Small binge victory
I had an urge to binge this evening as I was in a high-risk binge situation. I was sooooo close to yielding to the urge but then thought about what it would feel like to not give in. And I recognized that the urge is just a response from a pre-wired habit. I decided to sit with the binge feeling and I would not die by not acting on it. And I knew that it might return again but that is ok. Because I don't have to act. AND I DIDN'T.
This is just a small victory but most of my success with not binging has to do with not having urges rather than learning to ignore the urges. I have been on a search to find ways to reduce frequency of binge urges but learning to ignore the urge IMO, is key to long-term success.
Here are the strategies I've used to decrease urges to binge..some have actually been helpful, some neutral, and some destructive.
-Eat one McDonalds ice cream cone everyday
-Went on a strict clean eating diet free of all simple sugars
-Eat breakfast
-Eat several meals per day
-Keep all foods that are not on "the list" out of the house (this helps but when the binge monster makes an appearance I am out the door, car keys in hand)
-Therapy
-Drink pots of coffee
-very strict eating schedules
-Eating most calories at night
-Medication
-Throwing food in the trash (learned that it needs to be flushed down the toilet or thrown in the garbage disposal)
-Pack my schedule with activities including a rigorous exercise schedule
-At my lowest I thought if I bought scrubs that were fitted it would keep me accountable to never gain weight-this one backfired big time
-Boosting my self-esteem by getting a nice tan or a haircut-works for like one day
-Using weight loss as motivation (it works in the short term but the flip side is that weight gain is a de-motivator)
-Buying smaller clothing to motivate me to stick to the plan
-I was a bridesmaid in a wedding and purposely bought the dress a size too small so I would be forced to put the brakes on the binging
I am not making fun of all of these because some are actually good however, I have done some nutty things to avoid binging. Feel free to list some of the crazy things you've done to keep you from binging/derailing. This is not meant to be mean, just learning to laugh a little.
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