God, I hate writing this down. Took me three false starts just to type that title. Maybe putting these thoughts on paper makes them too real. Anyway. Food’s been the thing running my brain for, what, four years now? Five? Lost count.
It wasn’t always like this. Used to think about normal stuff – weekend plans, work deadlines, that weird comment my sister made at Christmas. Now it’s just food, food, food. Breakfast while planning lunch. Lunch while dreaming about dinner. Evenings spent scrolling recipes I’ll never actually make. It’s exhausting.
I Think About Food All The Time (No Shit)
Started keeping a thought diary last month. Rough estimate: 70% of my waking thoughts involve food somehow. Planning it, remembering it, fantasizing about it, regretting it, promising myself I’ll do better tomorrow. That’s not normal, right?
My friend Jess doesn’t get it. “Everyone thinks about food,” she says. “We need it to live.” Yeah, no kidding. But there’s thinking about food, and then there’s thinking about food. The kind that wakes you up at 3am. The kind that makes you zone out during important meetings because you’re mentally listing everything in your pantry.
Dr. Peterson (third therapist in two years) says it’s partly biological. “Your brain thinks you’re starving,” she told me during our second session. Apparently, my years of on-again-off-again dieting convinced my prehistoric brain that famine was imminent. So it did what brains do – obsessed over the scarce resource.
“Evolution doesn’t understand Uber Eats,” she explained. “Your brain can’t compute that food is actually everywhere.”
Made sense, but knowing why didn’t make the thoughts stop.
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How Do I Stop Thinking About Food? (Tried Everything)
Started with the obvious solutions:
- Eating “normally” (whatever that means)
- Deleting food delivery apps
- Unfollowing food accounts
- Keeping busy with other stuff
- Meditation apps (lasted 3 days)
Nothing worked. If anything, trying NOT to think about food made it worse. Like that mind game – don’t think about pink elephants. Now you’re thinking about pink elephants, right? Same damn thing.
Hit rock bottom during my brother’s wedding. Should’ve been focused on his big day. Instead, spent the entire ceremony mentally calculating how many appetizers I could grab during cocktail hour without people noticing. Missed their vows completely.
Sat in my car afterward and cried. That’s when I knew I needed something more than willpower.
Stop Eating Out (The Money Thing)
The financial wake-up call came from my bank statement. $1,742 in one month. On takeout. For one person. Living alone.
That’s more than my rent.
Tried the “stop eating out” cold turkey approach. Taped a note to my fridge with my food delivery total from the previous month. Deleted all the apps again. Promised myself home cooking only.
Lasted 36 hours.
That’s not even the embarrassing part. The embarrassing part was reinstalling the delivery app, then ordering from the place two blocks from my apartment because I couldn’t face walking there. Paid $7 delivery fee for a $12 sandwich I could’ve gotten myself in 5 minutes.
My therapist suggested tracking not just the money but the feelings. Started keeping notes in my phone:
Tuesday, 7:43pm: Ordered pizza. Feeling: Tired from work, don’t deserve to cook. Wednesday, 12:30pm: Office lunch. Feeling: Fine, social eating. Wednesday, 6:15pm: Thai delivery. Feeling: Anxious about tomorrow’s presentation. Thursday, 7:00am: Starbucks breakfast sandwich. Feeling: Running late, deserve a treat. Thursday, 6:30pm: Burger delivery. Feeling: Presentation went well, celebrating.
Sensing a pattern? Everything was a reason. Happy? Celebrate with food. Sad? Comfort with food. Tired? Reward with food. Anxious? Calm with food.
Food had become my universal solution to every emotional state. And it was bankrupting me.
I Can’t Stop Eating Junk Food (The Shame Spiral)
The delivery habit was bad. The junk food stash was worse.
Had hiding places all over my apartment. Candy in my sock drawer. Cookies behind the rice in the pantry. Chips under my bed. Not normal hiding places – my apartment is just mine – but I hid them anyway. From myself? From imaginary food police? Who knows.
Got real creative with the hiding too. Once stored chocolate bars inside an empty tampon box. No one would look there, right? Except it was just me, hiding food from myself, then “finding” it later during weak moments.
The worst part wasn’t the eating. It was the shame spiral afterward. The wrappers stuffed deep in the trash so I wouldn’t see them later. The promises that tomorrow would be different. The disgust at my lack of “control.”
Jim from my support group calls it “food jail” – that mental place where you’ve broken your own arbitrary rules and now deserve punishment. Spent years living there off and on.
Tried telling my mom about it once. She meant well with her “just eat in moderation” advice. Like telling someone having a panic attack to just breathe normally. Thanks, super helpful.
That’s when I started looking for people who actually got it.
Overeaters Anonymous Zoom Meetings (Strangers Who Understand)
Found my first OA Zoom meeting through Reddit, of all places. Almost chickened out ten times before clicking the link. Camera off, fake name, just listening.
These people were speaking my language.
“…found myself eating standing up over the sink…” “…planned my entire day around when I could eat alone…” “…knew the exact time each drive-thru opened in a five-mile radius…”
Holy shit. These were my people.
A woman named Trish shared about hiding in her car to eat fast food before going home to have dinner with her family. I’d done exactly that last month. Another guy talked about the food thoughts that crowded out everything else in his brain. Yes, this.
After three meetings, turned my camera on. After five, said my real name. After seven, finally spoke.
“Hi, I’m Kate. Food has taken over my brain and I don’t know how to get it back.”
The relief of just saying it out loud to people who nodded with recognition instead of confusion or judgment – can’t really explain what that felt like.
Discovered different approaches within the community. Some followed what they called the grey sheet Overeaters Anonymous plan – structured eating with clear boundaries. Others had more flexible approaches. Found my own path somewhere in the middle.
Scripture About Overeating (Unexpected Places)
Never considered myself religious. Growing up, church was Christmas, Easter, and whenever Grandma visited. But one woman in my support group, Helen, mentioned finding comfort in scripture about overeating. Curiosity got the better of me.
Asked her about it after one meeting. She shared passages that framed eating as more than just physical – as potentially spiritual, connected to gratitude, nourishment, and community. Some addressed the question “is overeating a sin?” but with nuance I hadn’t expected.
What resonated wasn’t religious doctrine but the simple recognition that humans have struggled with food since, well, forever. There was something weirdly comforting about that. My “modern” food problems weren’t so modern after all.
Helen didn’t push religion on me, just shared what helped her. “These old writings remind me that my struggles aren’t unique to me or my time,” she explained. “There’s something universal here.”
Whether you find meaning in spiritual traditions or not, can’t deny the perspective shift: This struggle with food isn’t just a personal failure. It’s a human experience that crosses centuries and cultures.
Messy Recovery (No Magic Bullets)
Wish I could wrap this up with a tidy “and then I found X approach and everything got better!” ending. But that would be bullshit.
Reality is messier. Some tools helped more than others:
- Therapy with someone specializing in eating issues (took three tries to find the right fit)
- Support groups where people actually understood
- Learning to identify emotions before they became food cravings
- Building alternative comfort strategies that didn’t involve eating
- Mindfulness practices that sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t
- Medication that helped with underlying anxiety (controversial in some recovery circles, but helped me)
Read all the books – Allen Carr emotional eating method, 8 keys to end emotional eating, the DBT solution for emotional eating. Some resonated, others didn’t. Even tried hypnosis for emotional eating during a particularly desperate month. That one actually helped more than I expected, though I still can’t explain why.
Two years in, still not “fixed.” But better. The food thoughts have quieted from a constant scream to an occasional whisper. Can sit through a movie without mentally planning my next meal. Can have a bad day without immediately reaching for food comfort.
The biggest change isn’t in my eating but in my brain space. Having thoughts that aren’t about food feels like a superpower now. Having emotions without immediately translating them into hunger feels like freedom.
Recovery isn’t perfect or permanent. Had a rough patch last month after losing my job – food thoughts came roaring back. But this time, recognized what was happening. Had tools. Reached out. Didn’t spiral for months like before.
That’s the thing about progress – it’s not about never struggling again. It’s about struggling differently. Better. With help. With awareness. With self-compassion instead of shame.
If you’re still in the trenches of this thing, just know you’re not broken or alone. Your brain isn’t defective. You’re not lacking willpower. You’re caught in patterns that made sense once as survival strategies but don’t serve you anymore.
And despite what diet culture screams at us, recovery isn’t about achieving perfect eating. It’s about reclaiming your mental real estate from food thoughts. It’s about remembering that you are more than what you eat or don’t eat.
That’s the recovery worth fighting for.
This messy, imperfect article reflects my personal experience and nothing more. If you’re struggling with severe eating issues, professional support from qualified healthcare providers is essential – something I wish someone had told me years earlier.
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