It feels like ever since October of last year I have been in a constant rut. It's worse at different times, but I feel like I can't lose weight ever. I don't know what I weighed in October, but I'm going to guess I've lost about 5-7 lbs since then. That's pretty much 5 months. I'm young, and I know I can lose that same amount in 2 weeks if I'm on track.
During the summer, I wasn't eating badly at all, because the house was full of only fruit and such. I got lots of exercise because I loved riding my bike. Now that it's winter, fruit doesn't come around very often, and the snow and cold weather keeps my bike hanging on the garage wall. My days were spent doing things I liked, so it was the perfect setting for me to lose weight. It's like the weight was slowly just inching away without me giving any effort.
I don't know what has come over me. It's like Halloween rolled around, and once there was junk food around the house, it never left. My Halloween candy was gone, then there was Birthday food. Birthday passed by and there was Christmas. Christmas goes by and theres my brother's birthday. Now it's Valentines. My mom is a binge eater and leaves junky food all around the house. Food is fair game here. It's like it always there to tempt me. Of course I'm going to eat it! I can't control myself when it's in the house 24/7. I've asked my mom to put the food in her room, and she says she will, but she doesn't listen to me.
Basically I'll go through the entire day killing myself trying not to eat. It's like my mind is completely gone when food is in the room. I can't even think. I just eat if I want something. I can't control anything, and I'm so frustrated with myself. I yearn for the days when I didn't have this problem. Honestly, before I tried to lose weight, and before I lost 30lbs, I NEVER, EVER EVER experienced this. I feel disgusting. I do think I'm a binge eater, because if you're binging, you're eating a god-awful amount at once, right? I'm just eating little bits, but I'm eating 'little bits' almost all day. I take a few bites of candy and then I go to my room and think that I just washed 60 calories down the hatch for no reason. I tell myself it's not that bad, but then once I've restored hope in the day, I just go eat more. It's like I can't learn. I feel like I'm screaming at an annoying little kid inside my head that won't listen to me, and I want to strangle it...
So basically, I don't think I'm binging, unless I have been stuck in a non-stop binging state since October. I try chewing gum, but it doesn't work. I love chewing gum, but I always just throw it out so I can eat more food. I waste away packages of chewing gum because I'm trying so hard to stop eating. I drink lots of water, but it doesn't help either. At school, I make sure to bring small lunches that will make me feel full, but even if I do that, the cafeteria food always gets me. Even if I have no money for cafeteria food, my friends have it almost every day, and they let me have some of theirs all the time. I cannot remember the last time I had lunch and I felt good about it, because I stopped eating once I was full. It's like my stomach becomes full, but I am never satisfied until I can really feel it being full.
I don't know what to do. Honestly, what helps me the most is when people tell me what to do. I feel so alone in this process, and none of my friends want to help me. Please, if you have any ideas, post them. Say anything..
I'm sorry this is so long, I just feel so hopeless now. Please don't tell me to 'pick myself up and move on' because that's what I do every day, but the previous day just repeats itself. I look in the mirror and I feel like I've never been fatter. I feel like all my previous success is all in the past. I feel like I'm trying to start at square one again, except this time it's impossibly hard...
Remember first that you still are a teenager, and for you to admit that you have a issue with binging at your age is something to be commended.
I know exactly how you feel. I work in a hotel and I am surrounded by cookies, muffins, bagels, candy, etc and it is extremely hard not to eat them. What you need to do is look at food as fuel, how much fuel do you need at your age to be healthy, if it's 1500 calories, 1600, or even as few as 1200 you need to ask your doctor or school nurse that. And then inform yourself, see how many calories are in what you are eating, that way you can decide what you want to spend those calories on. Find alternative binge foods--instead of chips, have popcorn--popcorn is a low fat low cal food that makes you feel like you are eating a lot but you aren't. They have 100 cal popcorn packs and it's surprising how much you get out of one.
If you mom is not moving the snacks to her room where you can't access them, ask her if it is ok that you move them so that you won't be tempted to eat them.
The same goes for your friends, tell them you are trying to lose weight and if they have leftovers, tell them to just throw it out, and tell them not to offer you any anymore. You could also try eating lunch somewhere other than the cafeteria(if you are allowed to) this way you won't have all those smells around you making you hungrier than you really are. Also set rewards for yourself, at so many lbs lost you buy this, 10lbs intervals is what I am doing. If you don't have the money to do that then find things that you like to do that don't involve food as rewards(ex: spa night at home, day at the beach or lake, if you have a car a drive down somewhere you have always wanted to go). You have the power--not the food. Hope this helps.
I am going to dissect your post because there are a couple of statements that make me feel like you aren't getting enough food, when you eat, to keep you full and satisfied, which has been setting you up for giving in to the ever available junk. Also, it appears that you'd benefit from eating "on schedule" for breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack if necessary - which would keep you nourished, fed, satisfied, and take your mind off either trying to not eat, or mindlessly giving in to the foods that are troublesome for you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RicecakeEater
I don't know what I weighed in October, but I'm going to guess I've lost about 5-7 lbs since then. That's pretty much 5 months. I'm young, and I know I can lose that same amount in 2 weeks if I'm on track.
^this^ You should get on a scale so you have a reference point. It could be better (or worse) than you know. The second part of that is ...
During the summer.....days were spent doing things I liked.... the weight was slowly just inching away without me giving any effort.
^this^ makes me question if you had a plan then, because it seems like you don't have a plan now, except for avoiding food or "giving in" to food. You may not have been "on a diet plan" at all...which is why it seemed so effortless under the circumstances of filling every moment with something to do/worth doing.
I don't know what has come over me. It's like Halloween rolled around, and once there was junk food around the house, it never left. ..... It's like it always there to tempt me. Of course I'm going to eat it! I can't control myself when it's in the house 24/7.
^this^ If you are avoiding eating, the junk is going to be not only more tempting, but your guard is down, your hunger is up, and bam...you're a goner.
Basically I'll go through the entire day killing myself trying not to eat. It's like my mind is completely gone when food is in the room. I can't even think.
^this^ If you ate 3 meals and 2/3 snacks, your preoccupation with not eating would disappear.
I just eat if I want something. I can't control anything, and I'm so frustrated with myself.
^this^ You can't just eat if you want something because the problem is what the something is. If you ate on schedule you'd stop setting yourself up for this scenario.
...binge eater.... I'm just eating little bits...almost all day. I take a few bites of candy and then I go to my room .....tell myself it's not that bad, but then once I've restored hope in the day, I just go eat more.
^this^ doesn't sound like a binge eater to me, but there are others here who can zero in on it. What it sounds like to me is that ... you're hungry, and the choices around you are easy but not optimal for nutrition and/or weight loss. If you ate on plan, you should be able to stop this behavior.
I waste away packages of chewing gum because I'm trying so hard to stop eating. I drink lots of water, but it doesn't help either. At school, I make sure to bring small lunches that will make me feel full, but even if I do that, the cafeteria food always gets me.
^this^ REPLACING food with gum/water isn't going to make the hunger go away. Avoiding eating food isn't going to satisfy your hunger. Packing small unsatisfying lunches and going to the cafeteria isn't satisfying your hunger.
YOU ARE HUNGRY...and you need to eat.
I cannot remember the last time I had lunch and I felt good about it, because I stopped eating once I was full. It's like my stomach becomes full, but I am never satisfied until I can really feel it being full.
^Again, hunger and food avoidance so when you eat, you are frenzied and eat and your stomach isn't having enough time to tell your brain your full (of crappy food from what you're stating). Had you eaten breakfast and a snack, lunch would be more satisfying. So would the next snack and thereafter dinner.
Failure to plan is planning to fail. If you continue to avoid eating and replace real nutritious filling satisfying food with gum and water, you're bound to rinse/repeat this behavior that you want to stop.
Draw yourself up a food plan. PLAN to eat those 3 meals and 2 snacks. Give yourself options for each meal so you can substitute and switch it up. Lets pretend you joined J.Craig or Nutrisystem.....either would have you draw up a food plan for yourself by the menu choices you made for breakfast, lunch, dinner, plus snacks. The effort you put into creating a plan for yourself will serve you 100 times better than the effort you put into avoiding food/replacing food with gum and water.
These are my opinions, of course. How does it sound to you?
Last edited by 124chicksinger; 02-18-2012 at 05:18 PM.
Check out the book, "Brain over Binge" by Kathryn Hansen. I read her book and quit binge eating for good back in Nov. after 2 years of being a binger and ruining my weight loss. The author suffered from bulimia and quit on her own after therapy failed her, and her book describes how she recovered 5 years ago instantly, and painlessly and completely on her own vs. therapy, which was very painful and ultimately, useless.
What happens when you eat sweets is that your blood sugar spikes and, if you release too much insulin, the excess of insulin will call for more sugar. This makes you feel out of control --to me, there is no way to control that urge--, and you go for more carbs almost instinctively.
I have not binged in 50 days now (cannot believe it) after doing it for more than 30 years, and I think I could start to control myself because I stopped eating carbs for a while. That made my yearning for sugar diminish, and it became easier to control myself. That, coupled to very good choices --lean meat, veggies, fruit, bran and oats, no wheat flour, no sugar-- and low stress levels, played the trick for me.
Now that I don't binge, I understand it was not lack of will power that sent me eating like crazy, but my body chemistry. It iwas not a childhood trauma, nor gluttony, but just stress coupled to too much sugar in my blood. Now I still have the stress, but I don't like food unless I feel hungry. When I am not hungry food bothers me.
My piece of advice is that you go for a low carb diet for some days, and that then you add calorie counting to that low carb diet. This is the only time in my life when I have been able to go on a diet for so long, without binging, and losing weight quite consistently (about a two pounds a week).
As to the food lying around, take it to the kitchen and keep it out of sight. I have a cabinet which is too high for me where I put the food my boys eat, and I just forget what they keep there.
Tell us how you do, ok? Be patient, and good luck!
Last edited by inglesita64; 02-19-2012 at 04:54 PM.
Am I binging? I feel hopeless
