Does anyone swing between binging and over-restricting? The binge cycle...
I have, since my teens, alternated between binging and starving myself. I hate it. It sucks, point blank.
Its like the abusive relationship cycle they talk about. First the episode of abuse. (The binge) Then there's the candy and flowers stage, when the abuser is sorry and promises never to do it again. (Swearing I'll never binge again) The honeymoon stage where things are happy (eating controlled, but managable). Then tension builds. (Eating becomes over restrictive, to the point of starvation at times. Like 500 cals a day or something) Then there's the abuse episode again. (The binge).
I have been trapped in this cycle for over a decade. I just want out. I am seeing a therapist, but we are addressing other things too, and this has taken a bit of a back burner.
I'm only really happy when I am in the honeymoon phase. I'm eating healthy, normal portions. I'm eating clean for the most part, but still allowing the occasional splurge without going over board and without feeling guilty, or the complusion to get right on the treadmill and "work off" the cookie I ate. The honeymoon phase is the only phase that I feel like a normal human being, like food doesn't control me and its not the center of my existance.
Then it starts small, but happens fast...I can cut out that piece of cheese off my sandwich, its extra calories...I really shouldn't be eating this bread, its a lot of carbs....I can just eat the turkey rolled up...do I really need 2 pieces of turkey? One is enough...After all, I only ran for 30 minutes today...speaking of which, I should get back to the gym this afternoon to swim, or take a step class to work off that extra piece of fish I had last night....You know maybe I'll just skip this meal, and with dinner I'll have extra veggies...actually, I might not make it to the gym tomorrow because of that appointment I have, so I'll just have veggies for dinner and skip the meat...and of course, no carbs after 3 pm....
Then I start getting the cravings. I fight them off for a while, until somewhere in my mind I give myself "permission" to binge. Its not a conscience decision, but just a feeling. Then the excitement of the binge. After so much control and restriction, the binge feels great!!
Until I realize...I did it again. I failed.
Then the next day, the scale reminds me of my failure. And its twice as hard to stay on course.
I can eat "clean" and workout regularly. I can make all those life style changes, but the binge / restriction phases, they just persist through it all.
What scares me is as I get closer to goal (a weight I've never been, BECAUSE of binging) it will get harder to lose the weight with these binges. It seems like an extra 500 calories (binge) was a little easier to absorb, so to speak, at 220 lbs (my starting weight) then it is now at my current weight (see ticker) and I'm sure if I get down to 141 lbs. An extra 500 calories could make or break a weight loss or even a possible gain for the week. I don't know if this is absolutely true, but I feel like it is, and as long as I'm binging I will never reach my goal. That at some point, my weightloss will stop.
I guess we just have to take it a day at a time and never give up...and hopefully, something will 'click' inside. In any case, great post. I'm sure you speak for a lot of us! Good luck! You're not alone.
Yes, i do. My advice (and i hope i'm not wrong here--i am a newbie at this so this is just what i think) is that 500 extra calories is NOT a binge. I assume you are eating at a deficit of at least 500 calories a day if you're trying to lose weight. So if you eat 500 calories above your planned calories, that's only maintenance level. It is NORMAL for your body to WANT to eat the number of calories it requires to maintain its weight. Bodies like to maintain their current weight.
So next time you eat an extra 500 calories, don't beat yourself up, because that just sets off the cycle you're talking about. Instead, tell yourself you are going to try harder to maintain the calorie deficit you had planned.
I could have written your post. The part where you wrote i should skip the cheese or bread or i should go back to the gym in the afternoon..i do all that, i am never happy or think what i am doing is enough or good enough...i don't know how to eat normal or healthy and certainly don't know how to maintain, i either know how to diet and deprive, or go the other way and binge like for days and weeks on end...
i wish you lots of luck but sadly i think that if you are a binger, i know for me i will never be cured...it's something i will have to fight every day for the rest of my life
About this time last year, I got really serious about loosing weight. I completed Slim in 6 in May and was down 20 pounds- feeling great, exercising normally, eating normally. This continued all through the summer and I was so happy. I got down to my then goal weight of 125.
But, when fall comes...so does the Halloween candy. And I started binging again in October. At first, it was just a little here and there, but when the holidays come, they come. Honestly, I only gained about 5 pounds throughout the winter, but I noticed how awful I've been feeling lately. I had started binging/restricting throughout the winter and while nowhere near as bad as it has been in the past, I could see it going that way...I've just felt awful and unhealthy- and even though I only gained 5 pounds (and just lost 3 of those) because I hadn't been exercising I look like I've gained more because of lack of tone. Starting with a new goal for spring time!
So, now I'm back on the wagon, and logging in here for the first time since July/August. My life got super busy but I'm trying to incorporate 3fc again to prevent falling back into the cycle.
Anyways, I think our problem is control. I am a major control freak and I try to control everything in my life. While I am very calm, cool, and collected, if I can't control certain things I freak out. It's just like any eating disorder...when we feel out of balance in other ways, we feel the need to control what we have the most power over. It's a life long struggle. I thought during the summer that I would never have the issues again- but that's why we all need continual support!
This binge/starve pattern seems to be the hallmark of a compulsive binge eating disorder. This was my pattern too.
Eating regular healthy meals and snacks was the hardest part of recovery for me and I was terrified at first because for me, eating meant binging. It took a long time (more than a year) to stop associating eating with binging and to trust myself to have a "normal" meal and to stop eating when the meal was complete.
I've noticed this too. Why is it that sometimes I can go two weeks eating cleanly at 1300 calories and other times I struggle to be at maintenance calories without going crazy? I have derailed myself so many times in the past two months...
So "dieting" has been as much a test of self-resolve and perseverance and figuring out my own psychology as it has been a simple calories in/out game. I think the solution is that when I am done losing, I'll have to swear off counting calories after a few weeks of maintenance. I'll move to keeping down my refined carbs and giving myself free rein to eat healthful, lean foods (protein, veggies), to try to focus more on self-love and less on self-deprivation.
Glamourgirl,
*hugs*
I so could have posted the exact same thing you wrote. I am currently in the honeymoon stage and am so scared of it ending.
Until recently, I didn't even realize that this was/is my cycle. I think the best thing for us all that are in the same boat, is #1 coming to this realization, and the #2 controlling it. We are addicts, and just like an alcoholic, we have to take it one day at a time, even one minute at a time some days.
I hope it gets easier for you, and that the honeymoon phases last longer and longer.
I haven't done that since my early 20's. Now it seems I just binge, and then try to eat normally.
You may know this already, but you have to feed your body to lose weight. It sounds counter intuitive. I lost a lot of weight by crash dieting, but I always gained it back because once you do start to eat normally, and we all do unless we are anorexic, you will gain weight on a "normal" daily calorie allowance because your metabolism is shot.
To regain a normal metabolism, you must eat (good foods, mind you, and normal calories), and you must exercise to build large muscles.
Guess what gets most people through plateaus? Eating more and doing weight bearing exercises. Actually, weight bearing exercise does more for most people than does cardio.
End of lecture... LOL
I now make myself eat to my daily calorie allowance even if I don't feel like it and even if that devil on my shoulder says, "Eat less! You'll lose more weight."
yes, oh yes...and how...i have been plagued by this for the last year or so. i've always had a somewhat unhealthy relationship with food but for the most part was normal in my eating habits. lately it has been out of control, much like you described, sometimes worse, sometimes better. i don't have any advice for you other than to say be aware of your habits and triggers and consciously decide to not do it, whatever it takes. i try to apply this and for the most part it works until the binge monster strikes again. i am trying hard to break the cycle. one thing i have noticed is that the binges are less frequent, which i guess is a good thing. even when i am eating clean and allowing sweets/chocolate/what have you so as to NOT deprive myself, i still have the urge to stuff my face with chocolate (that's my achilles heel.) i was just about to post to the binge-free challenge thread for some advice/thoughts on a recent binge...very interesting how the human mind works.
I do this too. Except for me, it isn't really a gradual change... I lose control and binge daily for about two weeks straight and then, when I feel bloated and horrible enough, I snap back the other direction and restrict myself way too much.
Every time I map out a healthy eating plan and really put effort into eating between a minimum and a maximum number of calories per day, it somehow just never ends up happening.
I know it's horribly unhealthy, but I have kind of just accepted it - I work it into my lifestyle. I try and psych myself up (falsely, probably) that my two or so weeks of eating everything in sight and exercising like a crazy person keeps my metabolism at a decent level while the next two weeks of barely eating or exercising at all is when the weight loss actually takes place.
I absolutely don't recommend it for anyone else, but somehow it seems to be working for me... : / If I could figure a way of doing it that is healthier I would jump right into it, but I just haven't been successful at anything else.
I am very familiar with that cycle. Personally I spend very little time in the honeymoon phase - maybe a day or two every 3 months. Actually, maybe its never honeymoon because I always have to concince myself the cookie was ok and then I try to make up for it the next day. And when I can't convince myself the cookie was ok i fly off the handle and binge. The only time I feel "healthy" is when I am restricting by at least 500 calories a day. I can't imagine ever eating without a concrete calorie plan. Well, I am working on recovering from this thing, so I have to just keep going one day at a time. The most important thing for me is to NOT binge, no matter what.
Does anyone swing between binging and over-restricting? The binge cycle...
