When I first started trying to lose weight a doctor once told me if I wanted ice cream for dinner to have ice cream. I've since learned that's not a great idea and doesn't solve anything, but today I made chocolate chip cookies (with ghiradelli dark chocolate chips, whole wheat flour and organic cane sugar) for my son and I made the mistake of allowing myself a bite of cookie dough. Well for a former binger we all know how that ended. Now my stomach aches and the thought of anything for dinner makes my stomach hurt even more. In the past I'd have a horrible dinner to complete the binge, now a days I'd usually follow it with a light nutritious dinner and lots of water. Today I just can't fathom eating anything more. I'm not sure what my point is other than if I'd never taken that FIRST bite I wouldn't be posting this. I know that I can't handle one bite of trigger foods so why does it still happen sometimes? How do I finally get this and stop this cycle? I was having such an amazing day too. I had a new long run this morning - 6 miles, and a very good breakfast and beautiful lunch. My plans for dinner were good as well...I just don't understand why the struggle never ends. What make me different from those who don't have food issues. Some days I can say NO to everything, other days I can't and I honestly cannot identify what emotion is causing the problem. Ok...I guess my vent is over, back on track tomorrow...as long as I'm always back on track I think one day the binging will resolve itself - PERSISTANCE will prevale!

If you ate so much you don't feel like eating...DON'T.

There is no need to eat more today if you are already over your maximum maintaince calories. It drives me crazy when people tell others to go ahead and eat a "light and heathy" supper after a binge. Our bodies are designed for feast and famine. That's why we have ever expanding fat cells...for the times of famine. Just get through this day...you've eaten all you need. Wake up tomorrow and try it again. We won't die or ruin our metabolisms if we don't eat every few hours....especially after a mound of cookie dough. It's going to stay with you for awhile...kwim?

ETA: I don't know why we do these things to ourselves. I guess the same reason people drink themselves to death, or smoke while lugging around an oxygen tank. Addiction.

Seriously, I know better now. A few months ago, ok maybe, but now come on! I knew I'd feel like sh*t afterwards and I knew I didn't have the "willpower" to handle just a taste. The only time I usually "allow" binge like behavior is around TOM when the cravings are just too much, but that's not an excuse today. I don't have one. I'm not trying to beat myself up over the whole thing, but at some point there's just no reason to eat that way...tomorrow's a new day...I'd just like to get into a maintenance rhythm. I feel a little out of control and that's very uncomfortable. But I know I can maintain this week and one day those weeks will turn to months and those months will turn to years.

i know exactly what you are saying im right there with you, and you are not alone. its very frustrating and you do feel like when is this going to be over?! when will this ever be conquered?!
i think lori bell hit it head on when she said addiction, my dh drank alcohol for years and some things came to a head and he asked God to help him and take the taste from his mouth (cravings) and he did, he no longer craves it, but he had withdraw (severe headaches,sluggish, sugar withdraw) hes great today (this has been 8 years ago) but he still don't go to a bar or stay around people when they are drinking, he doesn't "crave" it but for the 1st couple years after when things would get real stressful for him he would just want to get something and "forget" his problems, he gave in one time and took a sip and got sick as a dog! he jokes about it now and says hey when you ask the lord to take away something and truly mean it that's exactly what he does so if you try to go back to your old ways it makes it hard as heck cause he took it away and wants you to know it!lol.
i guess what im trying to say is its the same with food just a different addiction, you can see the similarity's in his experiences the difference is we NEED to eat to survive and i think that can make it all the harder, i don't have no solution or answer it sounds like you already are very strong and got right back on track and when it comes down to it that's all that really matters anyways!!! that and being here for eachother!

I have seen a lot of posts from mothers who decide they have to make cookies "for the kids" and proceed to fall into the dough or the cookie jar. I think the time to catch yourself is when you are making that decision. "Why do I think I have to make cookies?" Anyone who has been obese can figure out that that is a difficult position to be in, so why go there?

Oh--and doctors who say "If you want ice cream, eat ice cream," have never been obese.

Jay

Some people can pull off the "one-taste and that's all" move. I am, so far at least, not one of them. I'd love to be able to handle one-taste, or just a "little bit" of some of my trigger foods, but I can't. I don't why either, Ncuneo. It does make me feel like I'm somehow more broken than other people.

For now, I remind myself that the items I'd just like "one taste" of are generally not healthy for me physically (much less emotionally) so it is better to abstain completely.

But I so get where you are coming from.

I think the thinking is that if you are starving later (which can happen after a bunch of sugar), it's better to eat something so that you don't wake up the next morning a raving, starving maniac who will once again binge. It's pretty common for people with eating disorders to "punish" themselves for a binge by not eating for as long as they can stand--but that really is setting up another binge.

That said, I do agree that it is much better to eat ice cream for dinner than to eat dinner + ice cream. In fact, that's what I plan to do today: it's my birthday, so I came in 400 calories under the last two days, and I am going to buy a single slice of cake and have it for dinner tonight. I won't be hungry, and while my nutrition this week will be slightly poorer than usual, my average daily calories will be on target. The idea that you have to "pay" for dessert by eating a big healthy meal is archaic.

Sometimes I feel like binge eating is almost like a mental illness, something you just kind of have to deal with for life. I'm a former binger myself and I feel like it's always with me. I have to be self aware all the times or else it's back to stuffing my face. During the binge it's even more difficult because you know your doing it and you can't stop, it's like your getting high off the food. And then when your done it's that horrible feeling of guilt.


At least that's what it's like for me. I also am bi polar and I used to eat in relation to my foods and that's probably why I see it that way.

The most you can do is pick yourself up again and work forward because tomorrow is another day and a whole new calorie count It's an uphill battle. If you know your going to be close to a trigger food, plan ahead that you are not going to have a taste of it because you know what it will result in.

My advice to nc is not much different than what you plan on doing, except that you cut back before and during the splurge instead of during and after. For all those calories you are saving for a single piece of cake, (800 saved + your regular supper calories) I'd say it is probably close to the cookie dough calorie count that nc ate.

NC stated she was NOT hungry for anything else. Why should she eat? (that was my point.) If she isn't hungry don't eat. Very simple. If a person IS hungry after a high calorie binge then maybe they could drink a glass of water and go for a walk. They don't NEED to keep eating. TO keep eating to avoid another binge makes about as much sence as staying drunk to avoid a hangover.

You say you don't plan on eating again after your 1000+ calorie piece of cake, you already know you won't be hungry. How do you know? What if you are with all that sugar? Will you go ahead and eat or just go to bed?

See me? I'd have to follow it with protein. That would balance out my sugar levels and maybe I wouldn't feel so bad. That is to say, if I end up eating skittles and feel sick from the sugar, I have to chase it down with protein to stop the shakes.

My problem is that if I stray from my diet for lunch, I have the mentality that "I might as well eat what I want for the rest of the day since I've already blown my diet". That's when I start to binge and eat the things that I have been craving all that time of being good. So, if I were to have that bite of cookie dough, or 1 slice of cake, I talk myself into binging the rest of the day. That's why I can't permit myself to have that 1 bite of something not on my diet

Tomorrow isn't the first day of the rest of your life. Today is.

So you blew lunch? Big deal. Start your 24 hours of accountability with dinner. It doesn't have to start over with a calender day. One small binge doesn't equate to defeat.

So true, AZ Sunrises

I totally, 100% agree with you about NC in this case. I was talking about the broader advice to "Eat lightly tonight and be back on plan tomorrow"--it's advice not to pay for it all at once, let yourself get so hungry that you end up binging again. Cutting back 400 calories a day for two days is reasonable, but if I cut 800 calories one day in order to pay for my cake, there's a good chance I would get SO HUNGRY I'd fall off the wagon again. I think a lot of people get in a binge-punish-binge-punish cycle that is both emotionally and physically devastating. I know for me, for example, if I go to bed starving, I won't sleep, which makes the next day much harder--so if I'd be better off to eat 100 grams of chicken or a yogurt before bed.

Well, there's all types of hunger, aren't there? If I "could eat", if my stomach is a rumbling a little, I'll go to bed. But if I am laying in bed staring at the ceiling with a pounding headache and craving food with all my being, I'll get up and eat 100 calories of something healthy. That 100 calories won't really make a difference and it will mean I start out tomorrow in a much better place.

Now that my blood sugar is much better regulated in general and my PCOS is under control, I find I don't get the sugar let-down starvation thing any more. But when I did, it was better to manage it than to fight it until it wore me out.

I'm commenting from my experiences and what I've been through. I have a history of being a compulsive overeater, binge eater. I dieted (WW and JC) and binge ate from high school through adulthood. For me, it would never have resolved itself. I worked on it on and off in therapy with counselors who specialized in eating disorders from a time in college (group), to a personal counselor and then more group (group was short term).

I had depression, which I'm sure made dealing with the eating disorder more difficult and more prolonged. I overeat sometimes now, but I don't binge. I can eat all kinds of foods that were once trigger foods for me, and stop. I just want to put out there, that I do believe it is possible to overcome out of control eating (which is what I suffered from).

I see what I'm talking about as something different from the general struggle of sticking to an eating plan. I'll probably always WANT to eat more than I should, ha.