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Food Addiction, Food Intolerance, and Hormones

Untreated Food Intolerances may be the cause of your battle with the scale and your out-of whack hormones. I know this first hand. My body, mind, and spirit were so out of balance that  I almost took my own life because I could not stop binge-eating foods that I was intolerant to.  I was on winter break from college and just a few days from my 21st birthday when I sat on my parents couch in the dead of a bleak Minnesota winter and contemplated suicide. I had gained 60 pounds in 9 months–going from a size 2 to bursting out of my size 14 Gap Jeans I had just gotten for Christmas. I had spent my summer break in an outpatient treatment program for binge eating disorder and depression. Shortly after school started that fall I was bingeing more intensely than I had before I started the program.  I knew I could not stop my out of control eating and at the same time I just couldn’t stand the thought of  living another day with the intensity of the physical, mental, and emotional torture I was in. If only I knew then what I knew now about food intolerances, all that suffering could have been avoided.

There is a hidden link that your doctor probably never told you about that causes you to overeat certain foods and then compulsively eat them again and again despite the negative consequences of unbeatable cravings, weight gain, and psychological angst. When you have an intolerance to a food and you eat it, your body screams “give me more.”  On a side note, it is important to differentiate for the purpose of this discussion the difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance. You have an immediate negative reaction after eating a food you are allergic to, and usually after eating a food you have an intolerance to your immediate reaction is feeling better. Peanut allergies and resultant anaphalaxis is a food allergy, feeling intense euphoria after eating chocolate and then eating the entire bar is a sign of intolerance. 

The immediate happy feeling to consuming a food you are intolerant to is often a  coming from the exorphins in foods you are intolerant to–similar to the impact of endorphins from exercising. Your body naturally produces endorphins, but exorphins only come from external sources. You become addicted to the exorphin high you get from eating a food you are intolerant to. Just like any addiction you develop a tolerance and need the substance to “get through the day” despite negative consequences. You experience withdrawal if you don’t have the food: irritability, mood swings, energy crash, headache, lack of ability to concentrate, and even depression.

And what’s more, hormonal imbalances from food intolerances really can make you overweight! According to Nutritionist and author of the Food Intolerance Bible Antoinette Saville :

“Food intolerance can deplete your hormonal system, which can then reduce the body’s ability to use fat for energy.  Toxicity from food intolerances overwhelm the liver’s capacity allowing toxins to enter the bloodstream causing nutrient deficiency and poor circulation, both of which lead to reduced metabolic rate.  The body in an attempt to protect you from the toxins stores them in fat and the body is resistant to breaking down the fat because it does not want to release the toxins into your system. This leads to water retention and excess weight.”  

I know that what Antoinette is saying above is true. I tried all the diets out there to try and lose weight and deal with my food addiction. These diets talked about the addictive nature of sugar and refined carbs, but they did not address my dairy, gluten, and grain allergies that were wrecking havoc on my hormones and mood. Once I accepted that I would never be truly happy unless I stopped eating gluten and dairy and went on an allergy elimination diet I lost weight immediately without increasing exercise or decreasing caloric intake! I actually was able to exercise less and eat more. My hormones balanced themselves as evidenced by my thinning hair becoming lush and shiny, my acne disappearing, and my periods becoming regular instead of mysteriously non-existent.

My life during the worst of my food addiction was composed of almost daily 2am runs to Safeway to wolf down 1 dozen stale doughnuts and several pounds of bags of bulk candy in one sitting in my freezing cold, rusty brown Toyota Camry, sneaking my roommate’s food and hoping they would not notice before I could replace it, watching other people enjoy the beautiful town of Boulder I lived in and the amazing college I was attending, and most of all loathing every inch of my being.

After these eating episodes it was getting too hard to wake up on time to go to work and too hard to complete papers for the courses I loved. Every moment was spent obsessing about what I had just eaten and how I could stop myself from eating more.  I was reduced to wearing a few pairs of black stretchy yoga style pants as they were the only thing that fit me.  I did not take my life because I had a deep knowing that things were going to get better if I just kept searching for the answers to the causes behind my binge-eating, food addiction, depression, and strange array of physical symptoms that I had had my whole life.  I knew in my gut that there had to be a solution. Instead of taking my life I decided to take the semester off of college and pray for a miracle of healing.

The miracle did not happen over night.  I had to do a ton of research and go through more failure to really accept that the reason it was so hard to stop binge eating and lose weight was due to my food intolerances. It is uncomfortable at first giving up your favorite foods that you are addicted to just like doing anything new is uncomfortable at first. Your body is used to getting an exorphin high from foods you are intolerant to, I have found that if I replace the foods I am intolerant to with really nutritious and delicious food,  the cravings are minimal and peace fills in the empty space where the cravings and depression were. I also have found it helpful to fill my life with feel-good activities such as walks in the sunshine, meditation, yoga, bubble baths, etc. I need activities that make me feel good that have nothing to do with food or I will go back to eating those foods that give me a momentary feeling of euphoria but keep me on the hamster wheel of food addiction.

Are you ready to phase out the foods that are causing you to make you feel out of control and gain weight while still being able to eat delicious food? I can help you reclaim your health without feeling deprived! If you are like me, you know that knowledge of food intolerances is not always enough to keep you away from harmful food. I can help you deal with the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of food addiction and live a radiant, joyful life.