I tend to binge when I cook. I LOVE to cook, and have been doing all the cooking in my house since I was about 10. You know how it is... you want to take a taste to see how it's going.. then another and another. Since I'm living with my boyfriend, it's been getting better.. but it's still something I work on every day.

Other times I would binge would be when i still lived with my mom, and I would eat a frozen meal as a snack. or if there was no food in the house, I would get a huge bag of chips, some dip, and a 2-liter bottle of soda and have that for dinner.

Really though, it's when I start eating and I don't think I can stop. it's when I'm looking around for what else to have. Rice, leftovers, cheese (a BIG thing for me), etc... all these things I could sit down and eat all off.

Before I moved down here, I worked as a short-order cook in a pizza place. So if the bakers screwed up a pizza, the workers got to eat it. I'd eat a slice or two every day. I'd steal spagetti, meatballs, fries, pickles, chicken tenders, onion rings, soup, cheese, garlic cheesebread, chicken wings.. anything and everything I could get my hands on, I would have during the course of my shift. Now, I work at an office supply store. And although I would love to work as a cook again (I really enjoyed working there!) I won't.. I don't trust myself around all that food, and my new lifestyle is more important to me!

For me, eating and feeling totally out of control. Can be any food. Just that feeling of not being able to stop when you want. It scares me. Last Friday I drank a massive amount of alcohol and then binged on three different boxes of cereal. It was awful.

For a long time I denied I had a problem because my weight stayed pretty static...I would go up maybe 5-8 pounds, then I would knock off the binging for a while and the weight would come off. But in the last couple years I have packed on 30lbs (give or take approx 15 lbs a year!) The binging is more frequent because I gained a partner (my H). We had taken to having going out eat-athons on the weekends.

I used to like to plan my binges for afterwork where I would be alone for at least a few hours. I'd stop by the store and get my favorite treats. Before my weight got out of control I would binge once or twice a month. Lately it had become one or twice a week. Usually my afterwork binge would be one of these:

family size box of tastykakes
box of poptarts
bag of cookies and pint of haagan daz
bag of doritos and jar of spicy salsa
a pie or cake from the grocery store bakery
box of entemann's pastery (cheese buns or rasberry twist)

I have a problem with sweets. One taste and it sends me off the wagon and over the edge. If there is b-day cake at work I can't have any or I will be obsessed with eating cake the rest of the day and I won't be satisfied until I stop by the store and eat a whole cake or a box of tastykakes by myself.

I used to make bargains with myself. Like "okay I will eat this cake today and then tomorrow I will juice fast and it will be ok".

This last month though I have gotten better. I have only binged twice and at least they are better less harmful choices (baby steps), and I don't consider them "true" binges....but after reading thru this thread maybe I'm wrong. The 2 times this month were:

one large bag of cheese popcorn
3 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on whole wheat light bread

Both times I didn't feel that bloated stuffed to the gills feeling afterwards. So maybe it's a little better.

I would binge on chinese food. I remember getting a family deal...two combos of sesame chicken...and two combos of beef and broccoli...three orders of wontons..6 eggrolls..and a huge container of yumyum sauce. Melody would have her beef and broccoli..some wontons..and no egg rolls...and it would last her for three or four meals..and my half would last me two meals..and many a small mini meal. I would eat a whole combo in one sitting, a bag of wontons with 8 of them in there..and three eggrolls...and then about two hours later go back for more...

I don't get chinese that much anymore, but when I do I order smart. I get something on the diet menu, usually chicken and broccoli or with mixed veggies.eat a cup of that, a cup of rice...no oil and no salt..and only eat one egg roll. nothing else.

I don't ever want to get to that point again where I will eat that much in one sitting again. Who knows HOW many calories that all equals up to. I probably gained 2 pounds in one sitting from all of that...

I fully agree with you. Sometimes I can eat heaps and not feel like I've binged, and I'm fine with that. It's usually really nourishing food.

A binge for me is when I know I 'shouldn't' be eating this and that it's not to fulfil hunger or because it's lunchtime, it's because I want to eat and keep eating and I have this uncontrollable, unstoppable desire to eat everything I can get my hands on.

It's either when I bake and I'll eat nearly the entire batch by myself, or when I'm alone and I'll pick at a little of everything in the house.

And the final thing that characterises a binge for me is that feeling I'm sure we are all too familiar with of being way too full, bloated and about to burst.

I am late coming into this thread, and I don't post in here nearly as often as I should. My weight problems come from emotional eating-stress and boredome are huge triggers for me.

I am definitely a binge eater. I can go for days, weeks, and months at times doing perfectly on plan with diet and exercise...and then I binge. Sometimes, the binging behavior lasts a few days at a time, before I can get back on track.

I agree with some of the other posters...sometimes I just eat too much, like at Thanksgiving...but I consider a "binge" when I eat and "can't stop". It is more frantic...hurried...and you exhibit some of the signs that others have mentioned-binging when others are not around, hiding wrappers and evidence of the binging behavior, and I have also been familiar with the drive thru things you have all mentioned-ordering like you are ordering for two people so the kid at the window doesn't think it is all for you, going to multiple drive thrus for different things, etc.

So, I think I will make myself home here, too. At least here, we can get it off our chests and know that we are not alone.

xoxo
Aphil