So this is my plan to beat the binging. It's going to be kinda hard, but I think it might work.

I've always tried to eat mostly whole foods and not much processed stuff, but I'm going to commit a little more to that and see if it helps. The main idea us that food is to nourish my body and fuel my running. So even dessert and my morning cup of coffee should follow those rules.

Yesterday I threw away a half pint of Ben and Jerries Fro Yo, which has been triggering me lately and replaced it with soy ice cream and pomegranates. I know that's not perfect, but baby steps. Throughing away the B and J was a huge step for me though. I'm also going to try to cut my artificial sugar intake more than I already have and try lemon with raw Stevia in my water instead of crystal light. I'm working on clean ideas for my coffee. I'm a heavy SF creamer user. For now I might try just milk, raw Stevia and a little spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. Maybe a little vanilla.

I've noticed in the past that the cleaner I eat the more energy I have and that I can actually eat more and lose or maintain. When I first incorporated this lifestyle I went from stalling at 1500-1700 to losing at 1700-2000.

I have a clean eating cookbook and use recipies a much as I can, but it's difficult with a picky toddler and DH. Speaking of which, there will always be crackers, peanut butter and cereal in the house and that's something I just have to say no to, because they aren't nourishing me. I also buy the highest quality of that stuff I can.

No I know I can't (or won't) live completely with no indulgences. So my new rule is that those are only allowing in limited controlled amounts outside the house. We go out to eat maybe once a week.

So I'm trying to change my definition of food and my rules for my indulgences. This isn't really to lose anymore weight, but more to make my loss so far long term. Thanks for listening, I needed to put all this down on paper.

That's a great idea. the body functions better on eating a cleaner diet and not having so much processed stuff. I love the processed stuff too but have experienced the same changes in energy when my body has whole foods instead. Good luck to you!

I add something new "clean" to my diet about every month, or eliminate something. I've gradually crossed over to hippie-dom. I definitely have a bit of hippy in me. I told my friend yesterday as we browsed through Whole Foods that I could definitely go completely hippy if I could only afford it. LOL!

I've never done artificial flavors, but switched from white sugar to raw sugar.
I decided one day that cow's milk isn't meant for humans so I switched to soy, though I still cook with it and am not opposed to ice cream. Or yogurt.
I switched to Greek Yogurt.
My newest fix is getting rid of HFCS. I found an all natural ketchup and BBQ sauce and have been buying fresh baked bread. Some fresh baked bread even has HFCS in it!!
And I keep adding veggies. This week I added fresh snow peas eaten straight out of the bag, raw. 1 cup has 35 calories! I'm not sure I can eat 1/4 cup! LOL! I don't love them yet, but I bet I will. And I just caught my nine year old wandering around the house with a handful of them.

I love eating clean. I've taken it on as sort of a hobby. I love to talk about it, but you really can't in the real world without sounding preachy and critical.

Yep, I think I'm going to make it a bit of a secret. I'm not even going tell my DH, but those recipes are going to start popping up. I'd love to commit 100%, but it is very time consuming and $$$. So I'll incorporate small changes as I can. I also am a bit OCD so it's difficult for me not to go 100%, but I'm trying to accept that some changes are better than none and if I stick with it I think I could get pretty close to 80-90% within time.

Oh I forgot to mention, and we'll see how this goes, but I occasionally partake in fruity sugary martinis when we go out. I'm thinking about trying to switch to red wine or nothing at all. My alcohol consumption has drastically decreased this year so I'm not sure how necessary this will be, but worth a try if I do decide to drink.

I love the idea of taking one thing away and adding one thing each month. I'm really bad about nto adding things, then getting super sick of the stuff we do have. I will try something new, but then it never makes it back into the house for some reason, even if we liked it.

I'm trying to gradually get our house more clean. (Or what I consider clean anyway) I don't know that I'll ever make it to "hippy" status. But I'd love to get rid of most of the processsed junk. Like you, ncuneo, I'll always have cereal, etc in the house. I have 4 kids and I can't (won't) force them to give up everything. I'm just trying to slowly teach them how to make healthier choices, or portion control.

What is the recipe book you have? My main source of recipes is online. LOL But I try to make as wise a decision as I can, and substitute as need be.

I get the kid thing! I have to give a little on them, though not completely. They still get Cheerios, for instance, which I'm pretty sure has HFCS in it. DH and I like Greek Yogurt, but we still get regular yogurt for them. There are things like that which I cave to. Of course, because of the kids, I also discovered all natural made with whole wheat flour and no HFCS "Oreos". You know...because of the kids.

I love Tosca Reno's Eat Clean books and Clean Eating the magazine. Tosca has a good website too.

What is interesting is the theory about how clean you eat and how lean you body can become. That's my biggest concern right now. Yes I'm thin and fit, but there is some fatty areas that running and strength training just aren't helping. I've heard you physical characteristics are 80% diet 10% exercise and 10% genetics. I'm hoping getting a little cleaner will = leaner as well.

That's an awesome idea to slowly incorporate cleaner items into your diet. I'm an all or nothing gal, so this is hard for me. I've always tried to just go all out and then not be able to maintain that.

I also wish there were a whole foods market or trader joes nearby. The closest are 2 hours away in a big and scary city.

I eat clean as well, and I love it. I used to eat TONS of highly processed convenience foods and artificial sweeteners, and I paid exactly ZERO attention to labels.

But I definitely feel overall better eating natural, unprocessed foods.

I've also wondered if my switch to natural food has made a big impact on halting my binging, since that has been going so well.

Me too. I usually go all or nothing. But so much of eating clean takes time and effort, at least for me because I don't want to spend a fortune. For instance, yesterday I almost bought almond butter until I realized it was $14.00 for the jar! And I wasn't even sure I'd like it. So today I made my own for $3.49, the cost of the almonds. But that takes time, especially the clean up. So changing one thing at a time helps me obsess about just that one thing and I learn to do just that one thing a little quicker with less thought as I develop habits.

Me too! And honestly I can't even tell you if there are any that close. I haven't ever seen one when I went to the city, but it doesn't mean they aren't hiding there. But since I rarely go there... shopping there is no really feasible. I would like to go to Little ROck some times to go to the farmers market, but it's just so far away.

I don't have a Trader Joes or Whole Foods either. Isn't it sad that finding and buying healthier choices is so much more difficult, and in some instances expensive, than buying JUNK?

I've got a friend that just moved to a smaller town and her grocery store choices are limited. She's using Amazon fresh to get her big city favorites. I'm not sure where they deliver to, and I've never used it. But I do know that there are a few online grocery places. It may be worth it to check those places out.
I used to group order with the girls at work for all sorts of things (spices, bulk foods, chocolates). One of us would break the items down after they were shipped, with about 6 of us ordering on average it made the shipping costs negligible, and often we qualified for free shipping (sometimes you just need to ask when you call in the order).

Also, check out your local health food store/vitamin place (non chain ones). One of mine carries a little produce in the summer and has all sorts of dry goods available. Yours may be on the fence about whether there is a demand for that kind of thing, knowing you want it may be the decision maker for them.

Ncuneo ~ you are such an inspiration in the self examination department. Your posts continually make me rethink my own plan and goals. Thank you!

I eat clean as well. I feel great. I used to have a lot of pain, but I don't anymore. It has helped the binging as well. They only thing is if I don't eat clean, I get pretty sick, so it becomes not worth it to me because of the consequences.