Healing ED tendencies

Alright, I know this isn't a forum for people who suffered from eating disorder tendencies or a full blown one but I do know there are people in here who have recovered and are successfully (and healthily) losing weight so I thought I would give this a shot...

I posted more about this is my most recent journal entry so please feel free to read that for more details.

But in short in the past I went from restricting tendencies to binging tendencies.

My first question is, has anyone noticed that recovery from restricting has resulted in binging tendencies?

Also, for those of you who have recovered from ED tendencies or specifically binge eating how have you done this?

Lastly, if you were able to reprogram how you view food how did you do this? I think a good example of this would be from seeing food as happiness to a means to treat your body healthy...

first of all, join the ed recovery club! haha. there's a topic in the motivation forum that *i* started just for this, because i'm currently attempting what you're talking about.

restricting can lead to binging when you try to eat normally again, for both physiological and psychological reasons. your body needs the nourishment, and your mind is like FOOD! I'M LETTING MYSELF EAT SOMETHING! and you've restricted for so long it won't even make a diffference, right?

i feel like i binged today after restricting for a while...but binging IS a natural human process. think of hunter gatherers. they didn't eat all the time or in the portions we eat now (or the foods we eat now)...you think if they came upon a trove of food, they didn't binge on it? all animals do this. for survival. that's why there's a natural human urge to do this. no one else is making you.

it's not always BAD. if done RARELY. doing it all the time is simply because of the ED, no two ways about it.

i havent totally reprogrammed how i view food, but i try to see food as NOURISHMENT. this can be whatever kind of nourishment i need that food can provide, in moderation. if you eat to live, for physical need, then there's nothing wrong eating for emotional need ONCE IN A WHILE. just try not to think of food as the enemy.

if you wanna talk more about this hit me up :)

I found that after I had stopped restricting I went to binge a lot which I have tried to stop and I kind of flitter between both of them but I am doing well at the moment in trying to find a medium.

I'm with you. I restricted to about 1000 cals a day, NOT enough at all fr my fast metabolism and growing body. And now, I;m underweight (105 at 5'7 and 1/2) ANyways, now I BINGE LIKE MAD! Im not even hungry or anything, I just do it. I can be good and healthy all day then comes 7:00. I HATE IT! I feel so out of control and gross because I'll eat 2000 calories in about 20 minutes, and I KNOW it's unhealthy for my body and my system to go through all that. Worse yet, its nar night, then I cant sleep, and the next morning I'm NOT hungry so I eat LIGHT, then it happens all over again.

Heres my solutions that help:

1.) DONT COUNT CALORIES! I know its HARD, but when you don't, you listen more to your body and instead of saying "Hm, I have __ more to spend, so I'll have this---then this-and this and this this this this!" and ending up BINGING, you'll be like.. "I DONT know how many cals I've had, but I don't care, bcause I'm not hungry and I'm not full, I'm comfy!"

2.) DISTRATCIONS: Tv, reading, drawing, blasting music-hey maybe blast norma jean!-- ANYTHING to get out of the kitchen.

3.) ALWAYS eat breakfast. I find If i binged last night, and don't have breakfast cause I'm not even hungry, I'll just end up eating it later (like a 7:00) even if I'm not hungry, and most likley It WILL be junk stuff, rather than something I would have eaten at brekkie like an apple o egg or oatmeal.

Well, that's my 2 cents, I REALLY hope you do this- I really hope I do this too!-- but since I think we're so similar- evem in age- here:

skylineof_numbers@hotmail.com

I WANT TO JUST LIVE TOO! SO BAD, and not think about FOOD always. ANyone else have some tips?

pinkdisorder, where is the eating disorder recovery group?! sounds great! I don't think I ever had an eating disorder but I came close, does that make sense??? I am trying so hard to let my body guide what I eat rather than my brain!

united2gether, I definitely feel like, in the past, hormones affected my eating patterns. I feel like I was on too high of an estrogine dosage for my birth control and I was addicted to junk food. With this I felt like I was being forced to eat junk! But now that I am on a lower dosage AND minimized my sugar/fat intake I feel like I have so much more control!

smelko, thank you! I think I will email you right now! : ) My email is gmail.com

Alright. To answer your question, yes you do binge after restricting. It's your bodies way of trying to get the energy and nutrients it needs.

I also read in a magazine today that people binge because in the hunter-gather times, if you didn't stuff your face, it was most likely you weren't going to eat again for a long time. Which kind of explains some things. Also, I tend to overeat due to my emotions.

I need to learn to listen to my body and eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm satisfied.

raises hand shyly.  i do that.  except when i'm eating, my body keeps telling me eat more, more, more!!!  and i can't keep my hand out of packages.