When I was a kid, I had a huge appetite, but I never gained any weight because, well, I was a kid and kids back in the 70’s and 80’s were more active than they are now.  As a kid, I was always riding my bicycle, roller skating or doing who knows what.  As a pre-teen and a teenager I was busy working with my step-father in the apartment building painting vacant apartments or doing whatever it was that he made me do, so I was constantly burning calories.

I was actually very fit throughout my entire childhood and through my teen years and even through most of my twenties.  I was also a smoker from age 15 to 26, and that’s when it all went downhill for me.  As soon as I quit smoking it was like my taste buds were brand new and everything tasted awesome.  My partner hates it when I say this, but everything new was like having an orgasm in my mouth lol.  I kid you not.

When I quit smoking in 1996, it only took maybe 2 months before I went from 150lbs to 200lbs, it was that quick. The reason was that I was eating sunflower seeds from the minute I woke up until the minute I went to bed.  I was told to keep that hand to mouth going to keep me from wanting a cigarette, but nobody told me how fattening and salty sunflower seeds were.  It wasn’t just that, I also discovered something I rarely ate throughout my life except for those certain special occasions.  Twinkies, ice cream, cake and doughnuts.

You know when you are so proud of yourself for accomplishing something that you want to reward yourself?  Yeah, don’t do that.  I was so proud of myself for quitting that I was literally eating Twinkies and ice cream everyday.  EVERY DAY!  We had a Winchell’s down the street from us and we were constantly going there and buying a dozen and splitting the box and we both would just sit there eating doughnut after doughnut until the box was empty.  Not good!

We would go to McDonald’s and buy one of their birthday cakes and we would literally eat the whole cake by ourselves.  Holy crap!  It was good though.  We didn’t really have a grocery store near us, and the little markets didn’t sell cakes so that was the only place for us to buy cake.  Plus it was really cheap so that’s why we bought it there.

We went to Sizzler in Hollywood and we discovered that they had an all-you-can-eat salad bar.  We took advantage of that because it wasn’t too expensive and we would keep going back until we were full, which you know you shouldn’t do, but you do it because you feel you want to get your moneys worth.  Then one time we went and decided not to get the salad bar, but to get some actual food, so I got Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken.  That was the very first time I had ever had that.  My mother never made it when I was growing up and I never even heard of it before that day.  OH MY GOD!

As the years went on I was getting fatter and fatter.  We discovered Hometown Buffet and Golden Corral.  We couldn’t leave the place unless we were both so full that we literally couldn’t swallow another drop or eat another bite of whatever.

My hunger went off the charts at home.  I would eat a big breakfast and within an hour I was hungry again, so I would eat something.  I would have lunch and the same thing would happen again, I would get hungry, but this wasn’t just a hunger, this was a demand from my stomach.  My stomach would literally hurt, that’s how hungry I would get.  My stomach would grumble and I would feel pain and my hands would start trembling like I was a drug addict and I needed a fix.

I couldn’t just eat a sandwich for lunch, If I did have one, I would still be hungry so I’d make another and I’d probably still be hungry so to have something different I would put 4 hot dogs, yes, you read right, 4 “four” hot dogs in the microwave.  Guess what?  I’d be hungry again an hour later.  My stomach would hurt again and I’d get the shakes.

Whenever we would buy pizza, we always got 2 large pizzas with 2 toppings each, but they had different toppings so we had two choices.  I would usually (to be polite) put one of each on my plate and eat them, but then I’d go to the kitchen and as I was “putting the boxes away” I would eat two more slices, one of each.  In an hour I’d come back to the kitchen and grab one more, then another and another.  We always had enough pizza for lunch the next day, but only because I felt guilty about eating so much so I was saving those last slices lol.

I was going to the grocery store every day to buy our dinner, but I would always leave with an extra goodie that I would eat on the walk home.  Then I started getting greedy and would buy a couple or a few goodies.  I was snarfing a package of Twinkies and a candy bar or two.  I can just imagine what people were thinking as they were passing me while I was holding the grocery bag(s) with one hand, and stuffing my face with the other.

Suddenly I was no longer just 50lbs overweight, I was more than 100lbs overweight and I couldn’t stop my hunger from controlling my life.  I had type-2 diabetes because I was eating so much food and sugar.  I was trying to control my diet by cutting out the sugar, but I was still eating bread and pasta which we all know turns to sugar, so I wasn’t really controlling it like I thought I was.  The hunger, the stomach pains and the shakes were still there, still controlling me.

I want to say it wasn’t my fault because I take medication that has that side effect, but I also had an addiction to food, so I can’t just blame the medication.  When most people think of an eating disorder, they typically think of people who either don’t eat or they eat and then puke it all up, but they are unusually thin.  I have the opposite.  Sorry, I had…  I have to correct myself because that was the old me and I am not that person anymore.

I will be 43 in less than 2 months and I am just now learning how to eat properly.  I mean, I’ve always known, but I ignored it because I wanted to eat poorly because I was selfish and stubborn and stupid.  I didn’t care until I noticed how bad it was getting and how horrible the pain was.  I now know what I have to do to live a healthy lifestyle and I am never going back to that unhealthy place again.

Thanks to the Noom app on my cell phone for helping me to learn what is right to eat and what is wrong, I now can eat healthy food so I can avoid the mistakes I made before.

Since January 5th, 2013 I have lost 50.4lbs officially as of today, April 20th, 2013.  I couldn’t be more happy with my progress.  I feel so much better about myself and I am no longer starving all the time.  I can’t tell you how good it feels to be able to eat a normal portion of food and be satisfied with it.  I don’t live to eat anymore, now I eat to live.

I have set the Noom app to lose 63lbs and according to the estimated end date, I will be finished by June 3rd 2013, but that date changes weekly.  It is so close I can feel it.  I know I will reach this goal and then I can continue to lose more weight.  I don’t want to be fat and unhealthy anymore.  I quit smoking and I don’t drink or do drugs so I don’t have any actual addictions, and now I have kicked my eating addiction so I am officially addiction free.  Well, I am still addicted to Facebook, but I mean come on, who isn’t?  Right?

So… until next week. 🙂