My Constipation and Bloating Story

Many people who are close to me are often surprised at how little I eat and how I'm able to skip meals without being bothered or feeling the hunger. 

Sometimes when I've not eaten during the day, I would forget I've not had any food. Sometimes, I also get easily engrossed with my hobbies (studying, reading or writing) or attending to some of my advocacy works, that I would forget about food. 

Besides, I am not really a lunch person. Breakfast and dinner are my major meals and I take them lightly.

I have come to a point in my life where I eat a very minute portion of food. For instance, if I have a 1kg Semovita pack, I am likely to make the Semovita eight different times, before I will be able to finish it. That is how little my stomach can take.  

If I need to make rice, just one cup (milk tin) is enough for me to be satisfied. 

But, have I always been like this? The answer is a capital NO.... 

I've not always been like this. This was not the Tolu many years ago. I used to be a heavy eater. Although, my stomach has always been a small one, my lack of discipline didn't allow me to eat according to the little size of my stomach. 

There was a period in my life that I was regularly constipated as a result of overeating. I had frequent bloating issues. Vomiting and stooling were my regular ailments. 

Note, the vomiting and stooling were not signs of an actual sickness. It was a self-induced sickness caused by my bad eating habit. 

Although, I didn't start up like that too. During my toddler and preteen years, I stayed with an aunt of mine, and feeding was on a normal level. 

I started staying with her when I was between the ages 3 & 4. So I grew up with a normal and healthy feeding style. 

But, just few years into my teenagehood, I left her to place to go and stay with my mum and grandma, simultaneously. And that was how my uncontrolled feeding habit started. 

This is how it happened. I stayed more with my grandma due to many reasons, but on some occasions, I shuttled between her place and my mother's place. Other times, I stayed permanently with her. 

You know how most of these grandmas are, with their permissive nature. They usually do not restrict their grandchildren when it comes to food. 

Although, whenever my grandma noticed it was becoming excessive, she would caution me. But because she was not all that a strict person, her warnings did not really get to me. I would eat the way I liked without getting spanked. 

Like I said, I naturally have a small stomach which takes little quantity of food, but my inability to control my eyes and throat was a major problem. I so lacked discipline back then. 

Anytime I was with my grandma, I would eat to stupor. As I was eating 'this', I would be eating 'that'. I had no normal feeding pattern. I ate as much as I saw food. 

My grandma sold 'eko' and 'fufu' back in those days. She was the most popular seller of these two foods in her area, due to her level of neatness and expertise in the making of the food. 

My grandma was also very friendly and supportive to all and sundry. She treated everyone like her own child or close relative.

Everybody from far and near, sought my grandma, to have a taste of her two locally-made delicacy swallows. She had many customers because she was doing really well in that business, both at home and in the market. 

Due to the nature of her business, I had no issue with food. 'Eko' was my favorite. One of the reasons, is because eko is easier to eat swiftly. I loved fufu too but I couldn't eat fufu instantly the way I would eat eko. 

For instance, I could sit at a spot and finish six wraps of eko, with or without soup, but I couldn't do the same with fufu. Fufu will always need soup and that would not be fast enough...😂 So, I only ate fufu as a normal meal, not as in-between meal. I ate eko almost every ten minutes, back then. 

On market days, grandma would buy a lot of edible stuff when coming back home. The arrival of my grandma from the market was always a good news I longed to hear. 

The moment I spot her from afar, with her local basket on her head, every worm inside of me would begin to leap for joy because I knew there would always be something to eat in the basket. 

Once she dropped the basket, my only duty was to begin to scatter it, in search of any edible thing I could lay my hands on. Fried crayfish, bread, groundnut, 'pako biscuit' 'guguru' and 'popcorn' were some of the things my grandma always bought, back then. 

Not minding the fact that I had already stuffed my stomach with food, even before she came back, I would sit and still devour most of the things she brought back from the market. 

At a point, my grandma moved to a government farm settlement which belong to us (My late grandpa bought the place many years before I was born). Her relocation worsened my situation. You know why? It was a straight access to food. Although, at this time, I wasn't staying with my grandma anymore, but I visited her often. 

We have many hectares of land attached to the GRA house. On the farmland, there are various edible things, ranging from diverse fruits such as apples, oranges and pineapples, to various tubers, to nuts, to cocoa, etc. 

So, aside the normal food stuff at home, you can practically wake up in the morning, or anytime of the day, enter the farm and get anything available for yourself to eat.

By the way, I hate entering the farm. 😂 I can eat things from the farm but I am the most fearful person when it comes to exploring a farmland. That's because I hate to see animals, especially creeping things like snake. I was always scared. I am still a fearful person, by the way. 

Unlike me, my grandma, uncles and aunts, were experts in that. So, they indirectly made my work easy. 😂 Whenever they bring out things from the house farm, I would joyfully devour them! 🤒🤒 

Note that they didn't bring out those things from the farm specifically because of me. They only brought them out for general consumption; for everybody. Being a farm environment, there were always various food items in the house. 

My daily routine with food back then, was very bad. What baffled me was that, despite the sufferings I got as a result of this bad feeding habit, I didn't change. 

Of a truth, I would feel so uncomfortable and bad the moment I was going through the suffering, but once the experience ended, I would resume my unhealthy feeding habits. 

Here is what my routine looked like then; I would wake up in the morning, check around the house for any farm produce that my grandma might have brought home. I love cocoa, so if I found cocoa, I would consume it. 

From there, I might turn to the orange trees and have some oranges. After that, I might see groundnut or maybe breadfruit (even though I didn't like this one, indiscipline would not allow me to ignore it), I would boil and eat. All these were apart from the major meals for the day.

I literally didn't give any gap in the way I consumed food. After eating many random things, I would go ahead and prepare a normal food for breakfast, after about five to six different farm produce must have gone down.

I may need to clear your doubt that, the reason why I ate that much was not because we were rich and had abundant food stuff. But the farmland in my grandma's place was the source and cause of my random meals. 

Just after taking whatever I prepared for breakfast, I might see something else, for instance, cocoyam and my gut would still be attracted to gulping it down. Of course, what do you expect? I would cook and eat. 

Between that breakfast and lunch, I would have consumed many other things. I could drink Garri back to back and that would not stop me from still taking excess food for lunch. 

Though, my stomach would have been seriously filled up, I just couldn't take my eyes, mind and throat off the food. Something would be pushing me to still eat more and more, upon the filled stomach. 

I would be full to the brim. With no exaggeration, sometimes back then, I would eat to the point that there won't be any more space for the food to go down. It would get stuck in my throat. Sometimes, the food would want to come back to my tongue. It was that bad!

In fact, sometimes, I would keep devouring foods till very late in the night, like 10pm. 

Also, aside from eating too much of food, I also lacked the knowledge of how to combine foods properly. Apparently, those days, I was just combining foods that were difficult to digest, and without spacing the meals. A good example is, licking excess cherry 'agbalumo', immediately after eating beans or devouring bananas immediately after rice. Eating back to back was a big challenge for me, then.

Eventually, after the whole day's food consumption, any moment from 7pm or 8pm, the usual problem would start. I would begin to feel very uneasy. Everything would begin to go wrong with me. Headache and dizziness would begin to hit me hard. 

Severe pains all over my body. To stand up or do any chores would become a problem. I would just lie down in a corner and be looking like an helpless being. My stomach would weigh me down. 

I would feel so stuffed up and wished that something could just burst my stomach open, and remove all the food. My eyeballs would have changed. I would become very weak and inactive. 

Total discomfort was the perfect definition of my experience. My protruded pot belly, as a result of food, would begin to give a funny and disturbing sound whenever I hit it with my palm. I hated myself those periods.  

Once all these things began to happen, my grandma would scold me with words. I remember how she would tell me that "You know you don't have a big stomach and you will be eating  like someone who is for sale"

Almost everyone in the family knew I was a regular customer of constipation. They cautioned me every time, but I thought I was having fun with foods. 

Any moment from 10pm or 11pm, when everyone would have slept. I would be feeling like dying. By that time, things would have already gone worse. It was always difficult for me to roll on my mat. I would be stretching like a goat at the slaughter slab. 

Gas would have built up in my stomach and I would begin to belch. Oh my God! You need to perceive the irritating smell of such belch. The odour was like that of a rotten egg. 

By 12am, 1am, 2am, I would begin to stool and vomit at the same time. The feeling of nausea would take over.

The toilet was outside, so we often keep the potty in the house at night, for urination purpose.  

But instead of using the potty for the intended purpose, it would be filled up with my vomit and poo. Sometimes, after being filled up, I would still feel like vomiting and defecating. At that point, I would have no choice than to wake my grandma up because I couldn't go out all by myself, in the middle of the night. 

Waking an aged person at such time, was all wrong, but I had no other choice than to wake her. Many times, she was angry at the way I woke her up. Why would she not? 

Once she was awake, she would ask me what happened, if she didn't know already. Then I would manage to answer her in my pains "Mo fe y'agbe", meaning I want to poo. 🤦😄

That statement alone always sounded very annoying to her, but the helplessness and weakness on my face often made her pity me, and of course, she would not want me to mess up the room with poo and vomit, so she would struggle to get out of bed and follow me outside, while dishing out the words I deserve. 

Excreting the poo was not in any way easy, at all. Sometimes, with the heaviness and uneasiness felt in my stomach, I would bend down for long but nothing would come out. And other times, it would come watery, with full force. 

I have an uncle. He is the youngest of my three uncles. Anytime my constipation drama started, he would sarcastically laugh at me and abuse me, as I deserved 😂. 

There were days I didn't wake my grandma to escort me outside, in the middle of the night. Rather, I would wake this my uncle and anytime I did, out of anger, he would almost slap the indiscipline out of my head...😂😂

He was not like my grandma who would take it lightly with me. He was always angry. Why would he not? Does it make any sense to disrupt someone's sleep almost every night, just because of your own uncontrolled gut?

Anytime he saw me eating excessively during the day, the kind of eyes he would roll for me ehn? You would hear him say "T'o ba to, k'o ji mi l'oru pe o fe y'agbe (in my tribe).....😂😂. Meaning, dare to wake me up at night that you want to poo or vomit, and see what I will do to you. 😂 That however, didn't stop me from always getting into his trap because I would always overeat. 

After going through all the nauseating, puking and stooling moments during the night, I would feel empty and lifelesss in the morning. I remember my grandma had a camphor and water solution she always kept in the house back then. The solution aids digestion and eliminate trapped gases. I was a regular consumer of that solution. Every morning, after a hellish night session of bloating, I would take the solution, so I could feel better. 

But you know what? Once I got better, I would resume my bad feeding habit. It was so bad that I would rush to eat leftover foods without warming/heating them.

This kept happening to me, in cycles, during my teenage years. 

During family parties or festive celebrations, the abundance of food and free access to them, was a big challenge for me. I would eat everything available till I began to feel uncomfortable, like it was a curse. 🤦

Note that, I don't eat at outdoor parties neither do I find it easy to eat in other people's house. That is one thing I never did. It is not part of me. Till today, I still find it hard and irritating to eat what I do not prepare myself. 

That is one of the reasons why since the year my grandma stopped making and selling eko and fufu, I've not eaten them elsewhere. 

★★★★★★★★★

My addiction to food continued, but I never knew I was killing myself. I had no idea that the implication goes beyond the immediate sickness of bloating, nausea, vomiting and stooling. 

I thought I was having fun until I discovered that the habit had gone beyond only the time I was with my grandma. It practically became an uncontrollable habit that I began to exhibit even when I was not with her. 

It continued into my teenage years. It was then I discovered I was in for a serious problem. How can I have a small stomach and be inflicting this much trouble on myself? I became worried. 

My situation grew even worse when I began to experience depression as a result of financial crisis and poverty in the home, frequent relocation, disrupted education, unrest and domestic violence at some points, from my stepfather towards both my mother and the whole members of my maternal family. 

I was always bothered and consumed with many thoughts. I would be weighed down and weakened. In my depressed or lonely moments, I ate more. 

It appeared as if eating non-stop, was an escape route from the claws of depression. Whenever my heart was heavy with a lot of challenges, I would be idle and my cravings for food would increase.  

Even when there was nothing substantial to eat, I would keep eating anything I could lay my hands on, till I became excessively full. It was such a terrible life!

It began to look like a curse to me. No matter how much I tried to caution myself, I failed. Yes, I failed several times. I would keep returning to the pot, as many times as possible until I saw the end of the food. 

I would eat to the point of feeling sick because my stomach could not comfortably accommodate the excess food I was stuffing it with. 

You know, it is a different thing when you have a big stomach and you eat much. In that case, you may have no problem. But in my own case, my stomach was small and couldn't take much, but I was stressing and stretching it! Does it not sound strange and crazy?

It got to a stage, I became secretive with food. I would eat and have all my meals in secret so that no one would know I was eating beyond control. I ate in secret so that no one would question me about my leftover food. 

I started feeling very bad and uncomfortable with the lifestyle. I was ashamed of myself even in my closet. It began to affect my finance at some points. I had to spend more money on food stuff because I was eating beyond normal. What I ought to reserve for a subsequent time, I would consume it at a goal. 

I lost my peace of mind and sanity. I became very worried as it seemed very difficult to break lose from the food addiction. I couldn't figure out why I was stuck with such habit. Despite all the consequences I always suffered, I found myself falling back into the habit every now and then. 

Finally, it took me a deliberate decision to become disciplined, before the habit became a past tense. 

I began to engage in deliberate fast. That year when I started fasting, I didn't start from the spiritual point of view. I started with the intention to heal my body. I wanted to be healed from the addiction of food. I was fed up of the inconveniences I was causing my body and I badly wanted to retrain my stomach and gut in order to snap them back in shape. 

I began to skip meals. I would deliberately stay empty for many hours, with a strong focus and goal in my mind; to be free from food addiction. 

I stuck with this health-focused fast of mine, for a very long time that I became prone to ulcer. 

I started to ensure that I eliminate in-between foods, especially junks. I ate only actual meals. 

Another thing I also began to do was to get rid of leftover foods. I have an understanding that, sometimes, all you need in some addiction cases is to block your access to the object of your addiction. It is either you get rid of such thing in your environment or you stay away from the environment where such thing is in abundance. 

So, I ensured I cooked little at a time. I gave no room for leftover. That is why till today, I hate having leftover foods in the house. I now hate eating leftovers, with passion, not because I am rich but because it was my way of dealing with my addiction those years and my body has become used to that pattern.

It was a period of serious healing and cleansing, for me. I was strongly deliberate about it and I am so glad I achieved my goals. 

Today, this experience has become a history, because I won the battle. However, as you can see, the habit did not just disappear or die without deliberate efforts. Many efforts and trials went down.  

Now, you will almost beg me to finish a cup of rice and I find it very easy to skip meals. Some people even desire to be like me but they don't know that a battle was fought before I got to this point. 

And now, I hate late night foods with passion. I can almost not eat anything again once it is 7:30pm.

By the way, it was many years later, just of recent actually, that I got to know that the frequent constipation and bloating that I inflicted on myself back then also contributed to my enuresis condition.

If your experience is similar to mine, you may have what is called BINGE EATING DISORDER (BED). 

Well, in addition to that, I would like to say that whoever has this condition lacks discipline and must deliberately work on themselves. 

Don't just be satisfied with a medical or psychological explanation of the condition. Don't use that as an excuse to continue with that uncontrolled life. Deal with it! 

Parents should also deal with feeding indiscipline if such is noticed in any child. 

What does it mean to binge eat?

What are the possible factors that often contribute to the development of such habit?

What are the consequences attached to Binge Eating Disorder?

Are there health implications for regular constipation and bloating?

Let's talk in my next blog post. 

Thank you for reading..❤❤❤