I agree with a lot of the feelings on this post. I don't think anyone should trivialize anybody else's "binge" feelings, because it's a terrible feeling to be in the throes of whatever you call a binge. But for me, and for many of you I think, a binge is associated with the kind of feelings I associate with drug addiction. It's literally like choice is out of your hands, and you not only have to EAT THAT, but even now, reading this post, I caught myself daydreaming about what I would eat when I'd lost enough weight to "justify" a binge. That thinking in itself is disordered, and I can see that, because justifying one binge justifies the entire behavior, and lets me slip once again into terrible habits. It feels to me like my whole life has been a struggle against binging.
When I binge, I cannot think about anything but food. I have to have it NOW. I rationalize it to myself, I wheel and deal, and I readily give in and gorge myself. For me, dieting is about breaking that binging cycle, more than anything else. It's about escaping my disordered thinking in relation to food, or at least redirecting the obsession so that I calorie count obsessively and think about the healthiest/yummiest food option I can possibly have. Ideally, I would like to break ALL obsessive thoughts, and I'd like to get into therapy to start working on it. But to me, binging is much different from overeating. Overeaters can suffer on a long-term scale too, and over-eat day after day, and gain a lot of weight and feel out of control. And to them, I'm sure that is a binge. But I think there's a higher level that some of us have found ourselves at, where you not only overeat everyday, but you obsess about overeating every day, you never feel satisfied, and you can easily eat 5000+ calories in a day, all the while mentally berating yourself but unable to restrain yourself. It's a scary, out of control feeling, that is much different from deviating from an otherwise healthy eating plan by having an extra slice of pizza or two, or just letting yourself go and eat whatever for a meal. When "eating whatever" turns into "eating everything in sight until you're curled up in the bathroom floor crying and wanting to throw up but not even being able to MAKE yourself" and then doing it again the VERY next day! I know that that's how I've gained over 30 lbs this YEAR. It's an addiction for some of us, and it's one of the hardest addictions you'd ever have to face and overcome. We're all in such a better place now that we're actively fighting the beast
