This pic, making the Facebook rounds, is crude. I’ve always hated the “T” word. But the overall message is the truth.
McDonald’s is where I binged again and again when my compulsive overeating was at its zenith. But I’ve never blamed the fast-food chain. Buying their food — my heroin — was my choice and responsibility.
When you have young children, you have far more control over what they put in their bodies. If you’re an over-eater yourself and you’re always stressed and on the run, you probably let your child eat this stuff all the time. If your child is fat as a result, that’s your fault, not McDonald’s.
We all have choices. When we make the bad calls, we have to own it.
McDonald’s has put a lot of effort into adding healthier, low-fat selections to its menu. You can get salads, fruit, yogurt and other healthy foods.
But I still won’t go in there.
If I do, I know I’ll order all the bad, high-fat stuff on the menu. When I want to binge, I want the baddest of the bad. Who the hell binges on apple sticks and celery? If yours is an addictive personality and food is your drug, the fruit and veggies will be passed over every time.
And so I stay away.
That’s my choice.
Coming from somebody who used to weigh nearly 400lbs and would regularly order a Super Sized Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese value meal with a Coke and two apple pies: I’m with you.
During and after my weight loss, I’ve been very “label conscious” and what gets me is even the “low-fat” options that McDonald’s/BK/etc. have STILL aren’t all that healthy for somebody (sodium comes to mind first). Good on them for starting to provide apple “fries” and the like, but if I’m going to go to a McDonald’s I’m certainly not going to leave there without at least another 1300 calories and 50g of fat in my belly.
It’s easier for me to stay away and just carry a healthy snack or two with me at all times to help curb the temptation.
I’ve struggled with weight and eating in the other direction– my anxiety sometimes makes me so nauseated and choked up that I can’t keep a lot of food down. In that respect, fast food joints have kept me from becoming dangerously underweight. Yeah, it’s not the healthiest thing in the world, but during those times when I’m only capable of keeping down one meal, something addictive tasting and calorie-dense actually has a chance of getting me closer to my minimum daily caloric intake than trying to choke down ten Ensures over the course of a day.
I can totally understand your logic there. If you have my issue, what I wrote about hits closest to the truth. But if under-eating is the problem, I think whatever gets the nutrients in you is what you do. The bigger point I tried to make in this post is that people try to scapegoat fast food restaurants for their bad choices.
binge eater here. I ruined my daughter’s wedding pics because I am in them. I had one of the grooms brothers stare at me, standing and arms folded, with a look of disbelief. I felt like a funny monkey in a cage. Binging is my mind not in control. The food, the high… it’s impossible for anyone to understand who has not had an addiction. The one thing that has helped me most lately, believe it or not, is the phrase, “Why am I eating?” We had McDonald’s today. I don’t care for their food, so I’m safe there. Daughter had a chocolate shake, I never do. But get me in the kitchen cooking and in front of the TV and I become an entranced food eating machine. HELP!
A belated note to Aloria to say that when I was in my mid-20s, I was in a similar situation, which turned out to be due to (very) delayed grief. That was 20 years ago and I after some counseling, I have been ok ever since. Maybe that will give you some hope that it won’t last forever. I hope you are doing better now. Hang in there.