How did I get here?

(The purpose of this blog is not to make you feel bad for me. I don't. It's also not to have you judge me or my family. I'm proud of every other part of my life. I'm doing this to complete the job. I'm glad I got that off my plate.) So, how did I get to the point of scheduling a Gastric Bypass (GB)? Getting to 321 lbs actually took a lot of work. It took a lot of mindless eating. Have you ever sat in front of the TV with a large bag of popcorn or potato chips, a box, of cookies, or a pint of ice cream? Of course you have. But do you do it all at the same time? Well that's my M/O. I became a habitual nighttime closet eater years ago. Working nights left me with a lot of alone time. The portions grew out of control a long time ago, probably since I moved out of my family's house at age 18. Even before that I always ate everything on my plate and then some. I was always a member of the double lunch club in high school, and I always knew where my mom kept the stash of Hostess thrift store items in the freezer. I can analyze it many ways, but the bottom line is that I am a compulsive over eater. Portions and servings were not a part of my eating vocabulary, bags, boxes, and dozens were. My M/O worked fine when I was single and living alone, but after I got married I became more ashamed of my over eating. On a typical binge I could walk into fast food joint or a convenience store and load up in no time at all dropping $10 - $20. My food (or drug) of choice has always been sweets. I have never met a sweet I didn't like. Chocolate, peanut butter, ice cream, and cookies, I love them all and all at the same time. A normal purchase at 7-11 was a pint of Ben & Jerry's peanut butter cup ice cream, a couple of large packs of peanut butter twix, and just before the register, a couple of Mrs. Fields soft cookies (you guessed it, peanut butter). I always managed to eat half on the ride home, and then the other half downstairs alone in front of the TV while everyone slept upstairs. I became good at hiding the empty pints, wrappers, and packages. Not only did I not want my wife to see them, I didn't want to see them the next day either. The guilt hurts a lot. Besides the obvious weight gain I got pretty good at hiding my habit from others, but even if nobody else ever knew, I did, and I was ashamed. So lets call it like it is, "Hi I'm Gary, and I'm a food addict". The good news, I'm sober today, and I now deal with this monkey one day at a time. More later.