I have been working hard eating on plan(calorie counter) for the last couple of weeks now after falling off the wagon. Today I ate breakfast a yogurt, toast with peanutbutter, then had lunch turkey sanwich on whole wheat with raspberries, snack two small dark chocolates and dinner was sushi. I had felt like I had a wonderful day of eating and great couple of weeks actually! Then tonight a binge.... I wasnt physically hungry. I was not particularly sad or upset about anything at the time, I was actually in a pretty good mood happy about the wightloss I have achieved this week. I have been having a pretty rough semester but I wasnt in deep thought about some problems I have been having.
With all of this talk about emotional eating is this my problem and how would I know? It is so hard for me to express my emotions I just dont even know if I know what is bothering me. Could I have some issues that I really just dont know about yet?
I forgive myself for the binge and I hope I can still finish out the week strong, tomorrow is another day to eat healthy and be active. I just want to find the root of my problem, why do I keep slipping up right when everything seems to be in my control?
Thank you so much for any input. I am just trying to find some answers.

Hey,
It sounds a lot like self-sabotage. Everytime I have a good day of eating and recognize it, I'll be really succeptible to a binging. Somethings that work are seriously engaging in something else...like reading or organizing your closet, even homework, anything to get your mind off food you know isn't going to leave you physically or emotionally satisfied.

I know exactly how you feel! I'd have weeks of good eating and then bam, one evening I'd have one too many of a healthy snack, which leads to an unhealthy snack and everything starts to snowball downwards from there. I have no explanation for you as I'm trying to work through it myself. Afterwards, I'd sit down and write about how I felt the entire day and leading up to the binge and then afterwards. I'd isolated that I tend to binge in the afternoon/evening and on particularly cold/rainy days when I'm home alone. I guess in the past I had associated this environment with sadness so now even when there's nothing to be sad about, I'd subconsciously start eating more. And then I'd come up with ideas/plans to handle it when I feel the urge to overeat coming on. I monitor the weather like a hawk and prepare for my "rainy day blues".

You're a lot smarter than I was because you know to forgive yourself. It took me months of being disappointed in myself (which lead to a falling off the wagon) until I finally realized that beating myself up over these binges was just making it worse.

From the last time I was successful in losing this weight, as the weight came off, I didn't binge as often and even then my "binges" got less and less extreme. Eventually my body learned to not desire bad foods or foods in huge quantity. Of course there were occasional slip ups, but you know what, I realized that even skinny people have days when they eat a little too much. It's not *that* crazy and sometimes you have to let yourself go a little (some even say the little burst of energy is good in "shocking" up your metabolism). One day of eating a little too much isn't going to derail months of effort. We just have to make a conscious effort to not let the one day/afternoon become a habit.

I completely feel you on the frustration, but what can you do? We're only human. Gotta accept us in all of our great flaws. Good luck!

The first thing I would ask is what are you thinking when you're binging? Are you thinking that you're hungry? Are you thinking that you just want to eat THAT food because you're craving it? Or are you just thinking you want to eat because there's nothing else to do?

There can be lots of reasons why we binge. Sometimes it's emotional binging, favorite-foods binging, or even boredom binging. I have a tendancy to go to eating when I'm bored and need something to do. But I might also binge because I've been depriving myself of something I want, so I overdo it. I think you first have to indentify what kind of binging yours is...and then you'll know better how you can approach changing your habits.

I've found that I just like eating - I like the taste of food and have a rocking oral fixation. I have to be very aware of this to prevent binging.

I'm also an emotional eater, but I've tried to replace eating with working out when I'm having a bad day. The endorphin rush from cardio is much higher than the one from chocolate.

I think it's very good that you're aware of what's going on AND you forgive yourself. Maybe you should just give yourself one "cheat day" to account for when you want to eat more, and work out more on that day or something.