Hey, since i started calorie counting i've had this kind of pattern where i can go 2/3 weeks being really good and staying at a good daily calorie range and eating all the right things but then all of a sudden i'll not be able to help myself. I end up spending the weekend eating what i want and i feel really bad and icky afterwards but i just can't seem to help it. How does everyone else stop themselves from binging?
Thanks guys!!!
Uh I'm exactly the same! I count calories too and am on about 1450. The only thing that prevents me from binging is a food plan for the week based on my cals and by doing that I dont obsess over food or think about it constantly.
Since you know that weekends are the problem for you, you can try to target some extra motivation for that time frame. You may have some motivators that work well for you but I find shopping for pants (and trying them on in front of the full length mirror) very motivational. So perhaps you could plan to go shopping for pants first thing Saturday morning, after a healthy breakfast and as soon as the shops open. I was a regular at a few of the nearby shops until I was able to stick to my healthier habits (never bought any of the pants, btw!)
For Saturday and Sunday, I don't eat to lose, I eat to maintain. Essentially, that gives me a fairly free choice of menu for Saturday supper, and allows for a nice brunch-type brekkie on Sunday. Sometimes, my 'special supper' is Friday night, and sometimes I don't use one, but that's very rare. And I still avoid refined starchy carbs as much as I can, even for my 'special' meals. This approach likely slows down my weight loss somewhat, but I am way happier losing a bit more slowly and not feeling deprived.
If I do feel the urge to binge, I try to figure out why. Tired? Stressed? Worried? Angry? If I can figure it out and address the source, sometimes I can choose a better way to attack it, like sweaty exercise, or something productive directed at the root cause. Sometimes I can't, tho', and I just lose it. I still write down every single thing I eat, and count the calories. Usually, once I have binged, I'm really not hungry the next meal/day, and tallying the calories shows me that I haven't done as much 'damage' as I would have imagined had I not tallied everything. In fact, often it adds up to a day of maintenance, give or take. I'm finding that my stomach has grown accustomed to the more reasonable food volume and even when I binge, I can't eat as much as I used to.
I think the best thing each of us can do is to examine if what we are doing is working for us. If it is, great. If it may not be, then we should look at changing something, so that we aren't feeling deprived. Personally, I would consider bingeing every 3 weeks as an indicator that something about my approach needs to be tweaked. I want, as much as possible, to stack the cards in my favour in terms of maintaining my loss over the long term, so I need an approach I can live with in the long term, not one that leaves me feeling deprived often enough that I find myself losing control.
I also try to eat every couple of hours. If I get too hungry, the availability of food on the weekends can be a danger zone. Which brings me to my biggest secret for getting through the weekends - PLAN, PLAN, PLAN
I plan my menus AND snacks - every bite and sip that I will take on the weekend. I include some fun snacks (wine and chocolate) and LOTS of veggies. I prepare raw veggies and fruits and have them in serving-size containers in the fridge. That makes them just as easy to grab as something less nutritious. I tend to eat lower calorie meals since I have more time to prepare veggies and cook.
I keep track of my calories on my Palm, and pre-program in all of my food. It really makes me stop and think twice about eating that extra snack if I know I will have to go log it in the software.
Keep binge-triggering foods away. It works better than anything. I'll be thinking "I'd like to eat a 1 lb. bag of M&M'd right now" but all I have are grapes, so I end up just eating a handful of grapes.
If you're like me you can binge on anything. Candy, bread, mayo.... it can be bad. I really have to sit my butt down somewhere not in the kitchen and not allow myself to get up. I take my BPA infected Nalgene and drink the whole thing. By then I'm distracted by something. (have to pee, dog is eating a cat, phone is ringing) I won't lie and say it's easy. Sometimes I have to go for a walk or something else to distract me.
I know how you feel mama, and it seems like as soon as that one little shred of cheese crosses your lips, you've eaten the whole package. I think I am going to pick up some of that new pink lemon-aid fibre stuff. I feel really really old talking about how I am looking forward to fibre. I guess I am hoping that I can have some of that and feel full and get some fibre in me.
I think my trigger is stress. My emotion levels have been all over the place seen as TOM came on tuesday, i failed my driving test on wednesday and i'd been having mock exams and failing them all week. I think stress is most definately my trigger. I'm back on track now though as i just went to the kitchen to get some laughing cow cheese as i haven't eaten since lunch, went to nandos and i didn't eat all morning just to save the calories which i know is bad, anyways, i looked in the cookie tin to see what there was and there ver chocolate digestives in there and usually i can't resist but this time i looked and thought my cheese will taste far better than it ever would and put the lid back on and walked away smiling to myself. I think i shall have to investigate stress relieving exercise and perhaps take yoga up again!
Thanks guys!
For Saturday and Sunday, I don't eat to lose, I eat to maintain. Essentially, that gives me a fairly free choice of menu for Saturday supper, and allows for a nice brunch-type brekkie on Sunday.
I'm the same. I consider Saturdays and Sundays my "free" days ... and I don't stress so much about calories. I make healthy choices, but I don't count strictly. It also helps that I photograph weddings and on any given Saturday I'm burning about 2500 cals in an 8 hour day of shooting - so I figure if I eat off of the buffet at the wedding, it doesn't really matter if everything is drenched in butter.
But as far as avoiding real binges, for me the only thing that works is PLANNING. Even on my days off of work or weekends when I'm not shooting, I plan my meals and my snacks. I try to eat at the same times as I do during the week as best I can. I also know I'll sleep in later and stay up later, so I plan my meals and snacks accordingly. If I know I'll be going somewhere - like today where we drove across town to the farmer's market - I'll plan my snacks and bring them with me. That way I'm not starving and tempted to pull in at McDonalds on my way home.
Also, I just don't keep unhealthy snack foods in the house. At all. Right now the only things in my house are healthy foods. Of course that wouldn't keep me from binging on 1/2 a block of cheese if I lost control! : ) But in general, it's harder to binge if you have to stop and *fix* something to binge off of, rather than eating it right out of the box or bag.
But really for me the bottomline thing that works is constant planning. If I don't plan, I'll eat whatever is handy when I'm hungry - and that's a recipe for disaster.
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Last edited by PhotoChick; 05-11-2008 at 05:54 PM.
How do you stop a binge?
