On Food Abstinence vs. Intuitive Eating

Before I even start with this post, let me say from the jump. There are A LOT of ways to heal from binge eating disorder and compulsive overeating. I am here to share what has worked for me, but I'm not here to tell anyone else what to do. There is room for all of us at the table. My goal for myself and for all of you is peace of mind and comfort in your own skin, no matter what you eat and what your body looks like.

That said, I have found through lots of trial and error that abstinence brings me the most peace of mind, just for today. My brain is happier, calmer, and quieter when I practice abstinence, treat my eating disorder as an addiction just like alcoholism, and work the 12 steps of recovery. This is not true for everyone, but it is true for me today. Who knows what the future may bring!





First off, can I just share that even though abstinence has totally changed my life, I hate the term when it comes to food?

Actually, I hate the term when it comes to anything. "Abstinence" conjures denial, deprivation and asceticism.

"Abstinence" makes me think of ineffective high-school sex ed and cold, Calvinist, puritanical ladies' auxiliary clubs who want to shut down the neighborhood juke joint and tell teenagers to "leave some room for Jesus" at the school dance.





But if you look at that definition, abstinence is really just refraining from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors. Colloquially, the term abstinence has come to mean giving up specific foods and food behaviors that give us repeated trouble, but not everyone has to do that in order to stop eating compulsively. 

I didn't want to be someone who had to give up sugar altogether. I wanted to be someone who could eat sugar intuitively. 

Literally two weeks before I started Overeaters Anonymous in 2015, I decided I wouldn't do any diets involving abstinence from one food entirely.

I've gone back and forth on this in my life. I have always found it easier to eliminate something (a food, a compulsive behavior, a habit) than to do it in moderation. But "I'm almost 40!" I decided. "I am mature enough to grapple with the middle path. I am not going to deny myself categories of food! Denial is the path to deprivation," I pronounced,


In The Writer's Middle Way, by Gail Sher, she writes about finding "the middle path." She writes about finding the middle path for writing--not obsessively writing all the time, nor ignoring your work. She writes this analogy:





So back in 2015, about to turn 40, I was struggling with writing practice, struggling with food, struggling with body image, and I read the above passage, and it spoke to me. And I thought, "Eureka! All I have to do is stay conscious! I CAN have two Mrs. Field's cookies!"

Except I can't! I fucking can't. I've tried so many times. How many times have I bought a half gallon of ice cream, planning to have a scoop or two a night and then eating the whole thing? I lost 50 pounds on Weight Watchers 15 years ago eating one small packet of M&Ms in the afternoon every day, and the first time I bought a pounder, planning to portion it out into tiny ziplocks, I ate the whole pound in one day and felt sick with shame and sugar.

I was told by intuitive eating experts and gurus that it was the shame and the patriarchy and dieting culture that made me overeat, and that if I rejected those and let myself eat what I wanted (Oreos for breakfast), then I would stop craving sugar eventually.

Except I never did. I ALWAYS wanted Oreos for breakfast, no matter how much therapy and listening to myself I did, no matter how many days I had Oreos for breakfast. I believe I have a somewhat unique (but not THAT unique) reaction to certain substances, sugar chief among them. "Normal" people stop eating when they feel sick. "Normal" people don't want Oreos for breakfast more than every once in a long while. 

Not everyone who is overweight or a binge eater has this kind of addictive or allergic reaction to foods. Just as there are problem drinkers who can learn to moderate with time, therapy, and meditation, there are overeaters who can learn to moderate with a variety of tools. 

If this is you, congratulations! I am really happy for you, and I believe your way is working for you. If what you're doing is bringing you peace, I'm not trying to get you to change. I'm just sharing my experience for people who may have had a similar one. 

Forty years of evidence shows me that when I ingest certain substances, my brain goes crazy and I can't stop.

Anyway, so back in 2015, I had decided I would try the Middle Path again, but from a zen, meditative perspective rather than from a desire to lose weight. I took a walk with a friend who also struggled with eating issues, and I told her I was done with diets, I was done with Whole 30 and Paleo and anything that restricted entire classes of foods. She applauded me! We decided together that we would enthusiastically and self-lovingly moderate.

Two weeks after this walk with my friend, I "found" Overeaters Anonymous by reading a memoir about it. And I started to read about how people who are successful in OA, including the author, tend to be totally abstinent from one or more trigger foods, typically sugar, white flour, sometimes all flour, sometimes more specific things.

I thought the whole idea of total abstinence from an ingredient or food group was crazy and immediately dismissed it from my available list of options.  I was still interested in OA, just not in cutting out specific foods.

That night I went to dinner with my family at a seafood buffet at the beach, and they had a dessert buffet, and I was ready! I was taking the middle path. I was going to stay conscious and have a small amount of dessert but not too much. So instead, I had three huge dinner rolls (like the size of a lumberjack's fist), a ton of crab legs with butter, a tiny dessert of my own, and many, many bites of everyone else's desserts, under the guise of "sampling." And then I thought about it the rest of the night and had to practically chain myself to the bed to keep from sneaking out to find a vending machine after my husband and kids were asleep. 

It didn't feel easy or peaceful or intuitive.

In other words, if the food is fun, I can't control it, and if I control it, it isn't fun. I cannot reasonably predict how much food I will eat when I start with certain substances (back in those days, it was sweets, though the list has expanded since then). And if I do manage, by the skin of my teeth, to control it, I feel miserable and obsessive and exhausted. I can't do it for long.

The next day, I decided to try avoiding sugar all together. I am all for experimentation, after all, and I was eager to prove to myself that total denial would make me more miserable and obsessive than limiting my sugar intake had.

It was hard, but it was only hard for a few minutes. It wasn't hard for the whole meal and then the whole evening. Goddammit.

Was that enough to make me give up sugar forever? Of course not! I binged my way through the next few weeks, trying something new each day: I'd get a Reese's cup planning to eat just one to satisfy my sweet tooth, and planning to save the other one later. HA. I'd think about what flavor of Ben and Jerry's I really, really desired, planning to have a small scoop and savor every bite like the intuitive eating goddess that I was. HA. I would order four giant pancakes with syrup and whipped cream for breakfast, planning to eat only two and take the other two home. HA. I would stop at a convenience store and buy six packages of M&Ms, planning to eat one a day for the rest of the week. They were all gone by dinner.

None of the stuff I planned ever panned out. And when I let myself eat the whole pint of ice cream, all four pancakes, all six bags of M&Ms without shame or recrimination, I felt sick and sluggish. 

I knew in my heart I had felt the sanest on diets that didn't allow any sugar at all (like Paleo and Whole 30 and South Beach), but I didn't think I could do it for the rest of my life.

About six weeks after my first OA meeting, I officially started my first abstinence, which was staying away from desserts and alcohol. That's all I did to start, and that was enough for a long, long time (more to come on how and why my abstinence has evolved). I still ate whatever else I wanted, including tuna subs and bags of Cheetos. But avoiding sweet stuff was a start. 

I have nothing against intuitive eating. It works for a lot of people. I have friends who are doing it quite successfully. I have spent a lot of time reading Geneen Roth (et al) and trying to honor my hunger, make peace with food, and reject the diet mentality. It just didn't work for me. I've been told by a lot of intuitive eating people that I didn't do it right, well enough, long enough, whatever. I've been told I am a victim of the patriarchy and the Diet Industrial Complex. I've been told true feminists don't try to control what they eat.

Okay. That's cool. All I know is that I'm happier and calmer about my food, my body, and my life than I ever have been. Abstinence works really well for me to quiet my mind from obsessive food thoughts.

If you've been trying to moderate and you just can't do it, consider that you might have an addiction to food that won't tolerate moderation any more than an alcoholic or a heroin addict can can tolerate moderation of their addictive substance. Consider reading memoirs or first-person accounts of alcoholics and ask yourself if you do the things with food that they did with alcohol, including hiding, lying, stealing to get it, swearing off it and picking up again, ingesting it until you feel sick, and doing it long past where you experience consequences. 

It's not your fault you can't moderate, and it's not my fault that I can't. My body has an abnormal reaction to certain substances, and I just feel better when I don't have them.

We don't all have the same abstinence, and I've heard it said that my abstinence will kill you, and yours will kill me. I believe that. 

I can't have sugar. I sponsor someone who has no trouble with sugar but really struggles with cured meats and fats like butter and cream. I have no problem with those. We all get to figure out our own path, hopefully in conjunction with HP and a sponsor, and in my experience, it requires some trial and error. 

So enough about abstinence versus intuitive eating. There is room for all of us, and there are many paths to sanity. In my experience, when I make a change to my habits solely to lose weight, I end up doing even more compulsive, crazy things. It's not peaceful or healing. When I change my habits to get more quiet and peaceful, it always works out.

Have you tried abstaining from certain alcoholic foods, intuitive eating, or other methods of recovery from binge eating? What has and hasn't worked for you?