31–40 of 69 posts
Let me suggest you likely have some kind of vitamin deficiency making you obsessive. Address that and your relationship to food may stop being so problematic.
Not a vitamin but NAC helps me with obsessive behaviors and changing habits. Hilarious that the FDA threw a fit over it.
Eating only powdered protein low quality and fake stuff will mess you up and your kidneys. So I once choose coma patient food. It comes in many varieties for all ages and is cheap in bulk. It is complete, tastes medium awful and you only feel horrible for the first few days. Then just drained, zombified and mildly happy until you can't take this stuff anymore. High fibre content is important.
More concretely:
- Identify why you need an "escape valve". Understand that having an escape valve that dominates your life negatively is the problem, not the shape that valve takes
- Identify the triggers that push you to the escape valve. Both the long-term triggers (for example, it could be being stressed or unhappy) and the immediate habit triggers (for example, it could be seeing paraphernalia or being extremely hungry). Try to reduce the long-term triggers. Try to develop new habits around the immediate triggers (trigger still exists, but habit response is something you want to do). Being aware of your habit loop is IMO important for improving how you react to triggers (therapy can be really helpful here)
I admitted defeat. I love food.
But then I quit all of the shitty stuff, no more sweet stuff, no more sodas, no more potato chips.
Weight went down, but I stagnated again. Then I started again with High Intensity training - and that's it, food still goes in, food gets burned down.
Never felt better.
So the "simple" solution is to just eat normally and try not to worry about it. Unfortunately that can be much, much harder said than done. In your case it seems like you are already in crisis, having already done a week-long water and tea fast and now actively considering a year-long liquid and vitamin diet. These are huge red flags. They may seem reasonable to you in your current mental state but they are major warning signs.
I strongly encourage you to seek professional mental help as soon as you can. I discourage you from trying to be your own therapist, unfortunately that can turn into an obsession on its own.
Disregard all comments here that focus on food instead of mental health.
I'm very sorry you are struggling. Good luck.
I would really recommend watching this podcast episode: https://youtu.be/C-H4KwoKaOc
It goes into the science of different macronutrients and how they effect your body.
A quick tldw: Eat lots more of protein and fiber, they will make you feel full and we don’t get enough of it unlike sugar/carbs that are everywhere in modern diets.
>my blood work is starting to approach the higher ends of what is considered ok. Your blood work is showing you are healthy. It doesn't sound like there's any need to change your diet.
What you are describing has all the hallmarks of a psychological condition (eating disorder) and not a physical condition (poor diet).
You should not attempt to treat this yourself, and you should especially not attempt to treat it by changing your eating habits. Changing you eating habits will not treat a psychological disorder. Eat a healthy balanced diet, and seek medical care if you are having trouble with that.
Otherwise it's like trying to fix a flat tire by changing your oil.
> I've tried fasting and I was able to do 18h fasts daily with no problem and even go over a week without eating, just on water and herbal tea. But that completely messed up my habits, metabolism and relationship with food, and I'm now struggling to follow a schedule and any kind of diet. This is called restricting, and it's classic eating disorder behavior. > I'd love to know if anyone has been able to completely re…
Most people would recognize this as intermittent fasting by itself, but with the rest of it this sounds problematic. I’m not sure you can just replace one addiction with another without looking to the root of the issue.