I don't know how to eat "normal" meals!

Sorry if this gets annoying. But I haven't been on CC for a while because I thought that would help me to eat "intuitively" except it isn't. My binge eating disorder is getting worse! My daily caloric ranges are from 2, 500 to 5, 000 now! I can't EVER keep at 1, 800 (supposed to be healthy for my height & weight). And I haven't weighed myself for a really long time. But I do know that I've gained alot of weight, because my face is round and bloated now, my jeans are so much tighter, and I stay up super late (1am, 2am) just to eat more and then sleep right after!

I've tried to eat a well-balanced breakfast with protein, diary, grains, and fruits. I usually eat 2/3 cups of regular oatmeal with fruit on it, then yogurt with a tsp of metamucil (because even though I eat alot, I still have trouble in keeping regular), and 2 slices of whole wheat bread with unmeasured amounts of peanut butter. I know, it sounds like a huge and filling breakfast, right? But right after eating, I have urges to eat another 3 slices of bread or to eat another 5 spoons of peanut butter. So I do eat the extra things and when I'm walking to school, I feel so bloated and heavy and sick because it hurts my stomach with all this food. I KNEW that I was full, but I just wanted to keep eating.

Okay, so at school, I usually eat brown rice with veggies, "healthy" cookies that are like 140 calories per 2 cookies, yogurt and a fruit. I eat SO well infront of my friends. But once I start walking home, I'm like speed-walking actually. And as I get inside the house (no one's home at that time), I automatically start eating EVERYTHING. Things that I don't even like, I'll eat. I just like the feeling of eating something. So I'll eat and eat until I can no longer walk. It takes me about an hour to get myself super full and sick. But I don't purge it out. Instead I just sit at the computer and start doing my homework until everyone comes home. Then during dinner time, I would still eat whatever my mom makes because she already knows that I binge, but she cannot see how difficult it is for me to "just stop eating when I'm full". It's like I don't know how to control myself!

And then after dinner, once everyone's separated, I would creep into the kitchen and grab a whole bunch of food to eat in my room. (granola bars, cereal boxes, chips, cookies, instant ramen noodles to mush into pieces like chips, peanut butter jar etc) Omg, I even open the wrappers of granola bars quietly so others wouldn't hear the crinkling sound. I just feel so guilty doing this!

Just yesterday, I decided to not sleep and instead, eat my way through the night. It's so scary! Because once I started to eat at around 9pm, I continued all through 6am because I knew that if I went to sleep after eating, the food doesn't burn easily and would become fat. So instead, I keep eating and eating. And this morning, I felt so fat going to school because my stomach was so full and I was so tired from not sleeping.

I'm extremely frustrated with myself for not being able to function normally as a human being! I can't even do the basic things of being a human --- to eat properly and to do other things instead of eating all day and night! I have lost control of my entire body and mind. Weird thing, as I'm stuffing my face while everyone was sleeping last night, I knew I was going to gain weight and not be happy about it but my hand just wouldn't stop shoving food down my throat. Like, the food didn't even taste good anymore. It was as if I was on autopilot: put food in mouth, chew, swallow, continue.

I wish I was a little kid again, then I would eat whatever is put infront of my face and stop eating when I feel full, then go to play. :(

Maybe you need to sit your parents down and tell them you need professional help.  If you don't want to tell them, go see the school counselor or nurse.  Whatever you tell the couselor is confidential.

It sounds like you are punishing yourself.  This is not something that is making you happy.  It sounds like you are out of control and you need help.  Think about it, if you could stop it, then you would.

I just read something today.  Think of it like a "live-it" NOT "diet."  If you eat the way you are, then you are on your way to morbid obesity and an early death.  That is your "die-it."  So, get your self some help.  So you can enjoy a long, healthy life.  Life is beautiful.  If you know how to live it. 

please go see a doctor!!!tell someone.this is very scary.i couldn't even imagine living that way.good luck to you!

it sounds like you have a severe case of the "good food" "bad food" mentality that has led you to overeat when you're alone. you seem to eat "well" around your friends and restrict yourself in the presence of others so when you're alone you overcompensate for this restriction and eat until you can't eat anymore. maybe if you just realized that there is always tomorrow to eat another brownie or to have your favorite ice cream, that there will be more days and more opportunities to eat what you like, guilt free, then you won't be so tempted. if you didn't feel like it had to be a secret act then maybe it would normalize your behaviors. i think it might be pretty serious though, I would consider changing the way I approach eating. Pack a lunch with things that you like and snacks throughout the day so that you're not saving these things until you have an opportunity to eat them in private. i don't know if this helps but just a suggestion =)

i've been reading your posts for a long time now, and i've had my own binging issues, so i understand how you feel.

i understand how terrible you must feel about your body, and how bad a swollen tummy feels, and i understand that it's really hard to stop binging, which is why i really suggest you get some professional help.

binging has ruined your self-confidence, it's made your grades drop (i think?), it's caused you problems at home, and it's consumed your thoughts. if you don't get professional help soon, it could take over your whole life.

tell your parents, tell a school counselor, tell anybody. my heart goes out to you <3

mcallenelf - thanks for the suggestion of seeing a counselor/nurse. But at my school, the counselors are alot better at telling us which courses would help us in university. They aren't that good in eating / mental disorders. And for nurses, we don't have any at your school :/ But what you said about the "dieing sooner" thing sort of scares me. I hope I'll start to understand that I am actually hurting myself. I want to have a healthy long life!

chrissy1988 - thanks for your suggestion of bringing things I like, I tried that before and it didn't work out because, I would want more and end up finishing the whole box. Thanks again!

omg eerica! I'm so glad you understand the things I'm going through! Yes, my grades are dropping because when I "study" or do homework, I'm actually thinking of the foods I should eat while doing schoolwork. And that wastes alot of time! I know I need to get professional help , but it really is difficult! I can't afford to get any psychiatrists help because my mom just doesn't think it's THAT hard to stop my problem. She thinks its just as easy as "just stop eating!" so wasting money on a psychiatrist to her, is not worth it.

It has totally ruined and taken over my life. At parties, I don't talk to anyone, I sit in the corner and eat and eat. I even get people to get me some food because "I haven't tried them yet", but I actually have, about 3 or 4 times already. :/

You poor baby.  Your post really affected me, so I just read your journals to try to understand you a bit better.  I didn't have to though - you are me exactly, when I was a teenager.  The sadness, anxiety and pure panic that you feel at times, the hell that bingeing has created for you, the sense of hopelessness and despair, knowing that you are sabotaging yourself, the terrible HABIT that bingeing has become as a coping mechanism for dealing with all the stress you feel. 

Wanting so much to have a body that you will love.  This was the most important thing in the world to me, and honey it's not as important as I thought it was.  The only things that are really important anymore are health (my own and that of everyone I love) and relationships with people I love.

Food has become everything to you.  To me also.  I am 43 now, and I started on this road when I was 13.  I kept diaries every day from when I was 10, until I was 23, and I read them now and every page is about my weight, what I've eaten, and how disgusting I feel.  Lots of ranting about how I hate my mother too.  (Reading that makes me cry because 1. My mother and I are incredibly close now and I don't think I'd be alive today without her and 2. I am a mother to an 8 year old girl now and I don't want her to ever feel like she hates me).  My diaries are tangible proof of a wasted life.  Page upon page of nothing but food, bingeing and hating myself.

Like I said, I'm now 43, but inside I'm forever 17 - locked in a time when eating was everything.  You have a chance that I have lost:  You can change the way your future unfolds.  I have lived for 30 years with the same eating disorder as you, and I have got absolutely nowhere in terms of doing anything about it.  I have not enjoyed my teens, twenties and thirties, because I have been consumed with bingeing and hating myself for it.  If you were my daughter, and if my daughter ever gets caught up in this, I would

1. Love you unconditionally.  (I always felt that my family's love for me depended on my weight and how I looked.  This turned out to be absolute rubbish)

2. Spend hours talking to you, whenever you felt stressed, panicky, anxious, out of control, despair.  It's too easy to get locked into one bad way of thinking, and a truly understanding, objective listener can help you to think in other ways that you just can't see.

3. Make you feel understood and supported, because I truly have the same thoughts you have and it is comforting to know you are not alone, trapped in some private hell.  I have seen many psychologists and not one of them has ever binged, so how could they have a clue what I'm going through, other than what they've read in text books?  That just doesn't cut it for me.

4. Try and find you another passion.  Yeah, my passion is bingeing (my passion and my hell) but there has to be something else out there.  Something that distracts you and delights you and thrills you as much as stuffing your face.  (Hopefully something legal and good for you!)  I'm still looking for something that I will love to do more than binge.  Many things have come close:  singing, songwriting, performing, boys, and clothes shopping.  You need good, powerful distractions, because any time that you are not obsessing about food is good time.

Goodness, I have rambled on.  So, I don't think "eating normal meals" is the actual solution to your problems.  I think your disordered eating is  a reflection of your disordered thoughts and I can see that you are smart and articulate, and I think you have so much potential, and so much support that I never had (on this site for example) and I am sending very positive thoughts to you right now, and any time you need them.

Have you read Marya Hornbacher's book "Wasted"?  Your description of bing eating after school sounds just like her account...she would get home from school (at a young age) and feel lonely and depressed and then would eat in order to induce a state of calm... Here is a link to a clip of a PBS special that features Marya (amongt others)...

http://www.pbs.org/perfectillusions/personals tories/marya.html

I read the book Wasted and it was engrossing.  I have not had a full blown eating disorder but I am minoring in psychology and have an interest in eating disorders.

Marya moved on from binging to purging and then down a very rocky road indeed from which she still has many issues (including bipolar disorder, which likely contributed to her eating disorders--she has another book called "Madness:  a bipolar life" which is also awesome)....

I think you should try to find some help...maybe talk to a counsellor at school or your parents...though it might just be a phase...I binged after school in high school but never went on to develop a serious ED....The binging usually happened when I tried to diet or restrict or when I would compare my stockier athletic body to my naturally slim friend who was so tiny and narrow--its weird because I used to be so jealous of her body and years later she confided to me she always envied my body as she was so slim and felt she looked "boyish"...seems girls can't be happy no matter what...and if they are then they worry it will all change and feel they have to be so diligent.....

Eating is about much more than food isn't it? 

pemberly - you're so nice! Your daughter is really lucky to have you as her mom! Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my mom, its just that the way she grew up, she learned at a young age to save food that you think you don't have to eat, for another day. Because she had 8 brothers & sisters, so "overeating" back then was as sinful as killing someone (almost).  You're right, I am sabotaging myself. Something inside of me is trying to get me fat, to make me feel ugly, to make me not strive at other goals in life. :)

funwow - no, I haven't read Wasted. I don't know if my library has it either, because I tried looking for books about overeating and the library only has a three or four books about it, I guess they don't think its important to have more. I hope I can find that book somewhere else!

Original Post by strawberry-dolly:

I know I need to get professional help , but it really is difficult! I can't afford to get any psychiatrists help because my mom just doesn't think it's THAT hard to stop my problem. She thinks its just as easy as "just stop eating!" so wasting money on a psychiatrist to her, is not worth it.

my mom is somewhat like your mom, but you can't really blame them. people who haven't suffered an eating disorder, have no chance of ever understanding them.

instead of telling your mom you want help because of your eating problems, tell her you want help because of how you're feeling inside (poor self-image, sad, depressed, etc), and tell her that you're really unhappy. she's your mother; and even though she may not understand, or may not be the most supportive, she loves you, and wants you to be happy.

feel free to message me anytime, okay?

i also had severe problems with binging because i used to label foods as either "good" or "bad." i would fear eating oreos/sugary cereal/ice cream because i thought that would lead me to binge.. but then after i realized i would just binge on them when i wasn't incorporating them into my diet i stopped. now i eat whatever i want, just not all at once. depriving yourself doesn't necessarily mean you're not eating enough calories, it can also mean you're trying to avoid certain foods you truly enjoy. do you eat cereal, granola, ramen noodles, peanut butter, etc during the day when you're not binging? if you don't, you really need to force yourself to do so.. because you'll just keep binging on them. trust me, it's the only way i've gotten out of the cycle. tell yourself that you're allowed to eat anything you want.. but that you need to have balance. eat noodles today, then peanut butter tomorrow, cereal the next day.. when food is no longer seen as forbidden it actually loses it's binging appeal.

on a side note, a book i REALLY recommend you (or anyone who is struggling with binging) read is "naturally thin" by bethenny frankel.. it just came out this month. that book changed my relationship with food completely. if you get a chance, read it and let me know what effect it had on you.

best of luck :)

Original Post by eerica:

Original Post by strawberry-dolly:

I know I need to get professional help , but it really is difficult! I can't afford to get any psychiatrists help because my mom just doesn't think it's THAT hard to stop my problem. She thinks its just as easy as "just stop eating!" so wasting money on a psychiatrist to her, is not worth it.

my mom is somewhat like your mom, but you can't really blame them. people who haven't suffered an eating disorder, have no chance of ever understanding them.

instead of telling your mom you want help because of your eating problems, tell her you want help because of how you're feeling inside (poor self-image, sad, depressed, etc), and tell her that you're really unhappy. she's your mother; and even though she may not understand, or may not be the most supportive, she loves you, and wants you to be happy.

feel free to message me anytime, okay?

 Awwwww :') Thank you! You know, my friends at school don't even know about it. Well, one girl does. But she doesn't "care" about it because she's too busy trying to lose weight the unhealthy way. Beware, I get pretty annoying after a while >_<

all i can say is you're not alone.

some mornings i wake up and i feel like a robot programmed to go to the kitchen and shove food down my throat. then the guilt hits. then the whole day is centered around where i will get more food.

i'm really ashamed, and i know completely how you feel. i'll be watching this post- you know, incase someone has all the answers to our bingeing problems.

 I guess all I can say is it takes time. I'm not fully over my binging days. I know exactly what you mean about taking a lot of different food in your bedroom to eat. For some reason I've done that too, I just like to get a fill of everything. I usually tell myself I wont eat everything, just a taste. It leads to eating it all, and more. I'm getting better now, I just eat the best I can everyday. If I get through one day without binging I'm uber happpy, so I try to stay that way, so I can feel good. Also late night eating is a big problem with me, still is. I try to just drink water, or eat fruit if I eat late. But no you are not alone.

wow. i think you should seriously seek some help. i've had binge eating problems, worst last year and it wasn't nearly as bad as this and i know i felt terrible. i did get over it mostly without outside help but this is a daily event and you staying up all night to eat is really not good. i still binge a little every now and then but this post has totally just thrown me back to my worst binging days. i sympathize with you, it is such an awful awful feeling. i would try to starve which would lead to more binges. this is going to sound slightly crazy, but i am just going to share with you how i've at least somewhat gotten over my binging problem. i never really got too fat-118ish im 5'2 at my highest b/c i would starve and overexercise after binging but it still was a big problem so you might be similar b/c you say you're clothes still fit and everything. ok but one day following a binge i was getting ready to go out, and was trying on clothes and looked in the mirror and was completely disgusted by myself. i was at school, i almost didnt go out, i called my family crying because i just felt so upset and they just told me i was beautiful and to go out and be happy which was sweet but not overly helpful. then i did something that still use to motivate me to this day. i got up off my ass, looked at myself in the mirror and acknowledged the fact that I COULD fix this. i am the one in control. if i really want to stop this i can. its all in my mind. i knew it would be hard and slow but i was going to do it b/c i never wanted to feel that horrible about myself ever again. so, i was on a mission. from then on whenever i did feel a binge coming on, i would try to cut the damage as much as possible. now i will admit that i do still binge a bit from time to time but its usually b/c i dont eat enough for awhile, but i have managed to lose about 10 lbs and go back to living a pretty normal life. im still working out the kinks, but i am much better than i was last year at this time. i dont know if this will help but if not you should definately get professional help if you dont start getting better. if you can try to think positively, i know its the hardest thing but i found it helpful. i want to say thank you for reminding me how far i've come, i was just crying to my family tonight b/c i feel like a pscyho with how concerned i am about my eating and exercising, but this really brought me back to reality. i wish you the best!

strawberry-dolly, I can totally relate to you.

I have the same problem now:( I cant give any better advice than the people here have given you, but you can message me too whenever you'd like!

My heart also goes out to you

Reading your first post left no doubt in my mind that binging is taking over every aspect of your life; it has not driven your friends away yet, but because food and what you ate is always on your mind, everything you do is filtered through your binge goggles and it is preventing you from being a better version of yourself

Even the most kind and giving people cannot give as much when they are consumed with binge eating.

I’m a slim personal trainer and I have binging mostly under control but it took a lot of self analysis and a lot of trying to figure out what I was thinking at the time of binging

If you want, you can PM me any time you feel a binge coming on. Seriously, just treat it like a” check in site” , like a thing you have to do whenever you are about to binge. Literally walk away from the food, shut yourself the room with the computer, and type away; I am sure there are other people on this site who would be willing to support you too.

Think of it like this; if you shut yourself in a room, locked the door, and chained yourself down then that would prevent you from binging. It would separate you from the food. Now, you may not have chains and a way to literally prevent you from accessing food, but pretend that YOU ARE strapped down with no way of moving… binging and using food to feed your emotions is a serious addictive habit and imagining that you are literally locked away and unable to access the drug of choice, food, might make you feel, after 5 minutes or so, that the wave of the binge will stop and you can ride the wave out if you treat it like a “ life or death” situation

Lots of advice, but you sound like you just cannot fight your compulsion right now

And by the way YOU ARE NOT ANNOYING! I have seen you post before and you honestly just sound like an enthusiastic young person who is desperate to live life

i really think you should show your mum this post. you expressed what was happening to you so well that I think it would be impossible for her not to finally 'get it' once reading your post.I was so touched reading your post and i'm a stranger so hopefully the effect on your mum will be even stronger.

I know it will be hard but perhaps even though you say she knows about your disorder you may not have stressed just how bad it is and how much it is consuming your life. once she realises that this isn't just something that you can stop doing- its a mental disorder- she will be more williung to help. perhaps she could even sit up with you during the nights that you feel that you need to binge. she's your mum i'm sure she would do this for you. 

good luck. the sooner you can start the road to stopping this behaviour the sooner you can start enjoying your life to the fullest! xx

http://www.adaa.org/GettingHelp/AboutAnxietyD isorders.asp

You need to find someone to help you through this, hopefully this website can lead you in the right direction.  I have an aquaittance who has the same thoughts/ and feelings.  She lost 100lbs. because she joined a radio show that was giving the biggest " loser" $10,000... she won!!--because of her OCD...but once she achieved the goal- she then had nothing else to keep her OCD focused and gained all of the weight back.  There has got to be some type of medication to help you relax and not feel as tho you have to eat everything in the house. 

 I am not the best with words and my example may not be the best... and I hope I did not step on anyone toes but I feel for you and wish you the best of luck! 

Original Post by sunshine0808:

http://www.adaa.org/GettingHelp/AboutAnxietyD isorders.asp

You need to find someone to help you through this, hopefully this website can lead you in the right direction.  I have an aquaittance who has the same thoughts/ and feelings.  She lost 100lbs. because she joined a radio show that was giving the biggest " loser" $10,000... she won!!--because of her OCD...but once she achieved the goal- she then had nothing else to keep her OCD focused and gained all of the weight back.  There has got to be some type of medication to help you relax and not feel as tho you have to eat everything in the house. 

 I am not the best with words and my example may not be the best... and I hope I did not step on anyone toes but I feel for you and wish you the best of luck! 

 Actually I think you are good with words... And I think your advice hits the nail on the head...In other words it is best to deal with REASONS causing the overeating (or undereating) etc. vs. focusing on food per say... Best to have the anxiety or depression (or OCD whatever) treated and then maybe there will be no more drive to eat in a disordered way... I think this also applies to lots of other things people do--for instance I used to smoke in order to relieve anxiety and when I stoped I moved onto eating to do that... I need to work on healthier ways to deal with anxiety.