Eating Addicitions vs. Spending Addictions

There are many similarities between a shopping addiction and eating addiction, or any other addiction for that matter. Mostly, you are ashamed of your addiction. You want to do it alone. You feel some sort of power in that you're doing it alone, that you have control over this one thing in your life, despite it being so out of control.

I feel very fortunate to not have any "other" addictions beyond eating and shopping - those are enough to handle on their own. I'm also very fortunate to not have a gene where my weight balloons regardless of how much I eat. My eating addition shows, but at 150lbs I'm more unhealthy inside than out.

For shopping, it's my credit card bill that gets "fat." I purposefully lost my credit card last month to stop myself. It's not that I spend and spend, it's just that the idea of having a credit card is that you can pay for something later. That little psychological switch makes rationality hard to grasp. It's easy to buy something here and something else there, and before you know it you owe quite a bit of money. You need financial weight watchers.


This year, I really want to focus on getting healthy in both of these areas. Last night, I was bad. I came home and ate an entire box of bagel bites. Alone, those 500 calories would not be the end of the world, I probably hadn't eaten more than 1000 calories earlier in the day. But then my roommate offered me a box of Oreos. I never buy Oreos for myself, and I love them so much, and I couldn't resist.

One thing I'm looking forward to in life is moving in with my boyfriend. While we both have an eating addiction, we both realize that the worst thing to do is have food like that in the house. I'm excited about splitting the grocery bill and cooking for both of us when we live together.

How do you evade temptation?