~~Bingers Anonymous~~

Welcome to BA. My name is Nicole and I'm a binger.

i decided that it could be helpful to have a forum for those of us trying to recover from this evil thing called binge eating disorder (BED). Whenever you have success... post here! Whenever you have struggles... post here! need support to stay out of the cookie jar?.... post here!

i'll be posting my intake of calories everyday in hopes that showing all of you what i eat will keep me from OVER EATING.

anyone with the same struggles??

i have to confess that i just stabbed myself in the foot again... i started counting calories officially today, and i did ok all day until dinnertime... and i started to binge. again. I know I can do it though. Tomorrow is a new day. A new chance.

The good news is, i went to see the health center today, had a talk with the doctor, and i'm pretty much set up with an appointment with the university dietician next monday, and a counselor tomorrow afternoon...

I'm not going to wallow in self blame. I'm not going to deny that I have a problem and that I need help dealing with it. And I'm going to get all the help I can!

Good going, purecolor!

I'll be thinking about you.

Sandra

I am the classic binge eater.  I get bored and so I eat....it doesn't matter what I am eating as long as I am eating.  My husband is the same way.  We both want to stop doing this.  We don't eat because we are hungry...we eat because well for many reasons but mostly because we are bored. NOT HUNGRY!

I am going to start trying the water thing.  I have also started drinking hot beverages.  Them seem to be filling.  Hot water or coffee...sometimes sugar free/fat free hot choco.  I think everytime I get that binge feeling I am going to log on here....or go take a shower...or do something productive.  I read somewhere that a craving normally lasts about 5 mintues.  If you can make it through that you can make it through anything. haha :)

Guess we will see.  Other bingers add me as a friend...it would be great to be able to shoot a e-mail telling about the battle..rather than giving in and doing it!

 

hey purecolor!

good on ya! it's very brave of you to stop blaming yourself and deal with it! wow.

take care.

 

ha. hey guys. haven't been on here for months again...it's like 2 weeks of self control, just 1 or 2 purges there and the feeling of achievement. then i give in to a little bit of chocolate or whatnot and down it goes. all the effort i've put in...and i've swung to the other extreme of continuous binging and purging.

gahhhhhh the bead colouring thing is too much of a hassle but i will get back into it. i was counting calories on my phone for 2.5 weeks until i became too lazy. I'd record them down from breakfast to lunch..then come home from work and eat all this rubbish and don't record it down. >.<

sigh. i just don't understand why i can't do something so simple as to eat. stop. exercise. sleep. hang out with friends. work. and that's it....why is food such a big part of my thinking, my time, my life, my everything?

i know it isn't actually "food" that is making me binge. but apparently it's to deal with some emotions inside of me. i don't even know what it is though. sounds like my family is sorted out now anyway and college is next year but what is making me suddenly crave the feeling of glorious food in my mouth? its like a crazy feeling that i long for everyday.

I'm just so angry and flustered that i can't do anything right. not even the simple thing of eating. gahhhh i know exactly all the rules in eating well, all the rules when you want to binge and exactly how many calories are in which food yet i still stuff it all down till the cows come home. grrr is it a lack of self control? or is it unresolved feelings? gahh.

find me a new passion or a hobby to put my mind upon please if you can.

 

xx take care.

 

ti

 

Arg it is SO frustrating. I am studying for exams at the moment, and i eat compulsively. Ive tried making my snacks low-cal- ie carrot sticks, grapes, bananas, and even bran!!.... But when I get home, if no-one else is around- its into the pantry-freezer-fridge. eating whatever, even though im not hungry or the food isnt mine. its disgusting. I had the urge to 'restrict' tomorrow, but i know that this is wrong. furthermore i cant concentrate when studying if I'm hungry/not constantly eating...

Oh and a question: i have my settings on sedentry- since im just at the libarary studying 10hours a day (!!!)... does that calorie count include my 'brain-power'?? becsuae I looked up studying in activitites and its 115 cal an hour- does that mean i can eat 1000 cal worth of snack foods??! the burnmeter still confuses me....

 

tomorrow will be better. sensible portions, at sensible meal times.

 

good luck everyone

does anyone else fight the urge to go and throw up after a binge???

 

i just ate so much that i don't even remember eating it if that makes sense. i really want to go and throw it all up but i think that will start something horrible and make things worse....

 

:(

Please, please don't purge. 

You'll only put your body into starvation mode, setting you up for another binge.

Also, you'd only be swapping binge eating for bulimia, which brings a whole new set of health issues into play. 

Don't beat yourself up.  Forgive yourself and move on. 

All the best,

Mel.

hey, ti --- I've had all those feelings and those you've not talked about! I don't purge, though...it is a conundrum...a puzzle.

I'm working through it oh so slowly. First off, I don't count calories: waste of time and keeps the power in the food, so to speak. Instead, I'm marking off types of food I'm eating. I'm a great proponent of www.mypyramid.org...great info, as well as fantastic planning and tracking programs.

What I'm doing right now is to make an imaginary plate (I guess I could draw it on a paper plate). then, I divide it into four: 1/4 is for meat/protein; 1/4 is for pasta/potato/peas/corn -- starchy foods; the rest of the plate is for veggies. Add a glass of milk (or other high calcium food) and a serving of fruit. Do it twice a day. Anyway, throughout the day, I guessimate how full the pieces of "pie" are and whether or not I have "room" for the item. It may not be lowering my calorie intake right now, but I am getting more attuned to different flavors and textures in food, which I think is good ---do we crave food for all the sensory input??? Anyway, I'm trying to eat parts of meals (3 kinds of food at a time) a little at a time every 3-4 hours. Hopefully, I don't get too hungry and overeat...but, we'll see: the jury is still out!

Best wishes to everyone!

 

i like that mel! "Forgive yourself and move on."

im gonna remember that tommorrow.

even though i wish no one ever would suffer from bingeing... i feel a little less lonely knowing there are other people sharing my pain....

someday... we'll get better...

today i binged. but tommorrow's a new day! Good Luck everyone! Let's stay strong and remember that as long as we never give up, we can never fail!

wow! sandrako! that's a really cool idea! you're making sure you incorpoate all the healthy foods into your diet maintaining balance!

Thanks for the idea! I think i'll try that tomorrow!

bye!

Original Post by middle11992:

i like that mel! "Forgive yourself and move on."

im gonna remember that tommorrow.

even though i wish no one ever would suffer from bingeing... i feel a little less lonely knowing there are other people sharing my pain....

someday... we'll get better...

today i binged. but tommorrow's a new day! Good Luck everyone! Let's stay strong and remember that as long as we never give up, we can never fail!

 

Hi Middle,

That's exactly it.  Giving up on fighting our eating disorders is the only way we can fail. 

I'm recovering from anorexia, and have to gain preferably about 10 kg/20 lbs.  Binging scares me, and several times I purged because I panicked that I would gain all the weight at once.  I have resolved to forgive myself for binging when it happens again--and it will, because everyone binges at times--and not purge. 

I have a month to reach my first mini-goal weight-wise--have to gain about 3 kg/6 lbs.  I want to do it preferably by enjoying food rather than adding to the strain on the relationship I already have with food and eating. 

Stay strong everyone.  We can beat these horrible illnesses.

Mel. ooo

 

My name is Ellen.

 

I am a binger. It is mostly in the evenings, I eat and eat.

 

I really need help. I just hate myself.

My name is Rachel, and i have binge eating disorder.

It's been on and off for about a year now. It's hard for me to deal with, and everytime I look at myself in the mirror, i am reminded of it.

I do not look obese, but with my short height(5'0) i am overweight, and it's getting worse. You can definitely tell in my stomach and upper arms.

Bingeing is such a hard struggle. I would go through the day doing extremely well with my eating..then at night, I invade the kitchen and the bingeing begins. My binges range usually from 500-6000 calories. Even just tonight, I binged on a WHOLE bag of chocolate morsals, half a box of cereal and granola bars, plus my days worth of calories.

I'm starting to get stretch marks also. I have a lot going on in my life, and it seems like the one thing that gets my mind off of everything, is the good feeling and taste of food. It's funny though, how something that feels so good at the moment turns into the worst regret and guiltiness.

I want to overcome this, and I will. Tomorrow is a new day, and a new start.

I'm bumping this thing back to front page. My name is Kaylee, I'm 14, don't want to know how much I weigh at this point, and I'm a binger. What triggers me is numbers and stress. I've been off-and-on binging for weeks, and I've stopped calorie counting because I've noticed it makes it worse.

I'm just going to jump in to today's binge.

I had half a loaf of cinnamon bread. I think around 6 slices. I had about 2 teaspoons of light margarine on two of the couples, and I ate 2 unbuttered.

I had a bowl of cocopuffs, unmeasured. I had a normal sized bowl, and then when I ate all the coco puffs in the bowl, I still had some milk so I poured more in.

I had macaroni and cheese, homemade with Velveeta and milk. I'd say it's past the average serving. It was in a leftover container.

I had a handful of chocolate candy corn.

I also had what was left of my corn bitz. (Kroger's brand of chex, basically)

What triggered me? I don't know. I started thinking about how today's breakfast probably had more calories then yesterday's breakfast, and how I'd have to work that off in today's workout session. I didn't feel like working out, mucus seems to draining or collecting.. I dunno, there's mucus in the back of my throat, so everytime I drink something that's not hot, it burns, quite an unpleasant feeling. I didn't want to workout because I can't lift any weights today since all my workouts would involve working a part of the body I did yesterday, and I'm only left with cardio. Cardio involves drinking lots of aqua. I can't run back and forth between the microwave and my room to keep drinking water to stay hydrated. I dunno, maybe I'm making up excuses.

When I realized all of this, I got more disapointed with myself after eating mac n' cheese, which I knew was also calorie packed. So I ate some coco puffs. and at that point, I was watching television, trying to distract myself, but that just made me eat more, even as I switched to watch a movie, I continued eating. I didn't start to come back to earth until my parents walked into the house, and that's when the binge slowed down. I didn't eat until feeling like I was going to die this time, and I wasn't too uncomfortable, but I did eat a ton of calories.

And that's what makes me want to eat more. Numbers this, numbers that.. I just want to get it all out of my head. Alot of the time, I don't know who I can talk to for support. I reached out to my mom, and she took it as me being a teen, the junk food they've bought, and me not letting my body maintain it's current physique. I'm not ready to maintain, I've got a lot of fat to lose. I'm not looking at my number, but it frightens me to imagine that my current size 10 jeans would start getting tighter and tighter until I have start having to get new pants..

I took pictures of myself when I came back into my room and started crying because I went two days without binging and I really wanted to say "oh hey, look! I went 10+ days without binging!"  one picture I had my hand partly over my face, to smear some of the tears away.. that picture really struck me. I came to realize "holy crap. My day revolves around whether or not I eat well, whether or not I burn calories. Whether or not I'm losing weight or gaining it. My day doesn't seem to revolve around my friends, my studies, my family, my goals, my ambition, it's all about food and exercise. What have I done to myself?" The image of myself doing dishes not too long ago, after my movie, and my dad mentioning that he might pick up some pizza, and I nearly burst into tears popped into my head. Like.. why do I have issues with food? I've always had issues with food to come to  ;think of it, and I don't want to have anymore issu es. I just want to be normal..

I feel like a freak, really messed up for thinking that way, and I don't know where to go to for help since no one seems to take me seriously, and I don't know how to stop binging. Well, I kind of do, but I don't know how long it'll take me to get to that point.

Tomorrow is, indeed, a new day. But I don't know what to do with myself right now.

Kaybug--

You are very insightful about what is going on...really: you are older than your years. If I could, here's a hug...*.* You're okay...you are having a challenge and you're really young enough to do this and do it well, once and for all.

First off, this thing is not about will-power. Take this monkey off your back.

Part of it is neurological...but, this is not an excuse for the behavior, just a reason. One day there may be a "shortcut" in the form of a pill, but we don't have it yet!

So, we're relegated to making albeit often prodigious efforts to approach our own healing: we do have control over some aspects.

The ideas I have below you may already know: I don't want to offend you by giving info you have already...but, if I repeat it enough, maybe I'll follow through, too! I am losing weight right now...my jeans are falling off, but I haven't weighed myself yet...like you said, I don't like being defined by a number.

These two things you can do without consulting a doctor:

(1) Purchase a pretty book for journaling. I have one in "leather," and pull it out whenever I'm overwhelmed...don't worry about using full, "sensible" sentences. I don't journal every day..in fact, I don't journal sometimes for months. But, I have found it calming...and, after a while I read it over and see patterns.

(2) As an experiment, for 3  or 4 days, including one weekend day, write down what you eat just during the times you feel out of control: it's too overwhelming to write down everything else.

At the same time, you might look at what you were thinking just before you gave in to a "session" and what you felt during it. What was your pay-off? What did you get to avoid doing?

Judge the likelihood that you were truly hungry: had you restricted your eating during the day a LOT?

You are very observant of your behavior: after 3 or 4 days , you're likely to figure out at least a couple of things. If you record these things in your journal, you won't lose your insights.

(2) Purchase a good pedometer and wear it. At the end of the day, on a calendar or in your journal record the number of steps you walked during the day. Zero it when you get to bed and wear it throughout the day. Test it first to see if it records your steps fairly accurately. If you have a big tummy, you may have to put it in your pocket or on a back belt loop.  

You don't need to do too much thinking...just do it. You're young, you walk a lot of steps: you're going to be surprised.

A good pedometer: has a cover so you don't zero out your steps when you lean against it; has a "leash" so you don't drop it in the toilet when you bend over (yes, it's happened! Yuk!); doesn't need a lot of bells and whistles...check on Amazon.com for reviews of different models. It will cost more than $5.99, but you should be able to get one that's good for around $12.

Make this another experiment...see how many days you wear it...figure out why you don't. What's your average? Are there days when it's higher than others? Why? Can you make a competition with yourself?

What I know about myself is that sometimes I don't stop eating out of rebellion. I know it's "not good;" that I'm not doing "what I'm supposed to do," etc.,etc....it's like I can thumb my nose at society or the doctors or whatever.

Maybe this is fear, instead of rebellion...maybe if I face my fear all alone without food, without excuses, I will be emboldened to live the life I was meant to live.

These are not canned words...they are thoughts I've just had, just now. Thank you for hearing me out.

Best wishes, kaybug. I hope this helps. You aren't alone.

lnegetz...

It will be okay. You are not bad. You are not alone....see the post to kaybug.

Get a journal. Walk. Pray out loud.

According to Anne Lamott, there are only two prayers: "Help me, help me, help me!" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I say them all the time!

Be sure to write down 5 things for which you are thankful. IF you want, write down why.

Make short entries. Write down every positive thing you can say about yourself. "I can smile" is a good entry.

Ruth Fishel has written several books I've found helpful. I HIGHLY recommend Take Time for Joy.

Hang in there...it's worth it.

sandrako - Thank you for all your advice. :) I thought about keeping a journal, but I pushed the idea away, thinking "well, that's pretty dumb! I have an online blog I write in all the time" .. But I actually don't make many entries these days. I think I've come to realize that this is mostly an emotional thing. Mind you, back when I was overweight, I would eat AND journal/blog.. I mostly used it so I could sleep at night (since I used to have an over cluttered mind, and waayy too much time to think); I think as my life has gotten busier, I don't make entries to sleep anymore, but to record my daily business. I think maybe making entries when I feel emotional to just get it out would be ideal for me now, as well as keeping an offline journal to write in when I feel like I'm about to trip and fall down.

As far as a pedometer goes, I cannot afford one right now (no job, and my parents have a really tight budget at the moment), but I think making goals in generality when it comes to fitness would be a good idea and very helpful for me right now.

Taking your advice to heart, I think there will only be improvement from here! :D

And so it goes....glad I could offer some helpful ideas!

Have a good day!