How long can you (I) tread water?

http://michaelprager.com/food-addiction-relapse-weight-gain-spiritual-emotional-health  got me thinking about the difficulty of maintaining a behavior which is not not natural to this organism, that is staying on a diet that leaves us unsatisfied, for the remainder of our life.

Some of us arrived at this unsatisfied condition in life about when we realized that there was more out there then the life we had been living. Many of us suffer from some chronic pain, physically or mentally, and eating was our method of dealing with the chronic pain... what ever that pain is. Take away the food and we are left with the chronic pain, and no way to deal with it, and likely, we are not even sure what the pain is now, nor the cause of the pain. Yet the pain remains, or the memory of the pain (or the cooping skill) has become epicgenetically etched onto us. Now it is a matter of consciously, for the remainder of our life, struggling against the demon, and those who would push the demon back onto us. For those of us who deal with hunger and/or cravings 24/7, we know the struggle.

The cause is important to remove if we can; that is not always possible, even if we can find the cause. For many of us it is or has become biochemical, we are left to struggle for the remainder of our lives, without any effective medical help, but lots of useless medical bullshit... just eat less than 1800 calories each day and get 1/2 hour of high heart rate exercise each day. At the same time, we may become in chronic physical pain that is made much worse by physical activity. The overeating must end first, then the physical activity can increase.

So how does one resolve chronic mental pain that once caused overeating? Is it still an issue, or are we primarily dealing with the biochemical issues that may have been caused by the original overeating? That is the typical issue, as these can become permanent in as little as four months.

So it comes down to four hormones, ghrenlin, insulin, leptin, adrenaline, and three endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, cortisol... according to some, but the basic problem remains. Hunger and/or cravings out stretch our physical need for energy, so we must learn to live unsatisfied. Try to live unsatisfied 24/7.  I find myself essentially prowling, looking for food, in a time and environment in which food is always available.