I need help. 4000 calorie binge :'(

cc918

I ate over 4000 calories today. I am in disbelief right now. I ate until I felt sick. My head feels as though it's spinning from the amount of sugar I just consumed. I feel like I'm about to fall into a coma. I don't know what's wrong with me. I need to get help I've been binging pretty badly over the past week and sometimes I feel like I am completely out of control. The worst part about today's binge was that I just didn't even care or feel guilty, and this is what scares me the most. I don't want to continue this pattern. I'm in medical school and I have exams coming up this week.. I should be studying but all I can think about is food and what and when I'm going to eat next. I hate that my mind is so obsessed with.. I feel like it is taking over my life and I hate that I can't have a normal relationship with food like everyone else! Here is my food diary http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/cc918

My relationship with food has never been healthy... I'm 24 years old right now and weight 105 lbs (normal weight for me). When I was 17 I restricted my diet so much that I went down to 75 lbs and came close to being diagnosed with anorexia. I overcame it and came back to being 105 lbs. During my freshman year of college, I gained weight due to a change in diet and lifestyle..at this time I would binge eat and purge from time to time. I went up to 130 lbs. After that, I lost the weight again and maintained my weight between 100-110 lbs for the next few years and stayed healthy and active. Lately I've been stressed with exams, and have began binge eating to cope with the stress. In all these years though, I've never felt so out of control as I did tonight. I'm scared this will spiral out of control and I need help.

Any advice on how to stop? I would appreciate some help.

queenliz99

You need help with your eating disorder.


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

ManiacalLaugh

Absolutely, you need to seek help. Binge Eating Disorder (BED) can have several underlying emotional triggers and causes, which you may need professional help to work through. Until you can, however, and because you feel "out of control," you can begin making smart choices outside of the binge that will help you when you start spiraling.

For example: Stop buying Nutella. Seriously - throw the rest of it away in a garbage bin outside of the house.

While I don't believe there's any food that's "evil" inherently, and Nutella can be a good treat in the right portions, it seems to be a trigger food for you (and it has a truckload of cals per small serving). Personally, for me when I was binging, I'd have certain foods that would whet the appetite, so to speak. I learned how to avoid them while I was still dealing with my binging behavior. Even now that I've worked through some of that behavior, I still only indulge on a rare occasion. (One of my big ones was Onion Dip, believe it or not. Even though I have a sweet tooth to be reckoned with, I could easily end up eating half a bag of potato chips and 1,000 cals in dip whenever it was served.) I would recommend against trying to "substitute" in this situation, too - because it's just as easy to binge on other sugary things you're using as a supplement for the Nutella, even if you get to eat more of them. Binging can be done with any food, really, so allowing yourself to stuff your mouth with another food isn't treating the binge, it's just binging with something you can eat more of. The behavior ends up staying the same and you never heal from/deal with your BED.

Continue to log everything. Being honest with yourself by recording that binge was a great step. Continuing to do that will help you track these episodes, and maybe help you determine what it was (stress, boredom, etc) that triggered your desire to overdo the sweets.

Hope that little bit helps. If it makes you feel better, there are a ton of people with BED here - and we all know how difficult it can be and how completely out of control you feel in the midst of it. Just don't give into it.

dubird

If you have trigger foods in your house, throw them out. Don't eat them to get rid of them, throw them out completely. Then, I would suggest talking to your doctor and seeing if they can point you to an eating disorder group in your area that will be helpful.

becknomad

Check out the counseling center at your school , there is no shame in taking care of yourself. Bingeing happens to fill a void. Counseling will help you better understand where that void is coming from and figure out a way to fill it.

healthygreek

I also believe you need to seek help from an eating disorders specialist, but, why are you eating at a deficit when you're at a good weight? How tall are you?
You seem to be restricting since your calorie goal is only 1200.
For me, eating too little is a one way ticket on the binge train!
Plan a day of eating a variety of different wholesome foods to nourish yourself with a treat thrown in at least once a day.
But, yes, call a specialist for help.

Dan_Runs_In_Sandals

Seek out podcasts like "Progress, Not Perfection" that have interviews with other people going through the same struggles. Seeing how they've overcome their struggles may help you with yours. Also, concentrate on learning as much as you can about one trigger food at a time. As soon as I learned more about most pork products and how they're produced (as well as the health effects), they've ceased to be a problem for me because I want to avoid them. Once you've tamed one trigger food or situation, go on to the next, but just remember that regression may happen and just get up again and try to find the next step forward rather than concentrate on the entire journey.