Something needs to be mentioned here....when people come on to confess their transgressions, most of the time it is accompanied by self-loathing. I think we can give support and help the poster separate the behavior from the person that they are. The person is good--the bingeing is not.
WHAT THE **** WERE YOU THINKING?!!!!! Now you have to go work out more and carefully watch the rest of the day to try and make up for some of the calories without cutting yourself short on nutritious foods. Was it really worth it? *shaking my head in disappointment*
I love this post...it is so true on many levels. I can understand supporting people and being understanding, but I have never understood the enabling that goes on...Its not ok that you binged, and I swear sometimes when I see repeat bingers and people tell them its not the end of the world, it was one bad meal, they dont need to ruin their whole day or week they just need to accept it and continue on. I just want to say , yup, you blew it. Maybe losing weight really isnt for you, maybe your not ready. When you get serious then come back and talk to me. I know I'm not perfect, my food diary would make many of your heads spin (ex. last nights snack...a small banana cut up with a chocolate vitamuffin crumbled on top then covered with a 100 calorie chocolate pudding cup...an almost 300 calorie snack) but every thing I eat is accounted for and worked into my daily calories. This is not an every day thing, but some days are worse than others, especially during TOM. I want to lose weight more than anything right now and I feel so guilty when I eat over my 1450, I really couldnt imagine eating over maintenance plus work out calories. I am by no means playing the holier than thou part. I know binging happens and theres been many days where the stress has gotten to me and I feel like I could eat for days and I almost tell myself that the people on 3FC will say its ok, one bad binge isnt going to mess me up, but what it would do to me mentally is a lot worse than what it would do physically.
Lori, you have been such an inspiration to me and many others. Its nice to know your human, but accept the flowers from your husband because they were meant for you because your a good wife and mother. I'm sure he didnt buy them because you were doing so well staying on plan. Your going to beat yourself up for a while and your not going to get to have any yummy snack later, but you will have some beautiful flowers, and YOU DO DESERVE THEM.
Something needs to be mentioned here....when people come on to confess their transgressions, most of the time it is accompanied by self-loathing. I think we can give support and help the poster separate the behavior from the person that they are. The person is good--the bingeing is not.
I do agree with this. I dont think EVERYONE who binges is coming here for acceptance of their binge. They just need to know they are not a bad PERSON for binging.
I'm an emotional eater, or I was until I gave my word to my guy I would stop it (more on that in a bit), and I have had several bumps along this journey so far. For a month, recently, I went off on "hey I'm gonna eat anything I want and make me feel bad" sort of spree and ended up gaining back 4-5 pounds. I also did a lot of emotional eating, comforting myself with food. Is that okay? Yes and no. Clearly it is not an okay thing for me to do to myself for obvious reasons. It is okay, however, as I'm human and I make mistakes. Okay = I'm not a bad person for making this mistake.
This is my personal opinion, but when someone talks about their binging or emotional eating, or whatever issues are plaguing them at their core, they are coming from a place of shame, of feeling extreme negativity about themselves because they feel that they cannot get it together. So, when someone replies to their cry for help/comfort with an "it is okay" and reassures them, it is about telling them that they are not alone, that we get it, and that you're not a bad person. I mean to me that is not enabling. To me that is a response of understanding and comfort. Once you get the then you can start opening up and confronting those core issues and feelings. That has to come from the person who originally expressed their feelings though. Now if you're choosing to take that comforting response and enable yourself, then that is another issue entirely.
Recently I made a promise to myself and my man that I will stop emotional eating. Since then I've struggled as things in my life have gotten a bit stressful to say the least. However, I'm doing it step by step lol. It is hard lol. I held myself accountable, I promised myself first, and I need to learn how to cope in other ways. That includes not punishing myself ANYMORE. To me punishment = negativity and I am tired of the negative things in my life. I want to learn how to accept and embrace positive things. I do have self loathing and punishment issues, but I'm learning. To me saying that I don't deserve something = the negative and punishment and I don't feel that is productive. I mean weight is just fat and saggy things...that is all physical. My emotional side, now that is where the real work is for me. I allow my fears, my negativity, and my other issues to stop me from getting physically healthy. It is all interconnected, but at the core I could be 140 pounds and STILL feeling the same way about myself.
Currently my inspiration is to fit into these jeans I have and wore a long long time ago. That is not a reward, but an inspiration to get me to a new place in this journey. The reward is feeling satisfied and encouraging myself to move forward. I have other inspirational goals that I think are helping me confront my negative and self loathing tenancies.
Lori, I'm not going to tell you to stop it, because I think that has to come from you. I will say that you're not alone and we all get where you are coming from. You are a real inspiration to all of us. You sound like a wonderful person.
Its not ok that you binged, and I swear sometimes when I see repeat bingers and people tell them its not the end of the world, it was one bad meal, they dont need to ruin their whole day or week they just need to accept it and continue on. I just want to say , yup, you blew it. Maybe losing weight really isnt for you, maybe your not ready. When you get serious then come back and talk to me.
I do not agree with this part of your post. I do agree that we need to make ourselves accountable for our choices and be called on it when we don't follow our own plan. But if I had a bad slip-up or a binge and I got a response like that, then the whole guilt/punishment cycle that kaplods and glory mentioned earlier would start and I would equate a mistake with failure and me not being worth the effort and maybe just giving up.
One thing I have learned from so many of the women here is that if I have an off meal (if I decided to go out and not eat what I had planned for example), there is no use on beating myself over it for days or hours on end, it's better to just pick up where I left and go back on plan for the next meal. I can assure you, I've had far more success with this approach than with all my previous attempts when I would be riddled with guilt if I ate a piece of something i was not supposed to, it really is not the end of the world or of the healthy habits I am trying to build now.
I think there's a distinction between being encouraging and supportive and being enabling. And her in 3fc, I have really found support and kindness even when I'm not perfect.
To treat someone with compassion and kindness is not enabling. To enable would be encouraging the person to just go eat and it doesn't matter anyway. I have never read of any one doing that. I am an emotional eater (still) and I never needed 3FC to go on binges! You all were there to help me pick myself up and dust myself off even when I didn't post about it. Jacquie668, that was wonderfully put.
I totally understand where you are coming from. I strive to use a mixed bag of tricks... I feel badly that they felt bad because they binged BUT food won't fix anything and you need to get back on that horse and make a STRATEGY for dealing with it NEXT time. IE: get the freaking candy out of the house!!!
From my iphone please excuse any typos....
I know I binge/ blow eat/ eat too much sometimes and then I come here and fess up and get back to to the plan. Maybe we tend to share the kind of support we need. When I eat 2 pieces of cake, I feel awful about it. The sugar but also self-contempt. Self-contempt is not helpful for me. What I need at that tome is to remember that it is not the end of the world, that I am not going to gain all the weight back from one indiscretion and that food ( for me) is not a moral issue. I am not a bad person for eating cake ( unless I stole it maybe!
We all make mistakes. I will binge again someday. It is a fact. I will never be perfect. That's okay. I'm keeping off 50+ pounds. This is not all or nothing. This is trying, falling, and getting back up. I used to try perfectionism and when I blew it and hated myself for it, I stopped my efforts and regained it all.
When I binge, I don't need to hear that I screwed up. I can tell myself that just fine. What I need to hear is that I can and must keep going. If someone told me that a binge meant I wasn't ready to lose the weight...well I would not find that helpful. Especailly since I have lost it and I am maintaining. That doesn't mean I am not changing. My binges now are different than they were last year and might be different still next year. We are all at different places in the journey, but one thing I know is that we all go off plan. And then our choice is to give up or keep going.
Lori he didn't buy you flowers because of your food choices. He bought them for you because you are an incredible woman. None of this is easy, and you are strong. Perfection isn't strength. Trying and persevering is strength.
Yesterday my husband came home with a bouquet of flowers and I felt so ashamed. I told him I didn't deserve them and about eating approx 1500 calories just in candy. (not including my calories from my "healthy" meals.) He's so sweet and assures me I do, but I feel like I failed him, our family, myself.
What do flowers have to do with what you eat??? If you eat something you "shouldn't," you don't deserve anything good in life in any way??? Are you serious?
You do deserve flowers, most definitely. You do not deserve a binge - you're better than that, you've done an amazing job and naturally want to see it to the finish line (not that there ever is a finish line - but you get my point).
Regarding the binge porn, I cannot even read most posts about cravings, binges or over the top fried foods - because it makes me crave it unexpectedly and I don't want that. Most threads I have read on it have a few people agreeing, which is normal - that ___ would taste great. When in the mood, I personally need to hear that it's useless garbage and will taste like kaka!
Oy to this thread. I don't even know how to respond to half the things that have been said. I'm never sure if I should go with tough love or killing them with kindness. It's very tough.
One thing that stuck out to me, that we hear a LOT around here, - "tomorrow is another day". Well, this one does kinda get to me. Because tomorrow is a new day, but so is the day after that and the day after that. And then a new tomorrow again - and before you know it - you've tomorrow-ed away a week, a month, 3 months - a year, a decade..... So at some point, it's GOT to be TODAY. Right NOW.
LoriBell, the year I was losing, I was sure all my binges/bad days/off eating - whatever you want to call it were over with. Ha. Ha. Ha. on me. I was shocked when they came back. Shocked. And now I'm feeling kind of bad for posting about my bad times. But for some reason it does kind of help me to share it with others and I guess get it off my chest. I'm sorry if it's bothersome to others. But I think it DOES help to know that we are all human and they are BOUND to happen. I one hundred percent believe that they are inevitable. But that doesn't mean that we are failures and need to be punished. I've now come to accept that they are indeed PART of the journey, PART of the plan.
Please, please, PLEASE, I urge you to not punish yourself for these things. You have failed no ONE. NO ONE. You are setting such an incredible example to your entire family by taking charge of your life and implementing the changes that needed to make this happen. You have come soooo far and one or two or twenty-two binges does not negate that. This is not the end of your journey, just a small fraction of it.
We're so ingrained to punish ourselves in this society for being overweight and overeating (heck sometimes it seems that we're taught to feel more guilt over food cheating than any other cheating legal, financial, sexual.)
I've never met an overweight person whose main problem was not feeling bad enough about themselves. I also find it extremely difficult to believe that many (if any at all) have used 3FC as an excuse to overeat. I'd really like to know if anyone here really has ever thought "hm, I think I'm going to binge on a ridiculous amount of unhealthy food, because I know that after I do, everyone on 3FC will be so nice to me."
Sorry, I just don't buy it. And anyone feeling the need for punishment or "tough love", should know that this is the worst place to come for it (and not only because you're unlikely to get it). We are friends here, but we're also virtual strangers. If you want punishment, I'm confident that you can do more than an adequate job of it yourself - or if it needs to be from outside yourself, you really should seek out the people in your life closest to you provide it. When family's do "interventions" it's with close friends and family, not strangers, because "you're bad, I don't like you anymore" is meaningless coming from a stranger.
There's little to no value in virtual strangers getting on your case, because you're only going to think "they don't understand." (Heck, even if your loved ones do so, you'll probably think the same thing).
I think that if you really believe that you're eating is out of control because people aren't yelling at you enough, you're making excuses. You're saying, it's not my fault that I binged, because people weren't mean enough to me for doing it, and are too nice to me afterward. It's not our responsibility to punish you, and if you feel you need punishment I'm sure you can handle it yourself, or get someone in your "real life" to do it.
And now I'm feeling kind of bad for posting about my bad times. But for some reason it does kind of help me to share it with others and I guess get it off my chest. I'm sorry if it's bothersome to others. But I think it DOES help to know that we are all human and they are BOUND to happen. I one hundred percent believe that they are inevitable. But that doesn't mean that we are failures and need to be punished. I've now come to accept that they are indeed PART of the journey, PART of the plan.
I hope I didn't come across the wrong way! The posts for me that are unbearable to read are generally the ones regarding old favorite foods - or if we could have anything to eat right now ignoring calories what would it be? To read post after post talking about doughnuts and pizza is hard for me.
I just recently discovered that about myself and those kinds of posts - it was a brilliant moment - to realize that I needed to stay away from them. I had been having crazy cravings after reading them and realized my life would be easier just not to participate. Well, duh on me!
Someone needing support is an entirely different matter and one I'm all too happy to help with, if I can. It doesn't set me off at all to read about foods in those instances, because I can sympathize with the poster - the foods aren't glamorized generally.
I read this earlier today and wasn't sure what I had to say about it, so I had to think on this one. First of all - Lori, you're one of my 3FC inspirations, both because of your incredible loss so far and because of your insightful posts.
Two. I never really thought about 3FC that way, and now I can see that I have done that a few times. Not for 'binges' necessarily, but the few times I have gone over plan or planned a cheat day, I posted about it. And I was kind of asking permission. Mainly because I knew everybody would tell me it was alright and life would go on and I'd still lose weight. It let me justify it in my head
In fact, I posted one last night, about whether I should have a cheat day for my birthday when I plan on drinking.
Hmm. Now I have to think more.
Maybe we should label our posts to say whether we want a kick in the butt or a pat on the back or a hug. Maybe I should ask for a kick in the butt more often.
then you can start opening up and confronting those core issues and feelings. That has to come from the person who originally expressed their feelings though. Now if you're choosing to take that comforting response and enable yourself, then that is another issue entirely. 
