My ARFID Story

I was always weird when it came to eating. I remember much of my life dating back to the age of 2 and was a peculiar eater even as a young child. I ate breakfast cereal, pancakes, hot dogs and bacon in my earliest memories, but would not touch many foods for love nor money! It was hit or miss when trying to get little Adam to eat. I was raised in a home where my mother cooked and she was viewed as a very good chef for that matter! This made no difference to the way I would develop and the consequences ARFID would have on my life…

At age 4, I suddenly proclaimed that I was becoming a vegetarian. There were no vegetarians in my household and my family thought I was crazy. Since I was already a finicky eater, mom was quite worried and eventually took me to see my doctor after she realized that this was not a phase that I would grow out of… The kind physician, a Dr. Rieger, told my mother that she should beat me with a wooden spoon on the knuckles until I ate. He warned her that becoming a vegetarian would be bad for me, despite me being perfectly healthy in appearance and weight.

Mom was not a hitter and we never went to see this terrible doctor ever again. Instead, she took me to see a Dr. Sharma, who was an Indian vegetarian himself. He advised her to get me to eat more variety of foods, such as beans, but said that my vegetarian diet would be fine. Ironically, he must have been 600 pounds, despite his “healthy diet”.

All this turmoil about food began to traumatize me more as a young child. I became ever more picky, until I literally only ate a handful of foods and repeated this menu basically every day. This pattern would endure until I reached my late 30s, believe it or not!

I ate cold breakfast cereal with milk for breakfast every day. Occasionally, I would eat oatmeal, if it had tons of brown sugar on it as a bribe. I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch until years later when I decided I could no longer eat jelly and never did again. Afterwards, it was just peanut butter on bread. I ate American cheese and would have it on crackers or as a sandwich for lunch, as well. I even liked mustard on this cheese sandwich to give it some flavor. For dinner, I would eat spaghetti with butter or macaroni with cheese.

Even though my mom was a good cook, I developed a strong preference for macaroni and cheese out of a package instead of home-made. I really liked the mac and cheese dinner in several varieties and would eat this garbage meal for decades to come as my main dinner menu item.

I would eat corn, if it was cut off the cob. It had to be boiled and salted, with butter. No other preparation would suffice. I would eat green beans on rare occasions, if they too were salted and buttered, boiled and the seeds removed. Since my mom was always trying to get me to eat, I made some small compromises that I would allow into my diet very occasionally. Iceberg lettuce with lemon was the only one that became a semi-regular dietary addition.

I liked french fries and any kind of plain bread with butter. Outside of these items, I would eat nothing else. This continued from age 4 to age 36 or so… Can you believe it? It’s true!

I grew up fine and perfectly healthy. I am tall at 189cm or about 6’3” tall, although now that I am older, I have shrank by about 1” lol. I am the same lean weight now (155 lbs) as I was at age 16 and I am now 50. I never gained any weight as an adult and was a finely tuned athletic machine for most of my life.

I am a martial arts practitioner who achieved very high rankings in several international styles before forming my own school and teaching martial arts for years in New York and throughout Asia. I was never sick as a kid, although I often pretended to be, since I really hated school and thought it was a huge waste of my time.

My biggest problem with my diet was its effects on my social life. My friends were great and never made me feel bad, despite me being a complete freak when it came to food. However, social engagements were always full of anxiety for me, ranging from innocent family gatherings at holidays to hanging out with friends. The older I got, the more I felt the social pressure of being a food weirdo. It was not cool.

I always wanted to change, but had no idea how to do it. I also honestly felt that change was impossible, so I really never tried… I knew that I could never eat animals ever again, since it was a choice of conscience I actively made every day. I still am a complete vegetarian to this day. However, I did manage to change my eating habits and believe it or not, am now a very adventurous eater and world traveler! It was not an easy process, but I want to give all of you hope that change is possible if you want to do it!

My mother failed to change me. My girlfriends failed to change me. My first wife was content to not even try, since she was not at all domestic and had no desire to cook for me anyway. I managed to enter adult life and progress all the way into my mid thirties eating a diet of mostly preserved, processed foods with little nutritional value. It was so sad.

However, I met a person who would change me through love and compassion and this person became my second wife. She gets all the credit for my dietary transformation and achieved this success through extreme patience and determination. I can’t thank her enough, even though I try! It was a labor of love, but the effort paid dividends for both of us since now we can be culinary companions and she never has to eat alone anymore!

This is a really just a quick synopsis of a much more involved memoir. If you are interested in the entire story of my ARFID story, the consequences it caused and the way that I managed to not only eat, but actually learn to love eating, then you will love my book… My Food Fear is half memoir and half self-help manual. I am confident that you will get a laugh out of it, probably seeing much of your own food struggles on its pages. I am also confident that the book can help you if you want to open yourself up to the idea of eating more. Buying and enjoying My Food Fear is the best way to support this free educational website. Thank you!

I understand you and your food struggles since they were mine also. I know how you feel. I never in a million years thought I would ever eat normally, but now I do!

If I, the “impossible eater” can change, anyone can! – Sensei Adam