It definitely depends on what works for each individual. I'll explain a bit (ok or maybe a lot) why I aim for total abstinence and no bingeing.
100% agree that you have to find what works for YOU! All our own little physical and mental quirks, our personal life's history, our unique strengths and weaknesses, our environments -- it all comes into play when we try to live with this binge issue long-term. You have to find what works for you and worry not one bit if it differs from what works for any one else!
Know thyself (and love thyself!)!
When we each share what works for us individually, I think it helps people who haven't quite found their groove to consider new methods or different tweaks & approaches. That's why a support group is so powerful, you get to peek inside another person's private struggles and see how they cope, and then you get to pick and choose what to try (and what to discard) when crafting your own approach.
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Originally Posted by ruby2sday
What's your thoughts on this? Do any of you feel you have certain foods you will just never be able to touch again?
I never say NEVER to myself, because it makes me want to rebel against my own authority, but the practical truth is that I have a few RED ALERT foods that are very destructive to me. Foods that over the course of my adult life have proven to be the slippery-slope straight to binge h3ll, and I avoid them totally.
Now, I tell myself that I can have them someday, if I really, really want them. But for all practical purposes they are off my menu and I have no actual plans to eat them.
I will say that the RED ALERT list has gotten smaller over time. It has been winnowed down to my serious BIG BADDIES. Shockingly, none of my BIG BADDIES are things like broccoli, or tofu, or beans. So leaving them out of my daily diet isn't that hard.
Seems like a stupid mind game, but it it works for me.
fell into bad habit again and binged last night..but it was the first time in a long time. Contrave made me sick so I decided to no longer take it, but it does work. I just had a headache all the time and was very anxious and having heart palpitations.
I'm back, after a long hiatus. I wish that I could say that it was months of success, but rather, I have had a few months of rapid weight gain (disproportionate to my habits I feel but that's another story). Not that I have been binge free but I have been trying (and falling off the wagon and back on and off and on and off).
Still here I am, waking up now on the other side of 140 (as high as 146) and 5 sizes bigger.
I am half way through my practicum which has made my life busy and stressful. That is basically why i have been MIA.
Has anyone really tried the tactic of burning themselves out on eating junk all the time? I feel like I'm semi-approaching that point with one of my favourite types of junk - chips and all sort of chip type stuff. I've been obsessed with strong flavourings, eating anything chipotle, spicy, barbecue, etc, you know the drill, flavoured popcorn, tortilla chips and salsa, etc etc etc… and I may be at the point where I'm like "ok, chips are good but are they THAT good?" Of course I haven't been eating ACTUAL chip chips… I eat baked chips or just the ones available in smaller size bags, as I'm not about to buy a 1000+ calorie bag of chips right now (but if I move up my calories at any point for a re-feed day, possibly, because I could eat at least 800 calories in the rest of the day, so why not try it?) so maybe I'd still love those chips. But I ate 1/2 bag of Boom Chicka Pop Barbecue puffs (260 cals) and I didn't eat the rest of it, right now. Maybe I will today, it's not that many calories. But like… I dunno. It was JUST okay. I feel like I'm kind of doing a weird restricted version of intuitive eating (I KNOW they say it can't be restrictive but whatever, bear with me) - I've been eating WHATEVERRRRR I want for meals just under my calorie limit for almost 3 months now. And yeah I eat crap foods a lot of the time. But. I dunno. I feel like I'm removing the allure of them by eating them so much and whenever I want really. Like maybe it's letting me portion control them? And I feel like the wanting them has become sort of separated from the actual desire for the actual FOOD itself and more just I think I want chips and then I'm learning, well, maybe I DON'T actually. So I think part of it is going to be managing that mental part moving forward, checking with myself as to what I actually want rather than what I think I should want, given enough freedom.
I don't now if ANY of that made sense, but essentially I'm eating what I want but within calorie limits and I *am* experiencing that "getting tired of foods I crave" kind of thing. Of course, I have 2 bags of flavoured popcorn, one bag of chocolate covered kettle corn, and half the bag of boom chicka pop left in my kitchen so I still have lots to eat if I want, but I feel like I'm maybe sort of making progress here. Not sure. But maybe!
I would never get tired of eating my trigger foods (cakes, cookies, chocolate, etc). Never. I have tried to make myself sick on eating too much sugary junk, but it doesn't work, just triggers even bigger cravings the next day.(or a few hours later)
I have a blanket ban on all added sugars of any type; the only sweet stuff I consume is in whole fruit. It works for me. I'm not obsessing over food anymore and I feel free.
So I take it there is no point where the taste of something starts to "change" for you - I notice this most prominently in quite sweet foods, because while I like sweets, the ones I can eat most indiscriminately are more the fruitish sweet (skittles as opposed to just a plain bar of milk chocolate, or swedish fish, or sour candy, or any of that type of sweet) - and some cakes, etc are too rich for me. But with ice cream, particularly say a pint of Ben & Jerry's, or this chocolate covered kettle corn I have a bag of right now, there's this point I can identify where the taste changes. Or when I'm out eating a restaurant meal and I hit satiety and I get sad because there's still food but it doesn't taste as good and I know I'm full. I just feel like there is a taste change when you're actually full and you're kind of like "…" - it's odd because MENTALLY I still have that desire to eat more, but I can kind of see it at one remove from me, as I recognize also the physical feeling/taste of having eating enough of x item. GOing through this process is helping me get more in tune with what I actually physically feel regarding foods, and helping me disregard what I think I should feel towards food (more more more). It's a bit odd, my brain is in a bit of a disconnect. But truly I do think allowing myself to eat ANYTHING for any meal ever in my entire life is making a difference in terms of removing binge urges (although of COURSE I had a binge dream last night after feeling like I had come very far). For example, I have that chocolate covered kettle corn in my kitchen. It's tasty. I had a full serving yesterday (50g, 250 calories) and actually *knew* halfway through that it was getting that "not so great" taste and that I kept eating because I had given myself that serving and decided to eat it and I wanted to regain that "first taste" of it I had. I then put it away for the rest of the day, and had a half serving about 45 minutes ago, and that was the right amount. Could I eat more? Probably. But it's in the kitchen. I'm done eating it for now. I was able to focus onto work without thinking about it (until I came to this post, now I am), but it's just … eh.
I am by no means 100% "cured" or able to tolerate all foods this well. I am happy that I'm able to have more foods in my house that are slightly bingeable and not be bothered by them. I would like to ultimately be able to have all food in the house and not be bothered by it, but for some of my staple binge foods (like ruffles all dressed chips) I'm not sure that is possible. But does one really need a bag of chips in the house anyways? Not really. I'm also struggling with eating appropriate amounts of ice cream bars. Yes, I can fit 3 or 4 of them into my daily calories, but I would like to be able to eat 1-2 per day rather than 3-4. Currently beyond me, but that's a challenge for the future I think. But I'd rather eat 3-4 ice cream bars in a day, stay within my limit, than binge, you know, so whatever. Maybe I'll live with that if I want an ice cream bar once in awhile.
I also feel I should point out that I structured my binges quite carefully to include salty/savory and sweet in fairly equal measure and I would alternate between tastes in order not to feel too sick of certain tastes, so I actively had to avoid that sick feeling in my binges. For example I would buy chips (towards the end, at least 2 bags, even if I couldn't eat both of them, I had developed a fear of running out of food mid-binge), sour candy, cookies, and maybe ice cream.
I am so grateful to have found this thread as I am in the midst of a spiral on sugar and fat. "It's my birthday" is the message that I send myself in order to make it alright to keep eating. If it weren't that, it would be stress, or work or loneliness or worry,,,,,,,I can make anything fit. Except the clothes that I want to wear.
It was a helpful reminder that getting off of sugar and wheat can mean a couple of days of lethargy and spacy-ness, but eventually the cravings subside and a normal eating pattern emerges. Being prepared with food is key for me.
Tomorrow is my birthday, a good day to start getting honest with myself about food. Many thanks to all of you who are brave enough to post.
lady - I've never really thought all that deeply about it, to be honest. I was very good at ignoring any and all problems with food and letting the problems rule my habits and desires. I used to wear really big blinders.
I am so grateful to have found this thread as I am in the midst of a spiral on sugar and fat. "It's my birthday" is the message that I send myself in order to make it alright to keep eating. If it weren't that, it would be stress, or work or loneliness or worry,,,,,,,I can make anything fit. Except the clothes that I want to wear.
It was a helpful reminder that getting off of sugar and wheat can mean a couple of days of lethargy and spacy-ness, but eventually the cravings subside and a normal eating pattern emerges. Being prepared with food is key for me.
Tomorrow is my birthday, a good day to start getting honest with myself about food. Many thanks to all of you who are brave enough to post.
Happy "after birthday"! I think that food addiction can't be solved or made worse in a day. today is a new day, just as tomorrow will be. The real issues in my opinion have to do with emotional eating and a deep desire to keep our focus on food instead of our real problems. But I think we all know that binging doesn't solve a darned thing. I personally need a strict diet and a pantry of non-psyche tormenting foods so that I don't have to "be good" and struggle with food choices. Every time someone asks me "what do I want to eat" I think to myself "you have no idea". They really should ask "what protein and veggie sounds good?"
I am on the Ideal Protein diet and have made a list of all my trigger foods so that when I phase off the diet I will have a strict " no-no" list. There are a lot of them...and as dull as it is to be living without binging...It is forcing me to deal with stress and problems without food. I miss feeling full...I think that meat and veggies don't send a signal of fullness to our minds because that's what insulin does...and this is hard to deal with but...I need sanity more.
Hi all, i'm back and wanted to update. I am doing Whole30 diet and it is actually working. No sugar, grains, alcohol, legumes or anything processed. I've done it for two weeks and have lost five lbs..but more importantly i'm starting to lose that "addict" mentality. I don't feel like I have to eat all the time. Im not up eating all night..Im not looking for my next "fix" of sugar or carbs. This diet is not easy (especially if you like to go out like I do) but its rewiring my brain I guess for lack of a better word. Im not saying that i'm going to do this forever, but its working for now so I'm going to keep doing it for the rest of the 30 days and then size up how i feel
Today i weighed in at 149.8. I haven't been in the 140s since last year. I wanted to cry this morning. I broke the sonic barrier which I didn't think was possible....LOL....serioiusly, i didn't think it was possible. I've lost 7 lbs since june....I know that isn't a lot but its something . I can cook pasta for my son and not eat it...thats a big deal. I can go to a restaurant and they put bread basket on the table with olive oil and i pass....that is HUGE deal. Every day I thank Jesus for giving me this new found strength. I even baked brownies the other night and didn't have any the other night...that was hard.
Im not saying that i'm cured of my addiction because i think that is going to be a life long problem....but I'm showing that maybe I have the strength to try and overcome this.
