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! 

soy_vey - don't worry about it too much, it sounds like your plan for today is great, just keep going as if you never messed up and stay feeling good. :) to be honest, what you eat yesterday isn't even that much at all in my opinion, and all healthy stuff.. :) oh and for the dates suggestion, im gonna try and get some next time i go shopping, thanks! 

johgar - haha well at least that is one positive thing, you got your whole old wardrobe back! i had some awesome clothes when i was at my heaviest but ive had to wave good bye to them.. sniff

tothestarsxxx and ilovechai - i googled craisins and they look tasty, i don't think you can get that brand in the UK though.. maybe i should just get dried cranberries? my mum gets these little packs of dried flakes of fruit which i guess are quite similar. i do love those. and also prunes :) everyone thinks i am weird when i say that though.. 

hi welcome and good luck to everyone that's just joined. i hope you're all doing well! i get my exam results tomorrow from my first year of college.... eeeek! 

 

 

I forgot to mention the half a jar of apricot jam.

Thats the doozy.

 

 

mmm-love apricot jam. so, that's one of the things I got rid of until I learned to modify my appetite! (by eating more fruit to curb my sweet tooth!)

risabelle: really great to hear from a very steady alternative voice! glad you are finally seeing results w/NT. I agree so much w/you re:time better spent than calorie counting. All I'm really doing is checking myself when I THINK I'm hungry, making sure to eat healthy foods and paying attention to what I'm hungry for. Not totally NT yet. But, it really makes a difference when you listen to your body. I think I was just eating all the time! I figure this is a permanent change for the rest of my life. So, I don't deny myself anything but don't overindulge either. I seem to be developing confidence I didn't know I had and just over-all feeling good. Sleeping well? lol...my son is learning to drive! so, NO!!! NOT sleeping well! Maybe in 10 years.

Take care, risabelle, and keep me posted on your progress! and I will always read your suggestions! 

Hi everyone. I'm fairly new to this place. i'm looking to lose about 5-9 pounds. I try so hard everyday but i get to the end of teh day and i start eating like crazy. for example today i ate almost a whole bag of potato chips one half a gallon of ice cream and 4 bowls of cereal. i feel so so sickened with myself i have no idea what to do with myself.

oh yeah and some peanut butter and almonds. and half a thing of pita bread. what do you guys do on the verge of binging?

lol. what I USED to do when I was on the verge of a binge was to dive right into the pb and almonds, icecream and cereal and cool, chips, too?!

NOW, I eat healthy and lite throughout the day, whenever I think my body is hungry for it.

I used to binge @ every 3 days. The last 2 months it's happened @ once a month...less and less frequently. And now, I don't even think about food on a regular basis. I write down everything I eat when I eat it...a food journal...and between feedings...no cravings, no thoughts...I am on to other things.

It's a whole other way to live and I really DO love this. I expect to lose weight but it's happening very slowly. It's a trade off. My self esteem is up and I have no idea where this all will lead, but, where can it lead? Eventually, the weight must come off, I reckon!

Hope that helps, dowork!

sharonclaire, I can really identify with your increased self-esteem.  As of the last 5 months or so, I've hated the idea of having my picture taken.  But lately, like you, I have been feeling a whole lot better confidence-wise about myself and I feel like I've dropped a load of anxiety as well.   Just two days ago I had to get the dreaded driver's licence picture taken, and I don't know about anyone else, but I never take a good picture for my DL know matter how good I think I look at the time.  Anyway, before I went, my daughter told me to please not be disappointed with how the picture turned out, as she could anticipate me complaining about how old/fat I looked in it.  I don't know what came over me--I'm assuming it's just the new level of confidence, but I took the best picture I have ever taken for my DL!  Tips:  wear a color of clothing that you know you look good in and smile like you have just won the lottery!  We are allowed one photo re-take, but hey, I didn't need it!

PS I still worry about my kids driving, and they've had their licenses for a while now. That was sheer terror when they were first learning.  I can't tell you how many mailboxes I thought they were going to sideswipe.  They would say they'd rather hit a mailbox than an oncoming car.  I said just try not to hit either!

lol risabelle! I have given up on getting a good DL picture...I thought that doesn't happen to anybody!

Yes, it's a white knuckler watching ones own kids grow to adulthood!

5 months in and you are doing well on NT, huh? It IS a constant thing to learn to eat when hungry...sometimes I know I am OFF! There are days when I can go for hours w/o eating, other days when I need to eat every 2 or so...was this your experience?

bugsy, i'm sad for you that you don't have any craisins there! i wish i could send you some!

dowork, i'm learning a lot of coping skills in rehab. so here are some of mine:

• write in my journal about why i want to binge
• ride my bike
• watch tv
• do something to keep my hand busy, like knitting or a puzzle
• look at my 'bingeing pro's and con's' list
• get out of the house
• and if you have to, sleep

as for me, i'm coming along just fine. i'm going into partial outpatient therapy on monday, and i got this weekend off, so i'm very nervous. i just need to follow the schedule and meal plan i wrote up, do my assignments, journal, and think positive. school starts in 10 days, and i don't have the balls to go clothes shopping yet...so i might have to go to school naked.

 

after writing down my calories for eight days I finally realized that I allow an extra 400 calories to sneak into my diet every day. Even if I don't binge anymore (just for accuracy...to not binge means that I do @ once a month!...what a difference) and my overeating is reduced, I will never lose weight w/that extra 400.

So, beginning yesterday I am journaling everything eaten...right down to the 35 calorie tablespoon of peanut sauce I stir fried chicken in yesterday. I allow myself 2100 calories/day approx. Not true NT, I know...but, I am not true NT. I DO eat when hungry (try to) and eat healthy so no cravings for junk...but I am sure that my eating is not only when hungry but at pretty regular intervals.

Also, when my eating is over by 5ish...I wake up feeling like it really is a new day.

Note to myself: my weight IS coming off and I am not fighting it. I am not trying to sabotage my efforts.

Former binger speaking:

 

If I feel some of my old habits sneaking up on me, I discovered a new way to fight mini-binge-returns (it's so simple it sounds stupid):

don't take the next bite.

I don't focus on the bag of cookies, or the banana bread, or the cheesecake...  I just focus on the NEXT BITE.  If I can break the cycle and just pause for 10 seconds, swallow whatever is in my mouth, take a drink of water, and consider my actions, usually I can walk away.

 

You guys can do it!  I have confidence in you!

i binged really bad today and yesterday!! i probably stayed within my calorie alowance, because i didnt eat much during the day, but it was crisps and chocolate i binged, and now i feel disgusting!!!

so tomorrows day 1!!

julia_rose08, we really need to have a reference sheet somewhere on tips...what works to stave off a binge. Then people can pick and choose their approach...a smorgasbord of approaches and that would be cool because different things work for different folks.

eire, I was a big binger...every 3 days and now barely once a month and it's not even connected to pms...it's my FAMILY that puts me over the edge. I'm working on it! stay with it and read what you can on bingeing...little steps in the right direction make the difference!

I have been writing in my food journal for 10 days and already I can see that even tho I think I eat @ 2100 cals/day, I actually eat closer to 2500 cals a day! What a difference honest reporting makes. At 2500 I will lose nothing. But, knock out that 400 extra and I should lose @20# in a year. It's slow but it's easy. And, better to do it slowly so that the changes stay with me. So, this is day 3 of true reporting. I'm REALLY enjoying it and can't tell you folks why except that I feel like I'm eating when hungry...except at night when I have a bite of something because I am tired!!! When you eat when you are hungry, it's a whole different world...you just feel at home in your body. It's weird and a little disconcerting at first. After overindulging for so long, how can I really feel not just okay but well, GOOD, with so little? (I know what you are thinking...2100 is not so little. But, consider that once I've eaten I am done w/food until the next time I feel hunger! It's a whole different way of living...I am not hungry all the time!) Plus, I always reach for healthy at that point so I seem to feel satiated, too. I'm loosely using the food guide pyramid as a reference for how many proteins/etc I should have/day.

My anxiety is being greatly reduced, too.

Take care all! I still think this chat is the most supportive around! :  )

ugh my stomach feels so stretched now and i feel so horrible. yeah i pretty much just had a binge. I took a mid afternoon nap an hour or so after lunch. when i woke up i was craving cereal realllllly bad. I found some captain crunch in our pantry (still live at home and my brother eats it) and i downed 2 HUGE bowls of it...so awesome i have not had it in a while. Then i was still not satisfied so i had 2 big apples, and practically half a bag of pretzel nuggets along with 2 cans of diet coke

 

ugh i feel like you could pop me with a pin. :(

risabelle, I am journalling...writing down EVERYTHING...what I eat and at what time...if I feel it was from hunger or not...what I'm finding is that JA is right that your body will settle into a schedule of when it wants to be fed. Mine DOES appear to be on about 2 hour intervals...slows way down once I feed it @ 2:30ish and quiets down for the night if I give it something by 5ish. Of course, I am usually up by 6 and ready for something light right off. I am SO grateful to JA for all the useful information. Also, using mypyramid for guidelines is helpful, too...altho there again I modify it for less dairy and more beans/tofu.

I honestly have NO idea whether or not I am eating enough. I don't have cravings and so, don't indulge. I just made my son some lightweight chocolate pudding, gave him his and put the rest away w/o even thinking about it. Of course I did have a bite, I'm talking about a bite of skinny dark choco (72%) cocoa earlier. This is day 8 or so of journalling. This has all become really interesting to me, all the changes, I mean...just can't get over how my anxiety is sort of falling away. Also, my skin is clearing. This is just a win-win situation! I am sure that as time goes on I will need to modify what I do, too. I'm going to check out that website. THANKS!

Jenny, don't get discouraged...easy to say, but, I really have been there myself! It's really a matter of bringing all the pieces together and making them fit. As long as you TRY, it will happen. And, remember, you will find your own unique solutions! Nothing in life is one size fits all. The way I got through all of this was to read whatever I could get ahold of that seemed reasonable or interesting, chose whatever bits of information SPOKE to me personally and threw the rest away. By using this process I have developed a lot of confidence. Why? Mainly because the parts I've kept seem to feed into one another. When one theory doesn't seem to apply, I pull out the next one to fill the void. Remember that the only way to get THERE is to be where you are at right now...in the angst. Give it time and you will also get past it. Just take ONE STEP AT A TIME and recognize the little changes! They are what adds up to the BIG one! Good luck. You are TOTALLY headed in the right direction!

Today in group therapy i did body tracing, expecting to see how skewed my vision of my body is. i drew myself, then got traced and they matched up almost perfectly. so when i look in the mirror i AM seeing the wide hips, the boy shaped waist, the thick thighs...everything. How am I supposed to deal, now? I wasn't expecting to be so disappointed.

I also have no pants anymore. i have to wear sweats or dresses becuase i can't fit in my 3/5s. I'm sort of in a grieving period. Sad about giving up Ed.

This too shall pass.

Oh, ilovechai, it's okay to be in a grieving period. sounds like you are just facing some truths that might have been hard to look at before. That's what makes people stronger...facing reality. Everything else is a house of cards. Not saying that it's easy. But, the grieving will pass and you're on the path to really great strengths when you start opening those doors that lead to honest assessment. I know this personally.

Learn to nurture yourself while you grieve. The more you learn to love yourself, the richer your life will be, including the lives of those around you.

So, you are right, this too shall pass. Take care.

Feeling very whole today. Eating when I know I need it but somehow my eating is lighter and more filling. Just eating less overall and very naturally looking for good quality product. Putting some distance between me and the food journal...don't get me wrong, I'm noting everything but starting to accept the changes are here to stay, not hovering over it all in disbelief anymore. Why? Because I guess it all feels so nurturing and it's coming from within quite naturally now. I like listening to the inner me for guidance. And, equally, I REALLY like tuning out the outside, ridiculously demanding world.

Cheers!

that's a good idea, but i think this clarification should be in order: two distinct types of bingers exist.

 

this is a quote from a negative site that my invoke eating disorder behaviors, so I will not post it.  if, however, someone wants the link for an intellectual property inquiry, i'll gladly offer it.

 

One cookie is not a binge.
One cupcake is not a binge.
Two or three pieces of cake is not even a binge.

A binge is when you stuff cereal down your throat just because you NEED something to eat that you can get down in huge quantities FAST FASTER FASTEST, as if this was a race where anything but first place will lead to the realization of all your worst nightmares. (Except the binge itself, of course. That's a nightmare all its own.)

A binge is when you eat until your stomach is distended, and the skin stretches so you can see ribs you couldn't see before you started your gluttony; when you eat until your whole abdomen, your whole torso, hurts; when you can't even straighten up because if you did the pressure in your guts would be too unbearable; when you can feel the liquids and food trying to shove their way back up your esophagus because you can't fit it all in; when even all this sometimes isn't enough to stop you. You just need one more bite... no, two more... threefourfiveten...

A binge is when you ravage close-to-empty cupboards frantically, looking for anything to shove in your face, even stuff like brown sugar from the bag, or full-fat peanut butter in huge tablespoons straight from the jar, or some hideous peanut-butter-Quik-syrup-brown-sugar-art

ificial-vanilla thing that you mixed way the hell up with the biggest spoon you could find and are just eating because it's so high calorie and disgusting.

A binge is when you eat things you don't even WANT, don't even LIKE, because you NEED to be terribly, hideously full so bad.

A binge is when you eat even though you don't even REMOTELY want to eat, because your biology screams "MORE MORE MORE" and you scream "NO NO NO" and it just happens anyway and you can't even begin to stop it.

So **** you and your one-cookie binges.
You haven't got a ******* clue.

 

 

 

 

that was a carbon copy of my nightly july 2007 binge.

 

 

 

 

the other type of binge is the "one cookie" binge.  it could even be a five cookie binge, but it's not a true "binge" from my experience.

julia_rose08- wow that post....sad to say but that really describes how i feel this morning. I put up a previous post yesterday about how i binged the night before. it happened again last night. i was bored and my bf was out of town. just me. alone. with food. god how good i've been for months with diet and blah blah blah. the past two nights i have stuffed my face. i mean CRAVING carbs....bread slices, bagel slices, cereal. i dont restrict myself from bread so i don't know why that seems to be what im craving. bowls of cereal just to get the sweet taste from it. eating peanut butter straight fromthe jar, and it's not even really good peanut butter. it's just something to eat. i eat all the bread not really for the bread itself but for the honey i put on top or for the jelly i add to it. it's like i want to stop eating my food SO bad but i can't. i will eat a couple of things, sit back down on the couch, and in less than a minute am back up and in the kitchen again searching for more food!!! i haven't binged like this in a long time!! why is it happening again?!? more than anything i want to break this habbit!!!!!!!  i agree there are two types of bingers....one type that thinks eating 5 cookies is a binge, and the other type that binges like the one in julia_rose's post. i feel like the latter....i want to know why i am binging?? i know it's only something i can figure out but maybe you guys can help me....

i am in this city that i moved to to be with my boyfriend. i am about 6 hours away from my family and my friends from home. i am serious about my bf so i wanted to move here for our relationship to grow, which i felt coulnt happen if we stayed in the long distance rut. i am a receptionist. i have a degree from a very good school, and i feel like this is the only job i've been able to find. most things are gotten through connections, and i have none here. i hate my job, i have no good girl friends to talk to, no one to have girl's nite with. i have no family :( i miss the beach. i dont like it here. i am 22 and my life is routine. ... wake up, work, work out, shower, eat dinner, tv, bed...wake up, work out, shower, eat, dinner, tv, bed....u get the picture. something is missing from my life but i dont knwo what it is.....food maybe fills that void, giving me sweet when i want sweet, salty when i want salty. i feel terrible the next day after i binge.

i have lost about 20 pounds that i've collected during my years of college, and i am soooo proud of that!! i feel sexy and good about myself for really the first time. i know that two consecutive nights of binging won't really do tha tmuch damage. maybe a pound or two, and most of the gain i've seen on the scale is from water retention, which will probably go down within a couple of days of working out and drinking extra water. i know this. BUT, i used to have a really bad problem of binging and purging. i don't want it to start happening again :(  what can i do to help overcome feelings of wanting to binge?? please someone help me

julia_rose, I don't think there are two types of bingers. Bingeing, is, well bingeing...it's what you described. Then there's overeating.

I was a binger. I appear to be pretty well through that behavior. I have to qualify that because it has reared its ugly head @ once a month in the past few months, certainly nothing compared to every three days which is what it was for...years??? I haven't experienced it yet in August but do not know what the future holds...if I have a few cookies extra, I would never call that a binge. It wouldn't feel like a binge.

But, I appear to be post-binge. That problem haunted me for so long and we all know that things don't abruptly end, so I am going to hang around this site until I feel all the residue has vanished. I think that's a pretty healthy approach.

Today is a great day! For some reason I really WANT to overeat (that's my head talking) but because I am learning to honor my body, I am holding back until the urge passes. This body/mind thing is really pretty powerful!

Take care.