lifestyle

Star Tribune Staff Writer Editor's note: The author lost 75 pounds nearly five years ago, but continued to overeat in large quantities. He started attending meetings of Overeaters Anonymous/HOW in 2002. An employee of the Star Tribune, he is writing this article without a byline because a basic tenet of Overeaters Anonymous is that members maintain their anonymity in the media.

I felt like I was going to explode. My stomach was so full I had trouble turning over in bed. I was not hungry. Just the opposite -- I was absolutely stuffed.

And then it hit me -- I needed more food.

Like a zombie, I rose from the bed and sneaked downstairs -- quietly, so my wife would not hear me. She would be appalled, I thought, if she discovered that I was eating again.

I stared into the refrigerator and tore off a piece of cold meat. I scoured the cupboards and ate some crackers.

With a finger, I scooped a dollop of peanut butter out of the jar. I heated up a can of soup. Taste was secondary. My overly full stomach was of no consequence. I had to eat.

Night after night I was overeating. I couldn't stop.

No one knew. I was thin. I looked normal. I kept this embarrassing secret to myself; to compensate for gorging myself, I ran up to 40 miles a week and sometimes more.

But physically and emotionally, I was a mess. I was gaining 12 or 15 pounds a month by overeating, then losing it by fasting and running.

In my hours away from work, I was preoccupied with food, trapped in a cycle of bingeing and over-exercising.

And then, about 19 months ago, I joined a group called Overeaters Anonymous/HOW. The enormous food cravings that nearly consumed me have dissipated. I have maintained a healthy weight. I have done something that I could not have conceived of: I have not overeaten once. And I have gained some insight into a behavior that, in retrospect, was little short of crazy.

Obesity is rampant in this country. About two-thirds of American adults are now considered overweight or obese.

Many members of Overeaters Anonymous/HOW enter the program in desperate shape, 100 pounds or more overweight. Many of us have been dieting for a lifetime. We're hard-core, powerless over food. Like alcoholics or drug abusers, we have our own form of substance abuse, but it's perfectly legal.

The widespread advice on eating healthfully has done us no good. I subscribe to health and nutrition magazines and devour the latest reports on good eating strategies. But the information was useless. When I had a desire to overeat -- and it happened daily -- logic went out the window.

For years, I was a yo-yo dieter, gaining weight, losing it, gaining it back and then some. I lost 75 pounds through Weight Watchers nearly five years ago, but I had trouble keeping it off.

Such behavior is not unusual. Studies indicate that 70 to 95 percent of people regain the weight they lose. I don't know why people like me eat more than we need. But I know now -- after a lifetime of overeating -- that I don't eat like a normal person does.

Exactly when I became an overeater, I can't say.

I remember the sugar rush I felt as a child, eating frosting off birthday cakes. I recall sneaking pieces of leftover turkey after Thanksgiving, vowing to take no more. But I couldn't stop.