Hi All,

I'm new here and I was hoping for some accountability buddies. I've struggled with my weight my whole life and have yo-yo dieted since I was a kid. I just wanna stop bingeing and start my life. I almost don't care about losing weight anymore I just don't want my life to revolve around food anymore! I spend my entire day eating food, thinking about eating or not eating food or trying to avoid eating food. I'm positive there's a better way to live than this and I wanna find it. I'm feeling pretty discouraged right now so sorry if I come off like I'm having a pity party. If anyone has any advice or wants to be buddies please let me know

Hi Crystal i am sure you will find the support you need here from your age group buddies. I"m older but i have had the issues you've got and here's the solutions that work for me. A lot of other people experience the binge thing too and have adopted this first particular point of my plan. People here also recommend a book about bingeing. Try to google it.

Assuming your key binge trigger is sweet foods, then that's what you have to give up. Cold Turkey, Just quit them forever. If the idea of forever is too scary for you, at least decide to quit them for a few months. Doing so will quickly see you get your appetite back in control. and your desire for more and more food will will fall away.

There are physiological reasons why eating sweets begets a desire for more. And my recommendation is don't substitute sweets for diet sweeteners. Just lose the taste for them by quitting them all. Including honey. You will not miss them. If you are a soda drinker, that has to go. Drink water instead. Don't start drinking tons of fruit juice that won't help either. But by all means eat lots of fruit. The sweetness of fresh fruit does not seem to trigger binges and i think its because fruit contains a lot of other good things. (Oh one little point, i do use a little bit of sugar when making tomato based pasta sauce to keep the acids down and i would put it in other basically savoury recipes when called for.)

If you binge on savoury salty foods, you should cold turkey abandon them as well. No chips, no kentucky fried chicken, no pizza - whatever you go stupid over just abandon it. Personally i can eat those foods in moderation but do not eat them whilst trying to lose weight. These at least i know i can return to eating in the future but they will never be part of my everyday eating. Anything of this kind that comes out of a packet or takeaway venue seems to be loaded up with salt and fat to make it intensely tasty but they are often low in nutrition so you get lots of calories but not much nutrition.

Sometiems you have to give yourself a break though and if you need to do that, make it a quality food break. Don't eat anything that will trigger a binge but go for food quality over easiness.

Lack of nutrition from all this sort of food sets up a bad cycle of endless hunger and eating. and your mood plummets.

So now you have to learn how to eat healthy. And that means you have to learn how to and be willing to cook for yourself.

But i would also suggest that you don't start out by cutting your calories too low. Because you need to learn how to deal with the hunger that goes with being on a diet.

If i were you, i'd suggest you work out your maintenance calories by using an online calorie calculator. And just get your appetite in check by eating three or more meals of good foods only up to your maintenance calories. Do it for a week. And then reduce your calories a bit and as you lose weight, just continue reducing by small amounts at a time. And it doesn't hurt to stabilise your weight every now and again either. I do that now if stress and pressure start to have an impact on my mood.

EAt protein at every meal. Eat good fats but don't go nibbling on nuts all day. Keep these high fat foods to a minimum. Eat full fat dairy because it tastes so much better and will satisfy you more but try not to eat more than 2-3 cups of milk and yoghurt a day. Keep a serving of cheese to 1tbsp and butter to 2tsp.

Drink water when you feel a little bit hungry. Keep your fluids up.

Don't eat refined flour foods like white bread. But pasta and rice and whole grain bread are fine despite what some people will tell you.

Space your meals to minimise hunger. I do mine like this breakfast any time before 10am. Lunch 12-1. I have a glass of wine anywhere between 4-5pm (you may need a fruit of sandwich snack) and dinner anywhere from 5-6.30pm. This minimises my hunger. I try not to eat after that but if i got hungry, i'd have fruit.

Eat lots of low calories foods like vegetables and beans and lentils. avoid processed foods as much as possible. Dieticians recommend we eat 2.5 cups of vegetables a day. And two pieces of fruit. So make vegetables the beginning of all your meals. i.e. instead of just eggs on toast, have one egg and a grilled or fried tomato on toast. In salads use 2-3 vegetables.

Use fitness pal or similar to get a grip on your calorie intake. I am sure you will learn more tips as you go along.

I hope some of this is useful to you. Good luck on your journey. We;ve all been where you are. Its hard making the switch from out of control back to control and that comes down to a decision +optimism.

Do you still want an accountability partner? I would love to have someone to talk to! x