I don't want to be blogging right now, but I realize that I need to update the previous post, about my being in relapse, 'cause for today anyway, I'm not anymore. I can't have such a dangerously misleading headline being what readers see first.

For 46 days, I've been abstaining from foods and food behaviors that are unhealthy for me. In early December, I went away to Acorn Food Dependency Recovery Services, a Florida-based group from which I've sought help for more than 20 years, and I've been better since.

For birthdays, anniversaries, job promotions, graduations, and so many more, it’s just not a celebration without sweets. Cake, cookies, ice cream — for many of us, they’re the biggest appeal of the event.

That’s because sugar is a mood-altering substance.

True, most often that phrase is pinned on corrosive substances such as heroin, cocaine, tobacco, and alcohol. Only a radical, a killjoy, or worse would apply it to such a cause of merriment and enjoyment, right?

Werdell is the co-founder of Acorn Food Dependency Recovery Services, the driving force behind the Food Addiction Institute, and a key figure behind the only med-school-sponsored conference on food addiction anywhere, which will meet for its third year this fall. 

[This is a repost of an article that was lost, due to the failure of my now-fired web host, A Small Orange.]

Kristina LaRue, RD, CSSD, LDN is a sports dietitian in Orlando, and thanks to her, we have another opportunity to discuss food addiction. Despite all those letters after her name, food addiction has been been misunderstood, again.

We can start here..

There’s a maxim among people I know that says something like, “Just for today, I’ll help another person, and if it is found out, it won’t count.” Well not that, but the point being, “The glow of helping others is tarnished by bragging about it.”

My wife, the estimable Georgina, says the act of helping is what matters most, regardless, but I’m stuck in the middle. Yes, helping is helping, but I am not unfamiliar with helping as showing off.

Which is why I hesitate to relate the following, which I received four days ago:

I used to be a good blogger. I’d seek out original content, to go with the echo-chamber stuff (“Well, I also think that so-and-so is wrong when she says…”), and I’d be consistent. Anymore, not as much.

This goes back a bit, but it has good content, and I'll bet you haven't seen it. Running time is less than 8 minutes.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concepts of “restriction” vs. “freedom.” For me, of course, the context is often around how to eat.

All in all, a very good effort on food addiction from the Institute on the Psychology of Eating, presented by its COO, Emily Rosen.