and some days I couldn't care less about food or overeating, however NO days have I actually felt like breaking my plans or binging.
But I get nervous on the days I feel hungrier than usual. I just hate the days where food is on my mind all day. It's 100% better now than it was before I found my new way of eating, and food is not on my mind even half as often as it used to be. But still, on the days that I feel hungrier than normal(eating the same amount of food, roughly) I get so worried that I'm going to just snap and binge.
I haven't even come close to binging, but I still worry. :/
I worry that I'm going to worry myself right into a place I don't want to be mentally! You know, worrying all the time!
But there's only so much I can do besides just work through the days where I feel that way and then enjoy myself during the easier days.
I would describe the urge to binge as having a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the uncontrollable urges and 1 being no urges. I used to be constantly between 7 and 10 and now I'm constantly between 1 and 4 with my new way of eating. I absolutely am happy about that, but some days when it's a 4 I still get scared. /sigh
First, it is fantastic that your new WOE has so significantly lowered your urge to binge, that's wonderful!
My suggestion to alleviate your ongoing stress and worry is to write down a plan of action for after a binge. While you may never, ever binge again, it would be good for you to KNOW what you will do if it did happen and to KNOW that it wouldn't be the end of the world. Because it wouldn't. What is that old saying: "Work hard for the best and plan for the worst," (I changed it a little! ).
Writing out a post-binge plan is exactly what helped me let go of the sometimes hour-by-hour worry about binging when I first started changing my eating habits. It helped me see beyond the binge, see beyond a momentary mistake to how life could just continue on. It helped me see how I could recover and still be FINE.
By the way, today I am 52 days binge-free and have had only one binge in the last 220 days. That one binge did not derail me or my long-term success because I had a plan and I followed it to the letter. Now that I know my plan will work I feel even less stress about the big, bad bogey binge monster. Because I know that no matter what, I can beat him in the long run. And less stress is a great thing! You deserve to be feeling good about all your accomplishments, not stressed about "what ifs"!
I like that you think about it on a 1-10 scale. I will have to use that. You've come such a long way but I definitely can relate to lapses and feeling out of control sometimes. The key is, what to do when you get to 7-10?
For example, I've been feeling really great lately. Avoiding wheat and most carbs, eating within my calorie limits and feeling pretty in control of what I eat. I make sure that I face hunger every day. I'm trying to get used to a little bit of hunger, not to be so afraid of it and I think it's working. I now know that hunger won't kill me. However, last night for example, I had a particularly low calorie day but was feeling full after my meals so I didn't trying to push my calories to the top of my range. Well I went to a dance class after dinner and came home and was feeling good relaxing. Suddenly I was so massively hungry that I was feeling rotten. I think I was near a 10. The type of hungry where I'm searching the pantry for some hidden chips or something, I was going crazy. In the end I ate 2 biscuits and felt fine. I feel ok about it right now but only because I was still in my calorie range but I do get scared when this happens and I feel a bit like a failure that I reached for a carb.
So Mrs Snark, what kind of plan do you have for after a binge? I can't begin to imagine what that is.
I really like the 'binge plan', actually! I have always had a little bit of an idea but I think an 'emergency binge plan' would be just in order!
It's so much easier to tell myself what I really need to hear when things are going well, and then I forget all these important things the moment I experience any kind of slip up or failure.
I'm 101 days binge free and I can say I feel stellar! I certainly would like to never binge again. My hope is that I don't and that, if I ever get to a 5 or a 6 on the scale of wanting to binge, I can stop a full blown huge binge with some kind of compromise.
But even if I had a huge binge I would most definitely 100% like to have a plan of action to follow immediately after because I would very definitely like to get back on track immediately. I think my WOE has really helped make this lifestyle a reality rather than an impossibility, but old habits die hard and even people who don't have a binge problem sometimes overeat just because.
Of course I will do all I can to try to keep it from happening but writing out a plan sounds nice, because I absolutely know that after a binge I will be feeling so down and so many negative thoughts and emotions would be happening that there's no way I would remember any of this uplifting and truthful stuff. I would just convince myself that I was a big failure.
So I'm going to write myself a binge plan so that if it ever happens I can remind myself that I'm not a big failure!
I have days that are hungrier than others, too. It's good to know that about myself because on a hungry day, I can just say "Hmm. I'm having one of those hungry days today. How about that?" More accepting, you know? And, therefore, less likely to cause a binge.
I also like that I know this about myself now. Back when I was overeating, I had no idea that some days were hungrier than others. I was always masking that with the eating.
I also feel a little more sane about the overeating days. It always felt kind of random and that there was no rhyme or reason or cause. Now that I realize that some days are hungrier than others, maybe some of my overeating wasn't quite as crazy as I thought. Maybe it actually started with hunger. Of course, the overeating was a crazy response (I know that now), but it makes me feel a little better about it. And much better that now I have a new response: Hunger is not an emergency.
I also try to notice my less hungry days. I figure I complain bitterly on my more hungry days. It's only fair to celebrate and enjoy the less hungry days.
I like the idea of having a plan, one less thing to worry about. Also paying attention to those hungrier days, they definitely occur, never thought of celebrating those not so hungry days...great idea.
It took me a long time to feel a little hunger now and then is not a bad thing, as long as I don't let it get out of hand, it's better for me to be a tiny bit hungry than make a bad food choice trying not to let myself get hungry, been there, done that...
I'm almost into my fifth month being binge free and I'm down almost 40lbs. I'm looking forward to breaking out of the 200's and I'm building more and more hope everyday.
I've made it through the hungrier days and the more times I do that I think the better I'll be at it!
Today was such a good day for me, foodwise. I stayed on plan even through a big turkey dinner! My family always eats a Thanksgiving style dinner early because we don't technically celebrate holidays but we like the dinner so much. So anyways, today I ate within my plan and enjoyed a low-carb Thanksgiving dinner. Not too hard because turkey is the main attraction.
Anyways, I feel good.
I know that by working through this I'll be able to look back and think "Well I made it through a big family dinner, I can do this!"
Some days I'm more peckish than others...
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