I think:
-I'll start fresh tomorrow
-I'm starting my diet tomorrow so I better enjoy this last hurrah
-I've already blown my healthy eating for today so who cares if I eat ....(insert large amounts of junk food)

I am right smack in the middle of horrible eating/binging. My current excuses are -

It's a family reunion and I have worked hard to lose weight and look great - I deserve to eat and enjoy like everyone else here!

My husband and kids are on vacation - vacation is a time to relax and not worry about counting calories or staying on plan. There will be time to get back on the wagon when vacation is over.

My kids are all home for the summer until school starts at the end of August. I won't be strict with myself while they are at home - it's hard to be the only one on a diet. When no one is home during the day it's so much easier to eat on plan with no one else eating off plan foods around me. I'll worry about going back on plan when they go back to school.

As an aside, I have been eating so many carbs, sugars, and trigger foods that I am hungry and having cravings from the foods I have been eating. Carbs beget more carbs, sugars beget sugars, etc.

I feel bloated and fat and have gained at least 5 lbs. If I keep going like this till my kids go back to school I will be up 10lbs for sure. I've got to get a grip!

It'll make me feel better--it does but only while I'm actually eating. I'll only eat one--then I'll only eat one more--then that's really the last one--then what the heck, may as well eat them all and get rid of them so I can start fresh without temptation laying around. Of course I never consider throwing food away--that's a waste (only I know deep down it would be better to throw it away than eat it all. Once I actually start the bingeing, it becomes a mindless search for more.

Blind panic usually.

Or, 'no no, I WILL do this very important thing I'm putting off, right after I have finished eating.' Then DON'T finish eating till I'm so full and distressed by the binge that the thing I was putting off goes away for a while.

Or, 'I'm drunk, I gotta eat if I'm drunk, it will stop my hang over!'

This is the primary reason I have stopped drinking alcohol.

I usually binge when I don't feel in control of what I'm eating. This happens when I go out to a restaurant that has no nutritional information and I cannot easily guess how many calories I'm consuming or when I go to a friend's or family member's house and they make something very unhealthy for dinner.

So, my thinking is "Well, I have no idea how many calories this is, and even if I try, I'll probably be over. Oh well! I'll just enjoy this tasty food with everyone else." I'll eat way too much for that meal and then give up for the rest of the day and eat everything in sight.

I've been a lot better about this (no binges recently, even with several birthday dinners for my sister!), but I'm still scared of family get-togethers...

Let's see. There are/were so many WTF thoughts that it might be either very comical, or plainly sad:

- "I'll eat just that one [insert food item]" (but I'd keep the whole pack nearby, and munch mindlessly on everything)
- "I'll eat the whole pack, so I'll be rid of it and won't binge later on" (what the **** happened to rational thinking??)
- "I do it because I want it" (way to delude myself)
- "I'm stressed/tired/bored so I deserve to eat" (I probably deserved a reality check, too)
- "I'll be able to lose it fast" (except that the binge would last for 4 days, so it took me weeks to lose it; in the meantime, rinse and repeat, and gain more weight)
- "I'll eat while I do [insert procrastinating activity du jour] because it'll justify my procrastinating: look, I can't work yet, I'm too busy eating!" (OK, that one wasn't a conscious thought, and it took me a while to recognize the pattern; if that isn't stupid thinking, I don't know what is)

EDs suck.

My problem is that I don't think enough before bingeing. I should be thinking about long-term consequences but usually I'm focused on whatever is ticking me off or the fact that I'm bored. Truly, there are times my mind goes utterly blank and I'm not thinking at all but just stuffing food into my mouth. That's part of the bingeing process for me. If I'm unhappy, uncomfortable with what is going on inside me and my mind, food helps to shut down the discomfort temporarily. It is an escape from momentary pain.

I was bingeing everyday during my lunch break while I worked at this job I disliked. I would look forward to lunch and plan all of the horrible foods I was going to buy and eat. Then I would eat in my car so no one could see me.

The worst part was that I had this amazing ability to take each meal separately, instead of part of a whole day. So after I ate a large quarter pounder meal with fries, diet Coke, snack wrap, popcorn chicken and mocha frappuccino, I would turn around four or five hours later and eat another 1500-2000 calories for dinner. Lunch was its own meal, and I was hungry again for dinnertime, so why not eat what I want?

What a horrible, dangerously unhealthy way to treat my body.

I don't know what happened... but like I was tired, but I didn't want to go to sleep, and I was a bit hungry. I think I accidentally slept for like, a minute, and by that time there was some food cooked up and I just ran in there and ate a ton. I literally didn't think at all... It was weird...

For me the trigger is usually stressful things happening in my life. I feel like there's so much mental energy devoted to keeping on track, that when life throws crap at me, I don't have the mental energy to devote to eating right anymore, and it all goes to whatever is happening in my life. When things are even-keeled in my life, I have much better control over my food choices.

What I have to remember is that losing control over the food doesn't make me able to cope with life's stresses any better; in fact, the opposite is true. It makes me less confident, makes me feel hopeless and like a failure, and sets me up for not dealing well with the bigger issues at hand.