Bill,

Always finding myself telling the person offering the delicious holiday treats how great they look and smell to cushion the blow of my rejection.

Chris,

I've come to terms with being a little obessed with the contents of my diet. I know if I want to stay on track I've got to pay attention. Nothing wrong with that in a context where there is a very high potential for a cascading failure should a person deviate too much.

I did not eat any of the cranberry sponge cake being passed around last night. Not only was nobody offended, no one even noticed.

What?

Dagmar

Binge-eating? Really?

http://www.thestar.com/living/articl...e-eating-added

Dagmar

Yes, Dagmar, binge-eating disorder. It's been around awhile. However, it is rather different from what most people around here call bingeing. People say "Oh, I binged" when what they mean is that they ate more than they "should have" of something. Binge-eating disorder is more serious.

Here's what Mayo Clinic has to say about it.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bin...sorder/DS00608

Binge-eating disorder. Ah, yes. Been there, done that. Went directly to that behavior after suffering from anorexia. Never want to do that regularly again. It's not just overeating, it has a distinctly compulsive edge. Something in you just snaps and you're absolutely compelled, like someone's got a rifle pressed into your back, to drive someplace & buy large quantities of food, (shamed & fearful that the clerks will know it's ALL FOR YOU) drag it off to your lair, and eat & eat & eat, often very, very quickly, and nearly always completely pleasure-lessly, at least after the first few tastes, until your stomach is distended and you're nearly sick from it. And still you eat. And then you drop into the blackest, self-hating despair imaginable.

Looking back on it, I think of it as an attempt at self-obliteration through eating: When you can't stand living, you do it instead of drowning yourself. You "go under" by using food as the element rather than water. I would never have been able to commit suicide, because of the gore & pain & above all, the PERMANENCE, so I did that instead: I binged.

The place to go on this site to talk about this problem is "Chicks in Control," but in my view, simply talking about it here is not enough to help you get over it. For me, it took twice-a-week visits to a therapist, a lot of behavioral therapy, and antidepressants. I worked like a dog at getting over it for a few years. And **still** I drop into binge behavior after experiencing intense anxiety -- though this is infrequent, not even monthly now, and I am able to observe myself, to slow down & ultimately to stop the behavior, through the steps I have learned. I am convinced that I may never fully eradicate it. But it is so, so much better than it once was, believe me. It's hard to believe that I am still the same person. I look back often with amazement at the desperate girl whom I once was. (I wish I could've told her, "It will get better. Really, it will.")

Hi gang,

A few comments... I weigh myself every morning UNLESS I ate at a restaurant the day before... why depress myself just because high sodium artificially pushes up my weight for a day?

I LOVE the revelation that NO ONE CARES what we eat at a social gathering! What a relief that we are not the center of the universe!

Krampus, good luck with Weight Watchers work. You'd probably be great at it. They did good for me years ago, I just failed to move into their maintainers group.

Krampus-- Weight Watchers only hires members that have successfully lost weight on their program. So you would be ineligible unless you gained weight and then lost it using Weight Watchers!

Chris, I weigh myself every morning, the only exception is if I am out of town and away from my scale. I write the results on my calendar and I can easily see if a trend is developing.
I am going to a tea this afternoon, I am going to try and remember Bill's idea, mainly that nobody reallly cares what and if I eat,

Sounds a lot like alcoholism, only with food.

I, too, weigh myself each morning. It my weight is up, I'm a bit more careful about what I eat. If my weight is down then I either try a bit harder to lose (if I'm in losing mode) or realize I can have just a bit more (if I'm in maintenance mode). FWIW, I'm currently in maintenance mode and will switch back to losing mode at the end of January.

Hey folks!

Megan, where are you going on vacation? Sorry the holidays are stressing you out! I haven't even started my holiday shopping yet.

Re: binge eating disorder, I have read quite a lot about it and am glad that I have never suffered from it. for all the folks who have. It's important to make the distinction Jay mentioned between when people say "binge" and they mean "ate a lot of food" and an actual disordered compulsive binge. I may eat a lot of junk food on occasion, but the reason is always "that's yummy, I want more."

Things are going pretty well at work for me. It was pretty much made official yesterday that I'm next in line for a leadership position when the current person moves on, which is nice to know even though it may not be for several years. It's where I assumed my career would go but it's nice to have it noted by other people that they also think I would be good at it.

There hasn't been any holiday food around my office yet but there have certainly been a lot of pizza lunches lately. DH is taking a long vacation this month because he's only allowed to roll over 40 hours of time off from one year to the next, so he has to use it up before Dec 31. This means he's off 12/15-12/31! That's the longest vacation he's taken since our honeymoon I think. We're going to see my folks in LA 12/20-12/27.

Whoa, thanks ticker! I completely didn't even realize that I had my 7 year maintenance anniversary.

Jesica, congratulation on maintaining for 7 years. That is awesome !

Congrats on 7 years in maintenance, Jessica!

Binge eating is, from what I can see just based on personal experience, talking to people here and in person, one of the most complex and difficult to diagnose behaviors there is.

My personal opinion is that it's a mindset more than anything - zoning out and disappearing during a binge. I could never consciously, mindfully binge eat - I always watched TV shows and had to have everything "just so." Given the amount of prep time - walking up to 4 miles to collect binge food from several different stores, getting the lights and temperature and level of solitude just so - it was almost like a party, but the worst kind of party because it inevitably resulted in self-loathing and extreme discomfort and "did that just happen?!" thoughts.

In my case I think I started binging because I got too obsessed with weight loss and didn't have enough protein/fat in my diet. Once I lightened up it went away.

I am grateful that chapter of my life was in Japan. It would be so incredibly easy to binge eat in America.

I guess in my post re binge eating disorder and mental illness I should have added that this was my opinion? But of course Jayell is right there to set me straight.

I went through my own period of binge eating. Bought the food at several stores, mixed in with "healthy" foods like fruit, veggies, dried pasta, etc to hide it from the grocery cashiers. Like they cared.

Took it home and shovelled it in in my dark bedroom, usually accompanied by alcohol straight from the mickey until I passed out. Self-loathing the next day and bloat and unease for several days after that. Once gained 10 lbs. on one weekend.

But did I think I was mentally ill? No. Sad, lonely, depressed, out of control, yes. But mentally ill, no.

of course this is my personal experience only with this - does not mean I apply it to anyone else etc. etc. etc.

Dagmar