Secret Eating, Secret Shame

A couple of years ago Health.com published a fascinating article  entitled "What You Eat When Nobody's Watching."  Over 600 Health readers were surveyed to find out what they eat when nobody’s looking. According to the article, over half waited until no one is home to break into a secret snack stash or head to the grocery store and devour treats on the way home.  Amazingly, when the survey asked what was the strangest thing a person had eaten alone, the most common answer was "something they dug out of the trash."  Additionally, 86%  of those in the survey  waited until they were all alone to eat their favorite indulgent foods, 46% had been caught digging into a secret stash, and 71% reported that they had buried a food wrapper deep in the trash to hide the evidence.

Did I mention that these individuals were readers of a magazine that promotes health?  It's amazing to me that we are so inclined to engage in behaviors that we know aren't healthy for us, behaviors that, at some level, embarrass us.

I used to do a lot of secret eating.  I was embarrassed to have people see what I ate, or how much I ate, and I got really good at hiding my eating.  When there would be goodies in the kitchen at work, I'd "palm" a piece (or two, or three) and take the food into the bathroom so I could eat it in private.  Even while I was doing this, I knew there was something really, really wrong about needing to eat in secret.  Obviously the results of my eating were evident to everyone, so I'm not sure I know who I thought I was fooling.  I know I didn't want people to see me eating and think, "no wonder she's so fat," or risk receiving disapproving looks.    What's sad is that I didn't really enjoy the food I ate in secret.  I ate it quickly so I wouldn't be caught, inhaling it with a "make it gone" mentality.  Sometimes my thinking was so irrational that my purpose in eating the food was to get rid of it so I wouldn't be tempted by it anymore.  That makes absolutely no sense, obviously, but when we're in denial about our eating and working hard to keep it a secret from others, our ability to think rationally may well suffer.

Eating food in secret, stashing wrappers deep in the trash container may have kept my eating away from the eyes of others, but my body was keeping track of every calorie.    For a long time, I convinced myself that even though I was morbidly obese, I was still healthy.  My lab work came back normal and I would think, "Whew, I'm still getting away with this."  Honestly, that's what I'd think.  I would also give a fleeting thought to maybe trying to do something before my bad habits caught up with me, and that would often be the start of yet another diet, but nothing lasted very long.  When the day finally came when all of my lab work came back awful - high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood glucose - I knew my years of bad habits had finally caught up with me.  To borrow an old expression from my childhood, "the chickens had finally come home to roost."

It took almost two more years before I was ready to finally stop fooling myself or anybody else, and that's when I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast. In addition to helping me lose 126 pounds, this program has also helped me to finally align what I know I should be doing with the actions that I actually do.  I am now focused on creating health in my life, and I try hard to make sure that the vast majority of the time I'm making food choices that support my goal.  I'm no longer trying to fool myself, and I no longer need to try and fool others.  It's very freeing to no longer be ashamed of what or how I eat!

Being willing to get honest with ourselves is the first step in aligning what we know we should do with what we actually do.  We need to be honest in determining what it is that we really want.  Do we really want to lose weight and get healthy?  If we do (if we REALLY do), then we will begin to make the choices needed to move us in the direction we want to go.   So ask yourself, "is this what I really want?"  If your answer is "yes", you know what to do:  choose wisely :-)