I wouldn't classify myself as a person who binges. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. I know since I began this journey, until yesterday, I only had one binging session... but that binging session was identical to the one I had yesterday.

My trigger? ...salad.

Yesterday I started with...
1/2 bagel w/cream cheese
Soup

Then I saw a gigantic bag of salad in the fridge. Mmmm!

So I have a bowl. Then I have a second bowl. Lettuce, vinegar, and salt... practically 0 calories.

Then I have a hard boiled egg, because maybe the protein will make me want to stop eating...
Then a fudgesickle, just because.


By the time I reached for the fudgesickle--or even the egg really--I didn't want to eat it. Well, I wanted to EAT it, but I wasn't close to hungry. I wanted to eat just to eat. I came very close to throwing up because I ate more than my stomach could hold. Last time I binged like this, because of salads, I did end up throwing up. That was almost a year ago, but still...

All that food only adds up to about 500 calories, so I didn't do horrible, but I still feel guilty.

After that... I ended up having a small bowl of ice cream, four small cookies, another bowl of salad, and something else small... I'm sure I didn't eat more than 1200 calories, which means that despite my over eating, I was right on plan.

BUT, here's the kicker. When 10pm rolled around, I asked/BEGGED my boyfriend if we could go out for appetizers at a local restaurant. Why? I don't know! I wasn't hungry; I just wanted to eat! So rather than being right on plan, I went over by probably 800 calories. Whyyyyy?

Ugh. I don't understand why I did that. I knew I wasn't even hungry. I knew I'd be over my calorie limit. I knew it'd make me even further away from getting to the 120's when I'm already so close. I knew I had planned to go out to eat today. Maybe I was sabotaging myself on purpose, who knows?

Unfortunately, I realize the only thing I can do about it is to just pick myself back up and keep striving foreward, and I will. But I wish I knew why yesterday happened the way it did.

At some point you will need to find the right eating style that helps you. It sounds like you eat more according to your whims rather than have a meal plan in place. Structured meals may give you a more balanced meal and help with cravings. Just an idea. I eat three meals a day and nothing in-between. This took some work on the discipline aspect of it at first, but now I know that the next meal is not that far away and I make sure I get fed well, with plenty of meat and veggies and whatever else I need to complete my eating plan.

It's really hard to know why someone binges. We can only speculate. You may have been anxious about something (going out to eat or maybe something more). You did say that last time it happened, there was salad involved, so I thought maybe you felt deprived, but it sounds like you love salad. Since this has only happened to you twice, this would be a good time to nip it in the bud. If you ever feel like this again...this urge to eat until you feel sick, have a plan in place. Make a decision that you will only eat x, y and z. I think that you wanted your boyfriend to go get you more food because you were feeling very guilty about your binge...even though your calories were still fine. I know that a lot of times, when I overeat, I feel guilty and then I"m at risk for binge eating. Find a way to forgive yourself and tell yourself to move on. See if you can go for a walk instead or just try to chew gum.

I've had a problem with compulsive eating for years now and it's not a fun place to be. I hope you can avoid it. Mainly, I'd like to add that it's nice to know why you do it but even if you don't know why, you can still stop yourself by taking some behavioral steps to either avoid it or to limit it to certain foods. Just get back right on that plan as soon as possible and you'll do great.

I know when I over eat it is becuase I'm bored. So what I do is remove myself from the kitchen and go clean or blog, or read, or anything else that will get me out of the mind track 'I need to eat because I have nothing else to do.'

But it looks like you've been on track for a while. You will make it to your 120 goal even if you do derail once or twice.

It sounds like salad is your go-ahead to overeat on the other things. Know what I mean? Like you start on the salad, and after that anything goes. So it's maybe self-sabotage. "Oh, salad, that's safe..." only really all bets are off. You may unconsciously plan to move on to other things.

I guess you ought to stay away from bags of salad.

Maybe get some professional help from a counselor who is savvy about overeating/binging? I hope you can get a handle on this.

Jay

Two things jumped out at me. These may not be your thought processes, but I recognize similar behaviors that I do in what you described.

1) Eating too much of a particular food because it's "safe." When I have the munchies, and I have a lapse in self control, I find myself digging around in the fridge for pickles. Why? Because on the label, it says pickles are 0 calories. In reality, 2 pickle slices might be less than 5 calories, but 10 pickles adds up. And after I have some pickles, I'll have some other "safe" foods. Lettuce, cucumbers, I've even squirted Sugarfree Hershey's Syrup in my mouth, lol. Sure, these foods are good (minus the syrup), but it's the mentality that is not. As if those foods don't count so I can eat eat eat as much as I want. Not good.

2) Tripping down the stairs, and instead of picking yourself back up and walking down the rest, you throw yourself down the rest of the flight. What I mean by that is, you might have one slip up (maybe the hardboiled egg, a very minor unplanned "oops"), and then you fall into the mindset that "well, I've blown it for the day, might as well just go with it and eat whatever I want." I am guilty of this. One tiiiny little off plan thing, maybe a bite of chocolate that I hadn't planned, and I say "screw it" for the rest of the day and waaaaaay over eat. When really, I should just get back on plan for the rest of the day.

Once the binge mentality starts, it's really an overwhelming and unnerving feeling. It feels out of control, but (to me at least), that's the most concerning part because I know I'm in control...so why can't/won't I stop? It's almost a challenge to desperately eat as much as I can. I come up with excuses to go to the kitchen and sneak around to grab food and shovel it. My mind races trying to figure out what I could eat or how I could get more food. Not to mention the guilt during and after the whole shebang. Terrible feeling.

Get back on plan, drink lots of water, don't beat yourself up (on the contrary, pamper yourself and remind yourself that you are worth taking care of), think of all the zillions of reasons you would rather eat on plan food, and MOVE ON.

I notice that this started with the bagel and soup. How were they? Were they unfilling or otherwise unsatisfying?

When I get "snacky" I try to ask myself why I want to eat whatever it is I'm thinking about eating it. Yesterday, I had to stop myself because I was falling back on my old habit of eating out of boredom. I keep a bunch of those 100 calorie snack packs around and I only allow myself to eat one of those a day and most days I don't even touch them. I read somewhere that it can take a month to train your brain out of a habit. Maybe you could schedule yourself meal and snack times and try to stick with it for a whole month and see if something changes.

I have found that if I eat food because I see it - even if it is good food, like salad - it opens the door to eating off plan. I have to plan my meals. I have to plan meals that fill me up and satisfy me. Then I have to stick to my meals, and I do fine. But if I start thinking, "What do I want to eat?" I'm in big, big trouble.

If you saw the gigantic bag of salad in the fridge, you could have instead chosen to change your meal plan for lunch so you could enjoy it then. I can deal with plan changes like that - deliberate and planned so they work with my eating plan - but spur of the moment eating just spells disaster for me.

There is nothing wrong with salad if you like it. Just plan when you're going to enjoy it, and it will be a good part of your eating plan. If I cut everything out of my eating plan that I've ever had a problem with (aka red light foods), I would have nothing to eat - literally. It's not the food that is the problem - it's the seeing something, thinking "that looks good" and then indulging rather than planning to enjoy it with your next scheduled meal.

And yes, I've learned this the hard way.

I'm kind of thinking the binge didn't start with the salad. I'm thinking the binge started with the white refined processed carb addictive flour bagel you started your day with. That crap is crack for me. You kept eating to satisfy the addiction so you substituted healthy stuff. Finally it ended when you ate more processed carbs, (ice cream and cookies) What your body was really screaming for MORE of.

I think that once people finally realize that much of this binge stuff is more physical than mental, life will become eaiser for them....

It doesn't look like you were eating anything with much nutrition in it - so your body kept wanting more and more food in the hopes it would get something out of it. Next time plan your day with lots of protein, complex carbs and some fat and you won't be as tempted to binge.

Thank you everyone I've gotten a lot of different responses, and I guess I'll just have to experiment until I figure out where my specific problem comes from.

To be honest, I've never been one to have 'meals' and plan to eat x at time z. I've tried it before, and it makes me miserable and food obsessed (like my day revolves around when I get my next meal). To be frank, I'm not going back to planning meals at this point in my life; I'm very good at staying within my calorie range without planning, and I just prefer to live this way.

Megan - I can always relate to your posts, and I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. (I could eerily relate to the pickles thing, )

I wish I could just say that I wanted to feel full (because sometimes I do) but that unfortunately wasn't the case. Maybe I was undernourished like a lot of you are suggesting. I wouldn't be surprised. Or maybe it was the bagel (though I had one this morning, and I'm not feeling the need [yet?] to eat everything in sight) I ended up having two gigantic bowls of salad and vinegar again yesterday and it didn't steer me off plan, so I'm lost (maybe the fact that it's been so long since I've had salad that got to me).


Oh well. I'm curious, but I know I'll be fine. We can't be perfect.