Members Please Introduce Yourself here:

IsMollyReallyHungry

Hello & Welcome to BED Group,

Please use this thread to introduce yourself to the group. Please include a history about your struggle(s) with Binge Eating. Also, if your username does not include your name or nick name please share your name with us also if comfortable with sharing it.

We look forward to hearing from you soon! :flowerforyou:

rainydayboys

I'll go! I'm Aimee.

My issues with binge eating go back to high school, a good 15 years ago. I made it through a half-hearted fling with binge/purge as a form of self harm in grade 10. (Before that, I was a cutter. Lovely, huh?)

Struggled through until my early 20s, then I was raped. All my old self-harming tricks jumped back on me and I had a very rough few years. I was dating my now husband and without his support, I'm not sure I would have made it out of that period.
We got married 6 years ago. In the months leading up to our wedding, I was at the gym 5 days a week and on a rather strict diet. I felt fantastic, lost 30 lbs. Loved life. But the stress of the wedding and issues with my hubby-to-be made me doubt myself and the binging/purging started again. But again, I kicked it's butt and made it through.

After our first son was born, my eating went out of control. My hormones were insane and I just wanted to eat. Bags and bags of chocolate. By the time I was pregnant with our second son, I was heavier than I'd been at 9 months pregnant with the first.
After his birth, I went on meds for post-partum depression. And last January I kicked myself into gear and eventually found MFP and lost 27 lbs.

This summer, things all fell to crap again. I've been unmedicated for a year. And was fine through most of the summer but now that the winter months are here and there are added stresses in my life, I eat. I've always been an emotional eater. But now it's just out of control.

I've kicked it before, I can do it again. I just need to do it now before too much damage is done.

IsMollyReallyHungry

I'll go! I'm Aimee.

My issues with binge eating go back to high school, a good 15 years ago. I made it through a half-hearted fling with binge/purge as a form of self harm in grade 10. (Before that, I was a cutter. Lovely, huh?)

Struggled through until my early 20s, then I was raped. All my old self-harming tricks jumped back on me and I had a very rough few years. I was dating my now husband and without his support, I'm not sure I would have made it out of that period.
We got married 6 years ago. In the months leading up to our wedding, I was at the gym 5 days a week and on a rather strict diet. I felt fantastic, lost 30 lbs. Loved life. But the stress of the wedding and issues with my hubby-to-be made me doubt myself and the binging/purging started again. But again, I kicked it's butt and made it through.

After our first son was born, my eating went out of control. My hormones were insane and I just wanted to eat. Bags and bags of chocolate. By the time I was pregnant with our second son, I was heavier than I'd been at 9 months pregnant with the first.
After his birth, I went on meds for post-partum depression. And last January I kicked myself into gear and eventually found MFP and lost 27 lbs.

This summer, things all fell to crap again. I've been unmedicated for a year. And was fine through most of the summer but now that the winter months are here and there are added stresses in my life, I eat. I've always been an emotional eater. But now it's just out of control.

I've kicked it before, I can do it again. I just need to do it now before too much damage is done.

Yes you can do it again Aimee! Thanks for introduction.

Balanced_Life

Thanks to Mollie for inviting me to join this group!

My profile has all of the info about me and my problems with binge eating, so I'll just paste that here:

My name is Mimi. Until 2010, I've had an unhealthy, unbalanced life a lot of the time -- too many long hours at work created a lot of stress which led to periodic binge eating, eating high fat/high sodium take out food a lot of the time, and not exercising at all for long stretches when work was too busy.

On Jan. 5, 2010, I decided that I didn't want to live like that anymore, and set out to live a healthy, balanced life by accomplishing 4 main goals:

1) Exercise for at least 45 min (6.6 mi.) on the Stairmaster every day
2) Eat healthy food at every meal
3) Stop binge eating in response to stress
4) Lose 33 lbs to reach my goal weight of 110 lbs and maintain it

I accomplished the first 2 goals in 2010, and they've become part of my lifestyle. But I failed to accomplish the last 2 goals. I wasn't able to stop the binge eating, and that resulted in my only being able to lose 16 lbs so far, because I lost and regained ~30 lbs during that time because of the binging!

But aside from the weight gain, binge eating has a lot of negative effects on my life, and I really want to get it under control. Binge eating creates more stress because it makes me waste hours of time on late night binges, and that increases the time pressure that I'm under. Staying up late binging cuts down on my sleeping time a lot and I don't sleep well because I've eaten so much. That creates more stress because it compromises my effectiveness at work the next day. The binging also makes me feel sluggish and bloated, and affects my self esteem because I invariably feel disgusted with myself after a binge.

I want to get my binge eating under control so that I can

1) Eliminate all of the negative effects that it has on my life.
2) Finally reach my goal weight of 110 lbs and maintain it instead of losing the same ~40 lbs over and over
3) Wear all of my skinny clothes!

emariec78

Well I know a few folks on here, but most everyone are new faces so here's my story. Oh, and I'm Ellen (I keep forgetting the signatures are gone!)

I've had self-image issues for as long as I can remember, even as a young child I can recall feeling like I was too big or bigger than all my friends and being very self-concious about it. In junior high I started exercising in secret to try and lose weight. Then I started restricting what I ate. I guess that's probably when the binging started. I kept up the restricting and binging pattern all through college. When I started working full time I couldn't keep up the resticting, my energy was too low, and I started putting on weight. I kept getting heavier for a few years and my self-esteem was just completely bottomed out. So then of course the exercising came back in the picture. So that's where I've been for quite some time now, binging and exercising.

I didn't realize I had a problem with binging until just this past summer. I found myself one night standing at my fridge eating food directly off the shelves and I literally ate until I was sick. I knew that wasn't right and started doing some research and that's where I learned about BED and other binge related eating disorders. The more I have thought about it I can remeber binging probably as far back as when I was in my teens, maybe even when I was around 8 or 9. Slowly, I'm realizing and learning about what I'm doing. I'm starting to see patterns and triggers. Some of them I've learned to avoid. Sometimes I have a few good weeks and get overly confident and let the triggers back in and they get the best of me again. I don't have any type of cause for this that I can identify, I haven't worked up the courage to go to counseling although I know I really should. Anxiety and stress are a huge trigger for me and I really tend to overreact to things in my personal life. So basically I'm trying to keep myself from binging and keep myself from exercising too much while I try to manage my stress and anxiety. Its been a struggle for me to admit to myself that I really do have an eating disorder and I often feel like I don't have a big enough problem to be bothering people with asking them for help, but I also know that's probably just part of the common ED trait of being a people pleaser. I still feel terribly self-concious all the time as well and I'm trying to be better about that, but that's one problem I'm just not quite sure how to tackle.

So there it is. Looking forward to getting to know everyone

IsMollyReallyHungry

Thanks to Mollie for inviting me to join this group!

My profile has all of the info about me and my problems with binge eating, so I'll just paste that here:

My name is Mimi. Until 2010, I've had an unhealthy, unbalanced life a lot of the time -- too many long hours at work created a lot of stress which led to periodic binge eating, eating high fat/high sodium take out food a lot of the time, and not exercising at all for long stretches when work was too busy.

On Jan. 5, 2010, I decided that I didn't want to live like that anymore, and set out to live a healthy, balanced life by accomplishing 4 main goals:

1) Exercise for at least 45 min (6.6 mi.) on the Stairmaster every day
2) Eat healthy food at every meal
3) Stop binge eating in response to stress
4) Lose 33 lbs to reach my goal weight of 110 lbs and maintain it

I accomplished the first 2 goals in 2010, and they've become part of my lifestyle. But I failed to accomplish the last 2 goals. I wasn't able to stop the binge eating, and that resulted in my only being able to lose 16 lbs so far, because I lost and regained ~30 lbs during that time because of the binging!

But aside from the weight gain, binge eating has a lot of negative effects on my life, and I really want to get it under control. Binge eating creates more stress because it makes me waste hours of time on late night binges, and that increases the time pressure that I'm under. Staying up late binging cuts down on my sleeping time a lot and I don't sleep well because I've eaten so much. That creates more stress because it compromises my effectiveness at work the next day. The binging also makes me feel sluggish and bloated, and affects my self esteem because I invariably feel disgusted with myself after a binge.

I want to get my binge eating under control so that I can

1) Eliminate all of the negative effects that it has on my life.
2) Finally reach my goal weight of 110 lbs and maintain it instead of losing the same ~40 lbs over and over
3) Wear all of my skinny clothes!

Thanks for sharing! Now I understand you user name more. I guess I either forgot of never read your profile because I meet you on the BED thread. 2 out of 4 aint bad at all, so take another year to reach the other 2 goals.

You can do it!! We all can learn to manage our lives without binging. Is this going to be easy? No. Are we going to slip up at times? Yes because we are not perfect. Keep up the good work!

Balanced_Life

Thanks to Mollie for inviting me to join this group!

My profile has all of the info about me and my problems with binge eating, so I'll just paste that here:

My name is Mimi. Until 2010, I've had an unhealthy, unbalanced life a lot of the time -- too many long hours at work created a lot of stress which led to periodic binge eating, eating high fat/high sodium take out food a lot of the time, and not exercising at all for long stretches when work was too busy.

On Jan. 5, 2010, I decided that I didn't want to live like that anymore, and set out to live a healthy, balanced life by accomplishing 4 main goals:

1) Exercise for at least 45 min (6.6 mi.) on the Stairmaster every day
2) Eat healthy food at every meal
3) Stop binge eating in response to stress
4) Lose 33 lbs to reach my goal weight of 110 lbs and maintain it

I accomplished the first 2 goals in 2010, and they've become part of my lifestyle. But I failed to accomplish the last 2 goals. I wasn't able to stop the binge eating, and that resulted in my only being able to lose 16 lbs so far, because I lost and regained ~30 lbs during that time because of the binging!

But aside from the weight gain, binge eating has a lot of negative effects on my life, and I really want to get it under control. Binge eating creates more stress because it makes me waste hours of time on late night binges, and that increases the time pressure that I'm under. Staying up late binging cuts down on my sleeping time a lot and I don't sleep well because I've eaten so much. That creates more stress because it compromises my effectiveness at work the next day. The binging also makes me feel sluggish and bloated, and affects my self esteem because I invariably feel disgusted with myself after a binge.

I want to get my binge eating under control so that I can

1) Eliminate all of the negative effects that it has on my life.
2) Finally reach my goal weight of 110 lbs and maintain it instead of losing the same ~40 lbs over and over
3) Wear all of my skinny clothes!

Thanks for sharing! Now I understand you user name more. I guess I either forgot of never read your profile because I meet you on the BED thread. 2 out of 4 aint bad at all, so take another year to reach the other 2 goals.

You can do it!! We all can learn to manage our lives without binging. Is this going to be easy? No. Are we going to slip up at times? Yes because we are not perfect. Keep up the good work!

@ Mollie - thanks for the encouragement! Everything you mentioned is very true, and getting the binging under control is a tough goal. But the key thing is -- as you so often remind us -- to keep at it and not give up! Let's help each other achieve that goal!

fairfieldbeach

Thanks for posting this thread, Mollie. I don't even know how to do that although I did figure out how to start the group--but that's about it as far as my technical skills go!

I'm Dana, a 47-year old mother of two teenagers (boy, nearly 16; girl 13 and a half), married for 17+ years. I work from home, which is great. I've been struggling with bulimia/overeating since I was 12. Now it's usually the bingeing not the purging that's a problem. I'm at my highest weight ever now.

I tried medication to help with the eating/obsessive food thoughts, but it stopped working for me after about 6 months (this phenomenon is known as "Prozac poop-out," apparently). I have also tried counseling but it never really helped, so I'm hoping to get support here from like-minded people.

I'm now at my heaviest (nonpregnant) weight ever--even my sweats feel tight!

Exercising is not the issue for me--I can make myself do that--food is.

And, like Ellen, I am a people pleaser. Take care of everybody else first and get to myself last (if ever).

Last, my username means nothing--it was just the first thing I thought of! (Guess I had just seen a container of bath salts or something).

SanFranRunner

Hi everyone. Thank you for letting me be a part of this group! Here is my story.

Like many of you, I have struggled with self esteem and body image issues for as long as I can remember. Finally, in high school, I decided to do something about it and began eating less. Things spiraled out of control and I became anorexic. After a few years of twice weekly doctor, nutritionist and therapy appointments, I was able to regain weight and thus was no longer anorexic.

But the disordered eating continued. I was so upset with my new size (which was still at the lowest end of the healthy BMI range for my height at the time) that I began binge eating secretly. And I have continued this behavior ever since, throughout college and now law school. My binges are usually once a week, and they are always massive. I generally compensate by restricting during the week and overexercising the day after the binge.

Because of this compensatory behavior, my weight has remained fairly stable (within about a six pound range) since my sophomore year of college (when I gained the dreaded freshman 15 from binge eating and drinking). However, in the past couple of months I have been binging excessively and gained nearly seven pounds, putting me at my highest weight since my sophomore year of college.

While I am upset about this weight gain, I am even more upset that, all these years later, I still can't get over this awful behavior. Binge eating is terrible. It is painful (physically and emotionally), embarrassing, and most of all, isolating. When I binge, I forgo plans with friends and hide myself at home because I am too bloated and sick to move. My friends and family don't know about my behavior; my boyfriend (who I live with) doesn't even know because I hide it so well.

I am hoping to find support here to overcome this problem. I have so much compassion for each one of you because I know how awful binge eating feels. I hope that this forum will continue to serve as a safe place to discuss our struggles so that we can beat this once and for all

cschmidt42

Good Morning everyone, I am very thankful for this group and the support I have here!

My name is Crystal, I am 46 years old, I was married for 26 years and have been divorced for 2 years, I have two daughters 25 and 21 and I currently live with my boyfriend and I have always had issues with food. I was raised a preacher's daughter, in the public eye and made feel like I had to be perfect, I am a people pleaser and always put my needs last. That seems to be the pattern here. I love my parents and know they did the best they could. But we are a product of our raising, and I am really trying to overcome the all or nothing patterns, If I cannot do it perfect I say to heck with it and just totally blow it for the day.
I am really stressing over Thanksgiving because I don't even like to go home for the holidays. It brings back to many memories. My father passed away a year a go and my mother re-married immediately. These past two years have been horrible, I have went through a divorce, the passing of my father, and my oldest daughter does not speak to me. I have put on 15lbs and I must get this under control. I just don't know how to deal with everything I have going on. I am dealing the way I have always dealt with things-WITH FOOD!!

I want to thank Dana for starting this group and with the support of everyone we can deal with BED one day at a time! I know I will always have issues with food, I believe it is like being a alcoholic, there are things I must stay away from, I have my trigger foods. When I abstain from them, I don't binge eat, but when I get in that dark place I just give in! I would love the advice from anyone on how they deal when they get to that dark place.
We have each other, let's support each other , I have had a horrible few weeks and I must get back the control I have lost!!

Love,
Crystal

SparksFly460

Hello everyone,

Some of you already know me...to others here is some BG on me :-)

I'm 23 years old and have been having a personal food fight for eight years now. I started off with disordered eating...mild restricting, indulging...just a bad relationship with food. It quickly turned into purging anorexia. I lost about 30 pounds and my parents admitted me to an ED clinic. I literally got kicked out for refusal of treatment...and my battle continued. I began purely restricting my intake and overexercising. Bringing myself down to under 100 lbs.

Im not sure what made me snap...but I did. I began bingeing. I ate my way up to 168 lbs within 3-4 months. Along the way, I abused the daylight out of laxatives. My family life was chaotic, and so was my personal life. I went back to restricting but it turned into a binge-restrict-binge-restrict cycle. I lost 20 lbs that way.....I got into a serious relationship in my first year of college and the bingeing eased off a bit...just a bit and I lost another 10 lbs. I looked healthy, I felt healthy but I continued to use food to cope.

I was going on 20 when my mother left my stepdad. I began bingeing again...by early 2010 I was up to 158lbs. I ended my 3 year relationship and starved my way down to 115lbs. Then the weighed packed back on through bingeing. I am now within 10 lbs of my most comfortable weight.

I am here breaking the cycle. I still have bad binge days but I am more in control than I have been in years. I have a new man in my life for almost 2 years now and he's been an amazing support.

SanFranRunner

Welcome, Sparks! I can relate to binging after recovering from anorexia. It is so hard going from strictly controlled eating to feeling out of control! I'm glad to hear that you're doing better these days

metco89

Hello everyone! My name is Mary Beth and I am an addict. I have struggled with my weight and weightloss issues for a very long time. I do ok for a period of time and then i fall off the wagon. I have a real problem with binge eating in the evenings. I will sit and watch tv and just eat. To the point where i am sick from it and then i go directly to bed thinking i can sleep it off, ha in reality i am sleeping it on. I first joined MFP, in April of 2010, i had some success at that time losing 48 lbs. I fell off the wagon and this time i let it run over me. I have gained back at least 9 lbs i know of and probably more. i have not gotten on a scale since seeing the 9 lbs were back. However i continued to gorge every night for about 3 weeks to a month. A few days ago i woke up and just felt terrible, physically, which let to mentally feeling yucky. Very sluggish and no energy, so i decided to log back on to MFP. So far i have done ok the last 3 days. Going to bed early so i won't binge eat and sleeping in the afternoon so i won't eat. None of this is healthy. so i have made a commitment to get up every morning and do the 1 mile walk with Leslie Sansone, that way if i don't exercise any more that day at least i have done something. I am slowly increasing the exercise but i am really lacking motivation. I know if i just log on MFP every morning, i will get back to fully enjoying healthy eating and exercise again. I have to be very aware of the evenings and the binges, they are killing me. I am so grateful this group was formed, Thanks Mollie!!! You have been such a support to me since i first logged on and continue to be today. Looking forward to sharing this journey of success with you all. Thanks for having me!!!!

IsMollyReallyHungry

Welcome Mary Beth!! Keep coming back. Pleaes use the conversation thread to let us know how it is going. See below link.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/509705-march-april-bed-conversation-thread

Corryn78

Hello all, I found this group while looking for some support with my over eating. I eat healthy and understand proper nutrition. Cook, fruits, vegetables...the whole deal. My problem is the absolute lack of control. My mind goes blank and I eat until either the food is gone, or I actually realize what I"ve done and can be strong enough to put the food away, instead of saying "oh well, might as well finish it".

I find that calorie counting almost makes my food issues worse. I track all day, do great...then all I can think about on the car ride home is stuffing my face.

Like someone else mentioned, I did start Prozac a while back and noticed a pretty significant increase in my ability to control these crazy feelings of needing to eat. However that did go away. I'm wondering if raising the dose would be helpful?

I just really need support of people who understand this crazy eating. It isn't about changing the type and quality of foods, I know how to eat properly. Eating right all day, then downing a box of triscuits and half a bag of cadbury chocolates last night was kind of counter productive to my calorie counting

Corryn

surfswellrider

hi! im shawn. i go by shawn or nikki.

ive had binge problems for several years. epsecially when i started high school. around my softmore year i was bingeing and sometimes purging regularly. and after a bad relationship stopped eating. i have being dealing with ednos on and off for a few years. and for the past few months ive been bingeing out of control drastically gaining and looseing weight. id lose 40, gain 50. lose 25, gain 10. that sort of deal.

now i just want to lose weight and maintain it and finally get some normal eating habits. no more bingeing. no more starvation!

jade_85

hey all
reading through these introductions makes me realise im definately not alone
im jade im 26 ive always been overweight and my binge eating has gone on for years since i can remember. i have no idea what triggers mine, definately an emotional eater. i eat in secret and i hate eating in front of people i just feel like everyones staring and talking about me. i do excersise i just love food and its awful i go to the shops and ill buy multipacks , big pots of pringles etc and just stuff the lot.
i would love to get down to 135lbs but until i kick this habbit its never going to happen lol
i look forward very much to chatting with u all
jade xx

angelintx

Hello! I am new to this thread but have been on my (latest) weight loss journey since September 2010 when I had sleeve surgery. I am maintaining about 75 lbs. lost, but I struggle with binge eating and need the support of others to stay on track. I'm a full-time (and then some) working married mom of 5 boys and several health issues that make losing weight extra challenging, but I'm not giving up.

I'm looking forward to learning more about you all and working through our challenges together.

~Angel~

Smokey19

Hi, my name is Kimberlee, 48. I have struggled with being overweight and binge eating all my life. I've suffered from depression since I was 11 yrs. old and that's when all my problems started. I have been getting professional help for my depression for 3 yrs. now and am on medication that causes weight gain and makes me think of food all the time. I started my weight loss journey 6 mos. ago and have lost 84 lbs. so far, but have another 70 lbs. to lose.

I have a supportive husband and family and that helps. My parents help pay for my groceries because I am on disability and my husband is on social security and that doesn't leave us much money left after the bills are paid. My brother has lost 120 lbs. so far and that helps motivate me into losing the weight, although he has a lot more weight to lose than I do.

WaterLil33

Hi! My name's Anna and I've been struggling with BED for about a year now. It all started when I went on a diet then to recover, started eating ALOT! Now I'm stuck with frequent binges. I'm glad to finally find a group. Good luck!

Fairy_Farts

Hi, I'm Hollie. I'm not really ready to share my struggles. I know I will eventually, but it freaks me out right now. If this is against the rules. Please let me know and I will withdraw from the group.

I was hoping that I would have the nerve to read what others have said on here and get the courage to speak up. :ohwell: