For me it was during my first diet ever. I was in junior high school, I had been on a diet for about a month and a half and I had lost about 20 lbs. One day I was alone at home and I wanted to try just a little bit of the food my mum had cooked. Instead of eating a little bit, I emptied the whole casserole. I felt as if I was in a trance. It was the first time I felt I was in a mental state in which I could not control myself.
I wish I remembered particularly. But I started really young. My parents put no restrictions on my eating and would sit and talk to me about school or whatever while I devoured half a jar of peanut butter, or half a container of ice cream. I think that's why to me binging is such an ingrained habit -- from very young I was taught it was "normal" to eat as much as you wanted whenever you wanted.
Hmm... much like Skyra, I've engaged in binge behavior since before I can remember. I do distinctly recall coming home from elementary school and hoping my dad wouldn't be home to see me eat my after-school "snack" which was more than would have been appropriate for a full dinner.
i probably started as a kid because of the teasing at school from other kids. i was chunky but around 9 is when i started to blow up because the teasing started to really get to me so i would eat. now im 21 and i still have issues with food. i remember being 10 and 11 going to the store buying huge candy bar and eating it in one go. i remember in my freshman year in high school drinking 2 and 3 sodas a day and eating nothing but junk. when i hit my sophomore year i decided to do something about it. i went on low carb diet lost 40lbs kept it off up until 2007. then that's when i started to binge again and i haven't been able to stop binging since. at this point i think it's an addiction.
I'm new here. I will figure out the ticker later. My starting weight was 214lbs. My current is 201. My goal is 140.
My first binge was at about age 12. We never had junk food in the house when I was a child. One day the neighbor for whom I was babysitting told me to help myself to anything in the refrigerator or pantry if I got hungry. I proceeded to cut a swath through her cake, chips, cashews, chocolate and Coke or as I like to call them "the 5 C's." It was as if a switch was turned on that day, and I have been struggling to turn it off ever since.
Wow, I don't even remember. This question never occured to me! It's a very interesting one. I mean, I know that as a kid, I would eat as much candy as I could get my hands on. And carbs...I loved (and love) carbs. I'm sure that whenever it started, I didn't know what it was. It definitly didn't get bad bad until I was able to drive, then I could get my own binge food. Before then, I was restriced to what was in the house, and my mom didn't keep much around.
I guess the potential for binge was always there, since I started eating! But it never escalated until I was 16 and could drive. Interesting. I was slightly overweight around 12, and it just got worse and worse.
It is interesting that you started this post. I was thinking about this very thing when you started this thread. when I started going binge-free a couple weeks ago, I decided to reduce all "substances" that I use to distract myself/cope like alcohol, caffeine, sugar, TV, etc.
After about a week of this, I had a CRAZY dream that left me feeling some intensly painful emotions when I awoke. I thought about when I last felt that way and suddenly I felt like I was in middle school again. Then the memories of my first binging (on food and on alcohol) came flooding back. I remembered the pain I experienced and how I felt like I found a new friend in food and with all the druggies I started hanging out with. Alcohol and food became my new best friends--i could always count on them to make me feel better.
I had a pretty significant drinking problem from age 12 to age 21. By the time I was "legal" I started backing off. Now days, I would love to drink more, but I seem to have developed almost an allergy to it. I feel sick every time I drink (even a small amount). However, food has continued to be a friend that is always there for me.
I have been stuck in a binge/diet/binge/diet cycle with yo-yo weight for several years and I am finally want to let it all go. But now that I am not binging (or drinking), I feel like I need to deal with the source of the pain I felt in middle school instead of stuffing it down with a drink or a gallon of ice cream. The longer I go without binging, the more intense the emotions get. this is really HARD, but this online support really helps. Thanks everybody!
I think that overeating and binging are two distinct modes of behavior. Binging is associated with a feeling of loss of control. It’s as if you get possessed by someone else, a second personality that takes over and makes you eat and eat.
As a child I used to overeat, not binge. I spent most of my time at home. I had very little activity and I was bored. So I ate. Food made me feel good, so we became friends. I learned how to use food to sooth me whenever I felt bad. I ate because I had to do my homework, because my friends didn’t call me, because I was lonely. I also learned to use food to enhance pleasant moments. I ate in front of a TV, when going out with friends, when going to the movies, when reading a magazine or a novel. Of course this created a vicious circle. As I was getting heavier, it was more difficult for me to be active, I felt unattractive and boys didn’t have much interest in me. So I had more reasons to overeat.
But, as I said in my first post, binging came with my first diet. After that first binge,( and with every other binge since then) I had he curious sensation that it was not me but someone else who had eaten all that stuff. After the binge incident stopped, it was as if I was coming out of a dream. It was “me” again. (As I’m reading these lines again before posting the message, they remind me of the story of the werewolf. Binging makes me a werewolf, and when it stops I become a normal person again.)
I’ve noticed that I binge every time I try to restrict my food intake. It is particularly strong after successful diets. After losing a lot of weight, I enter a “binge phase” (my term). During this phase I binge and binge and binge non stop, until all the weight comes back on. Then I “wake up” again, feeling betrayed by my own self. I say, “how can I have allowed myself to do this?” “I had tried sooo hard to lose that weight, how can it be possible to have gained it all back on?”
And I despair. Then it takes some months to summon the courage to do everything all over again.
Somebody here said that insanity is to do the same thing over and over again believing that you will get different results.
Well, I’ve been doing the same thing over and over again for thirty years now.
I do not want to do it again. I want to stop binging. I want to stop overeating. I want to eat like a normal person. I want to stop feeling guilty every time I put something into my mouth. It’s as if I never have the right to eat anything. It’s as if I never have food that is my own.
I usually say “ If I lose the extra weight and become thin, then I’ll figure out how to keep it off, changing my lifestyle and eating normally”. Well, it seems it doesn’t work this way for me. This time I’ll change my lifestyle first, and then I’ll see if I can lose the weight.
I read somewhere that if we keep gaining the weight back it is because our fat is trying to tell us something. That is why we keep doing it over and over because we haven't figured it out. Reading everyone's posts is helping me figure it out...
I don't ever remember NOT bingeing. I do remember "getting in trouble" when I got caught and those are some of my earliest memories. Thankfully I have good memories from that time too, but there are a lot of getting-caught-bingeing ones.
My experience has been almost identical to NikiZapa. I have lost the same weight 4 times now. This time, I have been able to maintain for the longest I have evern been able to: 7 months. Still, every day is a struggle, and every day I fear the same thing will happen again.
When was your first binge?
