BINGEING support group

Hi everyone.

I'm a very healthy eater from day to day. VERY healthy. And I'm quite proud of my diet and my will power. I eat whole grains, lean meats, fruits and vegetables and low fat dairy products. I also eat portions of nuts and drink lots of water.

But I have a problem. I'm in university, and tend to go out to the bars on the weekends every now and then. Now, I can deal with a night of drinking, because I can control how much I drink and I dont drink really hefty sugary drinks. My problem is my loss of will power to junk food when I drink. I eat so much... SO MUCH chocolate when I'm drunk! So much that sometimes I feel ill the next day, but of course, I get back on track and dont drop my calories the next day because I know it's unhealthy recoil.

After this rant, I propose creating this group to support and track / log how many days myself and any others interested in joining can go binge free. I still dont mind having small portions of chocolate throughout the day because they might be just 5g portions. I just want to be able to motivate myself to stay on track and not destroy my healthy diet every weekend.

So, I'm going to start out. Since I went all out last night, today is...

Days without bingeing: 1 (I know the whole day hasnt gone by, but I know I'll control it today haha)

Thanks! 

JA reminds that any movement is exercise.  If you do things like take the stairs instead of elevator/escalator, park in a distant parking space in the parking lot, or live in a 2-or 3 story house, and go up and down stairs a lot (if laundry area is in basement) you are getting exercise.  i feel that when I have a large grocery order, just hauling it all into the house and putting it away feels like a workout to me! Some people feel the need to train for a triathlon in order to feel as though they are getting enough, but that just isn't necessary or practical.  If you are having fun and it feels good, then enjoy it!  Take cues from your body and listen to them.

Hi, i am great all day, as most of you are, and than after my son is in bed i seem to eat late. all carbs mostly with ugh...butter:(

i am 15lbs heavier than i would like and i know if i stopped the bingeing i would lose this weight no problem.

Great post...today will be day # 1 of no binge:)

Hi, i am great all day, as most of you are, and than after my son is in bed i seem to eat late. all carbs mostly with ugh...butter:(

i am 15lbs heavier than i would like and i know if i stopped the bingeing i would lose this weight no problem.

Great post...today will be day # 1 of no binge:)

risabelle - im going to order both books from amazon tonight when my mum gets back from work i think. i was telling her about what i know of the (anti) diet and she agrees that it makes sense. she has counted calories all her life but is struggling a bit at the moment so i might ask if she would like to read them too over the summer! 

luvmyboy welcome and good luck :D! i remember you from my lose 10lbs thread (which wasn't very successful LOL). 

im on day 17 or something nowww, feeling ok. i wonder how alexw is doing? probably on day 9589308594 by now:) !!

how is everyone else doing?? havent heard from lots of you for a while! 

Bugsylover, great job! speaking of days, I guess I've been forgetting to keep track but this is the end of June and except for that one day when I overdid by practically not much, lol, I guess I made it through the whole month w/o an overeating episode. I have been so focused on other things and just didn't realize. Cool.

awesome!!! well done sharonclaire :D

bugsylover, I think you and your mom will learn a lot from the books. They will be a great resource to have on hand. It's really hard to argue with any of JA's points, the way she explains the physiology of dieting and your body's survival instinct just makes too much sense to ignore. And the information is comforting, because you will know that there is nothing defective with your body, like a lot of dieters start to believe.

sharonclaire, you are lucky not to have the baggage that yo-yo dieters have! You were smart not to get sucked in to all the fads that came around.

Wow, I can't believe how short my post is.

i just ate 250 g biscuits.and its 12;00 am here. i want to stop this

Hey everyone!

I know it's been AGES since I've dropped by the tread. As usual, things have been getting quite busy and I've been away in Amsterdam for the beginning half of June, and then visiting friends out of town every other weekend.

I have to admit though, last weekend was my worst. My lowest. 2 straight days of S**T eating. Candy, chips, smores, cake, you name it.

I've been quite self concious lately as I think I've gained some weight from not being able to exercise with my foot injury. However, it has healed to the point that I can run 6k again every morning without it hurting! Im SOOOO happy about being able to train again.

Anyway I've jumped right back on track. I'm sticking to a very protein-strong strict diet, with TINY bits of sugar on the side. I've also been taking green tea capsules and using Whey and Glutamine for post-workout muscle recovery. Its all working fantastically and all week I've had no urges to overeat whatsoever.

So today I guess is day 8 without bingeing. I dont know what my last record was cause I stopped counting at some point, but here we go again!!!

I havent read up on the thread though, but I hope you're all doing fantastically and keeping up high spirits. I'll try my best to get back here more often and make an effort on reading up and checking up on everyone.

Take care for now!!!

All the best,

-Alex

risabelle, what would JA say? just kidding. By know, thanks to you, I know what JA would say to the following but I tend to believe there is something psychological here, too! Would you comment on this JA style?  

My family came to town yesterday...they'll congregate here for 2 weeks. I feel back on track today but yesterday I feel really confident I was eating more than I needed out of compulsion/many years of bad habits/reflex! My diet was fine and generally is, so the diet and quantity hadn't changed. On events like this, I am inclined to believe in the power of psychology.

alexw: you have missed out on quite a bit recently. :  )

yuss: read back to the past two weeks for good info for overcoming this!

bugsylover: glad you are staying with it!

days without binge = 9

Here I am!  New at this forum.  I have a huge binge problem and I keep gaining weight.  I am always in a diet but I keep gaining instead of loosing.  I want to make today my first day without bingeing.  I have tried so many challenges at CC but I always break down.  I can't keep up with anything when it comes to dieting.  I have no will power what so ever!!!  I already binge today but not that much so I will make it as my breakfast.  When I woke up and was preparing my lunch for work I ate some of the rice and the meat.  It wasn't that bad so I logged it as breakfast and I had a peach 2 hrs later at work (I wake up really early).  So nice to be here and I'll try my best.  At the end, maybe for me this is the best way to start instead of an extremely hard and restricted weight loss challenge.  I haven't weight myself for a week now and I won't until Friday morning (July 4th) after 4 days of not bingeing.

buenos suerte :)

I would like to join in on this. I am a binge eater.. I was so proud of my self Thurs and Fri.  Then came Sat and sun. I was upset over a situation with my grown daughter and ate a tub of snickers ice cream and a jar of chocolate syrup and a double cheeseburger , 16ou. cheese, a turkey burger, a steak and potato, oh and a can of soup. Now I feel hung over and crabby and bloated. I didnt walk today and just want to sleep.

sharonclaire, I will try to answer you JA style.  I believe what you're saying is that with your family around, you think that for psychological reasons, you will overeat and not be able to keep up your good record.  JA may say that you are not completely off what she refers to as the Feast or Famine cycle.  Just by the fact that you try to consistently stay close to 2000 calories, you are still trying to maintain some control over your eating.  That amount, coupled with the calorie deficit from your exercising, may be less than what your body ideally needs. But I know this is how you like it to be.  But JA doesn't advocate that low of a calorie intake.  She says that a World Hunger Organization determined that the minimum requirement of an average adult to be 2100 calories per day; therefore any diet under 2100 a day signals potential starvation to the body.  I know, you probably don't feel like you are actually starving, in fact this actually seems preposterous as we do not live in underdeveloped countries, but the way this starvation manifests itself is by causing the person to binge or overeat. Undereating from any cause, is interpreted by the body as a famine, and so the Cycle continues (or perhaps in some cases it begins).  As I was getting off the Cycle, I know I ate huge amounts--I let my body eat good foods until satisfaction, whenever I got hungry.  I never said--wow, this is way too much, I better stop before I'm sorry--But rather I listened to my body and not my head.  I knew this is what Jean said to do to get off cycle, and I knew I'd be sorry later down the road, if I didn't do this now.  For months I ate what I used to consider ridiculous amounts, but this was all necessary, as I was a former very strict dieter.  I needed to send the message to my body that "Food is Now Available" so that it will eventually stop storing food as fat, like it is programmed to do in a famine situation.  Jean says if you do not eat until satisfaction, nothing will work like it should.  I still eat a lot, probably closer to 3,000, and over on some days if I had to guess, but I don't try to figure it out.  So Jean would say that if you are still on the cycle, meaning you've never taken the steps she outlines in her book to get off, you are probably still eating too little some time, so the body  has to inspire you to take in bigger quantities of make-up food when it can--this is when undereaters "lose control."  So what I see the difference is between how you eat and how a NT eater eats is that you still maintain a certain amount of control over your eating.  This control has to fly out the window if you are ever going to eat NT.   JA also maintains that the starting point of the Feast or Famine Cycle does not have to be a diet, as I know you've said before you have not succumbed to dieting.  JA says that many factors can interfere with our body's ability to get enough food through the day; busy schedules, subconscious food avoidance, not getting a break at work to eat when hungry, or if breaks are allowed we don't eat enough.  She says even if we could eat anytime, so many of us our programmed to avoid food that we wouldn't eat enough good food if we actually could.  So what JA would probably say is that although you believe you are eating enough calories, it probably isn't enough to get you off cycle, so your body is still craving some make-up food here and there.  If there is still a degree of mind-controlled eating, then you are not eating totally body-controlled yet.  It is at this point that you are eating what your body is telling you to eat, and stopping when you are full.  (That's FULL--not stuffed--and  not a mere level 7 on the hunger scale either.)  What I do is I eat until the food no longer looks appealing.  It is always a feeling of satisfaction, but doing this initially takes some practice.  There are times in the beginning I didn't eat enough, so what happens is you realize that and go and eat some more.  There are times I overate, but this is just what you have to do to get your hunger signals straightened out.  It will all come together with practice.  There are other things beside dieting that can mimic a famine, such as illness, surgery, medications, divorce, career and financial problems: things like this can suppress the appetite and mimic a diet (famine) to the body.  The rebound effect to these will be overeating just like what happens after a period of traditional dieting.  I used to be so afraid of eating at holidays, any picnics, and even at restaurants (you know, the bread basket)  but now I don't have to worry.  The same NT principles apply wherever I eat.  If I'm not hungry, I don't eat, and if I am, I eat good quality food until I'm satisfied.  The only thing that you do have to maintain some control over is to eat the best quality food that you can.  I have been to 2 birthday parties recently, and ate so well that the cake had no appeal to me.  However, if there ever comes a time when I really want ice cream for instance, and I know that's what my body is telling me it wants, I'll go ahead and enjoy it.  But this should happen only after you know you are completely off the feast or famine cycle, because this is how real naturally thin people eat.  Sweets aren't a main part of their lives, because they are always kept fed-up with good high quality foods.    But that's not to say they never eat sweets, it's just on much rarer occasions, and they can always stop after one serving.  

oh, gosh, I had no idea my last post went on so long...

^ lol -> no worries risabelle - i for one really enjoy reading your posts - you seem to be extremely knowledgeable :)

well i *thought* i was done binging and apparently not. This weekend i went ape$h*t on bagels (one of my vices) and low fat peanut butter..and a bunch of other stuff to follow...and then once i let loose on something i have been restricting myself from its all downhill from there, i just don't stop.. I have gained 7 lbs since April :( and i just am so upset w/ myself w/ the binging.

I started reading "Overcoming Binge Eating" by Christopher Fairburn, so far it seems like it tailors mostly to the binge/purge types (and i don't purge) but i will let you know how it goes as i read on..

I agree, risabelle, your posts are not too long.

wow, what a relief that I may still be able to eat MORE! I am going to try listening more closely as you suggest. But, right now, I am just doing a happy food dance! :  ) more, more, more, more, more? yeah!

sharonclaire: I just realized you can view free chapters from JA's books on her Naturally-Thin website.  Click on "Free Chapters" on the left-hand side of the home page.  In her book "Breaking Out Of Food Jail," the chapter you receive for free is chapter one, in which she does explain her view of emotional eating, and while she does indeed recognize that people do this, it is not what is at the very root of the problem.  If you can, try to read this chapter (and any other chapters, because it seems you can get the first chapter of all three of her books for free this way)  Then if you still have questions, I can take it from there.

Jenny: I know where you're coming from, as I never had the purge aspect either.  I've been advising anyone who is interested in stopping their bingeing (like if you don't feel you can take it any longer)  to check out an author who has written 3 books on the subject.  Her name is Jean Antonello and you can read about her on her Naturally-Thin (use the hyphen) website.  As I just explained to sharonclaire, you can read the first chapters of each of her books for free, right on her website.  Her program is a lot for a strict dieter to take in, because as a former strict dieter/binger myself, it goes against practically everything I've ever read about dieting.  I had to read her books twice to actually let it all sink in, because we are so indoctrinated with the eat less/exercise more mantra of the dieting industry.  Jean's main theory is that all of this dieting (she ofter refers to it as "undereating") is the main cause of every single eating disorder she has ever encountered.  Of course this includes binge eating. I might add that she did her research many years ago, and interviewed people with all different sorts of eating backgrounds in order to formulate her conclusions.  She also did extensive studies on the theory of adaption, and how you body adapts to the amount of food you give it.  She wrote her first book in 1986, but it took her until 1989 to get it published, because most publishers were not interested as her book was so inconsistent with the dieting views among the masses.  She has since written her second book in 1996, and her third, a book for raising kids free from eating problems, in 2005.  She is a nurse who runs the Naturally-Thin Clinic in Minnesota.  Personally, Jean has had 2 distinct episodes of anorexia and then she had periods of dieting and bingeing, before she decided to look for a cure for her own eating struggles.  I recommend her program, outlined in her books, to anyone who is looking for answers to their own diet/binge problem.  I have spoken a lot about her on this forum, mainly because I was here as a dieter about a year ago, looking for answers myself, when another poster mentioned Jean's books as a source that helped her.  So I came back to see if i could help others, the same way I was helped.  If you want to read some of my previous posts about this way of eating to overcome bingeing once and for all, click on my name, but I warn you, they are L-O-N-G!