How do I feel about food?

Terrified, honestly. It is what brought my weight up to 193lbs and it is what I feel I will sabotage myself with. I now weight about 150lbs. I am 5'4" and I know I look good. I look in the mirror and I know that, but why don't I believe that? It's not the perfect weight, but it is the smallest I have ever been and I really love that.

But now I am sabotaging myself. Because of boredom and emotional issues about being so self-conscious, I am bingeing like crazy every night. I feel so terrible about it, but I almost feel like I cannot sleep without conking myself out with a stomach exploding with food. The "food coma" as I so lovingly call it. It consists of mostly bread which I have had to limit in order to lose the weight that I have. I looove bread, but it does bad things for me. I can't stop once I start. I wake up in the morning telling myself that I'll do good today; I'll eat only what I need, I'll be more active, I will not give into temptations... etc. And I do great! But as soon as the world turns off its lights and everyone else is asleep, I look myself in the mirror and say "Well, I'm not going to get to 193 in one night!" and this somehow gives me permission to be an even bigger piggy than I was when I was at my highest weight. What am I doing to myself? Those calories have already snuck up on me and I have gained about 10lbs back from when I was at my lowest of 140lbs.

I know what I have to eat, I know what I have to do, but I still sabotage myself. I still do it.

My motivation leaked out of my ears, it seems, and now I am determined to be fat again. Doing anything possible to be fat again. What am I so scared of?

Food. It scares me. Even while I eat it, I worry.

But I don't think it is really the food. Here is my list of what I actually think I am so scared of.

-Gaining weight back, even if I'm not bingeing.
-Being single
-Success
-Boredom
-Eating disorders
-The feeling of loneliness
-Not being a good person
-Hating my body, even though it's better
-No confidence
-Zero self-esteem
-My looming future
-Money
-Constant worrying
-Calories
-How other's see me
-How I see myself
-How others see me vs. how I see myself
-... there are probably other's that I will analyze and put down when they come to mind.

I think most of all, I am scared that people will see how scared I am. I know I am very intelligent. I know and believe that. So intelligent, in fact, that in my sub-conscious I can fool my conscious mind into thinking that bingeing will not make me fat again. That I will be able to start back into my routine immediately with no damage to my body. That I will never be fat again, so go ahead, enjoy a whole loaf of bread! You deserve it.

I deserve it. That's what my mind says. You got through the day as a healthy lass, so you deserve whatever you can stuff down yer gullet! When actually what I am saying is : Look at yourself. You're thinner. Look at all that success you don't deserve. Who gave to the right to be happier? You don't deserve that. You are a fattie, not a healthie. You mom's still fat, your sister's still fat... in fact, millions of other people who are much, much better than you are bigger than houses. They deserve this, not you. So eat fatty, eat until your outsides represent what you are on the inside. Ugly.

That is a deep, deep, deep down thought. And I know it is a lie. A lie that is in my head all the time. I am not a bad person, at all. I have never done anything bad to speak of. I'm nice and kind and caring and I know this of myself. I'm not perfect, but I am in no way bad. In no way am I ugly, inside or out. But for some reason that little nagging voice is in there. But I feel so relived that I identified it! I listened closely and I heard it. And it scared the **** out of me, to be honest. I didn't know it was there, but it is.

I heard it today. And today I will start to fix it. I can do this, I can fix myself. I have done it with so many other things in order to be successful. I quit smoking and overcame hating exercise once I found out why. And now that I know why I sabotage, I can fix it. Re-condition myself. I have already shed most of my fears... I can feel them come off my shoulders... it's a familiar feeling... a beloved one.

I thought I would share, because I never have before.

What does your nagging voice say?

I can sort of relate.  I sabotage my own effects..

I know exactly, EXACTLY what you mean because I had anorexia for about a year, and then came the binge/purge through starvation/throwing up cycle. And after everything I put my body through, eventually I started eating properly and I was *still* losing weight - I was ecstatic. And then came the holidays and I was at my lowest weight ever (which I'm now back at, a whole term later) and I saw that as permission to eat everything in sight. One day I went to the candy store with thirty dollars and bought pop tarts, mini reeses, a whole tub of icecream, a packet of chips, four cheese microwave pasta, snowballs... the list goes on. I ate it all in ONE day. I was so sick and I gained ten pounds in two weeks.

It was like you said... I felt that I didn't deserve my success, especially not when I'd achieved it through normal/healthy means. This past term I've eaten as healthily as I can - not exercised as much though - but I've finally got back to where I was last holidays. I'm halfway through holidays again and haven't fallen off the wagon yet and the scale is still going down. Hopefully this will continue.

All I can say is, look at yourself in the mirror and say out loud: STOP. You have to STOP doing this to yourself. You CAN weigh lower than this, you've been there before, you got there. Then you went and undid it, but you can get back there. You are CAPABLE. You are strong, you can do it.

And just affirm that to yourself every day. It's tough, but it's harder when you've put all the weight back on and you break down and cry wondering how or why you let this happen.