How can I find a happy medium between binging and restricting?!

annajanee14

So I am a dancer, 5'3 and very muscular. I have had a long history struggling with disordered eating and at my worst got down to around 94 pounds. That was a bit over a year ago and since I have been gaining weight at an alarming rate I am now most likely around 130 pounds but I don't know for sure because I do not weigh myself. Now a days I have been having trouble with binge eating because I have grown so used to feeling sad or tired because I hadn't eaten enough thus my method of mood boosting became binge eating but it always gets so out of hand that I feel so uncomfortable in my own skin that I can't stand it and now that I have gained all of my weight back I thought the binge urges would stop but they haven't and it has gotten to the point where I am miserable and am severely lacking confidence and self esteem, also it just makes me not want to do anything! I thought that maybe tracking my diet would snap me out of binges because I would see what I was consuming written out, and I felt it would also guard against restricting in that I would be able to see the nutrients I was lacking each day, but how can I find the happy medium between binging thus eating whatever I want and restricting my self to the point where I am miserable for reasons on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. Does anyone have experience with anything like this?? If so please share what you did to take back mild control to just be happier and more comfortable with yourself and your relationship with food.

segacs

Welcome to MFP. It sounds like you're trying to take the steps to get to a healthier place, so congratulations for that! I also know that there's a lot of disordered eating in the dance world, so you're certainly not alone.

I can tell you, though, that while MFP is a great resource for logging calories, it's not a great place to tackle some of the ED issues you mentioned. You'll find plenty of supportive people on this community, but for the help you need, I'd strongly urge you to seek out some counselling. The reason is that we're all here to lose weight just like you are, but none of us is equipped or trained to provide the sort of support that you need.

There's a great list of resources here that you might want to check out:

myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1575987-eating-disorder-resources

JossFit

[quote="segacs;31279122"... that while MFP is a great resource for logging calories, it's not a great place to tackle some of the ED issues you mentioned. You'll find plenty of supportive people on this community, but for the help you need, I'd strongly urge you to seek out some counselling.[/quote]

Absolutely agree.

While there are fitness professionals such as myself on these forums, the majority of folks here really have no clue how to even manage their own diets, let alone give advice to someone who is in probably in need of some professional assistance.

reachingforarainbow

I am dealing with binging too. I find that binging partially comes down to still not being able to deal with things in your life in a healthy way.

Also, you said you only restrict or binge. Perhaps you are eating too few calories and then get very hungry and binge because you were so hungry? This is something that frequently happens to me. It is difficult to just decide to move on past binges and not restrict after, but it definitely will help you stop