Since about March 2020, I’ve been using food to cope with stress. I ate when I was not hungry. I ate much more than I needed. People who knew me always admired my “clean eating” habits. They thought that I had a very strong discipline to keep myself away from the sugar. Yes and no. I simply did not crave anything sweet. My diet consisted from whole foods with almost no sugar. I could easily sit in front of the desert table and not having a single bite. I simply didn’t want to.

My addiction began from a small candy here and there. Nothing serious. I would often eat my regular meals to the point where I was overly full. I would justify such binging as the need for energy to fuel my trainings. By the end of spring, things got out of control. I got laid off; I no place to stay; I failed to purchase the house (the owner died the night before closing)… I was stressed out of my mind to say the least. Guess, how did I cope?

If I had something sweet or tasty I would lose control. I could not stop until I ate the whole peanut butter jar or the entire box of candies. I was not hungry. I was not starving, but I kept eating and eating and eating… Like a pig, I would stuff myself to the point, where it was uncomfortable. I started going to fast food places. “WTF are you doing?”, I would ask myself in my mind, but I couldn’t stop. In the middle of the night, I would find myself in the drivetrough of McDonalds, Wendy’s, Taco Bell etc. This is when I clearly realized that I had a full-blown sugar addiction. I got worried about myself.

Despite 2-3 hours of hard daily training, the weight started to come on. No matter how hard you work out – you can not over exercise a bad diet. This added more stress. I realized that I needed to do something about it, so I started analyzing my addiction.

I read a lot. I watched and listened to a lot of smart people. As always, I was trying to solve the problem with my mind. It took me about nine month! to realize that I could not break this addiction with my brain. I needed something different. I kept searching.

By the way, around September, my body weight had reached 75 kg. I was shocked. This was 10 kg over my typical weight… Holly sh*t Sasha!