Fear of Food

How can someone who is so overweight be afraid of food?

 

I am afraid of food.

 

So far today, I am feeling better than I was yesterday.  Not good, but better. 

 

Yesterday my pain was getting pretty severe.

 

I am afraid I ate something made me sick.  I don't know what it was.  The peach cobbler at the Truck Stop?  The Frangelica?  The beer?  I'm not supposed to have alcohol.  The banana, which is on the no-no list? All the shallots I've been eating, closely related to onions, a distinct no-no?  The white rice, another no-no?  The tomatoes?   Or what? 

 

It might not be something I ate.  It could be something else.  But so far, it seems that my pain is partially correlated with food consumption.  Soy, for example, exacerbates the fibro.  That is, it makes me hurt and makes me stiff. 

 

There is a list of items I am supposed avoid:  The list includes nightshades, coffee, chocolate, soy products, dairy products, apples and oranges, bananas, onions, alcohol, etc.  I can barely remember it.  To further confuse things, I can sometimes eat those things without adverse effects (but it may be cumulative) and sleep quantity and quality also effects me, as well as stress.  The list says not all fibromyalgics respond negatively to all the triggers listed.  So it is hard to ascertain which triggers affect me when.  But now that I've been sick all week, I am very nervous about eating.  And I want to get enough sleep.

 

Sleep is hard, because we always get to bed late, and I have sleep apnea and insomnia.  I don't know how to cure it.

 

The fourth factor is exercise--I supposedly need to get enough and it needs to be the right kind.  But it is not always easy to have enjoyable exercise if I'm in PAIN!  It seems like a Catch-22.

 

To be healthy, I need to do the following things:

• eat right. 
• eat less, eat properly, avoid trigger foods
• sleep well, sleep enough (hard to do with late bedtimes, insomnia, and sleep apnea!)
• get enough of the right kinds of exercise--aerobic and stretching (hard to do when in pain)
• avoid excess stress (yeah, right--unfortunately, when I'm in pain, everything seems stressful!)

The whole thing creates its own "downward" or negative spiral.  What I want to know is, what can I do to turn it around to create a positive spiral.

 

--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary