If you can stomach reading all this............TIA!!

I have had an awful week.  I have binged now 4 days since last friday.  Its a vicious cycle I've fallen into and I can't get out of it, I'm so afraid this is turning into a  bigger problem than I can handle by myself.

I'll start with a little background, I'm 5'4" about 110-112 currently.  I feel like this is too low for me so a few months ago I decided to gain some weight, this is where my problems started. 

I stopped running so much and started a weight training program with the help of some great people on this site.  I am loving the results of this new fitness program, but I can't get a hold of my eating.  By giving myself the OK to gain some weight I have inadvertantly given myself some kind of subconscience allowance to eat all I want ( its all healthy stuff just waaaaaay to much at once).  Then I feel super duper guilty that since I ate so much at once it'll be gained as fat so I workout extra extra hard and restrict a little (for me restricting would be 1800 cal instead of 2100ish), then I binge again because I'm hungry!  Its like a vicious cycle, I can't control.  How awful is it to eat so much at one time during the day? Its over the course of a few hours. 

  Its always my lunch.  I have the same breakfast every day, oatmeal, eggs, fruit about 400 cal.  I eat every 2-3 hours on a "normal" day.  But when I binge my first snack of the day, or maybe I make it until lunch is ENORMOUS!!  I can't stop!  I eat about 2000-2500 calories on my binge days for lunch.  Then I workout, hard, and try to eat super light for dinner, and feel terrible the rest of the day.  I'm so scared of gaining weight as all fat instead of muscle/fat/lean mass.  I just can't find my groove, can anyone relate? 

 It has come to a head this week, it's never been this bad, 4 days this week!!!!!!  It has been like once a month or so before now.  I am under a lot of stress, not sleeping well, husbands sales job not going well so he has taken a 2nd job, (were) trying to conceive, I'm alone too much now with a toddler driving me crazy.............I know, and yes I would like some cheese with my wine! 

Thanks for listening anyway if you got this far, just needed to get it all out.

 

 

 Do you have certain foods that cause you to binge? LIke for me i usually binge on ice cream. I just can't stop eating ice cream until it's gone. or maybe you should have six small meals a day instead of three larger meals. i hope this helps. and i know it is good to get your feelings out. just keep writing. :)

I'm so sorry you're having a hard time. You're not alone, unfortunately. I have been binging like crazy lately. Having a hungry toddler who always wants snacks that are trigger foods doesn't help.  I hope other people have some good suggestions. Willpower & positive thinking only gets me so far (away from the toilet).

 

We will survive! ...right? :o)

I do have trigger foods and I don't keep them around, I only buy the baby snacks I dont like.  I don't binge on unhealthy things, just my regular lunch but in vast vast quantities!  I do usually have 6 small meals a day on a normal day, I eat small meals every 2-3 hours.  I just have trouble controling the quantity on my binge days.  It doesn't seem to be a food that triggers it, I don't know what it is, because I'm not, well never was an emotional eater, maybe stress?  Its like I never get full, I just can't satisfy my hunger on these days.

THanks for your replies though!  So glad to know somebody understands.

I think I will go workout some more............

Original Post by pbb922:

Its always my lunch. I have the same breakfast every day, oatmeal, eggs, fruit about 400 cal. I eat every 2-3 hours on a "normal" day. But when I binge my first snack of the day, or maybe I make it until lunch is ENORMOUS!! I can't stop! I eat about 2000-2500 calories on my binge days for lunch. Then I workout, hard, and try to eat super light for dinner, and feel terrible the rest of the day.

 This is exactly what I do too; twice already this week and several times last week too. My breakfast is normal, but 11-2pm is the danger zone. I don't keep trigger foods around either, but I just eat crazy amounts of my normal food. Then I work out for two hours and don't eat the rest of the day :\

When I feel the urge coming on, I often lie down. I find being horizontal takes me out of my life for a few moments (if that makes sense), helps me concentrate, close my eyes, not be standing next to the fridge, etc. I think about what I'm about to do, and sometimes it stops me. Sometimes.

Oh man! What is it about that time of day?  So similar we are!!  Then do you feel like you should have a post-workout meal of some sort but can't afford the calories?  Its so damn frustrating.  I like your idea of getting out of your life for a minute, especially since this seems to be stress related for me.  I'll try a headstand!

Yeah, I toy with eating something afterwards. I know I should since I just killed my muscles on the elliptical and I'm  exhausted and often lightheaded, but I don't want to have to log it and see my total calories rise yet again. So I drink lots of water and usually have something small so my stomach quells itself - 2 oz. of turkey breast or some cherry tomatoes. About 50 calories... I can handle that.

Mine are stress-related too. I'm in college so there is lots of alone time and food in my room, coupled with stress, avoidance of work, and finals coming up. I have a huge paper due Tuesday and have been avoiding it all week, and yesterday before I started it I was really stressed out and anxious and bam, the binge happened. Ugh, it's so easy to totally ruin the day in like half an hour. Today I felt the same thing coming on, but literally all I have in the room now is produce and yogurt, so I ate just a handful of berries, pecans, and finished off the last bit of raisins (NEVER buying them again) and then got to work. I consider that to be progress since I still have 300 calories left for dinner, but it's really a daily challenge.

Marijoie: First of all I have to commend you for even thinking of nutrition while you're in college, when I think about the way I used to eat in college............ugh!!  Didn't even cross my mind how unhealthy it was, ah the days of a young metabolism!  I went to the school that invented the "Fat" sandwiches, you know, the fat darrel is the original, fat moon, fat bitch, fat veggie indian was my favorite, everything stuffed in one sandwich, my fav, the veggie indian had mozz sticks, falafel, hummus, zucc sticks, onion rings, fries, marinara and more cheese, and I considered that a regular part of my diet.  They were served by a parking lot of trucks lovingly reffered to as the grease trucks.  My favorite restaurant was called "Stuff yer Face", oh yea, and finals week downright *entitled* me to a tube of cookie dough.  Midnight orders of pizza were constant, the dining hall always had the waffle iron hot and batter ready, with all the good toppings and get this, I minored in nutrition, my roommate was a food science major!!!  HAHA, do as I say not as I do!  And I didn't really gain any weight until after college when I got married!  How the hell did that happen???

Good luck to you, tomorrow is another day, tomorrow is another day, tomorrow is another day..................

i dunno.  but i will venture to guess:  muscle requires more calories to sustain, so even if you've only put on a few pounds of muscle, your body will be hungrier, asking for more calories to keep its newfound muscle alive.

also, when you weight lift, your metabolism revs up so that you're burning calories even when you're not exercising; it's actually entirely possible and common to lose weight/fat from weight lifting (not just cardio like the running you were doing). 

plus, you switched up your exercise regimen, forcing your body to work harder bec it's got to figure out how to do everything every day (until it familiarizes itself w/your new routine).  so that burns even more calories.

what i'm saying is:  maybe you're ravenous bec your metabolism is burning away.  if lunch is a tough time for you right now, how about having a bigger breakfast and snack.  then a light lunch, and promise yourself a super-satisfying post-workout meal.  you can make yourself a soy smoothie and cranberry/chicken/couscous salad.  i just want to say mad props to your decision to try to work out and eat healthy for a healthy weight. 

I am so wishing this is the reason, but I'm still scared about the rate at which I'm going to be putting it on!!  I can eat!  I'm a bottomless pit!  This is happening after I just hit a new weight low, ( I know, I'm trying to gain!), so maybe this is my body saying, oops!  wrong direction, and is making up for it.  It just has me panicy and upset with myself for what seems like endless binging.  I'm trying to be patient and see what happens, trying!

Thanks for the encouragement!

Keep trying hun and you will def see the rewards! I believe that you are strong to conquer this. I believe that we all are if we set our minds to it! Keep thinking positively and you will do just fine!

Pbb922-are you sure you aren't pregnant?  I hope all gets better.....good luck :-)

I usually binge at night, but if I binge during the day I hit my 1500-1600 cals and then say Im not eating the rest of the day....then I get so hungry and end up binging again its horrible!!!!!

Shaderkris1:  haha!  I wish! that is part of why I'm trying to gain weight, to get my fertility back in check, I have PCOS so am unable to conceive anyway, but even still I'm not making estrogen due to low body fat, my reproductive endocrinologist won't attempt my 2nd IVF cycle until I gain some weight. 

It just sucks, like I'm stuck in this vicious cycle of allowing myself to gain weight, then binging and regreting it cause I should gain in a more healthful way, so I cut back or overexercise or restrict, then I binge again.  I can't get a hold of myself.  I've made an appointment with a nutritionist to see if she can help me.  I'm afraid of the direction I'm headed in.  I just want someone to say eat exactly x number of calories to gain weight at this healthful rate, and do it with these foods at these times in these quantities.  I know that sounds so childish, but I feel like I can't trust myself to make these decisions right now.  And I am trying to have another baby!!!  I'm so pathetic lately.

Who would have thought I would fall into ED-type behaviors while trying to GAIN weight????  I never had any binge or over exercise or any other ED behaviors while losing weight.  Turns out being given the "OK" to gain weight has been more difficult mentally, emotionally, and phsically than anything I've ever been through. 

Thanks for the kind thoughts!

Just wanted to let you know, I feel like I am in a pretty similar situation. I'm getting help for it even right  now because it was just messing too much with my life. I didn't even realize how few calories I had been eating until I heard that that could be the cause of my binges (which are MAJOR).

So now, trying to be healthy and get my life back in check, I'm trying to concentrate on limiting my exercise and cutting back by a lot to say the least and concentrating on lifting, much less cardio. But as if its hard enough for me to eat as many calories as I require, when I feel guilty for eating so few and try to make up for it at night, I go crazy, and I eat more than I should have to last me three days. Like you mariejoie, its all about when I'm in the dorm alone....

So there was my little own rant of my own. It really is an awful cycle but we're working on getting our lives back in check!! Someday :) I hope you get better control over this super soon!!