This is both a preliminary introductory post and an update. My name is Jackson. I've been overweight most of my life. I have food addiction triggered by depression as well as sweets, wheat, and hyperpalatable foods, in addition to a wheat allergy that gives me nasty symptoms. The allergy doesn't manifest right away, preferring instead to wake me up in the middle of the night thinking I've swallowed house keys or cell phones or other random objects, which I try forcing out of my throat with coughing fits. The low-intensity of my allergy means that it's very easy for me to convince myself if I just eat a little wheat it'll be OK. But... well, it's not.
I'm on DietBet because I'm extremely competitive. One of the best ways for me to keep motivated is to have some sort of formal challenge attached to what I'm doing. I've had great temporary success doing Whole30 challenges (which are 30 days of very strict paleo eating). I can imagine the thrill of possibly winning money will help me be even more motivated!
Anyway, I'll probably talk more about how I got here later, but for now I'll talk about something more immediate, which is my kryptonite: Free Food.
Free food is a huge factor in my weight issues. Having grown up poor, even though I'm relatively financially stable right now I still have the mentality that if somebody offers me food I should take it to save money. This typically leads into a downward spiral where I rationalize more and more foods, and it's also wrapped in guilt due to a long history of people associating food rejection with rejection of the person offering the food, or monetary guilt when somebody buys food "extra specially for me" without realizing that it's something I should not or even cannot eat.
My father was always the main instigator, going out and buying loads of food for me if he learned I like something. One day I offhand mentioned that I didn't expect to like clam chowder, but it turns out I did... he responded by buying twelve cans of it and getting offended when most of it stuck around in the pantry for months. I naively assumed that living with my father was the issue, and that once I moved out I'd magically be great at rejecting food, but unfortunately that was not the case.
Today we're very understaffed at work, with only a few people working the IT service desk phones at a Fortune 500 company. Our boss excitedly decided she was buying us all lunch, which made me sweat profusely as I just started a new game today. Options like pizza were thrown around but she wound up picking Jimmy Johns, which was a relief as they have options I can eat and we each just got one thing. Had she gotten pizza I would have had to reject it altogether, and I don't know if I have enough spoons to actually do that. So I got lucky today, but I may not be so lucky tonight when I go to my aunt's party after work.
On the bright side, Dad is bringing me food that I actually do want, as he's been fishing pretty much every day this week and will be bringing me some.
So I did good today so far, but as always I'm pretty wary about it, especially this early in the game. I picked a pretty low-cost game to start out with, but I definitely want that money back :P