I have struggled with my weight my entire life, jumping from eating disorder to eating disorder. I have been under and overweight (mostly over weight). Well I have been losing weight for a while now and reached 130 pounds (goal weight is 110/115). The past 2 weeks were REALLY rough for me and I relapsed a total of 7 times ....non consecutive days. I ate and ate ALL day compulsively binge eating. Looking at myself I am in horror at how much weight I have gained from this. No we are not talking 5 pounds. I refuse to get on the scale but I can see a HUGE difference in my looks. My face is fuller, my legs are thicker, my stomach got 10 times bigger. I am not even kidding you I believe I gained at LEAST 10 pounds from this (and no it isn't water weight unless you can gain water weight EVERYWHERE including your face and boobs).

I feel so incredibly depressed. I was SO close to my goal and I gain an extra 10-15 pounds which will make me take even LONGER to lose this weight!! I cannot understand how I could of gained that much. I stopped working out when normally I worked out A LOT during the day...and all together I had 7 horrible days of eating but thats it! In a total of a week I gained that much. I just cannot believe it. Even my sister looked at me and told me she thought I may be getting sick with something because my face looked 'puffy'. I wanted to cry my eyes out and just say "No I just binged and gained 10 pounds"! This is possible and something that has happened to me before. I used to be anorexic and weighted 97 pounds, I snapped and binged for 4 months and gained literally 80 pounds in 4 months. So it is not like this has never happened before.

Now today I am starting over. I am trying to get as much weight off as possible for the next 2 weeks, then go back to my normal diet of 1200-1250 calories. I am trying the 1000 calorie diet for 2 weeks. It IS safe to do for 2 week maximum. I am hoping to lose the bulk of my weigh by then with exercise. I hope I can do it. I am not waiting moths just to lose the weight I gained in 7 days again. Thankfully the 1000 calorie diet is said to work if you do it for a short period of time.

I can relate to your posts. My goal weight is about 10 lbs & I am trying hard to stay on course. I am surprised how much I am looking at "off plan" food. I wont touch them, but I am tempted. I think its normal. I need to keep my toughts positive. Stick to my diet plan & then plan a reward when I hit goal

I am on about 1000 kcals as well

Dont be hard on yourself. eye on the prize & you will get there

I will be the first to congratulate you

Yes, you can gain water everywhere, including your face and your chest. My face ALWAYS feels and looks puffy after going a bit off the rails.

If you have a history of eating disorders, are you under the care of anyone for them? It can be dangerous for someone recovering from an eating disorder to restrict calories to a severe level (and regardless of whether it is short-term or "safe", it IS an extreme level), as it is overly hard to stick to for most people and can lead to restricting/binging cycles. You may want to check in with whoever you speak to about your eating disorder, or if you don't have anyone in that position, your family doctor, a psychologist...

I'm sorry you feel badly about yourself. I have gone "off plan" for weeks at a stretch before, too - while the outcome was a gain on the scale, I got right back on my normal plan (not an overly restrictive one) and moved forward, and the pounds came off without having to go to extremes.

I'd encourage you to talk to someone trained in ED behavior, particularly since you're having trouble controlling your relapsing.

You may want to visit our Chicks in Control forum, also, for talking about your food control issues.

Unless you consumed 35,000 EXTRA calories during those 7 days - even when subtracting the calories burned by exercise - you could not have gained 10 pounds.
I actually gained 10 pounds by binging once (so I know how you feel), but it took a lot longer than 2 weeks.
So you did really bad for a few days - it happens, you're not the only one. You don't need to go on a 1000-calorie diet to make up for it.

Thanks for everyones support. In response to one person, people always say it i physically impossible but in reality it isn't..especially if you have a bad metabolism like me. Like I said, people would never believe you could gain 80 pounds in 4 months but I did. While I am sure some of this weight is in fact water weight I know a lot of it isn't.

As for the question of if I am talking to someone about my ED''s..well no I am not. I am using self help techniques. I went 6 months without binge eating all on my own. I am just now taking fish oil pills and hopefully that will help with some of my depression which causes me to binge eat. I also write in my journal daily about what I am feeling and why I feel the urge to binge. It has helped somewhat but these past few weeks have been rough as **** for me. I have been so negative, so depressed and I feel like gibing up but I know I cannot. I will wait this all out and see if a lot of this is water weight. Either way I will never step on a scale again for a long time. They do nothing but hurt me in the long run.Thanks for the support everyone.

Thanks for the reply. I have a question. You say you are recovering from an eating disorder as well. I have a question. How do you not think of food daily?? For me, I have managed to not binge for 6 months on my own which I was proud of. But I still was very happy when meal time came. I still felt like food was my main source of happiness. How do you not feel the urge to over eat all the time??

I am sorry you are going through such a rough patch. I have never been in your situation myself (other that I am overweight) but I would suggest can you give yourself a bit more time? It seems to me that you are in a hurry to lose the weight very quickly (not that I blame you, it would be nice to wake up tomorrow and weigh 10 lbs less) but it seems to me that 1000 cals a day is way too little. It may be 'safe' (whatever that means) to stick to this for 2 weeks, but won't it backfire at you?
And like mandalinn suggested, please talk to a professional about what you are going through. My best wishes of good luck.

Sorry, my post was unclear...I'm editing the original text to get my meaning across better.

I am not personally recovering from an ED (though I have several close friends in various stages of recovery). There are lots of folks, though, to whom you could post this question in the "Chicks in Control" forum.

I was trying to say that you, as someone recovering from an eating disorder, should be particularly careful with very restrictive plans, since they tend to lead even those who don't have previous ED behavior into binge/restrict cycles.

Got ya

Some of the weight gain really might be water retention, especially if the food you ate was high in sodium... that would also make you look puffy!

Get back on track (I know it's hard!) and then weigh yourself in a few days. It's likely that some of the weight will be gone.

The hard part of losing weight seems to be KEEPING it off! I know I struggle with that every day. Some days I do well, other days, not so much. I'm trying to learn why I go off track and develop better strategies, but it's a lot of trial and error!

Good luck and check back with us to let us know!

When I have binged for several days, my face gets puffier, my fingers swell & my stomach can look alot bigger due to bloating, water retention and the extra food in my gut. Getting back on track is hard, but you'll feel so much better after that water and bloat subsides. Don't panic, you can do it. Just take one day at a time. Maybe posting daily your progress to others will help. We all mess up like this. Some of my worst binges are after a great weigh-in!

As others have said -

(a) it would be nearly impossible to gain 10 lbs in a week. Unless you ate 35,000 calories over and above your maintenance calories ... which would be very very difficult, I'd think. Seriously, you'd have to eat 4 large bags of Lay's potato chips *per day* ... or 6 containers of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge ice cream *per day* ... or some combination of foods that equaled around 6800 cals per day for 7 straight days to gain 10 lbs.

(b) you *do* retain water in your face and *especially* in your boobs. so yea, if you binged on a lot of salty foods, then it's very very very likely that at least half of the weight that you've gained is water weight. I've gained 6 lbs of water weight over 2 days after eating potato chips and other high salt foods and not drinking enough water to flush my system.

(c) gaining 80 lbs in 4 months is highly probable, especially if you were somewhat underweight to begin with. 20 lbs a month is about 4.5 lbs a week ... and if you were severely underweight then much of what you gained back would be water from being dehydrated.

I would suggest that before you take *drastic* measures, you try a few days of being back on your regular plan and drinking lots of water. I'll bet that in a couple days you drop at least half of what you "gained" over the week simply due to flushing the salt and retained water out of your system.

Please try it that way first and if it hasn't worked by Friday, then go right ahead with your more restrictive plan. I promise you, you won't need to.

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Thanks for your input I will wait it out. But it takes only 3,500 calories to gain a pound not 35,000. calories ......and for a binge eater 3,500 calories is not a hard number to reach.

To gain one pound, yes, you only need 3,500 calories more than what you burn. But to gain ten pounds, 35,000 is more like it. And 35,000 calories is a lot of food. Just keep in mind that when you binge (especially with salt and carbs) your body will store LOTS of water. So while you may have gained a little in fat, you're probably bloated too, and that's only temporary!

I say dust yourself off and don't look back!

It takes 3,500 calories OVER AND ABOVE YOUR MAINTENANCE CALORIES to gain ONE SINGLE POUND.

At 130 and 5'4 (my height and my goal weight, so I'm very familiar with this figure), you need 1,700 cals to maintain, if you do no exercise. That means to gain one pound in one day, you have to eat 5,200 calories a day (your maintenance 1,700, plus another 3,500 to gain the weight).

To gain 10 lbs in 7 days, you'd have to eat 46,900 calories over 7 days: 1,700 per day maintenance plus 5,000 per day to gain the weight.

That's 6,700 calories a day.

Again, that's 3.5 family size bags of Lay's potato chips PER DAY.
That's 6 containers of Ben & Jerry's ice cream PER DAY.
That's 13 McDonald's Quarter Pounders with cheese PER DAY.
That's 2 pints of olive oil PER DAY.
For 7 days.

I know you WANT to think that you gained all this weight because it will let you beat yourself up. You said it yourself: "I have been so negative, so depressed" ... and this is a very typical way to express depression .. the idea that you're a total failure ... a complete f'up and that you MUST have done this horrible, horrible thing.

But you know what ... what you did wasn't that horrible. You binged. But you certainly didn't binge 10 lbs worth in 7 days so you can't be the negative miserable failure you think you are.

The FACTS are that you would have to go on a CRAZY crazy crazy binge to be able to gain 10 lbs of pure fat in 7 days. I don't doubt there are people who have binged that way. But somehow I just can't believe that you really ate so much food that you gained 10 lbs. I just can't.

Really. Stop beating up on yourself and look at the numbers. Really look at them and accept that you are NOT the failure you think you are. You're just not.

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