desired effect for a meal.

Because there was plenty of food in our house, I ate whenever I wanted to. My dad was on the road a lot for work and my mom used to work three to eleven so I was left on my own during my teenage years. My brother and sister had left the house by then. I got to raise myself, which was scary and neat at the same time. I learned to cook which was a good thing but since we had snacks all the time, I turned to food whenever I was hungry, bored, nervous, or stressed out.

I went into college weighing 185 and came out of college weighing at least 210. The “freshman fifteen” was real for me. By the end of the first year, I had certainly met my future wife, your mom. And we came to a very good understanding: she would eat my vegetables and I would eat her meat. We shared all meals together and if she got a dessert she didn’t want then I could eat that too…on top of my own. So that was great. I enjoyed meals in college. I just ate a lot. My roommate would bring back tins of chocolate chip cookies from his mom and no matter where he hid them in that small dorm room, I’d find them and eat them even though they weren’t mine. One time he and his fiancee invited me and your mom over for a dinner party where they were having baked chicken. At the end of the meal, there was still meat left on the leg of her chicken and I said, “Can I finish that?” And everybody was aghast as I ate what was left of her chicken. I didn’t even think anything of it. It was just “well, there’s something left on there. You don’t let food go to waste.”

As an adult, I became more ashamed of my over-eating. When I realized I was way too chubby, I started weighing myself every day. That’s what my parents did for years and years. It wasn’t until I read a book on overcoming binge-eating that I thought it was even a possibility not to weigh every day. I just thought, “Well, how will I know how much I weigh today if I don’t weigh myself?” As I continued to record my weight, I tried to cut back on sweets when I weighed too much. In fact, there was one point at which I challenged the church congregation where I worked to help me lose weight. Depending on how many pounds I lost, they would donate money to a charity. I probably lost fifteen or twenty pounds, but I put it right back on. I started to learn what was healthy eating but just because I knew it didn’t mean I would do it.

I still continued to binge and I tried to hide it from others. I didn’t want people to know how much I was eating. If I went down to the bakery to get donuts I’d think, “All right, now how many will [my wife] think that I bought? If I buy half a dozen and I cram three into my mouth before I get home, then I’ll tell her I bought four and I brought three home. And then I can still have another one and she’d get two.” There was always an element of sneakiness to it. Part of that sneakiness was shame, but it was also just the thrill of trying to get away with it. I mean if [my wife] bought ice cream and I was able to open up the ice cream, shave off the top eighth to a quarter of an inch and put the lid back and her not suspect that I had done that, there was some kind of thrill of accomplishment. If I could open a package of cookies, and take two out, so there’s still the same number of cookies in each tray, and seal it back up, that was good.

One of the reasons I kept bingeing was just the availability of food. It was so frustrating working from home because every place you went in the house, you had to pass the pantry. No matter what, my hand would just go to the doorknob and I would find something to eat. I couldn’t open the pantry without eating something. Crackers, cookies, pretzels, or open the refrigerator and eat some cheese. I was always all day long eating something. Today, I’ll binge on candy, cake, cookies…usually sweets, but even if there’s leftover cold spaghetti in the fridge, I’ll certainly eat that. I’m even “famous” for eating frozen cookies that my wife has hidden in the freezer. Six weeks ago I walked past a trashcan at work and saw that somebody had thrown out a box of leftover donut holes. I went through the trashcan and pulled out donut holes that looked okay. And it was then I thought, “Paul. You’ve got a problem if you’re going through the trash…dumpster-diving.” It wasn’t that I was hungry or my stomach was going to burst if I didn’t have something to eat right then. It was just there.

Even when food isn’t readily available, I’ll stop somewhere to get some. I’ll go in with the intention of getting a small size ice cream or milkshake and then come out with a medium and say, “Well, at least I didn’t get the large. I must be a good guy ‘cause I didn’t get the large.” But another part of me feels awful. The thing that gets me so mad with binge-eating is that after I eat something I beat up on myself. I think, “Why did you do that? You didn’t have to have that ice cream. You didn’t have to have that Frosty. You could have driven past.” And then I think I’m a bad person. I hate that. I hate that feeling. I do well for a while and then I have a relapse. You might think it would be very simple to just stop this kind of behavior and lose some weight. But it’s not simple! It’s so frustrating.

One thing that helps with the bingeing is to eat regularly throughout the day. I consistently eat breakfast at 5:30am, a small snack at 9:30-10 o’clock, a relatively minimal lunch at noon, a mid-afternoon snack, supper around five, and then a snack around 8:30 or 9pm. It’s the snacks that can go higher or lower. If my brain is in gear, I measure out my snacks. I’ll only get out a few crackers. I’ll only get out four or five pretzels rather than bring the whole bowl or the whole bag or whole box to where I am. One of the things that I would like to start doing at evening meals is serve myself a plateful and then don’t bring the rest of the food over to the table. It’s tough to have bowls of leftover food on the table in front of me ‘cause I just want to keep on eating.

Today, whenever I do binge, I resolve to be better. “I won’t do that again. I’ll be a better person.” Of course, by ourselves that can’t happen; this is why there are Overeaters Anonymous groups. We can’t do it by ourselves. I rely on God, as well as my counselor and self-help books. I can’t do this alone.