I ate healthy lowfat foods Tues--Friday last week. Saturday was good all day, but Saturday night I binged. Same thing Sunday night. I pray I can get back on track today and not binge tonight. The evening is my most horrid time...... I have been praying to God to help me have strength because I want to lose weight so badly. I cant' understand why I let this happen. I do this every time I start to do well. I do fine during the day but at night it is like soemthing takes a hold of my brain and hi-jacks it. I can't make myself not binge no matter what I say to myself. I feel so stupid for ruining a whole week of doing great after years of not even being able to go one day of no binging. Well I have started off good this morning, if I can just get through tonight. I am in such a bad mood and feel so down because of it.

Let's take a step back! You can't ruin a week of effort in a sigle day. You have taken great strides towards a healthier you. As someone on here said before...If you trip while walking down the stairs, you don't just give up, say 'oh well, I blew it,' and throw yourself down the staircase. You made a mistake. It's going to happen. It happens to all of us. It's how you handle it that counts. Don't let yourself dwell on it and binge for days.. move on. Take it one day at a time. If you know nighttime is a weakness take a bath around binge time... go on a walk... get out of the house and away from the kitchen. YOU CAN DO THIS!

I think weekends are especially hard. You get out of your work-week routine and you're running around doing stuff and it's hard to focus.

I've started scheduling stuff for the evenings. My husband is working out of town right now and evenings without him are hard. So I do my shopping or errands in the evening and before I know it it's time for bed and I haven't spent the evening grazing.

Keep your head up. At least you've narrowed down what your problem areas are and can start to think of ways to combat them.

Thank you for commenting everyone. I needed to hear those words after such a disapointing weekend. THanks!!!!

You've received some great advice so far...

My question for you is what are you binging on? Stuff at home or going out and having things?

If it is stuff at home, then honestly, remove the stuff. Just put it in the trashcan. You can't eat what isn't there. Since I work from home, that was a huge problem for me, and dumping out "my high-calorie" favorites really helped me out. After a while, I realized I didn't really miss them and even though I may have my binging moments, they are much more healthy choices than before!

Evenings are my tough time, too. I'm usually unwinding from a very stressful day (or week!) and I found myself eating mindlessly while doing it. (eating IS comforting!) I like Kae's stair analogy -- you just hit a rough patch, but you CAN get back on track. You can also think of it this way -- even if you DID binge enough calories to make up for the deficit you created last week, you're no worse off than you were. Weeks when I don't lose, I just say, "I was practicing maintenance!"

All that said, I found setting a time limit after which you will not eat anything was helpful to me to put a stop to my mindless eating. I've had the "no food after 9PM rule for 2 weeks now -- the first week, I held to the plan 5/7 days, last week was 7/7. I've kept the same goal this week to try to build it into a habit! You might think of other goals to set or strategies to combat the binge like setting a timer for 5-15 minutes when you feel like eating and then not eating until the timer goes off, or drinking water or other low-cal fluids instead.

You CAN do this. Today is a brand new day!

I am sorry you had a bad weekend, but you can start again, and do better!!!!
For binging I would suggest getting what you binge on out of the house( if possible), so if you feel like binging again, you can binge on fruit or something healthy.
Yesterday I didn't do too well, We went to a friends farm, and got lots of goodies, but I ate 2 roasted corns, and a bowl of chips( sun chips, but still chips), but I know today is going to be much better!! you can do this too!!
cheryl

Hang in there. You can do this. Just take it a day at a time. You can't beat yourself up for past mistakes, you need to just learn from them. Find something to drink at night to occupy that time. Maybe Crystal Light or tea.

I would definitely recommend planning an evening that makes binging tough. Do you binge when you're alone? Then invite someone over! Binge when you're bored? Then find something interesting to do. For me, keeping busy and not being alone all evening are the keys to avoiding binging. Yes, it would be nice if I could just have "will power" and "resist" the food that calls to me (I've been known to binge on carrots or brown rice if I don't have anything else in the house). But since that hasn't worked for me, I do what does work instead--avoid the conditions under which I'm likely to binge. I try to make sure I'm very sleepy when I hit the sack, too, so that I'm not likely to lie awake for a half an hour and then decide that getting up and eating will help me get to sleep.

Vortex

I don't usually post much, but I had to reply when I read your post...it just made SO much sense to me the way you put it when you said

"Yes, it would be nice if I could just have "will power" and "resist" the food that calls to me...But since that hasn't worked for me, I do what does work instead--avoid the conditions under which I'm likely to binge."

My gosh, that is so "me" and yet I just never really thought of it that way...instead I just would chastise myself for giving in...thank you...

Don't feel bad. I am a weekend binger too. Saturday I ate a steak dinner, didn't TOTALLY blow my calories though, ended up about 1800. Sunday night I was so frustrated because I had been good ALL week (except Saturday) and seen no change on the scale...SOOO I decided to make the situation better by eating close to a half a bag of Dorito's, a grilled cheese sandwich, 3 chocolate chip cookies, some Pringles, and a rice crispies treat after supper last night. Funny how my mind works LOL!

You aren't alone! It's one tiny blip in the scheme of things afterall! Just pick yourself up and keep going!