Advice - Changing a guilty relationship with food

HeatherGTaylor

I've been on MFP for what feels like forever. This is my 4 or 8th time back and I've finally been looking at my behavior with food to understand why I've yo-yo'd with my weight my whole life. I'm the largest I've ever been and I'm realizing that I have a horrible relationship with food. I binge eat after being so good all day and then feel horrible guilt. I know some triggers that start the binge that I can avoid but what I have no clue is how to get over the guilt if I slip up. Or even the guilt of how I've eaten the last 30 years of my life.

Any advice would be appreciated.

MarKayDee

For as long as I can remember I've told people "I love food but hate eating" sounds like you're the same way. I love to cook, and I really love good, but I go all day without eating and then feel guilty after I do. It's been really rough trying to keep from falling back into that pattern, but I've found that just making myself snack and nibble throughout the day has really cut back on my late night binging, and my guilty all day starving.
Try keeping some granola bars, crunchy cut up veggies, nuts or fruits around. If you leave the house in addition to your lunch bring an orange or apple and some crackers. The more satisfied you are throughout the day the less you'll crave a ton at night, theoretically.

Also remember that giving in to your cravings once in a while is not the end of the world, just make sure at the end of the night you eat a good portion of veggies and maybe a large salad, something without a lot if carbs, but that is filling, BEFORE you let yourself get seconds of anything.

jcorpern

Today is day one! You have no past history to be ashamed of. What's in the past, we can't control. What we can control is what choices we make right now. I know this sounds totally flippant, but if you continue to focus on the past, there's no way you can see yourself changing in the future. Put everything behind you and call today "day 1". Today you can control what you do.... and tomorrow you can control it again.... and as you lose weight you will like yourself for having made those choices. Once you get to your goal weight, what does your past matter? You'll be where you wanted to be and you'll be the one who made it happen!

Good luck, and feel free to friend me or message me if you need any encouragement along the way!

SunofaBeach14

Forget the "good food vs. bad food" line of crap that we've all been sold for so many years, and learn to focus on your calories and macros while eating a reasonably balanced diet but allowing yourself some of the treats you crave. If you presently have real "trigger" foods then stay away from them for a while and try to reintroduce them later.

But, by all means, STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP. Guilt solves nothing. You have to believe that you are worth changing.

_db_

Guilt is not a productive emotion; no amount of guilt can change what is in the past. Instead, you should simply acknowledge mistakes made and learn from them so you can increase your chance of not making the same type of mistake in future.

With respect to binging, I've noticed that I'm most likely to binge after I've had a few drinks and I'm lacking some nutrients...particularly carbs. The drinks take away my will power to resist the "feed me" messages my body is sending. To succeed at a calorie deficit diet, one basically has to ignore the perfectly normal and natural "feed me" messages the body is sending. If the message is too strong and my will is weak, I stuff 1000 calories of sugar and fat in my face (true story: see my diary from last night!).

To solve my binging problem, I'm going to very mindful of my tendency to binge after a few drinks. Maybe increasing my carb intake on days when I'm likely to have more than a couple beers, or maybe I just have to stop at a couple if I haven't had enough carbs on that day. It's all a grand experiment, I'll figure it soon enough.

I'll quit rambling about my issues now...but really, I guess what I meant to convey is that you're going to have to figure out what causes you binge and take steps to control your situation. Feeling guilty won't help you figure anything out and it certainly won't help you take control of anything. When you slip up and binge, see the positive: you have another data point in your experiment.

SharonNehring

I too fall into the habit of eating well all day then wanting to snack on everything at night. One thing I've noticed after diligently logging my food for a month is the days where I don't eat very many cals during the day are the days I find myself eating and eating later. And if I don't have a good amount of protein at lunch, that too sets me up for issues in the evening. Now that I've figured this out about myself I can take steps to fix it.

Since the first step to changing is to figure out the true problem, my best advise is to log everything and see if you can discover trends that seem to lead you into overeating in the evening. Guilt isn't going to help you. You can't change yesterday. You can only commit to changing the future.