ive been doing really well lately, going to the gym and eating healthy but bingeing is always hanging over my head like a dark cloud that wont go away. ive gone through binge and healthy eating periods for a least 10 years and i dont remember it ever being this hard to stop thinking about over eating!!! does anyone else feel this way???

leslie789... i so feel your pain. i too, have the"binge cloud" hanging over me all of the time. for as long as i can remember, i will plan my binge, and then deal with the internal guilt. its a vicious cycle. i dont know why i have never, will never have a normal relationship with food. i have been on a healthy eating plan for the last 20 months with a weight loss of 70 pounds.... but iam sure i would have been at goal by now(20 pounds to go) if i had not given in to the binges... the last one lasted about 7 days, and the sick thing is that some days i would eat things that i really didnt even crave or want...and i would tell myself that this was my last splurge meal day after day, iam sure i gain about 5 pounds each time... i can feel the difference in my clothes and that seems to be the trigger for me to stop. I dont ever want to be a size 22 again, and having size 12's that are tight cannot be an option for me. so that starts the cycle again of the good healthy eating. i have been in therapy for my "eating disorder" before, and to be honest it didnt do me a whole lot of good. apparently, there must be some childhood trama that has led me to this cycle, and i couldnt come up with one. i know that there are others out there with the same cloud hanging over them... i just take it one day at a time, thats all you can do. good luck to you leslie789, and just know, you are not alone.

Hi Leslie! Quick question: Are you tracking what you eat, i.e. counting calories on a website? If so, how many carbs are you eating in a given day? A lot of times, if you eat a lot of carbs, even healthy ones, it can mess with your blood sugar, so you eat, feel great, but then "crash" and feel the need to eat and eat and eta all day.

I had a bit of a binging problem too -- I would eat "healthy" -- a bowl of oatmeal and a banana in the morning -- but then by 11AM, I needed something else, CRACKERS! Then by 12:00, I needed lunch - a SANDWICH! -- and so it went all day, the constant NEED to eat even though I shouldn't really be hungry, given that I just ate. I cut WAY back on carbs in the last few months -- eating fewer than 70g's a day of them (and 99% of them coming from vegetables and some fruits, rather than breads and rice). My need to eat and eat has WAY decreased -- to the point where now, even at actual mealtimes, I often don't feel so hungry. I've also dropped MANY inches even before I began working out again.

Look at your carb intake -- you might be on a blood sugar rollercoaster that makes you crave food. (and though it MIGHT be an emotional problem - needing to eat for comfort - it might also be a CHEMICAL problem, in taht you are ADDICTED to the sugar and carbs). GOOD LUCK!

I completely agree with KLK. I too found that when I ate carbs I would crave crave crave and find myself in the midst of a binge when I wanted to make good choices and eat OP.

Ever since starting South Beach - I've had my binges under control... Sure I am craving something but by the time I am finished eating what I want - I am full and satisfied.

Perhaps trying to monitor complex carbs and sugar intake - maybe that will help?

I thought I would share this. I started just doing straight weight watchers - but I really love my carbs. Nothing I like better than reading a book with a bag of chips. Anyway because of this I cut my carbs way back- my only carbs come from veggies and fruit and fiber cereal or 1/2 fiber 1 bar- no bread, crackers. This has helped me tremendously- I have lost the cravings. Is it a low carb diet now- probably but am I strictly following any program ie atkins or south beach-no. It might be worth a try if you are struggling with binging.

my need for food is most definately emotional. i also have been in treatment (inpatient even) for eating disorders in the past and i agree it doesnt nothing! binging is almost like my little secret that i usually dont even tell drs about. i somehow hide the weight gain or i just over exercise to compensate for what i have had to eat that day. its virtually impossible for me to have normal relationship with food! i work in fashion so im surrounded by people with warped views. blah!!!! on a positive note i went to the grocery store to buy healthy stuff and ended up with tons of cookies and binge food in my basket but i managed to put it all back and settle for peanut butter instead and i am SOOOOOOO thankful. i dont think ive EVER managed to do that before!

i do agree with the carb thing, i usually try to stay away but i had rice on sunday and i think i was having withdrawl or something! oh well shockingly i survived it!!

Hi Leslie,
I am new to this support group and WOW was I glad to see your post! When growing up my Mom used to bake all the time and I know that I started to eat these things as a comfort food. Now whenever I'm stressed or bored I want to go to the grocery store to buy "something good to eat". I am so proud of you that you were able to put all those items away at the grocery store, not sure I would be able to do it.

totally understand what you said about comfort food. i read an article recently that talked about how parents give their kids sweets to make them feel better/stop crying when they're little and that translates to us as adults wanting to eat something sweet when we're sad or upset! blahhhh!!!

Wow, reading this - I thought I may have typed it! You just describe me to a 'T'. I am just coming off of a huge binge. My 14s starting to get tight and that is also when I get back on plan. I should've met goal a long time ago. I'm praying that this time around "sticks"...I hate the feeling of binging. It's sickening. I hate being obsessed with food and it controlling me. I wish I had a healthy relationship with food. I'm getting really tired of having to keep moving my ticker up and down!

For me, it stopped when I discovered that I'm an emotional eater and why. Now, if I feel a binge coming up, I ask myself whether I'm suppressing an emotion like grief, sadness, depression, anger, boredom, but also happiness, pride, affection. If the answer is yes, I make myself live through the emotion and deal with it. It took me a while to really get through to my feelings... I had suppressed grief about something for a very long time and replaced it with bitterness, so I really had to learn to evaluate my feelings again nstead of covering them with food. But one day, the big bang happened and from then on, I have been craving-free. So cravings can be entirely psychological.

I binge because I like food-LOL!

I just ate a half turkey sandwich and a serving of reduced fat chips, and as I was putting away the chip bag, I saw a bag of lemon cookies in the cabinet. So, the whole time I was eating lunch all I could think about was the bag of cookies. It's like a magnet that pulls me in and I can't resist. So, even before I had swallowed the last bite of my lunch, I was in there grabbing the bag of cookies. I probably just polished off ten or so, I lost count.

Does it ever go away? I hope so.
I know I shouldn't even have these things in my house. Why do I do that??? Arghh!!

Oh, definitely. Food is an addiction to me and I think it's like all addictions (like alcohol and drugs). I imagine any addict has to deal with the horror of a next binge (drinking, drugs, food, whatever) being just around the corner. It's a battle for me to go through a weekend without binging on junk food.

But I also consider myself the stronger for it. I'm working on trying to accept that there is little chance of me ever cutting out junk food entirely out of my life - that's just not going to happen. But what I can do is work on making junk food an occasional treat in moderation and not turn it into a binge. That seems like a much easier goal to achieve than cutting out binges all together.

Tam

I relate to carbs (particularly refined ones) being a huge trigger for the "more more more", and also to the thinking about eating the "junk" in the cupboard while still in the middle of a healthy meal. Aside from really limiting refined carbs, the biggest thing that helps me is that I do not eat ANYTHING if it does not taste really good. That means no eating something because it is lower in fat or "healthy". That has really helped curb the wild search for something/anything to satisfy some craving, and also allows me to stay in the moment and enjoy what I am eating and actually (shockingly) feel satisfied with a planned meal or snack.

I am a recovering alcoholic, who hasn't had a drink in 12 years. Even now, if I see a movie with an actor pouring a stiff drink and downing it, that urge comes back to take a drink. I would almost call it a longing or a physical desire.

I find that I get a similar feeling with food every once in a while, although the feeling is not as powerful. Honestly, I find the food craving MUCH easier to handle than the craving I got in the first year or two after I stopped drinking. I think the willpower I developed then helps me now with dieting.

EVERYONE has it in them to resist the urge to binge, the trick is to harness that inner strength. With alcohol, I knew that if I didn't stop it would first ruin my life, then kill me. As soon as I realized that, everything else fell into place. Being overweight doesn't have such serious consequences, but it will affect your quality of life, and could eventually kill you.

Find that inner strength...that is the secret!

For me it was the total opposite. I used to smoke every single say, I decided to quit. For some reason within a few days of smoking urges, I felt fine without smoking. My food addiction has been MUCH harder to control. Food is all around and cannot be avoided. My drug of choice so to speak, is right outside my door in the kitchen 24/7 and never goes away. Then we have the constant food commercials, fast food places, the major pressure to be stick thin....food is everywhere. As of right now, I cannot have junk food without going overboard...I never could. If I have a cookie...I cannot control myself and I have the whole box.

I empathize so much for the OP because I feel like the urge to binge will never go away. I have been up and down the scale and I am not obese right now but I have been....I envy people who can eat normally. People who want to lose a few pounds and can just eat healthy and have the weight come off. I can't do that. I eat healthy, then I binge, eat healthy, binge. It sucks.