Thanks to all of you guys so much for the kind responses!!!
I feel like such a failure, but I'm getting back on my feet today.
One thing though: If I'm honest with myself, I'm just as disappointed with all the weight I've gained back these past few days as I am disappointed at all the bingeing. I really need to find some self-worth and some goals for my life that don't have to do with weighing less!

Right now, at least I can say that I am in the "stage" where I HATE HATE HATE bingeing. It's really completely f***ed up these past few days for me. All the crap that's happened basically I can attribute back to binge eating. It's the reason I've been obsessed with weight and eating so much that I barely paid attention to my classes the past few weeks (I even missed one of my final exams!). It's the reason I haven't been able to sleep from being soooo food-hangover sick, WHICH is the reason I was so tired this morning that I tripped and fell and busted my knee and now can't even walk hardly. It's the reason I'm an emotional wreck. It's the reason I'm about 10 pounds heavier than I was just a few days ago and now am not nearly as excited about going on vacation. Right now, I just want to quit so bad. I just wish I could keep all these feelings and reasons closer to me all the time, so that I'm more motivated to really stop!!

KrisM- I get BIG KICKS out of the planning/anticipation part too. It's so easy to recognize now that it's because from that moment when I first give in and start planning to binge, that's when I get relief from the urge!

Wannabeskinny- I face those very same questions all the time as well!! Binge eating, whether planned or unplanned, has just become such a HUGE part of my life. I spend literally half my life probably planning the binge, actually bingeing, thinking about bingeing and whether or not I want to stop, etc. etc. Wow, that's kind of an insight for me. I'm going to need to replace all that time and effort with something else.....but I honestly don't even know what anymore! That's just another reason I find myself ambiguous about truly giving binge eating up.

Hi everyone!

I'm writing because I read BoB in mid Nov. 2011 after feeling utterly hopeless that I would ever stop binge eating. In the beginning of 2011, I had started intuitive eating and was having great success. I was eating anything I wanted whenever I wanted and lost 25lbs between Jan and May 2011. Still, I was binge eating at least twice a month. A lingering effect from my dieting days before I found IE.

Like Kathryn, dieting (severe fasting) is what caused my first binge at 19, and habit took over from there; a habit, sadly, that persisted for years despite the fact that I had stopped dieting.

I read all the eating disorder books I could find. I didn't understand it; I was eating when my body asked, eating high fat, high calorie foods, and not starving, yet I was having urges to binge and couldn't stop thinking abut food.

These books told me I had emotional problems and used food to cope. I was desperate and believed them, but deep down, like Kathryn, I knew that wasn't why I binged. After all, I had had emotional issues like depression and feeling lonely all of my life, but it wasn't until I dieted that I binged and food became an obsession!

Fast forward to Fall 2011. Though I had lost some binge weight with IE, my binges were increasing. From two times per month up to 2-3 times per week. I was miserable. It was ruining my life, and I almost gave up completely and resigned myself to the binges for life. I felt broken and shattered. Like a ghost of my former, normal, binge-free self.

Then I came across her book. I almost didn't read it because I thought it would be more of the same and I was over that. But it wasn't. I read her book as fast as I could, and quit that very night. I felt powerful, and quitting was easy. I welcomed the urges just so I could say "no" to them. I finally had my life back! I was eating like a normal person, my weight stopped increasing and was even slowing going back down -- to be honest, at that point, I didn't care about losing the weight, I was just so happy to stop!

It was exhilarating to wake up everyday *knowing* I would not binge and having no doubts! And I never did.

I was binge free from Nov until mid Feb 2012. Then I had an urge that got the best of me. At first, I let it go after I binged. The binge was fairly small, and I could see where it had all gone wrong; how I had listened to the urge and ran with it. I figured that I quit once, I'll do it again.

Sadly, I binged again only a week later, and then my bingeing steadily increased from April until by July 2012 I was back to bingeing 3-4 times per week, and I've been about the same since then.

I do believe this book works, as my three months binge free can attest to. I'm here to let you know that. But also warn that even if you quit, it's very easy to pick back up again. You need to be vigilant! The brain remembers; like riding a bike.

Any thought, idea, emotion, or imagery suggesting binge eating, needs to be IGNORED. It's NOT you. You can quit, and tonight I choose to quit as well.

I will NEVER binge again. I'm more than that; we all are. I'm going to be 25 in less than month, and I don't want this to be my life. I am not a binge eater. It's disgusting, selfish (I've broken a lot of promises to people I love because I was too bloated and sick from binge eating) and shameful and there's never an excuse for it.

There's no need to ever doubt your decision, because if you're never going to binge again, then what's the problem? That fear you hear, that anxiety that there will be a binge in the future is the animal brain, not you. YOU don't want to binge, IT does.

Also, a lot of those emotions you think you're using food to cope with (depression, anxiety) disappear when the binge eating stops, because binge eating usually causes them or makes them worse, not the other way around! Even if you're not losing much weight after stopping, you start to care less about food and weight obsession and focus more on living. When I stopped binge eating, I had great few months. I'm in nursing school, and trying to deal with binge eating and the course load/clinical was becoming unbearable. Once I stopped, even though the following semester my workload increased, I was more confident; more ready to tackle it without binge eating in my way.

Now that binge eating has been in my way again, I have been severely depressed and have taken to isolating myself; this past summer I spent my time locked in my room most days even though it was sunny and warm -- I was basically afraid of the kitchen!. I was gaining weight daily and didn't want to be seen in skin exposed clothing. I used to love summer and wearing shorts and dresses, but binge eating made me hate my body and wish the summer away, which is sad.

I don't want that ever again.

Thank you so much mottainai for starting this thread and for everyone who has contributed - I haven't yet read the book but I feel like I got everything I needed to get started from the blog of the author. Am feeling very inspired and optimistic at the moment so thank you everyone, seriously!

I've usually tried to control my overeating (I don't really binge I guess... depends on what you count as bingeing What everyone is talking about here sounds very familiar to me, except that I don't eat fast) with self-discipline but that only works when I devote all of my mental capacity to control what I eat, and that obviously doesn't work in the long term. At my most successful attempts, I could stay on track for 2-3 months at a time, but those times were miserable because all I could think of was food and I had to put most of my concentration on not overeating to succeed, and eventually I couldn't do that anymore. This approach however, simply being aware and noticing that I am not my thoughts and that I don't need to act on them but can simply watch them come and go, sounds so much more reasonable than fighting with the urge to eat 24/7 until I don't have any willpower left. I wouldn't say it's easy but unlike the self-discipline method, at least this one feels possible

Happy binge-free week to all!

Hello. First of all, I'm sorry you were diagnosed with that; it's hard to be forced into something out of fear regardless of what it is. I thought about your question and I truly don't know what my answer is. I do know when I was in a bingeing mode, I acted irrationally, so I'm not so sure if I was in the depths of binge mode *anything* would be able to pull me out of it. However, I'm talking about pre-BOB when I would try to reason my way out of a binge --- never worked, btw. lol In any case, I hope you find something in this that rings true to you too. Keep us posted!

Thank you for taking the time to write this. Truly. It's appreciated and insightful to hear from someone who has been down the path once. Good luck to you! You know how to do it and this time you know what to guard against. You are still young; don't let bingeing take anymore of your life than it already has.

Mottainai, I know what you mean; it is something that has occupied a LOT of my time too and I thought about that the other night . . . like, what now? What's going to fill that? Then I thought, I don't need to come up with some huge goal because frankly, sitting bored on the couch staring at a wall is **better than bingeing*** -- save for other destructive habits (drinking, drugs, etc.) almost anything is better than spending our time bingeing. I'm not putting that pressure on myself right now to "fill the void" of where bingeing was. It's just gone and doesn't need a replacement.

Loving the dialogue here!! Thanks to everyone participating. (:

TBH I am struggling a bit. Not with urges at all, or at least urgent ones, but with like long term. Even after feeling quite bad yesterday, today I'm already at a point where I feel like I want to continue my binge-quantity eating times. Not BINGE, but do it the planned way like I have been. Is this my higher brain or not?? I really just don't know!

My thoughts are like this: "I messed up this time and let it turn into an out of control binge. But even so, this is what I've been working toward, being thin enough that it's okay to do so occasionally. I actually feel a little bit good about this last huge binge, since it was enjoyable in parts. I just need to work on stopping actual binges; it's perfectly okay to eat the huge quantities, as long as I stick to doing it only at the planned intervals."

It feels so much like the real me that likes eating like this. I'm so confused!!

The fact that you have ambivalence over even the planned binges means that it is NOT a good idea. Ambivalence defines addiction. If you were perfectly fine with planned binges, you wouldn't have doubts or distress. A planned binge is just another manifestation of an urge.

The point is, it's not healthy to binge. Not even planned ones. Overeating occasionally is one thing, but purposely scarfing down large amounts of food that adds up to thousands of extra calories in a sitting, is a strain on your body, and not the way people are meant to eat. Keep at it long enough, and you will most likely end up with severe GI problems down line. When you binge, you force your whole body to expend a great amount of time and energy to digest all of that food, and for no good reason except gluttony.

I think you need to look at all ideas supporting ANY binge eating, as junk, and not you. Right now it sounds like you are spending time debating with your urges when you need to be detaching from them. Look at it another way: Imagine that your urges are a toddler throwing a tantrum because they want a chocolate bar, and you as the parent are saying no. If you listen to that tantrum, give it attention, start reasoning with it, eventually you'll give in just to get the child to be quiet. They'll have gotten what they wanted (the chocolate bar) but you will have failed as a parent, and the pattern will continue on. Same with the urges. You lower brain is throwing a tantrum. You need to pay it no mind. Without you, it is weak and can do nothing by itself. It needs YOU to walk to the refrigerator. Let the urges pass enough; don't engage, and they will go away, and you will feel better in the long term.

I also think reading Rational Recovery will be a good idea for you.

Tip: Whenever an urge comes on, replace "I" with "It".

"I want to binge." becomes, "It wants to binge."

This can help you keep the separation going and shut it down.

/RR

Great idea!

Mottainai, try re-reading what you wrote yesterday re: how awful you felt and how much you wanted to stop bingeing (which sounds to me like your higher brain thinking rationally). Juxtapose that with what you're saying today re: possibly *wanting* to continue your binge-quantity eating times and maybe you can recognize that as your animal brain trying to use your slip as a way back in. To me, binge-quantity eating times sounds no different than a flat out binge. Am I missing something?

Well, for me, it is different. Because bingeing is not really about the food. If its a binge, I have the feelings of "giving in," acting against my better judgement, and feeling bad about it afterwards. I can eat the same way but have it planned for and totally just enjoy it and have no guilt or bad feelings whatsoever. It's a pretty big difference to me. It's not about what I eat but HOW that defines a binge.

Or at least, that's how I've been tending to think about it!

Thanks everyone for responding and helping me out here. Giving me lots to think about!
I do want to try reading Rational Recovery sometime.

Thank you so much for writing all that. It makes a lot of sense.

Hi everyone!

I was just catching up on the thread.

I have been spending quite a lot of time drinking the past few days, celebrating the end of a semester and what-not, but not only that I have been hanging out with a guy I really like and so my mind has been off food, even though alcohol has lots of calories. I have been eating, but much less. I realize it's probably due to the distractions I've had. Alcohol, friends, general enjoyment. I think when I am home alone is when my brain starts to think it might be a good time to binge.

I just dropped my guy friend off after seeing him for two days, with no urges to binge or even overeat, and after sitting down in my chair at work and reading through this thread my brain started to think "Why not overeat tonight, you've been eating so little the last two days..."

And I realized...wait a minute, that's really sneaky brain. My brain suddenly has 3 or 4 great reasons to binge. "You're hungover, your body needs food. You met a cool guy and he wasn't bothered by your weight at all. You ate so little yesterday."

But...I stop and think, what is binging going to do for me? It definitely won't make me happy. In fact, it would make me feel really sad all over again. I had a great couple of days so why would I even be thinking about binging?

I suppose it's just the habit. The distractions went away. It's back to work today, I have a final tomorrow, my friends aren't hanging out this evening. My brain is saying "What did we normally do after a day of work? Oh yeah, let's go overeat."

But I have decided to eat a moderate amount of food, to feel generally satisfied with, and just stop. I have some homework to finish up, finals to study for and then I will have a much needed break. A huge binge will just bloat me and make me feel terrible. I know I can control myself. I did it the past few days, eating a bit here and there when I'm hungry. Trying to eat food I know is good for me.

Well anyways, that's what going on over here.

I think all of us sharing our stories and struggles is really good support.