'i’ve been healed from the inside out': tanya bender shares how cbt changed her relationship with food

from my early teens on, food was my comfort, my de-stressor. i was consumed and overwhelmed with constant thoughts of weight and food, and i was uncomfortable in any clothing that wasn’t pyjamas. i’ve lost weight off and on for more than 30 years, only to always put it back on, plus more. i lived by a mentality of “all or nothing” — i was either ‘all in’ eating whole healthy foods, or i was ‘all out,’ not watching what i ate and overindulging.  as i started to accept the fact that i was obese and became more focused on educating myself about obesity, it allowed me to see that i’m not alone in the way i looked — and dealt — with things. we all share very common pathways on our road within obesity.

in the summer of 2020, my stepfather went through a health issue that led to him being referred to the high metabolic clinic to lose significant weight. that day has not only changed his life, but my life, as well as my mothers’ — all of us were obese.

how do these changes help me manage the holidays?

aside from the typical access to overly-processed junk food, the holidays can also bring on outside pressure and stresses you aren’t normally faced with. family expectations, people-pleasing, financial worries and other non-food-related triggers can drive you to seek out food for comfort and/or pleasure. these holidays were also the time when it was “acceptable” to overeat and overindulge because everyone (well, mostly everyone) does it. it was my time to feel normal because i was given permission to overeat and overindulge without any guilt because everyone else was doing the same.

there are many people out there who can overindulge and it does not become a slippery slope. many of those people are not obese. and since there are many people who can overindulge in moderation, it [seems] acceptable to overindulge during the holidays. makes sense, right? i thought that everyone experienced urges and cravings the way i did, but the difference was i couldn’t control them, whereas they could. one of my biggest “aha!” moments was learning that those people weren’t like me at all, and that they had no idea what it feels like to have the internal struggle with food, or the relentless brain banter [about food]. learning that was eye-opening and freeing — it started to chip away at the guilt and shame i felt about myself.

at this time last year i was about one month into working with the high metabolic clinic and i was very concerned about my control — or lack of control — over christmas. i thought i would be able to manage one day of overindulgence, but i wasn’t able to control myself — one day [of overindulgence] became 11 days. but it was such a win. what would have been upwards of six months [of overindulgence] in the past was whittled down to 11 days! and while i did recognize the win, it wasn’t like i recognize it now. after all, i was still early in my work on behavioural and thought changes.

i am in control