Can You Cure Food Addiction?

I hear all the time that people want to turn to keto to try to break their food addiction. When people say, “addiction,” they tend to think about alcohol or drugs, or even gambling. Can you have an addiction to food? Overeaters Anonymous say yes. Others say it’s just an excuse to eat too much. In this series, we look at the controversial idea of food as an addiction. Our final blog in this series looks at the question: can you cure food addiction?

My Latest Struggle with Food Addiction

Bill’s grandmother passed away last winter soon after we lost our cat, Tessa. Work was stressful, and Bill had just decided to open a new business and quit his job. If ever I was going to relapse into food addiction, it was then. And, in some ways, we did slip. We found ourselves in a hotel room in his grandmother’s community with Lily’s chocolate bars and Enlightened ice cream tubs.

Okay, so we made better choices, mostly because Bill can’t have insulin spikes or it will drastically affect his health. But, we still turned to food that had no substance or nutritional value to fill a void. Will we ever be “cured” of food addiction? Will we ever learn to deal with stress and emotions with healthy coping skills rather than trying to get a short-term high from food?

The Treatments for Food Addiction

The Healthline article I read focused on treatment options for food addiction. Just like Alcoholics Anonymous, there are 12-step programs out there that use peer support and a plan to overcome food addiction. There is Overeaters Anonymous, Greysheeters Anonymous, Food Addicts Anonymous, and Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous. These are free, and people participate in meetings with others who struggle in the same ways. While they aren’t in every community, they are often online and people can attend meetings via Skype or Zoom.

There are also commercial treatment programs. These tend to be residential programs and are most certainly not free. Canada doesn’t seem to have very many options, but there are quite a few available in the States. If your addiction has caused you real health harms, this might be an option for you.

Will Counseling Cure Food Addiction?

One of the most popular counseling options for food addiction is cognitive behavioral therapy. In the case of food addiction, you focus on what your emotions are and what you are thinking about while you eat. A therapist then helps you change your thoughts while you eat. They help you recognize how emotions dictate behavior. This is a technique I learned in school, and it’s what I try to do in order to learn better and healthier coping skills.

Not surprisingly, depression and anxiety can contribute to a dependence on food for a quick “high.” For me, my anxiety causes me to overthink, well, everything. I get myself all worked up, and then I turn to food to help me focus for a few minutes on the delicious taste rather than the yucky way I feel. In these cases, drug therapy may be appropriate.

Can Keto Cure Food Addiction?

I wish it could! It hasn’t been a cure for me, but it certainly has helped me to make better choices and be healthier. I’ve pretty much kicked the sugar habit, and that helps a lot. Keto has helped my anxiety and improved my mental health, which in turn helps with how often I turn to food for happiness. It’s also helped me to be more conscious of what I am eating. I still make choices based on sweet taste, but I am conscious of when I’m doing it and why.

Food is tricky because we need food to survive. More than that, it’s a huge part of our rituals and traditions. Every holiday revolves around food. Family shares in meals together as a key way of interacting. It’s okay that food tastes good. It’s not okay when we turn to food instead of dealing with our problems and emotions. And it’s also not okay when we become so obsessed with food that our health suffers. That’s when we have a problem and we need to learn about ourselves and what kinds of support we need.

Can We Cure Food Addiction?

This has been a blog series near and dear to my heart. I am someone who was definitely addicted to sugar. It’s been about three years since I’ve eaten sugar, but I still turn to food for comfort. They say you should eat to live, not live to eat. That’s not my reality. I’m making better choices than I used to, but I still use food as more than a way to survive. I am working on this, but I’m not there yet.

So, is there a cure for food addiction? I don’t honestly think so. I think it is something you struggle with forever. That’s not to say it won’t get much, much better. I used to have an addiction to nicotine. Today, it’s rare that I have a strong craving for a cigarette. The fact that I don’t eat sugar anymore helps – a lot. But while sugar alcohols won’t spike your blood sugar, they still offer that sweetness that can be a slippery slope to relapse. Like nicotine, my cravings for sweet foods are less and less, but they do happen. I need to prepare for when they do.

Wendy