Buy Walking VideosLimiting Your Diet Can Lead To Binges
Colleen Wainwright has Crohn’s Disease. To control it, she followed the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), which severly limits which foods you can and cannot eat. It’s not like she follows the diet to stay thin. It was the only way of eating that kept her out of pain. I understand this. When I was dealing with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), I tried a number of changes to my diet. None of them really kept me out of pain, but I clung on to hope more than anything. When I discovered acidophilus and suddenly found myself without pain no matter what I ate, I had to deal with all the cravings over the last five years.
Colleen is in a similar situation. She had been faithfully following SCD for years, but she obviously feels better and the temptation of “illegal” foods has hit her hard.
The description of her inner voices in this entry sounds exactly what I dealt with after I found my “cure” for IBS. I said the exact same thing in my Video Confessional. I wanted to binge just to make up for those five years of deprivation. I love her description here:
I’m not even especially fond of Butterfingers.
I’m still sorting it out, but I think the kernel of understanding lodged somewhere in the back molar of my consciousness looks something like “You are not the boss of me!†Or, as I put it to my pal, Heathervescent, between bites of generously buttered, 100% forbidden rye toast at breakfast this morning, “F*CK YOU, MOTHERF**KER! You are not the boss of me!â€
So many years of sucking it up, coloring within the lines, being a good girl, stuffing it down. So much rage. So much fear. It’s going to find voice one way or t’other. And “F*ck you, motherf**ker! You are not the boss of me!†is pretty eloquent, if you ask me.
After five years of staying away from forbidden foods, I had that voice inside of me, too. I am healthiest when I allow myself small quantities of anything I want. Making a list of forbidden foods, unhealthy foods or illegal foods is just my first step to a major binge down the road.
Update: Colleen has had a breakthrough with her binges and describes it here:
Previous: Nature’s Stairmaster
Next: Question of the Week: What is your first fat memory?