Originally Posted by Liliann:
Geeze, I hate dieting and been through the diet/binge cycle and worried about eating and enjoying life. You should be proud, you did right thing, went out for dinner to clear the mind about problems/stress in life. You had fun...Heck with the calories, just exercise more.

Suggested reading on diet/binge cycle... Overcome overeating by Jane H. This book I read and reread every time to remind myself that dieting does not work.

I am glad am over it, am eating in my mind about 3000 calories and burning it off!!!!

Don't get mad.. You enjoyed yourself and there is no crime in that..Keep up with your exercise regimen and you will be on your way!!! :)

Exercise is great, no doubt about it. But you really can't eat whatever you want and then exercise your way out of it. No.... In fact a commonly tossed around statistic is that losing weight and keeping it off - no diets - is 80% food and 20% exercise.

I don't call being careful, responsible and choosy with my food, worrying. Although not thinking about it, NOT being careful and responsible, particular and choosy led me to be 287 lbs. Enjoying food is one thing - OVEReating food is another. One CAN enjoy life and "clear ones mind without high calorie foods. In fact now that I've gotten rid of the high calorie/high quantity food - my mind is a whole lot clearer and I am enjoying myself soooo darn much, it's like every day is a holiday!


No, diets don't work. Changing ones lifestyle does. Realizing, accepting that high calorie/high quantity food causes waaay too many problems and deciding to be a health minded person who cares what she consumes and who eats responsibly - that pretty much works. As long as you make it work, that is. :)

Originally Posted by rockinrobin:
Exercise is great, no doubt about it. But you really can't eat whatever you want and then exercise your way out of it. No.... In fact a commonly tossed around statistic is that losing weight and keeping it off - no diets - is 80% food and 20% exercise.

Jane Hirschmann's Overcoming Overeating helped me so much, it's worth a read for anyone who struggles with food addiction feelings.

From my experience, I'd about agree with the above statistics on eating and exercise. If I don't keep my calories down, the exercise is great, but doesn't do enough for me weight loss wise.

Maybe it's just me, but when I read the original post I didn't think "binge", you just ate dinner at a Mexican restaraunt followed by ice cream for dessert. Not a weight-loss friendly meal by any means but not really disordered eating either until you thought of yourself as on a binge and added the quesadilla after ice cream.

I think when we start trying to lose weight many of us try to embrace "perfect" eating and set ourselves up for failure.

Thank you all for your support! I planned to get back on track the next day and I was (!)...until we had a game night with friends last night. Blech. I gained two pounds this week.

BUT I'm even more motivated to get healthy now! Thanks for all of the great tips! I love Mexican food and cook it, too, so I have to make sure to do more making it at home rather than going out. Plus, I've learned to NEVER go out to eat without checking out the nutrition facts beforehand.

Originally Posted by caryesings:
Maybe it's just me, but when I read the original post I didn't think "binge", you just ate dinner at a Mexican restaraunt followed by ice cream for dessert. Not a weight-loss friendly meal by any means but not really disordered eating either until you thought of yourself as on a binge and added the quesadilla after ice cream.

I think when we start trying to lose weight many of us try to embrace "perfect" eating and set ourselves up for failure.

Yeah, the word "binge" seems to be thrown around quite loosely on this site. I've started accepting it as a synonym for "splurge," as that's how it seems to be used mostly

Originally Posted by seagirl:
Can you learn to make mexican food at home so you control what goes in it, and it becomes a more mindful, participatory experience rather than just a "sit there and let the food come to me and I'll eat it all" experience.

I have the capacity to eat an inordinate amount of toast with butter. Really. But when I stopped buying bread at the store, and started making it myself (and sometimes even make the butter myself) I slowed down. It became a whole experience rather than just a "eat as much as possible because it tastes so good" experience. I could control the types of flour I was using to make it healthy and tasty. I began experimenting with recipes, and I stopped binging on it because so much effort had gone into it there was no way I wasn't going to slow down and enjoy it.

Same with pizza. I've figured out how to make a fantastic whole wheat crust, that I roll out thin so the pizza is "bigger" and then I pile it up with arugula, veggies, some shrimp and a little cheese for accent. I know exactly how many calories I'm eating, and I can eat it to my heart's content since even if I eat the entire thing it is only like 500 calories.

Get some Mexican cookbooks, spend some times figuring out what you want to make and how to tweak them to fit into your day, and enjoy them. Slowly and mindfully.

I have been doing this. I LOVE qdoba's ancho chille bbq burritos! I started making them at home with brown rice (instead of the white they use), black beans, lite sour cream, no cheese, bbq sauce with some chilli powder and home made corn salsa. It has about 250-300 LESS calories than the qdoba burrito. Oh, and i make it without a shell, I just dump the ingredients into a bowl and enjoy! The shells alone are a good 200 cals a lot of times.

You've got a lot of advice in this thread. And a lot of it is conflicting:) I think that's because binging is not a physical or mathematical problem, it is emotional and psychological, and emotions and psychology vary greatly from person to person.

So, my advice.

1) Don't over react. It was bad, yes, but it isn't a reason to feel like you've failed completely. People deal with this differently. Some hide the scales because they know they'll over react if they see the number, some intentionally face reality because they know it's a slippery slope to denial if they don't.

2) Learn from it. What were you thinking? Why did you order more than you knew you needed? Why did you continue eating when you already felt full? What were you ignoring? Were you punishing yourself? Then, try to come up with a way to avoid this reaction next time. There is a lot of stuff in this thread that people have found works for them, maybe there's something you can use.

Rinse. Repeat. Don't give up because of one imperfect meal.

Take heart. I did the same thing last night with the pint of ice cream. Except I didn't really want it, because I was full at the time but I ate it for whatever reasons after dinner and then felt so sick/nauseous and guilty afterwards. So I stayed up till the sick feeling went away and then worked out for an hour which is why I'm still up. I don't think that was the best idea because 1.) it doesn't change the fact that I ate a pint of ice-cream and 2.) now I'm really awake and tomorrow (or I should say today) is Monday and I have to work and I haven't slept at all. :( On the bright side, the guilt is gone.

I think you should just let it go. Last night was last night. Today is a new day. If you want to assuage the guilt a little you could add a few extra minutes or reps or whatever to your workouts this week so that mentally it feels like atonement. Or you could just wipe your slate clean and just start afresh this week. Move on, and don't let yesterday become an excuse to give up today.

I live in Southern California, boy do I sympathize with the challenges of mexican food! :hug:

The way I handle going out for Mexican (which my hubby looooves to do) is this:

*no chips. Sucking on a breath mint really helps with this! If I don't feel like I can manage to not have chips, then I count them out and only have salsa, if anything, with them.

*I decide before we get there what I'm going to have. I look at where my calories are for the day, how many I have to spend, and where my veggie/protein servings are. When I get there I don't even open the menu, I just tell the waitress what I want. :)

*this goes along with telling the waitress what I want: I modify the heck out of all my dishes. If I DO happen to order off the menu, it might sound like, "can I get the chicken fajita salad, no oil on the fajitas, with no guacamole, sour cream on the side, light cheese, and no side." You're paying for it--get what you want! :D

When dinner comes, enjoy the heck out of it, and then move on. Right back to your plan! :)

Originally Posted by Rosinante:
Not to be contrary or to add to your confusion...

1. Get on the scales this morning. It will be hideous, not with food but with the associated water, but this names the devil you have to tackle. You will have the pleasure of seeing the numbers go down quickly as you get back to your normal eating pattern. You will also leave yourself no mental wiggle room: what I mean is this ~ I had my first binge in 180 days last week - but it was as 3 day binge! I got on the scale at the end, found I'd gained 8lbs in 8 days eww but have very quickly lost 6.5 of those (maybe more, weighing in about an hour). If I'd not got on the scales through the understandable fear of what they might show, I wouldn't have tried so hard to get back on track, because, in my head, the numbers 'wouldn't have been that bad really."

2. IMHO a weekly planned binge is a mistake. It's too easy to get to the place where you 'deserve' this binge day, and for the binge to become a BINGE. For me (and with all possible respect to those who suffer from alcoholism) it'd be like having Just One More Drink, and would tip me over into over-indulgence. We don't get time off for good behaviour when it comes to weightloss, not if we're taking it seriouly.

3. Don't be tempted to hyper cut down in the next few days to 'make up' for the binge. It's been said before, you can't UN-eat what's eaten, and being too draconian just increases the sense of punishment and therefore guilt; plus it can just lead to yet another binge.

It's dull but slow and steady wins the race - and you Will do it!

Well put and I definitely agree.