I can totally relate! I would also count calories after dinner and if had some "left" i would just eat them in sweets or chocolate, just BECAUSE. congrats on not bingeing! it's a process and we'll get there.

That's the thing, I don't even have to work hard at maintaining. I don't count calories but I know I maintain within a range of a few lbs eating over 2000 a day, which is enough most of the time. I am already a lot fatter (I use the word "fat" because I would be perfectly happy simply having lower body fat and being whatever weight) than I want to be and sort of at peace with that, so I don't know that gaining weight by overeating food that makes me feel gross would be a good option - it would probably actually make me want to diet.

I know what u mean. One cup of cereal doesn't fill me up either. But I add a greek yogurt and apple to it or eat it after I finish cereal with milk. Small trades work for me right now.

First up, sorry to hear about your father :(

This post is in reply to your post. Veggiedaze has many good observations which she posted in reply and which I would love to touch on after this.

I have observed that many of us who crave sugar try to solve our problem in one or more of the following ways. These ways range from total restriction to total non-restriction - there are probably a whole number of other ways out there but I think they are probably similar to what is below (not sure though):

1. Give up sugar totally
2. Go on a low carb or paleo lifestyle
3. Go on a low carb lifestyle but with a cheat day (e.g. have a sweet once a week)
4. Eat healthily each day and have a cheat day once a week/fortnight
5. Eat healthily each day most of the time with sweets/junk in moderation also each day
6. Total non-restriction, meaning eat sweets/junk any time.

I have read many stories on 3FC and all other dieting forums I've been on about how each one (except for the last, which was never proposed as an option) worked for at least one person. However, what we do not read is how long the chosen option worked for that person.

In REAL life, I have never heard of any person who successfully given up sugar for a lifetime. On the other hand, I have heard of many, many thin people who eat junk all the time (ie. way no. 6 above).

I have also heard of many people that cannot sustain a low carb lifestyle although I have heard of people who say that they are long term Atkins maintainers. My dad, one of the most disciplined person I have ever met and one of the most fittest and healthiest, was an Atkins follower because of the health benefits of the diet (alleged) but failed to sustain the lifestyle on a long term basis.

So then comes the "cheat day" option. Some people do this very well but a heck of a lot of discipline is required for this lifestyle and I suspect that for some, each day of restricting may be a struggle and a battle for those on this lifestyle. I admittedly do not have such discipline.

Next is the "eat healthily and have sweets/junk/crap in moderation". Many people handle this well including many on this thread. For others, to get to this stage may be difficult as they cannot stop eating once they have a taste of sweets/junk/crap. So what these people do is to restrict totally (option 1), go on a low carb lifestyle (option 2), have a cheat day (option 3/4) and hence, the cycle starts over and over again.

Solution for these people?? Lol, I don't have one and can't think of one!! EDIT: Veggiedaze's distinction between those who binge because of restriction/dieting and those who binge (or continue bingeing) because they are emotional eaters seem to be a key here to solve the problem.

I never actually did the "eat healthily and have junk in moderation" thing. In the past, I only ever binged and restrict (so a lot and none!). My solution, as previously described, was to go option 6 and finally, progressed to option 5.

You nailed it, Veggiedaze.

I am not an emotional eater so as soon as I stopped restricting/dieting, I stopped bingeing. I don't get the urge to eat when lonely or bored.

I'm asking myself how I progressed from eating junk food to adopting a healthier style of eating.

I think it was very much automatic for me in the sense that when I stopped restricting totally, after going through the period of eating only junk, my body seemed to stop wanting junk ONLY. I wanted salads, meats, seafood, cakes, fried stuff, baked stuff, gourmet, street fair food, everything - basically, I wanted a variety of foods.

Whether this works for you, I don't know.

ETA: perhaps this is also a form of intuitive eating??

Thank you very much for your reply. I have been thinking and reading this blog all day, I am on page 5 now lol. Lots of great advice, excited to keep reading.

I get what your saying....I remember along time ago, being on a path of eating too much junk food and crap and thinking I was sick of it, so I know it can happen. lol


Well I am happy to report I had a piece of carrot cake at work for someones birthday and only ate one piece....faught off the guilt and didn't feel like eating my supper until 7pm. THAT IS UNHEARDOF!! I am not going to go nuts and think this is it, but normally I would have a piece of unforbidden food and then go hog wild eating while trying to talk myself out of it. I have missed so many birthday cakes at work and every where else becuase of my food obsession. I still have thoughts swirling in my head....about my clothes that I want to fit into, dresses that I have bought that I have not worn yet that may not fit if I let go of restrictive eating. We are going to Myrtle Beach on friday camping with about 25 people and I have new bikinis that I want to where but worried about how I will look and feel....I am already pushing the bikini envelope, not being toned and smaller........but i have them. lol But on the other hand I dieted all summer last year, missing out on so much, always obsessing about food. Missing conversatioins with people becuase I was obsessing about the dip infront of me and staying out of it. I am tired of it!!!!!!!!!!!
I brought my low carb meals for work today but decided to have cake after going back and reading this thread this morning....I am on page 5 now lol.....trying to work too lol. I was going to costco on my break which was after the cake and the thought crossed my mind.......all or nothing get a hot dog, but reminded myself I was not hungry and I didn't need it, if I really wanted it I could potentially go back later and have one or tomorrow. I have eaten my supper of chicken and salad and for the first time in a long time feel full on real food, not just after grossly binging. It is still so early but I am feeling hopeful that I can pull this off.

I always have junk food in my house, I talk to my kids about healthy choices but they eat crap........my worst fear is my daughter to have a weight issue, but watching her and my son, they stop eating when they are full. My kids don't eat the cupcakes that I make, they say they want me to make them and then have one or a half and then are done with them. So weird to me!!!! I didn't have that stuff all the time when I was a kid until I was old enough to babysit and make money to get my own, so when we did get a bag of cookies or tub of icecream they rarely lasted a day or two. I am going to continue to observe my kids and learn from them lol I hope. And from all of you guys..............I can't believe how great you all are. Thank you so much.

HOpe this makes sense I am at work........lol should be working.....lol hope it make sense no time to proof read!

Reading that you are reading the entire thread made me want to do it as well. I confess that I have not read everything, first couple of pages, skipped to the middle, then jumped in headfirst at the end, lol!

I have now read up to page 5 and it is quite fascinating to read how different we all are. Even when we expound the same general principles, we approach things differently and our bodies react differently.


Very happy for you. What you may want to do is to ditch the scales as well (per your siggy, you are weighing yourself each week?)


So do I. In fact, I always buy junk... still. Only difference now is that I bring them home, put them aside and actually forget about them. If they are not eaten by anyone else in the house, they can remain in my kitchen for weeks/months until they expire and we throw them away. My kids are like yours, they eat only if hungry.

Me three on the moderating portions thing. I always find it easier to say no than to try to have "some". If I'm in public it's okay. Not so easy at home yet. I think though that always saying no every time leads to a feeling of deprivation of time which builds up. So while having "some" seems more difficult at the time, having the memory of having some is what has probably kept me from bingeing. I think once I get used to the having "some" thing, I can start saying no much of the time and have a portion some of the time on things I really really want. For me now, unless I force myself to have a portion, I won't. I am getting over the junk food overeating phase now I can tell. I am just really wanting healthy food. But I bet I'll still have a donut next time they are at work :D.

I do weigh myself 1-5 times a week. Lol I will stay off, I can't take what it may read.
I unfortunately didn't do great when I got home. I could have done worse though and don't feel those strong urges to binge like I normally do. I had a few things to eat, i should have stopped with the yogurt and watermelon, but moved on to a protein bar.......i really do love them.....and then a peanut butter and jam sandwich, but i really feel fine.....right at this moment, which i normally wouldn't stop at just that. i would have lots more! it is hard to do....just letting it all go, but I am going to give it a shot. I find coming home hardest, and going to my parents home is the worst. Not sure if it ties back to childhood memories or not, I am sure it does to a certain extent, but I kinda have issues with my husbands parents house....she is a baker, so of course sugary food there. Gosh I hope I can catch on to this quicker then not. I obviously can't help but worry about the weight. I always think about what people are thinking about how I look. Some of the girls at work are"mean girls" so I have distanced myself....still being nice but not hanging out on breaks......but they eye me up and down constantly....they do it to everyone but me being very self conscious makes me really mad. Anyway I am going back to continue my read on the earlier post.

I think SouthernMaven was spot on when she said this on page 3 of this thread:

IMO, unless you (as in a general "you") are willing to try another diet/plan to restrict sugar/carbs, you need to cure your bingeing by letting go completely of your restrictions and yes, gain weight, then practice IE by really examining how hunger and satiety/fullness works for you as an individual.

OMG your carrot cake thing is exactly the same as my first victory with the donuts. I practically s--t myself that I didn't want to binge after work and actually felt like a healthy dinner. You know, you sound alot like me in the way you are with food. You know, I've always been a bit of an emotional eater even as a kid, sneaking cupcakes at my grandmas house to soothe myself and eating too many chips in front of the television to pass the time with boredom. I never recognized this as emotional eating at the time (Josie's videos helped me identify this). And so when I became a teenager, I think I recognized I was a little out of control with certain foods and so began the rules and restrictions because I wanted to be really thin like some of the other really popular girls. Well I didn't know at the time, but the rules and restrictions only added a whole other category of binges (also thanks to josie: the gasping for breath and eating because you ate categories). So then when my eating got worse (I was not bingeing at this time but really overeating), I piled on more and more restrictions which have continued in one way or another until about a month ago.

So now with eliminating the restrictions, I have virtually wiped out about 50 percent of my bingeing urges because I never feel I have to just sit an be hungry, and I never feel guilty about eating anything. So what I have left now is emotional eating. Josie doesn't have her emotional eating book out yet, but I got the kindle version of "Life is Hard, Food is Easy" which was recomended by someone (sorry I can['t remember who as I'm typing this) on the previous page of this thread and OMG it is really really really helping. I have been so confused by why I want food sometimes when I am clearly not physically hungry, and this book really pinpoints everything and has it's own categories like head hunger and heart hunger. Just by knowing this gives these urges way way way less power, and it almost seems ridiculous now why i felt so confused by them.

Xena - I've read a little of the bethany frankel book and you are right that there are some good things in there like the thinking of what you eat as a bank account. It does nicely illustrate the idea of balancing health and desire. But like you there were things that put me off like the 2 bites of this or that. But there are some good ideas I have taken. Another thing I didn't like is that she includes alot of recipes that just seem like filler because she didn't have enough to say. And she doesn't really get into the emotional cause of bingeing and just basically says "don't binge, it's not worth it". DUHHHHHHHH as if people don't know that. I think she is probably a person like magical that doesn't eat emotionally. She definitely strikes me as someone who would find solutions to problems instead of that learned helplessness emotional eaters fall into.

But honestly that whole emotional eating discovery has been huge for me. It is the missing link. I have been confused because I can binge on things like ice cream and other things that I just never want or crave when I'm actually hungry. So every time I get hungry and crave something healthy it's been messing with my head a bit because I keep expecting me to want the unhealthy stuff I binge on. But the thing is, so many foods I use just as an emotional drug and not as actual food. This is really making what bingefree2013 said alot further back in this thread finallly make sense to me. She said that the minute she stoppeed restricting that she immediately went to the store to get all the things she deprived herself of and wanted like alot of junk foods. When I stopped restricting, my grocery shopping didn't really change muchh from when I was restricting so I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. But what I've realized now, is that my favourite foods are healthy foods. I don't actually want "unhealthy" food too much. I really only want to eat unhealthy stuff for emotional eating/bingeing, and now I am thinking that bingefree2013 never had an emotional eating problem. Her problem was entirely restriction (please correct me if I'm wrong bingefree). Junk food just doesn't appeal to me when I actually want to eat food as fuel. The only real time I actually want unhealthy food is when I am with other people and there is something unhealthy that everyone is eating (like the donuts at work or going out for wings or chinese with friends) and by not letting myself have it when everyone else does, I feel really deprived. Other than that, I really truly dislike unhealthy food for real meals. I would rather eat a chicken stir fry with tonnes of veggies any day over fast food. Also, going back to the portion control discussion, I don't think it's all that necessary to really restrict portions of crap food when eating out with friends because how often do people really go out with friends (me only like once every couple months). So why not just eat as much as you want and forget about the portion moderation. By doing away with it and just having fun you will probably actually have less IMHO.

Anyways, it's been such an epiphany because I just didn't get why I still wanted healthy food 99.9% of the time when I was physically hungry after not restricting wondering if I was somehow lying to myself. I really envy people who do not have the emotional eating component of bingeing. If it was just diet/restriction bingeing, the solution would be so much simpler: just stop restricting. For emotional eaters they have to figure this out as well and it is tougher to solve I think but not impossible. I think that's why there has been so much skeptisism at bingefrees claims to just stop restricting and dieting and problem solved. I think some people (people who emotionally eat) know there is more to it than that, and to those people there is more to it. For me there is more to it. I envy you magical that you state you do not emotionally eat. But honest to g-d everyone that emotionally eats, just understainding the urgers makes it so much better. I can't reccomend more both josies youtube videos to explain why dieting causes bingeing, and that book "Liife is hard; Food is easy" to tackle the emotional eating part. And when josies book comes out on the emotional eating I bet it will be good.

Also, when Josie stopped restricting she did just as bingefree did and bought all her favourites and triggers and just submerged herself in it. She said while this is probably the fastest route to getting through the eating crappy phase, some people, particulary those who do alot of emotional eating do better by keeping most of it out of the house and gradually bringing some things in. This is the approach I have taken because emotional eating has such a strong hold on me and there is definitely something to be said about the power of suggestion. I don't really need to look at stuff all the time that urges me to emotionally eat. Josie suggests keeping the trigger stuff in a separate cupboard or drawer. Honestly I don't see why not go one step further and just keep it at the store and get it when you need it. That's just me though. Just doesn't make sense to me to keep it in the house if you don't have to. As long as you know you can go get anything anytime you want to you won't feel deprived. Those are my thoughts for today.

Kelly - please note that if you read this thread from the very beginning my thoughts are much different than they are now. I have really done a metamorphisis in my thinking. So just so you know, some of the things I thought in the beginning arn't what I think now (and will likely keep changing).

It's true, focusing on weight only inhibits someone from getting to the bottom of what is causing them to binge. It doesn't mean you can't want to lose weight, but put it on hold to get better mentally. Then later you can try and tackle any weight issues after with a better head and you will likely be so much more successful. I am forbidding weighing myself to keep the focus on my disorder for now.

Don't beat yourself up about not being completely successful when first incorporating stuff. Just learn from it and ask yourself what went on in your head. And keep your mind on the positive in that you still did better than you would have before even though you weren't perfect. My mom's house is the hardest too. Her cupboards are bursting with cookies all the time. And don't worry about the mean girls. What only matters is you :hug:.

Yes, it's hard to get all the stuff you've learned out of your head. You know, on my days off I often don't eat breakfast until noon. Krampus tends to have a very late breakfast too and same with southernmavin. No point eating when you are not hungry. And I've also tried the 6 meals/day thing but honestly I like fewer meals that are more substantial. That is the beauty of not dieting. You can do what you like best, not what someone else tells you is better. And it was me who said I was busy living life. First time I could say that in many years. But I should be clear there has been plenty of bumps in this road and I have felt like giving up more than once. I think the best advice is to believe it's possible, but know it is not easy either trying to get to the bottom of everything.Also there is alot of trial and error involved.