Binge Eating Disorder

MDAPebbles67

Good Morning,

I am looking for advice and encouragement for getting on and staying on a low carb plan.

I am a 48 yr old female with a BED. The eating has been so out of control for the last year that I have regained 60 of the 80 pounds I lost on a low carb Paleolithic eating program.

In addition to the emotional and addictive eating problems, I am facing hopelessness due to failing yet again to permanently fix my food issues. A year and a half ago I was riding high at 199 lbs and believed that I had found the cure to my life long problem.

Due to my age and being perimenopausal I am also dealing with crazy hormones.

Finally, I have paralysis by analysis. I have too much knowledge and experience in low carb, Paleo, keto etc. that I keep second guessing myself. IE Should I eat keto? Low carb? Moderate carb? Dairy yes or no? Artificial sweeteners? I am driving myself crazy and getting no where.

I am in Overeaters Anonymous and am seeking professional help for the BED.

Does anyone have any input on these issues?

SamandaIndia

Wow. I would not know where to begin. I have a friend who emotionally eats and inhales food at night but what you are talking about sounds like it requires considered multi dimensional help with mind and body issues.

Wishing you patience, self love and healing of whatever, if anything, that you need to self medicate through food. Best wishes.

ClaireBearOz

Good luck. I hope the professional help finds a solution for you. Keep going ... Don't give up on yourself.

blacktie347

OA is very restrictive and they're not experts - I'd stay away from them.

I'd recommend consulting with a nutritionist to find a diet plan that works for you - if that does, then that might also fix the BED, since if you stick to the plan, you won't binge.

Also, for moral support, I'd suggest going to weekly Weight Watchers meetings. Others have had varying experiences, but statistically they're the best commercial diet program out there, in terms of people losing on their plans and keeping it off. Atkins has a higher success rate, short term, but long term people tend to regain the weight moreso on Atkins. Personally, I think the weekly support and weigh ins with others is helpful. That said, perhaps your nutritionist can help you find a plan that works for you that is also compatible with Weight Watchers' Points or other plan(s).

And feel free to ask us for advice. We're a pretty knowledgeable bunch

KarlaYP

I wasn't ever diagnosed with BED, but I'm sure I had it! I could eat till the cows came home, and never find satisfaction! Lchf/keto has changed this for me! I've found satiety, and it's wonderful!!

I also found the way to love myself! Accepting that I deserved every good thing that comes from being healthy! I've lost weight so many times, but didn't get the self love part, and always regained. Was a terrible cycle!

I think you should stick to what worked for you before, and let the rest go! You deserve the good things too! Hugs hun!! You can pm me if you need to! I think I throw out too much psychology sometimes, lol! But there are ways to change your thinking that can help!

baconslave

At it's base, BED is about a reaction to prolonged restriction, physiological triggers, or psychological triggers. Or all 3.

Take it from me, those underlying issues will still be there if they are not addressed.
The best advice:
Pick what seems the least restrictive to you (the most sustainable) then work on identifying your triggers and locking them down.
You may need professional help.
Reading the OA book and doing the steps is good for uncovering your triggers. Then you need to fix them, or devise ways to out smart them. No diet is a magic pill for that I'm afraid. Even if you have a good WOE. You have to heal your relationship with food and unravel disordered thinking patterns. Finding a sponsor in OA who is a recovered binge eater would be great.

I'm having to switch to lazy keto for a bit to lock down some binging issues that have resurfaced. My crutches aren't working any more.

I listened to a podcast this weekend called the Nourished Podcast. Ep41 is where they interview a former BED sufferer.
Not a lot of actionable info, as in do this and that, but worth a listen. I'm looking for others and if I find a good one, I'll drop it here.

To get started, try to be mindful of and write down what thoughts or feelings or situations you are facing just before the binge episode. Or any that have happened during that day that probably piled up and contributed to the binge. No beating yourself up, just observe. It may take a while to suss out everything as sometimes it's subtle. Then troubleshoot. What situations, what foods, what thoughts are egging this on? Fix what you can control. Circumvent what you cannot. Being aware of what is going on (remember NO GUILT just observe and record) is going to get the ball rolling. There IS hope. And you are not alone.

MDAPebbles67

Thanks everyone. I know it is a combination of treatments including a food plan, counseling, group support and self analysis that will help. I just needed to know if anyone else is or had been in my shoes and if keto had helped or not. I have had this problem for 40 years. I should know that if I neglect self care, things can easily get out of control. I didn't mean to make myself seem so messed up. It has been a rough year or two in my life. I am currently in a bad place, but I am hopeful that change is coming.

baconslave

MDAPebbles67 wrote: »

Thanks everyone. I know it is a combination of treatments including a food plan, counseling, group support and self analysis that will help. I just needed to know if anyone else is or had been in my shoes and if keto had helped or not. I have had this problem for 40 years. I should know that if I neglect self care, things can easily get out of control. I didn't mean to make myself seem so messed up. It has been a rough year or two in my life. I am currently in a bad place, but I am hopeful that change is coming.

I don't think you sounded messed up.
This is frustrating stuff!

The diet component is going to be a YMMV for sure.

Keto helped me a lot because I found it uber sustainable. It divorced me from my food trigger (carbs) but I could still eat what I wanted within a large food list. It help quiet part of the beast (carbs) so I could work on emotional eating and figure out how to handle cravings.
But there are 2 kinds of keto. Lazy keto and Tracking/Macro Keto.
My fall-back here is lazy keto. I'm just reverting to lazy keto (counting carbs only) for a bit while I sort my stuff out. It's what I did for the first 3 months to break me from binging carbs like mad. No counting calories, just count carbs and eat until satisfied. It worked fantastically then. So I'm going back to the beginning. Even though that may mean gaining a little weight. I've been logging everything, and I switched to MFP since the 3 month point. Fast forward after tracking for over a year more than that... I've been trying to cut calories while major physical bullcrap (Severe Chronic Dry Eye causing sleep deprivation and stress) and life bullcrap (family drama) has smacked me in the face, and it has set me back to old patterns. And created a new problem or 2. So I'm going to actively work to lock my new triggers down. And hope the physiological and emotional triggers will calm the heck down in the meantime. But if not, I'm going to work on how I respond to them.

moe0303

Keto helped me a lot because I found it uber sustainable. It divorced me from my food trigger (carbs) but I could still eat what I wanted within a large food list.

This. The only thing I would relay that I have learned is that you (me) you kind of have to look at it as two overlapping circles. There is your diet, then there is your behavioral or food triggers. There is a lot of overlap, but you could be compliant with one thing and not the other. For example, I know that as long as I am on the diet, I can eat as much bacon as I want. However, I would consider eating a pound of bacon to be a compulsive behavior for me. So I have to watch myself with the bacon and limit its consumption. If I find that I can't control its intake, I may have to eliminate it (Oh! The horror!). I can't afford to be a slave to the bacon

fileshiny

MDAPebbles67 wrote: »

Good Morning,

I am looking for advice and encouragement for getting on and staying on a low carb plan.

I am a 48 yr old female with a BED. The eating has been so out of control for the last year that I have regained 60 of the 80 pounds I lost on a low carb Paleolithic eating program.

In addition to the emotional and addictive eating problems, I am facing hopelessness due to failing yet again to permanently fix my food issues. A year and a half ago I was riding high at 199 lbs and believed that I had found the cure to my life long problem.

Due to my age and being perimenopausal I am also dealing with crazy hormones.

Finally, I have paralysis by analysis. I have too much knowledge and experience in low carb, Paleo, keto etc. that I keep second guessing myself. IE Should I eat keto? Low carb? Moderate carb? Dairy yes or no? Artificial sweeteners? I am driving myself crazy and getting no where.

I am in Overeaters Anonymous and am seeking professional help for the BED.

Does anyone have any input on these issues?

Hon, I had an eating disorder for 20 years, and kicked it 10 years ago, so please take my comments as being from a caring person who has been there and lived through it. Might I suggest getting off this forum, and others like it? As helpful as the members here are, it is very easy to become obsessed with food and food intake and restrictions here. Your relationship with food is disordered and that will likely be a lifelong struggle (I know it is for me) and so finding a forum that is more helpful for your particular concerns, as well as supportive and knowledgeable people with specific expertise in your disorder, will probably be more helpful.

Your immediate and most pressing concern is your relationship with food and yourself, not the specific WOE that might help you lose weight. What you eat and how much is simply a symptom of what's going on with you -a coping mechanism, of which there could have been many others, but just happens to be this one. To heal, you need to work from the inside out, not the outside in, meaning, once you deal with the reasons you have the disorder to begin with (what you are actually coping with), then you can deal with finding a more appropriate and healthier eating strategy. Forums like these will just emphasize the wrong things, for you at the current time.

GaleHawkins

Karlottap wrote: »

I wasn't ever diagnosed with BED, but I'm sure I had it! I could eat till the cows came home, and never find satisfaction! Lchf/keto has changed this for me! I've found satiety, and it's wonderful!!

I also found the way to love myself! Accepting that I deserved every good thing that comes from being healthy! I've lost weight so many times, but didn't get the self love part, and always regained. Was a terrible cycle!

I think you should stick to what worked for you before, and let the rest go! You deserve the good things too! Hugs hun!! You can pm me if you need to! I think I throw out too much psychology sometimes, lol! But there are ways to change your thinking that can help!

While I am a 65 yo WM this post applies well with my experience. I was a 40 diet failure until I found a macro that killed all my cravings. LCHF makes it very hard to binge unlike when living high carbs.

MDAPebbles67

Thank you all for the help and advice.