Chicks in Control Overeating? Binging? Share uplifting support and gain control!

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Old 03-31-2013, 05:49 PM   #16  
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I quit restricting food intake altogether back in early Feb. I had been working towards it since Nov of last year, but I finally decided to take the plunge, weight be damned. My mental health was suffering. The bingeing/reactive eating from the restriction was not worth it.

I started to eat bigger meals so my body was well-nourished. A starving body will always be asking for a binge (I probably eat around 2200 calories/day at 5'3" and ~115, and do minimal activity to give my body a rest and chance to heal). I'm not sure of the actual calories because I don't count calories, think it's an awful thing to do, but I still have the knowledge of calories in my head (which is something I desperately wish I could erase and never knew in the first place!).

Unsurprisingly, after I did that, the binges stopped. I don't even have the urges anymore because I eat enough; I eat to hunger and fullness and that's about my caloric average from my body dictating it. I may or may not have gained weight. I don't know because I don't weigh and my clothes fit the same - maybe a tad bit tighter during PMS week from water, but that's always been the case and not terribly so.

I am staunchly anti-dieting/anti-lifestyle changes - to me they are the same thing. I only come here to help people when I see people like you reach out for it. Dieting sucks. Our culture's mentality towards weight sucks. Starvation diets are a staple and encouraged. It enrages me because of the **** I have been through mentally during what should be the best years of my life all because I wanted to lose 5lbs.

I wish I would have let myself alone.

I wish I could get where you are. However, if I could eat 2200 calories, moderately exercise, and still weigh only 115 lbs. I think I would. I believe you must have a high metabolism. I am 45 yo (next week), 5 ft. 3, eat the same # of calories as you do, exercise 1 1/2 - 2 hours a day, 6 days a week, and I weigh 135 - 138 (and I think I've gained a bit because I've been consistently going over my calories by, I estimate, 100 or so a day). And I feel as if I'm blessed compared to the calorie count I see some women have to eat to maintain an even higher weight than mine (some are at 1600-1800). I am in no way putting you down; you seemed to have reached a Shangri-La that few of us do. However, do you think you would feel the same if your weight crept up another 15-20 lbs? I'm not challenging you or being snide; I'm really just curious.

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Old 03-31-2013, 06:01 PM   #17  
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The overweight and obese would be better off ignoring calories, and all other inane "experts" and as you said, focusing on eating more whole foods and moving just to feel better in general, but being overweight does not automatically make them unhealthy or unworthy (I know you didn't say that, but that's how society treats them, and that's why most people are here, isn't it?). You're right, in that most people seem to use "lifestyle change" as code for "diet." If it was really just a lifestyle change, they wouldn't care so much about hitting a goal or slashing calories or fitting into a certain size. I don't buy it.

Yeah, throw the tomatoes at me, but I feel like I have finally come out of a mental fog. Maybe it's because I eat more now, and my brain isn't starving.
I don't think it needs to come in the form of a diet or even within the framework of "I can't have this" or "XYZ is forbidden" - but most people need to retrain their palates and their stomachs to adapt to a normal satisfying amount of nutritious food, which is a lifestyle change. Movement is a rough one in winter - being outdoors sucks and is even dangerous, and gyms and dance studios and other places you go to move are full of dieters and people who try to sell the "fitspo which is really the new thinspo" idea. I see it everywhere now - people are like "LEANER, LEANER" instead of "THINNER, THINNER" but it is all means to the same end - unnaturally low body fat for females because that's what's desirable in a lot of circles.
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Old 03-31-2013, 06:06 PM   #18  
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lin - I don't think you're being snide.

I do not have a fast metabolism. I have a normal one; there's nothing extraordinary about me. It's actually a little low as I have been tracking my basal temperatures upon waking and they are often under 98 degrees and last year I was sublinical for hypothyroid. Without metabolic suppression, a normal woman of average size should be able to eat approx. 2000-2500 calories/day and meet her own weight set point. There's nothing wrong with 5'3" and 135, especially not if that's where your body wants to be, insurance charts be damned. I don't know your dieting history so I can't say for sure. If you've yo-yo'ed all over the place you would have to let go of the diet, eat more to raise metabolic rate, gain some weight, keep eating to appetite, and let your body deal with the excess weight over time. But no one wants to do this because of the initial weight gain and I'm pretty much spewing blasphemous statements all over this board. They get scared, and flee to the next diet. Check out youreatopia.com or Matt Stone to read about metabolic suppression from restriction.

I may be 115 right now, and I may have gained some weight since then. I don't know. As I said, I haven't been on a scale in a while, and I have weighed more in the past. About 20lbs above my natural set point from screwing with food.

There's no other option. Either be on a diet forever and remain a crazy, food obsessed hostile loon like I was, or eat normally, gain some weight, risk that it may stay around forever, but preserve my mental health and physical health in the long-run. It's a no brainer.

I'm not always zen either. I have bad days where I feel the pull. Really bad days, but I have better days where I my feel that my digestion has improved (I used to have horrible constipation and GERD from restricting before I started forcing myself to eat more), my hands and feet are no longer ice cold, and best of all, I do NOT binge anymore.

It's highly likely that had I kept restricting, I would have gained that hypothetical 15-20lbs anyway - through binges.

One last thing more telling than my weight: Pre-diets, I had 16% body fat without trying. As in, regular hearty meals and minimal exercise. After years of diets, I have 24% body fat aka, I am more fat now than I have ever been. Good job, diets!

I'm really just here to give support to people like veggiedaze who want to let go of dieting and want to know that they are not alone in such a culture that looks upon food as a sin that must be controlled and thousands of rules attached to it - kind of how we look at sex.

I spew a lot of hate at dieting and our thin obsessed culture because I feel that it has ruined a big part of my life and I wish I hadn't fallen for it. If people want to diet forever, that's their right and not my business, we just have a difference of opinion. And of course, no one will change unless they want to. Two years ago if you had told me to gain some weight and eat more and quit my weight loss, I would have smacked you with a chicken drum. LOL

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Old 04-01-2013, 07:30 AM   #19  
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I don't think it needs to come in the form of a diet or even within the framework of "I can't have this" or "XYZ is forbidden" - but most people need to retrain their palates and their stomachs to adapt to a normal satisfying amount of nutritious food, which is a lifestyle change. Movement is a rough one in winter - being outdoors sucks and is even dangerous, and gyms and dance studios and other places you go to move are full of dieters and people who try to sell the "fitspo which is really the new thinspo" idea. I see it everywhere now - people are like "LEANER, LEANER" instead of "THINNER, THINNER" but it is all means to the same end - unnaturally low body fat for females because that's what's desirable in a lot of circles.
I agree, I never see the word Lifestyle Change as code for diet. Diet to me means a temporary restriction in food with the intention of losing weight only to go back to what you were doing before. A life style change means redeveloping your relationship with nutrition and fitness. It means that you want to get to the point where making healthy decisions is a habit that you never have to think about, it's automatic like brushing your teeth. We don't keep track of how many times we brush our teeth, we don't write down how many minutes we did it for, we don't measure the amount of floss we use, we don't keep detailed records of how much toothpaste we use, we don't argue over which toothpaste is best. We just wake up and brush our teeth, no thought given to it it's just daily routine. That's what I want my food intake to be, routine, without emotional turmoil. I want to eat an apple and no agonize over hunger or think about how good I was for eating an apple. I don't want to reward myself for choosing something healthy, I think that's the trap that we fall into with DIETING. We reward ourselves for staying below points or within our calorie range. If we had a healthy lifestyle we wouldn't be patting ourselves on the back for eating a salad.
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Old 04-01-2013, 08:41 PM   #20  
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There is a book I think you may all enjoy reading by author Valerie Frankel. It's called "Thin is the New Happy." She's very candid about her dieting and lifestyle, her feelings and her circumstances. There is some choice language in the book so beware, but I think it helps convey the rawness of her trials and successes. It really is a good read. I did a virtual book club with this book and a lot of people had personal break-throughs about their struggle with dieting, weight loss, etc.
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Old 04-02-2013, 01:25 PM   #21  
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There is a book I think you may all enjoy reading by author Valerie Frankel. It's called "Thin is the New Happy." She's very candid about her dieting and lifestyle, her feelings and her circumstances. There is some choice language in the book so beware, but I think it helps convey the rawness of her trials and successes. It really is a good read. I did a virtual book club with this book and a lot of people had personal break-throughs about their struggle with dieting, weight loss, etc.
Thank you for your suggestion. I wasn't familiar with that particular book but was able to reserve it via my local library's website. I look forward to reading it.
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Old 04-02-2013, 02:38 PM   #22  
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Hi everyone. I read through all the posts and it is such a mind provoking discussion. I have been thinking about everything you have all been saying to the point where it was honestly quite hard to work yesterday because I was having difficulty concentrating on my work

Maybe I will start be just saying how my last few days have gone. I can definitely say there is alot to be said about really listening to your body and asking yourself if you are hungry. I had hoped for confirmation that my previous eating structure was in line with my physical hunger but have definitey discovered that while sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. There is a pretty big difference between my work days and my days off, and also smaller differences from day to day. And this is also confirmation that by following pre determined diet or calorie counting or anything predetermined would mean denying certain hunger signals as well as eating when I wasn't really hungry. There is no structured diet that exists whether it be calorie counting, carb cycling, etc. that could ever perfectly align with actual physical hunger. I am hoping I will remember that last sentence next time I decide I should eat X amount of calories per day, or eat X amount of meals and X amount of snacks. So in that respect I feel quite liberated and my overall stress has definitely decreased in wondering if I am "at a calorie deficit" or "within maintenance".

However, there are other things I am still feeling conflicted about. And that is to do with specific types of food prevously on my "avoid" or only have in controlled amounts list. A couple of my work days there were as usual donuts and lemon squares in the lunch room. I asked myself did I want these and I felt like the answer was no. All week I had been taking a massive amount of food to work (I should note all "healthy, previously allowed" foods that were within my psycological comfort zone) to demonstrate to myslelf there would be no calorie limits and that I could eat as much or as little as I felt satisfied me). Also, towards the end of the day a coworker handed me a fun size chocolate bar (which happens every day routinely) and I asked myself was I hungry? And again I felt no and throughout the week the fun sized bars stacked up in my pocket where i forgot all about them. Previously when I put one into my pocket (which I did automatically because I did not allow myself to actually eat it but didn't want to be perceived as weird or ungrateful) It would literally burn a hole in my pocket I was so acutely aware it was there. Now what I am wondering is did I actually want those things and was just telling myself I did not want them. Was I really being honest with myself. The fact is, no I was not physically hungry for them. I had eaten a substantial meal not long before that I had deemed to be "the amount that would satisfy me". However, I do know most people I work with eat these treats. I know they are probably not physically hungry for them as they had also just had a substantial meal from what I could tell. I would also say I would suspect most of these people do not have eating disorders (middle aged men with average bodies, not overweight, not overly thin). So it would appear they are eaitng these for "pleasure" not for hunger. And that whole topic just brings up so many more questions for me. If normal people eat things sometimes for just pleasure sake and not for hunger, should I be doing that too? I mean yes, I could have easily eaten the chocolate or the donut or the lemon square on top of my meal like they did and yes I am sure I would have enjoyed the taste sensation, but I wasn't hungry. What do you all say to this. I have often found myself conflicted by this very question. So all I can say is this troubled me because I am not sure the answer to this is. I could eat alot of things just for the sake of pleasure.

Also something else happened that troubled me. I am also at times conflicted about wine. I really do love red wine, but I rarely indulge because it has always been difficult for me to drink it and stay "within my calories" because it is pretty high in calories per volume like all alcohol. I do love it though and could drink it every day if it wasn't for the calories. When I do decide to have it I will often make up for it somewhere in the day like skipping a snack or having a smaller meal to compensate. But one day after work my friend asked me over for dinner, and I thought what a good opportunity for me to exercise this new way of thinking and give up the control of making my own meal. He was going to pick up a rotisserie and then make other things like salad, roasted veggies etc. to go with it. So I said great, that sounds like fun and was really stoked. And it was such a nice day I thought it would be so nice to enjoy a glass of wine outside on the porch while the sun sets and before dinner. And I heard that little voice immediately say "are you sure you want the wine, it is pretty high in calories and you have already had a substantial lunch of unknown amount, and your dinner is also of unknown amount" and I recognized that my inner voice was attempting to "control" and obviously what I really wanted was a nice glass of wine. So at this point I felt really liberated and happy, just smiling like crazy, feeling like I was making so much progress. Even my coworkers were wondering why I was so happy. So I picked up the wine, got to where I was going and everything was going perfectly. I even let him pour my glass of wine which is something i almost never allowed and was a little alarmed by how big a glass he gave me but I said i will just drink what I want, no more and no less. Things were just going great and we were talking and not really realizing the time passing. Then suddenly it started getting cold outside and suddenly I started getting sooooooooooooo hungry. And then I realized that although the chicken was there, he hadnt even started on the other stuff. AND I WAS SOOOOOO HUNGRY!!! and so he then brought out the chips and salsa and my alarm bells went off so bad. I had negotiated the wine, but i had not at all considered these chips! and then i said calm down, just have some chips, not big deal. So i had some chips, and more and more and more and more and started feeling really uneasy. i started feeling urges to binge. I was panicking. i just wanted to ge out of there and hit the store. but i didn't and had dinner and then went home and went to bed. but i felt so bad. I felt like why was i overeating the chips when i had had everything in the world i wanted that day. I wondered okay what could i do to prevent that from happening again. Maybe i could MAKE SURE dinner was ready on time or bring a veggie platter in case in which case i could munch on the veggies, or maybe even a soup appetizer. Then I realized that no situation can be controlled. Sure I could make sure dinner was ready, but what if someone else was coming and we had to wait for them. Sure I could bring the veggies or something else healthy just in case but what if i still wanted the chips or both. I also thought "next time just have a handful". I then realized a truth I don't like to admit. Sometimes people just overeat for no reason. Sometimes people just want the whole bag of chips. Overeating at times is a "normal" part of like. I recall many times as a lean athletic kid with no weight problems or disordered eating being able to eat an entire bag of chips, or alot of haloween candy in a sitting, or two slices of pie after dinner when at my grandmas house. I realized that probably part of getting over my disordered eating would be to realize that overeating takes place from time to time. And I can see that that is probably my biggest hurdle to get over and honestly I'm not sure If I can. I just don't know how I can give permission and feel good about eating a whole bag of chips. And I know that is likely why now I always want the whole bag of chips, because deep down I know it is "not allowed". I've known for awhile that binging is due to restricting amount and types of food. I'm not having difficulty with not restricting the amount of my previously allowed food. I never want a bag of apples or 5 tubs of yogurt or 5 plates of brocolli. So I know when I'm saying I can have as much as i want that it is the truth. But when I say sure you can have that cookie or the chips, I am really saying "have one cookie" or "have 2 cookies" or have a "handful of chips". And I just don't know how I can change that part of me. So I am a bit discouraged with this. I was feeling maybe I should give up on all this and get back to my confort zone. it is not helping things today that I am feeling gross and bloated from an impending TOM.

But I am still trucking along. I will admit that the binging urges have gone down greatly by not being obsessive calorie counter or limiting the AMOUNT of food. I can see it will be a challenge to let go of controlling the TYPE of food and not so much even type becuase it's not overly hard to say I can have a cookie or piece of pizza, but I can not seem to let go of limiting the quantity of these food.

So I am wondering with all you who have stopped binging if you do exercise any control over these things. You said krampus that with the cookies you had two and told yourself you could have more tomorrow. Was this a negotiation? was there effort in limiting yourself to two? also, bingefree2013, I know you don't binge anymore, but do you overeat things like chips etc. and feel bad about it? And Southernmaven you said you told your daughter you stopped lowcarbing but now just "are careful what you" which sounds like there is some effort taking place there.

There is so much you all said that I would like to comment on but for now I need to stop writing (and thinking) for a bit. I am also getting hungry and "neeed to eat" ))))) Thanks again everyone.
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Old 04-02-2013, 03:45 PM   #23  
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Also a quick question for krampus. I'm not seeing that Leangains is not a diet. I mean it seems to be something flexible with different protocols, but it encorporates IF, talks about calories and macros etc. And it advocates no breakfast which you seem to practice. Don't these seem like preplanned rules? I have done things like this with intermittant fasting. It seemed like just another way of dieting though and I still binged. Why not have breakfast if you are hungry for it and don't if you are not? I am just wondering how something preplanned is not a diet.
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Old 04-02-2013, 04:47 PM   #24  
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Sorry, I should have specified I like the eating schedule (16/8) but I don't consider those "rules" so much as just "my routine." I do agree that carefully tracking food and limiting mealtimes is not different from dieting.

I would say sugar is inherently habit-forming and people who don't want a third or fourteenth cookie are in the minority. There are tons of recent articles and peer-reviewed studies stating it has addictive properties and is druglike in its effect. Recently I have struggled with saying "I don't need three more cookies before bed" and brushing my teeth and still wanting to eat cookies - I don't consider that a "dieting" move so much as preventing something I will regret, because eating sugar/carbs right before bed usually means I have vivid bad dreams and wake up with a soapy taste in my mouth feeling almost hung over.

As far as whole bags of chips, pizza, stuff like that goes - I know it is harder to moderate intake of those foods, which makes me feel binge-y and like I can't control myself - I hate that feeling so I don't actively seek out chips or pizza. I guess I don't view it as a test of wills where I dangle tempting trigger-y kinds of foods in my line of sight and force myself to have only a little. It seems just as controlling and disordered to do that - personally I feel it's healthier to just avoid them and eat what you like freely.

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Old 04-02-2013, 05:11 PM   #25  
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also, bingefree2013, I know you don't binge anymore, but do you overeat things like chips etc. and feel bad about it?
No, I don't. Nothing makes me feel guilty when I eat it either. I literally cannot think of one food that frightens me to eat or think about eating, or that makes me quiver with fear after I have eaten it. I don't care about weight loss anymore, so that certainly helps. And it's not just words. I truly no longer give two craps about losing another pound. That alone opens the gateway for a more healthy and honest relationship with food. I care more about keeping my sanity. The two have been at war for years, but finally mental health concerns won out and propelled me to where I am now.

I eat to appetite now, and on calorie dense things that I enjoyed as a child before I had food issues. I have spent the last few years trying to ingest low-calorie gunk, hating every second of it. I am not a salad eater.

Everyday I eat some version of ice cream, chocolate, burgers, chicken, pizza, or whatever else sounds good, usually something homemade. For the last month or so, I've been wanting milkshakes from McDonalds about twice/week, so I get them. When it's closer to my period starting, I'm hungrier, so I eat more, there's no thought about it; some days I'm less hungry. It's been nice being back there.

Now before anyone cries, "heart disease!" and "diabetes," and shows faux concern for my health, I would argue with you that chronically dieting and weight cycling is far more detrimental than just eating the freaking food and moving on. The amount of stress that I used to give myself over, "to eat or not to eat?" nearly drove me over the cuckoo's nest. I've wasted hours of my life that I could have been with friends and family lamenting that I ate a chocolate bar, and was now too "fat" to go outside. SELFISH and indulgent drivel.

And no, I do not overeat anything. I eat pizza pretty much bi-weekly, and I'm starting to get grossed out by it and more interested in other foods. Sometimes I have a jonesing for grapes and cheese. I love grapes. Sometimes the thought of ice cream repulses me after eating it for a few days straight, and I'm thoroughly turned off by food unless I am hungry, something I truly thought would never happen to me again (back in the good old days before ED, I never thought about food before hunger).

I wouldn't have got to this place though unless I allowed myself and my body to recover from the heavy restriction I have placed on it for the last year and a half. I had to let go of the fear of weight gain and plunge into my meals. I dished out moderate to large portion sizes to ramp up my digestion and make my body start to heal. My stomach did hurt, at first, but within a few days, I felt so much better, and now I'm back up to the size of my pre-ED day meals, sans bingeing, and I plan to keep eating this way and let my body regulate how big my meals need to be from here on out for LIFE.

Like I have said elsewhere, I am not without bad days. Some days my brain tries to lure me back to the diet. Sometimes for days on end, but I still eat in spite of it, and then better days return and my new way of living is cemented further in my brain; the chatter a bit less and less. That's the only way to get out of an eating disorder I believe.

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Old 04-02-2013, 05:12 PM   #26  
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oh my goodness krampus what you have just said has helped me sort things out like you have no idea. I like your distinction between routine and diet. I have routines too and was starting to feel confused if those things meant diet.

Also I am having an epiphany this morning and that is that I hold on to the belief that I "should be able to just want 1 cookie" and what I realized that even as a child i could eat quite a bit of these things in a sitting. I have always gone back and forth in my mind about why overeating takes place. I have thought sometimes it's because of telling myself i could not have those things and so try re-incorporating them and then finding I still want alot. And then I hear of that these foods are have addictive properties that trigger endorphins and such and that is why we want to overeate them. so then I think it confirms banning them. Now though I can see it is both. Banning things make us want them more, and these things are harder to consume in moderation which is why even as a child when I ate them, I tended to eat quite abit.

I can see the only answer to this is that banning them is bad, and that having the expectation that you will never overeat them if you allow them is also bad. Yes as a child I would eat maybe a whole bag of chips or 7 oreos at a time sometimes, but I didn't think about it after. It was only after thinking about it and critisizing myself for having so many that the binging started. Fear of those foods started. My epiphany of today is that I have to accept that I will eat more than i think i should sometimes. That has been a big thing keeping me from getting over the disordered eating. I have wanted to believe so badly that I would never overeat, or never want to overeat. I think admitting that it is normal to overeat at times, especially on things like chips and cookies, it is a big thing in overcoming the eating disorder.
For a whole day I was asking why oh why did I want so many chips after not counting calories and restricting foods. And the answer is simply that normal people overeat at times and to accept this. Suddenly I don't feel so bad.

And also, thanks for saying you don't dangle tempting trigger-y foods in your line of site and force myself to have only a little. I was wondering at work when i felt completely satisfied with my luch if I was supposed to force myself to have the donut and chocolate bar simply to prove to myself I could have it.

I think I am really making progress here. It is certainly a different way of thinking about everything and somtimes my brain feels strained in the same way it does when I am working through a complex math problem. I have tried giving up calorie counting before, I have tried incorporating previoiusly banned foods, but never ever before have I accepted that sometimes people just overeat and that I too will just sometimes overeat. I have always tried to find a solution to this where no solution exists. Honestly I feel enlightened by accepting that there is no magic diet, way of eating, way of thinking that will guarantee we will never overeat. And that is so freeing.
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Old 04-02-2013, 05:27 PM   #27  
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That is very interesting bingefree2013 that you never overeat anything ever. What were you like as a child or before your disordered eating began. Because before I had disordered eating I did overeat things like chips or cookies sometimes, not all the time though. And It wasn't binging. so I thought going back to accepting overeating at times would be mucch better than going back to having the expectation I would never overeat and then binge. Maybe as child I overate those things sometimes because they weren't available to me at all times. Just sometimes when my mom would very occasionaly buy them or at a friends house or my grandmas house or something. Maybe if my mom had that stuff around all the time I wouldn't have done that. But I know I didn't have disordered eating. hmmmm gives me a lot to think about. My sister does feel sometimes she overeats every once in a while. But she never stresses about it and it seems to balance out.
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Old 04-02-2013, 05:32 PM   #28  
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And bingefree2013 maybe if I accept that I might overeat certain things at times and not stress about it and send me into a binge, maybe at some point it will become like you where you just don't overeat anymore.
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Old 04-02-2013, 05:46 PM   #29  
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What were you like as a child or before your disordered eating began
Ooo! This is fun, I love answering this question, mostly for nostalgia purposes.

From birth until age 19, I was a normal eater, and naturally thin. I weighed 106lbs (only knew because of the doc) all throughout high school. Never cared about my weight like the other girls, never talked about diets, thought they were silly, and didn't know a calorie from a carb, and mostly importantly, didn't care.

My sister, on the other hand, was never fat but perhaps just slightly naturally more plump than myself, thought she was, and engaged in diets like Slim-Fast and I watched her weight cycle. She still thinks she needs to lose weight even now, but I think she's beautiful.

When I was a kid my mom never deprived us of anything. She told me it's because as a kid she was deprived and told she was fat and snuck food to compensate. As a result, she has struggled with her weight her whole life and now she is fat. She also never made us finish our plates when we were full, so if I said I was done, it was never questioned.

Any food I wanted + being trusted with my own hunger/fullness signals = happy non-obsessed with food, normal weight child who can easily stop eating any food when she is full, no thought required.

I'm not sure what changed, but around the time I graduated from high school, a short while after actually, I began to become fascinated with skinny celebs and their bodies whereas before I never cared. Well, even being normal thin, I could never match up, so my young brain decided I could stand to lose 5lbs, and then I would be "perfect." Fast-forward six years later, goodness knows how many food trials and tribulations and I am just now coming out of the fog.

I'm luckier than most though - I do have 18+ years of experience as a normal eater to draw back upon as guidance versus someone who was never a normal eater and has always had issues with food.

I can't diet, it's not natural, normal, or healthy, and my brain has been throwing the equivalent of a two-sided tantrum from the last six years. Eat, or don't eat. Guess which side finally won out?

eta: I should point out also, that there is nothing special about me or my brain and my ability to stop eating when full with no struggle. I do not have a super metabolism and if I overeat long enough, I gain weight just like anyone else. All humans are born with the ability to relate to food in a normal way. It just gets screwed up by culture. I probably have genetic markers for things like anorexia considering that my own mother starved herself on about 800-1000 calories for 8 years and now has hypothyroidism and is obese. When the brain is properly fed, it can let go of the obsession and demonization of food and regulate normally, and that's all that has happened to me.

Last edited by bingefree2013; 04-02-2013 at 05:55 PM.
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Old 04-02-2013, 06:10 PM   #30  
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With re: to overeating.

I feel at this point it's almost physically impossible for me to overeat even on a favorite food. Why? Because my regulatory system is so strong that when I am approaching fullness I start to become almost turned off/repulsed by what I am eating. It no longer tastes good and the thought of one more bite makes me want to gag. That's about as clear as I can make it. Eating anymore would be force-feeding, which I only did the first week or so when starting up to eat normal meals again in order to stimulate my dead appetite and reform proper hunger signals.

I don't practice intuitive eating - that's what led me to my last severe restriction in the first place (trying not to eat past satisfaction which led to too little food, fear of fullness, guilt if I hit fullness levels, trying to obsessively rate hunger on a numeric scale, and extreme weight loss because I was essentially eating too little overall stopping before fullness; a diet within a non-diet), but the principles are similar to how I eat. The point is, I don't label how I eat with any program, just like I don't label how I breathe and urinate.

Hope that helps.

Last edited by bingefree2013; 04-02-2013 at 06:15 PM.
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