What Fat Women Want

Thank you for this! This observation is one I have never thought about but really applies to me. I am both, depending on circumstances. When I am eating right and exercising, ice cream and the kid's twinkies can sit in my house and I won't touch them. A brownie or donut in my house however I will ALWAYS eat. This is the foodie. There are times when I am in the mindset of just eating to eat, I will eat the ice cream or the twinkies or whatever I can find. Lately I have been asking myself why this is because I have been paying attention and I am not enjoying it. Now I know this is the eatie. I think this has the potential of helping me to go beyond and figure out why the eatie comes out. It's wierd because stress or sadness only trigger the eatie sometimes. She does a lot more damage to me than the foodie. The traditional methods of weight loss, like don't keep it in the house, don't work on her.

I love the mythological references and the cat/dog dichotomy! My cat was such a foodie. When we visited my mom, she loved to spoil him with cold shrimp, and even when they moved, he found her in her new bed to wake her up for his 3 AM shellfish snack. He could SEE the difference between a red cat food can and a green tuna can -- even though cats are supposed to be color-blind. When it was tuna (because I had run out of cat food), the volume of his cries and purrs would crescendo tenfold, even before I opened the can! But he could be an eatie, too. If I came home and fed him and then went back out, when my husband came home, the cat would beg and cry for food as if he were starving, even though his belly was full. The gullible human would then feed him all over again. The cat would almost be too full to walk a straight line! He didn't do this all the time, but it definitely seems he'd sometimes intentionally seek out a food coma.

I appreciate this post. It gives me pause for thought. I believe every morsel (pun intended) of unconscious behavior is one step closer to beating my addiction to overeating.
My goal is to be more of a foodie than an eatie. I've been known to throw food away in a moment of willpower then dig it back out of the trash in the next moment of weakness.
I don't believe an eating disorder can be strong armed into submission. It has to be soothed with cognitive recognition.
Keep writing please.

I am an eatie. No doubt about it.