[motivated chickie]

I'm glad to hear you are back on track and you abandoned your weekend starvation plan.

If we all think about it, the sensible thing to do after a binge is to go right back to a healthy eating plan. A starvation diet creates as much disruption as a binge does. I feel safer if I eat my salad, protein, and fats after a binge rather than doing something drastic and unhealthy.

Keep posting. I'm always inspired by the fellow binge eaters on the board. I had a binge weekend and I'm so glad today is a new day.

[hope for recovery]

I do relate to the binge-eating that you described hdallas78 and my rock bottom was also when i ate so much that I could not move, I could not breathe, I was so depressed and hated myself so much that i did not want to live. And I wanted help really badly, so bad that I was willing to do anything but to live the way I did. And one of things I had to do is not restrict my food, yes it sounds crazy I know. But every time I restricted my food, I binge ate somehow. The way I used to treat food is just unbelievable. I used to punish myself with it. With this attitude it was never ever ever going to work. If I don't change my attitude, then nothing would change.

Food is a gift, it is there to nurture me, to provide me with pleasure, it is a way of nature to show the love towards me. And me eating is a way for me to show my love to myself. Every time when i prevented myself from eating, I eventually binge ate on it. So love yourself and don't deprive yourself because it does not work. And if you bare with me until Wednesday I will update you on my weight gain as I for one more time failed to control my food and failed another diet. I did not binge eat tho, I think that if I do it one more time, I will die and I mean it.

This is separate from weight.

Back on the food, when i love myself and I eat with love and I allow everything, then a miracle happens and i don't end up eating more than i need. This is with love and care, not with force, not with a promise. With love and care because when the care and concern for myself is enough, then i don't binge. When i love myself enough, then I don't want to cause pain to my body. I am learning to love my body. The weight it went up as a side effect of self-hatred expressed through food and it will go down as a side effect of self-love and care.

I know the empty feeling, food does not fill it up, nor do drugs and alcohol, only love and care. All the best and I hope I will soon hear success.

The questions I asked in relation to food. What you do to food, is it different than what you did before? Why are you getting the same result, i.e bingeing? If this is what happens: I don't know what my expectations are, all I know is that after a binge I hate myself, really angry at why I continually self sabatoge just for the quick pay off of pleasure during the eating process." then can you control your food?

[ladycarbivore]

Hope For Recovery,

This binge rut I am in all started the beginning of June when I found something really hurtful out about my boyfriend. Ok, I found out he was STILL looking at porn after promising me he had put it behind him. At the time I had been successfull in losing 10lbs during the month of May and was in the 170's. After all that mess came out, it threw me into an emotional tailspin which I am still dealing with the aftershocks.

I don't want to get into a debate about porn, everyone has their own opinion but I have no tolerance for it. It makes me feel disgusting, unattractive, and not good enough. Knowing my boyfriend preferred to look at slim, big breasted women really upset me because that is not me. So, that blew my self image all up again, after I was starting to feel good about myself and I turned to food to numb the pain.

My good old friend food...always there when I need it, a comfort in a lonely troubling time I sunk back into my old habits that I had conquered for quite a few months.

Needless to say I am still struggling with my self image on a daily basis and my instinct is to eat my sorrows away. The logic that bingeing and gaining weight makes my self esteem even worse doesn't change my actions. I cant let a stressful or painful situation derail me everytime, life is full of situations and emotional turmoil and I need to figure out how to deal with my pain other than turning to food which will eventually kill me with my diabetes.

Today is a success, I stuck to my 6 small meals, 8 glasses of water, and 1hr of strength training. At this moment I feel refreshed.

One day at a time....

[hope for recovery]

Lady carbivore, thank you so much for being so honest and open to talk about your personal problems. It is nice that you are aware of this emotional side that often takes us back to medicating ourselves with food.

It is indeed out of unsufficient love for ourselves that we run away and hide in food, we seek the comfort of food. But it does not have to be this way any more, because there is too much pain on emotional as well as physical level because of binge eating.

Self image is a major one for me, the nagginig voice in my head that says you are not good enough, you are not pretty enough, you need to look like this... it is not real. I don't need to listen to this voice any more. I know that the only way forward is to love myself and to share my painful emotions with people so that I don't have to eat because of them.

You have decribed it very well:

" It makes me feel disgusting, unattractive, and not good enough. Knowing my boyfriend preferred to look at slim, big breasted women really upset me because that is not me. "

When I am so nasty towards myself to think like this towards myself, then I will self harm in one form or another. And I am sorry that I have to say this but it is not the boyfriend. It is our oversensitivity and our reaction to situations. The reason I am saying this is that we can only change ourselves and our reactions, we cannot change others and this is how it is. Yes, we need to make decisions around other people do but we are powerless over them. So grow that love for yourself because ourselves is all we have. You don't deserve the self-harm any more! Why would you choose to self harm your body just because your bf is into porn! What if this porn thing has absolutely nothing to do with you, what if he is addicted, what if this is his way of medicating himself, what if he really loves you and his actions have nothing to do with you! I am justifying it or debating over porn but people do what they want to do and it is not about us or because of us! We don't have to react this way!

Because when I go with an attitude that I don't like myself, I can use anything that people do or say to prove to myself that i am not loved! When I go with an attitude that i am great and everybody loves me and it is not all about my weight, I can see how people love me! It is a point of focus, thats all!

Good luck with it! I hope you have a binge free day! I am slowly getting back onto my diet as well, going up on the proteins and down on the bread!

Love and light x

[Kate_is_me]

I know the feeling of guilt that ensues after extreme binges. I know you posted this 7 years ago, and chances are you aren't active in this community any longer, but in the off chance that you are, I'd like to know if you overcame the insatiable need to binge and if so how? I am on a therapeutic seizure diet which restricts my carbohydrate intake. But the last 3 weeks, I went from perfect compliance to binge eating and out of control emotional eating even though it causes seizures and severe self loathing and guilt. I need help.

[KsLittleSparrow]

What kind of support system do you have in place? Does your insurance cover psychiatry? I'd recommend finding someone in your area that specializes in compulsive disorders (OCD, ect).

My bariatrician prescribed Wellbutrin to help me with stress eating and it made me realize how much of what was originally diagnosed as GAD was really more OCD related. I started seeing a psychiatrist so I will have support for that even when I reach my goal. Having a mental health professional has really helped me stay on track with my weight loss plan, among other things.

I am pretty sure that Wellbutrin is contraindicated for seizure disorders, but you may be able to find something that works just as well. Even if you don't want to be on medication, the therapy may help immensely.

If therapy isn't an option, my next recommendation is to read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It has a lot of information about how you can analyze your triggers, what they cause you to do, and how you can change it. I have it on audiobook and ebook, pm me if you want a copy.

[LittleB]

Hey Kate,

I emphasize with how you feel. Binge Eating really has a quality of making you feel hopeless. I used to have a really big problem with binge eating. There were times when I was able to control my eating but eventually I would just break down and start eating without stopping. At times I was so full it was uncomfortable just to get out of bed. But I am recovered now! I do not have that problem anymore. If you want to I could help you, if you're interested feel free to message me!

Love,
Bee

[Marshie]

LittleB,

Would love to hear your story and what you did to overcome binge eating!! I'm at my breaking point.

[Wannabehealthy]

You can seek out medical help for binge eating. Therapy. Or you can see a nutritionist who can advise you on what and how much your should be eating to be healthy. Probably the best thing to do on your own is to be sure to eat a healthy, balanced diet. Binge eating is usually caused by feelings of deprivation. If you are not eating enough of the right kinds of food, or eliminating foods from your diet, you eventually feel deprived, and that can cause a binge on those foods. Try eating 3 meals a day, eliminating no foods, and even including dessert here and there. Keep a food diary, or track your food on an online food tracker. There are several free food trackers on the internet. Once you are comfortable with that, if you are not losing weight, look over your food diary and see where you can make changes....switch out for some lower calorie or lower carbohydrate foods. And do some exercise, maybe just walking, every day.

[Palestrina]

Wow, this is an old thread and I read through the whole thing. It made me sad for the OP and also made me remember that I used to be the exact same way. I used to binge in response to stress and then I would punish myself with detoxes, diets, and bathe in self-loathing.

It made me realize how much I've overcome and bingeing - which was a daily activity for me - is a thing of the past. I don't even remember the last time I binged. I hope the OP has found her path and feels some relief from the awful prison of food.

[Mrs. Fat]

These types of issues have often a root in early life trauma, leading to self-destructive self-sabotaging behaviors.

[Oppaloopa]

I am reading a book called Never binge again by Glenn Livingston PHD. He has a web site Hundred's of great reviews book is very inexpensive.

[Wannabehealthy]

I think everyone who ever had a weight problem had some type of eating disorder, usually binge eating. The purpose of eating is to nourish the body, and hunger is the body's way to let you know it needs nourishment. I don't think anyone who only eats when hungry would every have a weight problem, but I know there are exceptions to every rule.

I don't even know how or when I stopped my binge eating. It seemed to be a gradual thing. Now, if I happen to overeat, I feel so terrible and uncomfortable and the memory of my binge days come flowing back. I still have the problem of finishing everything on my plate, even if I'm no longer hungry. To work around this, I try to order small meals in restaurants, and take small portions at home. But I realize I do need to learn how to start with a full plate and stop when I'm satisfied. I need to learn to throw food away. It's not a sin. I can't bring leftovers home from a restaurant, because I will just eat them as soon as I get home. The "starving kids in China" are not helped by my eating more!!

[LittleB]

Sorry for not replying earlier. For me, OA, Overeaters Anonymous and the twelve steps was the solution. I guess some people can diet and all but for me the problem was always deeper than that. I think today I could not even say, I binge because of my emotions, because literally any emotion would do it. Normal people, don't binge because of their emotions, I dont either. I don't binge bc of anything outside, I binge because Im an addict. and for addicts only twelve step programs seem to work long term