this is the section of the forum I always check to find comfort or inspiration, and to get back on track... thanks ladies to share this journey with me it's really difficult and hard, but somehow I feel that "something" is moving... I'm not talking about the scale, but about my recovery from BED

sometimes, it seems to me that some of you talk about "binging" when it's not a REAL binge. at least not for me.
binging is stuffing my face with food. I binge even if I'm not hungry (not even in the beginning!!). I also binge on food I don't like, so I don't have a particular trigger.
But some of you call it "a binge" just when they overeat a little, or even a little too much, and fall off-plan. Please remember that eating a slice of cake (=going off plan), or even 3 of them (=overeating), is not a binge.

Or am I wrong? what is a REAL binge for you?

I'll make a couple of example of how much I can eat in a binge.

yesterday night (very bad, but not one of my worse): a piece of an icecream-cake. 4 BIG slice of chocolate cake (with cream). two BIG gingerbreads. 3 glasses of wine. a pastry. 200g of bread with margarine. another couple of slices of bread with oil this time, instead. ice tea.

But I used to do so MUCH WORSE. and for meals, or even days, in a row.
But as I told you I'm sloooowly recovery from this BED, I can't do as much bad as in the past.

And this time I don't even feel too guilty about it. I (almost) accept it. I don't know if it's a good attitude, you may say I justify myself this way. I don't know, no idea really, if it would be better to fight HARD against this BED or if it's better to be a little bit nicer and sweeter with myself and accept this occasionally binges.
Anyway this morning I don't feel a crap and I'm ready to get back on plan

sorry maybe I slipped a little bit OT
ehehe

so let's go back to the subject: how much food do you need to eat to call it a binge?

Last binge - a whole cake. I guess about 10" across, plain sponge with white, hard frosting and sprinkles on. I ate about half the cake, then cut the top off the rest, so that I could eat all the icing and sprinkles, with about 1" of cake all round.
Carbs make me feel bloated and they affect my mood, so for me part of a real binge is eating stuff that I know will make me feel bad.

Oh yes, the cake followed an Ethiopian curry, curried what, I don't know but it was very tasty and eaten with about 3 large chapatti/pancakes.

I call it a binge when I have a small ice cream cone at McDonalds, LOL For me its a binge because of the carbs and sugar. I fight the sugar urge because I know that its not a good thing for me considering the diabetes that runs rampant in my family.

OMG Tamil, that it's NOT, definetely NOT a binge!
not even overeating. It's a treat, a little off-plan...

Can you talk about why you want to classify people's binges as "real" or "not real"?

mmhmh... actually I don't know why
I'll try to use some of my self-criticism (if there is any left!): maybe, labeling others' binges as "not real"... I can complain myself and feeling one of the fews and feeling special? or maybe I don't want to feel a crap everytime I read about someone else's binge and then finding out their binge is not even 1/10 of what I'm used to do?
any other suggestions? even harsh, I'm ready to bear them

I do not have BED, but I have binged; and I totally understand why you want to classify other people's binges as real or not real, but I don't think it's up to you to say.

I may only take in 1/10 of what you do on one of your binges, but relatively speaking, it would still be a massive increase in calories/carbs/fat for me, which in my opinion is a REAL binge.

Like with most things, this is relative, and even if one person's binge does not qualify as such "technically" (is there a technical # of calories or amount of food that makes it a binge? Not sure.), that doesn't make it any less painful or frustrating for that person.

I wouldn't go around trying to classify them at all, no matter how you might feel about them! My 2 cents

binge has a clinical definition, so no, a binge "for you" is not an actual binge. i think anyone who doesnt have BED couldn't possibly understand the desire to not feel so alone and so ashamed of true binges when they happen to you.

thats MY 2 cents.

Not sure how anyone (regardless of what disorder they have) can tell another person what a binge is. Or what it means to them. I thought the point of being here was to support each other? Just because someone else has not eaten an entire pizza in one sitting how can I minimise what someone else feels if one ice cream cone is enough to make them feel like rubbish? My hope is to be of support/understanding to people and to find the same.

That's my Australian 2 cents which equates to about US$0.01543

"Binge" is the word I use for the robot-like, mindless eating that I know is going to cause me emotional pain, even while I'm doing it. It doesn't matter that it might be low-calorie (yeah, I once ate two heads of lettuce, leaf by leaf), to me it has to do with eating that's driven by something other than social or nutritional cues. I have never binged in the presence of another person, and not once have I ever NOT felt like less of a person once the event is over.

a real binge for me is, a whole bottle of wine, sometimes a bottle and half, a 12" pizza stuffed crust pizza, a 6" pizza with cheese, 4 cream cakes and then i start on whatever is left in the house, anything sweet or carby. ive eaten a whol 700g loaf of bread with a tub of butter in half a day before.

Here's a definition:
So there is no exact amount of food that = real binge. It's more the larger than normal volume with the accompanying emotions.

To me, a binge is more about "why" than "what". Although, the "what" is usually the same: carbs.

When I eat because I have that overwhelming desire to feel full, that's a binge. And when I eat for that reason, it's always too much food, obviously. Because I don't just have a desire to feel full, but to feel stuffed to the gills. When on the wagon, like right now, and the urge comes over me, it's unbelievably hard to fight. I'm almost on two weeks now, and it's been really hard. I can't even describe the feeling, I just want to eat to be full full full!

There's generally no reason behind it that I can tell. I know people say you should look at your emotions when you binge or when you want to binge, and I've tried that and I've literally come up empty--I just feel empty. Not depressed, not bored (generally, although sometimes this is the case) just empty.

In terms of what, pasta is almost always involved, with cheese sauce, Doritos are often there, but sometimes a different kind of chip (sometimes more than one kind of chip and dip), cookies for sometimes sweet, but usually salty salty salty.

Also, to me a binge is something that always always always happens alone. I never do it in front of others. I've heard people on here talking about binging at 4th of July BBQs or with friends to celebrate, and that does not happen with me. Sometimes I'll overeat with friends (although not often because I don't want to be the fat girl who eats so much in public), but binging is alone and secret. I think that for me that's another big part of it.

Sorry for this being so long, but this is a question that I've wanted to ask you ladies for awhile, so that I could work out my own answer!

ICUWishing said what I was going to say better than I could have said it. I also classify a 'binge' as feeling out of control and unable to make myself stop eating something, even when I know that I'm going to spiral into depression and berate myself for days when I'm done. Sometimes that out of control feeling only results in 300 extra calories, sometimes much more, but the out of control feeling is always the same. I don't see the occasional choice to overeat the same way - in those instances I make the choice to do it. For it to really be a binge for me I have to feel out of control.

Thanks for the definition seagirl--

I wonder though, what is the meaning of "more than a normal person would eat"? I feel that this is very difficult to measure, at least in US, when food portions are out of control.

What do you guys think about this?