I ask myself why when I binged last night, and didn't know why. I can't figure out why I do it. I feel so yucky about myself. I know you're not supposed to beat yourself up for mistakes, but I can't help but feel like I am sabatoging myself. HELP!
I agee-- it felt good. It kinda puts you in a food coma. It masks whatever emotion you were feeling prior to eating. Sometimes I think it is almost habit.. unconscious. You wake up half-way through binging and feel like you can't stop.
Are you journaling? Keeping a record of how you feel today and your thoughts about why you binged might help you the next time you feel a binge coming on.
I ask myself why when I binged last night, and didn't know why. I can't figure out why I do it. I feel so yucky about myself. I know you're not supposed to beat yourself up for mistakes, but I can't help but feel like I am sabatoging myself. HELP!
I figured it out by thinking about what had been happening before I got the urge to binge. Was I talking to someone and they said something that upset me? Did plans change? Was I bored? I asked myself all sorts of questions, and the answer that kept coming back to me [most likely] was what I was eating about. Next step: sit on the couch (literally) and just feel the emotion. Now I'm at the point where I can feel the emotion and get on and do something else.
I know you know this, but don't beat yourself up--that'll only give you move bad feelings to eat over! Be gentle with yourself. Acknowledge that you made a mistake, and plan your next healthy meal. Be nice to yourself, so that you have a good, solid place to work from.
Not to long ago, I found myself in my kitchen, opening cabinets and rummaging around in the fridge. I had no real reason to be in there, it was late and I wasn't hungry. It was like I walked in there out of habit. I caught myself before I ate anything, only because all of my old comfort foods are not in the house. If not for that, I would have been on a major binge.
That night was a turning point for me. Since there was nobody I could call and talk to, I went to my computer. I have a blog that I can really vent on, whine in and ramble in. I started writing and the feelings I was hiding from myself came out. And as they did, the 'need' for food went away with it. That's why I binged....to block out feelings about a situation I didn't want to deal with. It was easier and more pleasing to eat, than to deal with a negative emotion.
Sometimes, I binge for a reason. I can get frustrated, angry, sad, etc. and reach for the chocolate or chips or whatever, and I love the advice you have gotten for that issue. However, I've also noticed that I can binge out of sheer habit. This is when I'm in the house working or just hanging out and I start thinking about the hot wings my husband bought that are in the freezer right now. I'm not usually tempted in the daytime, but once evening hits... I just picture them, know that one or two won't hurt that much, then I'll go down and microwave just one or two. Then, I'll do it again, then start doing larger portions, then... you get the picture. Two things have helped me with this habit. First, I ask my husband not to bring home that stuff (or to eat it right away), and if he does, ask him not to tell me about it. If that doesn't work and I find myself dreaming about whatever food is in the house, I will leave the house. Usually, I'll go exercise, but sometimes it's taking my son to work on grounders and pop flies or taking my daughter to the park or something.
Bingeing is tough, and I am also prone to it, but I am getting better at resisting the urge. I have never felt good AFTER a binge. As Jen reminds us (and thank you, Jen) - it is progress, not perfection that will bring us the results we need. So, maybe this weekend was just about teaching yourself how to resist the urge in the future. After all, you came here and asked for help, which is always a step in the right direction.
Most of the time I try to figure out of it was something I ate first, as empty carbs/sugar cause me to binge more often then not. Then I figure out what I can add or take away from that choice to make it more balanced or if need be I decide not to eat it on a regular basis and keep it out of the house.
If it's not that then I figure out if I was just bored or really trying to cover up feelings I was trying to ignore/numb out.
I never binged on a same item, usually it was a variety of things. A bit of that a bit of this. It would numb my feelings of discomfort if there were any, but usually it was just out of boredom. An hour a so after the intake, I'd be mad at myself, and as punishment I would make myself finish the bag or the box of whatever I've had a piece of originally. I would eat till I felt notios, or sick....I hated it but ate it. A very sick method, but somehow it worked in my mind.
There were lots of different emotions and situations that would lead me to binge, but what I was looking for in the moment was the high that came with eating that much food. The taste was part of it, but mainly I was looking for that feeling of fullness. The one where when you take a breath, it hurts. And then the sleep that came with it - the food coma. Those feelings were comfort to me. That was my hug. And it made that overwhelming feeling of "if I don't eat I will crawl out of my skin" go away. It made the emotions and situations go away for as long as I felt full and slept. Bingeing was my anesthetic. So taking it away has been painful because I feel things more and I have to find other ways to deal with the emotions. Oh trust me, I still come up with non-food ways to ignore and stuff away the feelings, but at least I'm losing weight doing it. My wish is to one day have the coping skills to not be such an avoider!
But I second the journaling idea. I swear I thought it was lame before I started, but it is helpful.
Have you ever read any books by Geneen Roth? I found her books to be really helpful in delving into the reasons why I was binging. For me the main reason had to do with suppressing emotions I didn’t want to feel. Anger is a good one. For some reason I never gave myself permission to be angry. So when I felt angry I felt like I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing (a bit of a good girl syndrome). I would then binge to numb myself to it. Allowing myself to feel angry – giving myself permission has been a huge part of not binging for me.
Another big part of it is that eating makes me feel really good – in the moment. When I feel bad, unhappy, depressed, lonely, whatever, eating has the drug like effect of taking all that away – again, for the moment. Unfortunately I would always feel worse afterwards looking back on what I had done. A big part of stopping has been being able to remove myself from the moment and try and see things in a different perspective.
Because I've always had the issue of binge eating, I've had to really fight it this last month because July became my, "Get the damn weight off once and for all campaign!"
I've binged once, when I was left home for an entire day by myself. I didn't eat junk because there was none in the house, but that doesn't matter because too many calories of good food eaten when you're not even hungry is WRONG!
You have to stay 110% focused on changing your life. You want to be fit and healthy and that has to become a consuming passion that takes over everything. For the last month I've measured my food and used Fitday to record it all. (even the very bad day) I'm learning what a portion looks like and what foods are good for me and which ones to avoid like the plague. I've learned that I can go out to eat and choose the best foods for me at the restaurants that have healthy choices. I've made a decision to workout 5 days a week and I do it! I joined this board and post a lot. I joined TOPS so I'm accountable. I cleaned out my closet so my big clothes are gone and the smaller ones are waiting for me, all cleaned and ironed.
Most important is that I have fully accepted that I can't keep binging and cheating and see my body shrink down to the size I so badly want it to be. For years I've been fat and miserable and there has NEVER been a binge where I said, "Sure glad I did that!"
I find for me is a combo of not eating and wanting what I can't have. Take today I didn't think I was hunrgy went to the store. but once I got there there were brownies and doughnuts everwhere I turned. Big, small, normal, double, triple, cramel. The only damn thing they didn't go was get up and sing! I stilled ended up buying a 6 pack of 8oz coke, a 2lb bag of cherrys, and thing of peppers.(the kind you find whole at salad bars on with a poppa john's pizza). I kept telling myself I just go home and have a glass of chocolate milk and a package of oreo thin crisps.
I got home and cracked the peppers one and had 4 and I didn't want chocolate anymore. I don't think it was the peppers themselve cause I been know to drink beer and eat chocolate cake at the same time. When it comes to chocolate I'll eat it no matter what same for doughtnuts I freaking turn to homer simpson in a heart beat.
But yeah so I made myself a nice lunch and I no longer felt the need to eat chocolate.
Triggers are funny things cause sometimes you don't even know they are there.
But yet tonight I eat damn near the whole bag of cherrys there is maybe a qrt pound left and it was 2lb bag to start with. I still don't know why it happened other then I was very lazy today.
I agree with what everyone is saying here. I was really struck by the honesty of people saying that they just liked it--the eating, the being full. That's something I hadn't admitted to myself before. I did like bingeing. ****, I loved it. Like everyone says, I felt awful afterward, or I slept it off literally or figuratively and later just ate more to stave off the dreaded feelings of failure and fear. Pretty much the story of my life: eating to make myself forget about eating. Crazy, but true. I gradually through myself so out of whack that I didn't know what hungry was and how much food was enough. In order to hide my overeating, I distorted my food needs completely. I practically trained at eating a lot. It wasn't conscious. Not at all! But I would slowly eat more and more at meals and between them and stretch my food needs all out of bounds, to hide the fact that I really just wanted to eat, eat and be full, blessedly full. All the time.
I'm kind of babbling here but what I really wanted to add is that I think for me, at least partly, this endless desire for food, for more and more, for a binge, for real and undeniable fullness came from dieting. From resistricting and punishing myself with diets. So maybe it's possible that you can begin to prevent your bingeing by thinking about what you are eating. If you are denying yourself too much, you might make yourself susceptible to a binge. If you are eating enough and not restricting too much, maybe you need to reassure yourself that you will get food, food will be coming and you will not starve yourself. You will not punish yourself. You might be like me--conditioned to respond to any attempt to lose weight by running terrified to food. Once I convinced myself I wasn't going to make it hurt this time, slow and steady wins the race, I've been almost completely binge free.
How do you figure out why you binge?
I ask myself why when I binged last night, and didn't know why. I can't figure out why I do it. I feel so yucky about myself. I know you're not supposed to beat yourself up for mistakes, but I can't help but feel like I am sabatoging myself. HELP!
