Hi I'm Wendy and I restrict, binge, restrict, binge, restrict, binge binge.... well you get the picture. I was never really overweight officially, just chubby I guess. Eating was never really for pleasure, but just because I felt hungry. I only knew what a Calorie was from physics. My high school friends were all academics and never cared much about appearance. I was perfectly happy in my own skin and had no idea what my weight was. I didn't even know there was such a thing as weight until I went to college. Heck I didn't even know my size! My mom would buy what she found on super sales and alter them to fit me. Then I met a girl at school and we became the best of friends. She was going to make me a friendship bracelet so she measured my wrist and said, "Your wrist is really tiny considering your size". She looked at me in shock because she didn't mean it the way it sounded and apologized profusely, but by then the damage had been done. Ever since that moment I read about dieting ferociously and had officially been on a diet of SOME sort. Well that was about 9 years ago and I've since gotten married and have a 2 year old boy. I weigh almost every day now and I know the calorie, fat, fiber, carb and protein counts in most (if not all) of the foods I eat. I've become obsessed. I hate that even after so long I can't get out of this whole "diet", "all or nothing" cycle. I hate it and I always feel so helpless, so out of control just when I start to feel in control. Just when I think I am in control of my eating I will start to restrict for some reason and then of course that is followed by a binge AND THEN relentless guilt comes over me and then restrict horribly again..
Just an example: I had been eating so healthy for the past couple of weeks...mostly a low fat diet. Everything was so well balanced and I felt great! Then I started to restrict and I'm not even sure why. I became irritable,dizzy and just felt really bad in health. So I ate and the eating did not stop. I ate over 3000 calories in 2 hours and this is not the first time. I just don't get why this cycle happens.
I want to be in control. I want to be healthy and I want to eat all things in moderation. I want to be the girl that didn't care about weight, who ate because she felt hungry and who was comfortable with who she was. Sorry for the long post. I've never shared this story with anybody and it was pretty hard to write down and even admit I have a problem. I'm just looking for some people who will understand my trials and tribulations and hopefully with some support I can become that girl I once was.
Binging and restricting is such a hard cycle to break. I know the feeling of wanting to get out of it too. 3FC was honestly one of the things that saved me last year when my binging started to become bulimia.
I hope this website does the same for you. I know it can.
Have you read any books or looked into therapy? Often it's the mental mindset you have to get over. The tough part is changing your thinking.
But take a look around, there's a lot of support here for anyone who needs some.
I had the same thing over the past two years, and I'm SURE that my anorexic past is largely to blame...if you deprive yourself, your mind will not tolerate that for ever. The only difference , in that respect, between an anorexic and a bulimic is that for one it can be years, the other, hours!
My bingeing recently led me into a situation whereby I knew SOMETHING had to change...I was at a mate's halls of residence in uni with my head down her bathroom toilet having eaten a piece of pizza I didn't *feel right about*. Right, yes. THATS a sane way to live...
You won't stop bingeing until you stop dieting/restricting. This is just about a proven fact. I don't really rate selfhelp books, but Gillian Riley's *Eating Less - Say Goodbye to Overeating* pointed me in the right direction.
i am with you. i hate that i know the nutritional value of every freaking thing. i want to just eat when my body needs food and stop when satisfied and move on. UGH. well i am here to chat if you need! hang in there
Thanks for the responses! It doesn't make me feel better that you guys have some of the same problems that I do, but it sure makes me feel not lonely! And that is one HUGE thing for me. Everywhere I looked I would see people who are completely healthy in weight eating normal amounts of foods. They always seem to just enjoy their foods, but all I can do when I eat is think about the calories/fat/carbs or whatever else in it and how I should be eating something healthier... BUT when I am in "binge mode" I could care less about anything I was eating as long as I was eating! It's so twisted the way I work! I have not read any books about dieting. I will try to read your recommendation. I mostly read articles on the internet. I'm quite a computer junkie.
I have been doing okay on the eating front since I posted. I am trying to count calories along with a low fat diet. That is what usually works the best for me. It doesn't limit me from eating anything, it just limits my portions. I have still been binging, but on more healthy foods so I can deal with that I guess. I am trying to make myself more conscious of the fact that I'm binging, so I TRRYYY to force myself to fill up on vegetables or something really really light in cals when I go on binge fest. THis has helped so far. I still feel bad after doing it, but at least the repercussions in the end are not so bad because I've had mostly veggies on the binge and just a few cookies or whatever. I am hoping this method will help, but maybe I'm just fooling myself.....
Wow.
I'm glad that there are girls here that seem so similar to me.
I've struggled with massive calorie restriction and obsessive exercise and that lasts for about 3-4 months followed by 3-4 months of lasyness and eating like a fat pig.
I've gone 16 days without food and I've eaten 9 pizzas in a day all in the same month. What is the matter with me!
Anyway, I've been binging like crazy latley and I've not gone to the gym for over three weeks.
Instead of restricting I'd like to learn portion control and learn to motivate myself to get to the gym.
I just want to be a toned, sexy healthy looking girl.
Thanks for having this site, and for posting your stories.
Boy, your story rang a bell with me too. I can't say that I've "beaten" bingeing - I'm not sure than many people can ever say that. But I am doing well - even when I do binge now (and it's infrequent), the volumes of food are laughably small compared to what I used to hoover down.
I started to get it together almost 2 years ago, I guess, and the main thing I did was make a pact with myself to give up dieting. I just focused on eating 3 "normal" meals (trying to make them mostly healthy), plus an afternoon snack. Period. I could choose my foods (within reason), and made myself learn to eyeball portions again.
Now, that said, I'm back to trying to drop a few pounds (though I'm no longer technically overweight, so I still have body image issues, I guess), and I'm calorie counting. I started doing so with great trepidation, as I didn't want it to lead me back into that binge-restrict cycle. I've been doing OK with it though. Something like calorie counting or Weight Watchers seems to be the best fit right now, because there aren't too many rules, and no off-limits foods. That seems to be important for me. I like Bob Greene's plan - did well with it initially, then lost steam, and clearly needed to have a better idea of just how many calories I was ingesting.
New chick looking for support
Binging and restricting is such a hard cycle to break. I know the feeling of wanting to get out of it too. 3FC was honestly one of the things that saved me last year when my binging started to become bulimia. 
