Normally, I would post this on my blog but because more of my family and friends have been visiting the blog, I am trying to leave more personal things like this off - it shows real vulnerability and I don't want everyone and their mother to know how much I am struggling. I binged for 3 days and now is a new day and I am hoping to be back to normal.
I wrote a letter to myself that I hope to read before I want to binge. Or for me, the binge feeling comes after I eat something without being hungry, especially something sugary. This time, I had a cupcake at work because a co-worker brought them. I was saying "No" to myself for a good 10 minutes until I finally took two and ate them. After that, I went on a binge for 3 days and it caused me to miss work last night becuase I simply could not face the world after what I've done and how sick I felt. So I hope I will get to read this letter each time before something like that happens again. I think you might find it beneficial to you too if you struggle with binge eating as well.
Dear Self:
Before you take that bite; before you take that first bite of this delicious food you are aching for, ask yourself a simple question: Is this really worth it? You know what this first bite will bring you. And no, it’s not satisfaction. You know you will feel pure bliss for a full minute but after that will come more need, more aching, more craving. Because you aren’t hungry, so why are you trying to eat?
Because you aren’t hungry, you will not satisfy any physical need. Therefore your body will not tell you when to stop. You are trying to satisfy a need that is mental and emotional. You are trying to fill an emotional void with a physical thing and that is impossible to do. So after the first bite, and after the minute wears off, you will be left with that craving again, the craving that was not satisfied after all. The craving will be stronger than before because it was satisfied for that one minute and it will want to feel that satisfaction and numb feeling again – so you will want to eat again.
And you will eat. You will eat and eat and eat. And you will find it so difficult to stop. Even though your stomach is expanded, even though your body is screaming “no, stop, you’re hurting me” you will find it so difficult to stop. You might even have to throw up to make some room in your stomach for more. You will feel out of control and now the craving feeling you felt in the beginning has transformed into a monster, into a lack of control and an overwhelming sense of guilt and depression. Food has failed you once again. You have failed yourself.
Your body is crying for mercy. Your stomach hurts. Your face gets acne. You get gas. Your mood worsens and you no longer find any joy in anything that is happening around you, all you start to think about is food and how terrible you now feel. The source of temporary joy has vanished and disappointed you once again because you failed to realize that you were trying to feed your mind with something it did not want to be fed with. You cannot feed an emotional void with a physical thing. Food will not satisfy that emotional craving. Whether you feel bored, or sad, or lonely, or happy, or stressed – those are emotions that have nothing to do with food. But yet you tried to force a relation between these feelings and food. You wanted to manipulate your esteem using food. You failed to remember that this will back-fire. You failed to remember the consequences you will suffer through after you spiral out of control and the aid you reached for in the very beginning will turn into a demon that will take you on a **** ride and leave you shivering in exhaustion and desperation silently screaming Help!
Then you are back at square one. You feel depressed, lonely, disappointed. You have missed out on social activities or work because the demon has taken control over your life for that short period of time. Your face is breaking out; your stomach has expanded and still hurts. You have gained weight. And why? Because you wanted that one cupcake. You thought that one cupcake would be fine because you are treating yourself. It’s right there after all, why not just eat it? Well, Self, you weren’t hungry. And because you weren’t hungry, your body did not understand why you were trying to feed it. Your mind took on the temporary bliss but it wore off as quickly as the cupcake got eaten and you felt the need to feel the joy again. It’s like a drug. Once you start, you can’t stop. Take prescription medication recreationally, you get a drug-like effect that you may want again and again- because it’s a joy ride. Take food without hunger, and it’s the same exact thing – it’s a drug: it numbs, it brings joy, and it ends quickly, making you want the emotional things from it again and again.
So think before you take a bite next time. Is all of this worth that one bite you know you don’t need? What are you really feeling? Tackle the emotional problem at hand and avoid the spiral effect you will feel after the one seemingly innocent cupcake to lift your mood. The consequences really are not worth it.
Went from ~125 to ~140 in 4 weeks! I'm so angry at myself! 
