BE Support Group Conversation Thread - 2012
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No this is not an issue for me.I am just curious if anyone else experiences "memory loss" during a binge....like you don't know what you are doing and afterwords would need wrappers or whatever to piece together what exactly it was you ate?0 -
Just binged again tonight after a "good" day. Ughhh. Also strikes when I'm most vulnerable, late at night, alone and unwatched, unable to sleep. I was just sitting there with the fridge door open looking for something to stuff into my mouth...passed over several veggies. Only the comfort foods do though--quick and tasty stuff. Thank goodness we didn't have much in there to derail me and I ended up having two homemade flour tortillas with provolone cheese and turkey slice on each. Tried to fatten those up and make them tastier by dipping them in mayo, but couldn't. I was frustrated after that because I was still deeply in that "binge zone" mode and was even contemplating driving to a 24 hour fast food drive thru, but at last, my fatigue started to kick in and my reason I gather. I did decide to have two pieces of toast with margarine, milk, a few marshmellows and some left over seasoned white rice before calling it quits. Wowza! Do I sound like a maniac or what?! And I had a really good day, tracked and all! :-( Feel so bad but maybe I needed to have this happen again to start to see how out of control I can get in these wee hours?! And what if there were more junk food available ....I would have most definitely ate it. Maybe limiting what I have in be house does work and I can convince my partner to compromise some more and keep the fridge and cupboard a bit more barren as they were to tonight for my sake?
P.S. Should I track my binge and tack it on to today's or yesterday's diary? Do any of you do that?0 -
Just binged again tonight after a "good" day. Ughhh. Also strikes when I'm most vulnerable, late at night, alone and unwatched, unable to sleep. I was just sitting there with the fridge door open looking for something to stuff into my mouth...passed over several veggies. Only the comfort foods do though--quick and tasty stuff. Thank goodness we didn't have much in there to derail me and I ended up having two homemade flour tortillas with provolone cheese and turkey slice on each. Tried to fatten those up and make them tastier by dipping them in mayo, but couldn't. I was frustrated after that because I was still deeply in that "binge zone" mode and was even contemplating driving to a 24 hour fast food drive thru, but at last, my fatigue started to kick in and my reason I gather. I did decide to have two pieces of toast with margarine, milk, a few marshmellows and some left over seasoned white rice before calling it quits. Wowza! Do I sound like a maniac or what?! And I had a really good day, tracked and all! :-( Feel so bad but maybe I needed to have this happen again to start to see how out of control I can get in these wee hours?! And what if there were more junk food available ....I would have most definitely ate it. Maybe limiting what I have in be house does work and I can convince my partner to compromise some more and keep the fridge and cupboard a bit more barren as they were to tonight for my sake?
P.S. Should I track my binge and tack it on to today's or yesterday's diary? Do any of you do that?
Does your partner know about your BED struggle? Definitely helps when there is no trigger food in the house! I've had urges to binge, and we were out of nutella, didn't have pop tarts....ice cream..any of that -- I can't binge on veggies! LOL. So it helps me. Unfortunately, the people I live with do not keep those out of the house long...we usually have something.
Logging everything helps u stay accountable.
No, I wouldn't log it into todays calories -- clean slate. Fresh start , eat when you're hungry... if it's less than usual, that's fine.
I've overate at night before and when I logged it into breakfast calories, it only made me guilty the next day and made me feel pressured to skip meals/make up for it... more guilt, I slipped and binged later.0 -
After midnight I log for the next day as 1st meal of the day which is breakfast so I will just show an huge breakfast and sometimes I tack it on to snacks since techincally not breakfast. Thank goodness I am in the bed most nights after midnight except weekends and this is my rule for Friday, Sat and Sun.P.S. Should I track my binge and tack it on to today's or yesterday's diary? Do any of you do that?0 -
How Mindful Eating Becomes Mindful Living
November 2012 Newsletter by Michelle May, M.D.
There's a saying: How you do anything is how you do everything. It is not always obvious, but it is often true. I’ve been thinking about that a lot because today is my big 5-0. (We’re having a Virtual Birthday Party later this month! Read on for more information…)
Milestones like graduations, anniversaries, New Year’s, and birthdays that end in a zero give us an opportunity to reflect on our journey so far and anticipate the journey ahead. It may sound strange, but I am truly grateful for my struggle with food and yoyo dieting. Although it was a significant challenge for many years of my life, in return, I received the precious gifts of insight, authenticity, and compassion that I'm now able to use to inspire and help others.
I also realize that my journey to freed om with food has really been a journey to freedom in my life - and I’ve heard that from many of you too. Since "how I do anything might be how I do everything," learning to eat mindfully has taught me (and continues to teach me) how to live mindfully. Below is an example of how to apply mindful eating lessons to your life from each chapter/workshop:
It’s not about being in control, it’s about being in charge. What else, besides food, are you trying to control instead of giving yourself the flexibility to make decisions that are right in that circumstance?
Whenever you feel like eating, pause to ask “Am I hungry?” Rather than reacting on autopilot, pausing between the stimulus and the response gives you response-ability. What other triggers in your life need a pause button to give you time to think about your next action?
Guilt fuels the eat-repent-repeat cycle. Regret leaves the door open for learning. Are you allowing guilt or shame about the past paralyze you and prevent you from moving forward in some area of your life?
Remember TFAR: Your Thoughts lead to your Feelings which lead to your Actions which lead to your Results. Diets don’t work because they are focused on actions, not the root causes (your thoughts and feelings); in fact they even create new thoughts and feelings that drive more overeating! Where else in your life do you try to fix the outside without addressing the inside first? How is that backfiring?
Allow Balance, Variety, and Moderation to guide your food choices. These principles work well for nutrition so how can you apply them to your work, exercise, and other aspects of your life?
Mindful Eating is eating with intention and attention. What else in your life, in addition to eating, would benefit from more intention and attention?
Eating the right amount of food isn’t about being good; it’s about feeling good. How can increased awareness of the effects of your choices (without judgment) help you choose more wisely?
Practicing excellent self-care builds a buffer zone that helps you cope with the inevitable challenges that life brings. Are you investing in yourself consistently?
I hope these lessons have helped you as much as they have helped me. But if you haven’t started this journey yet, it’s never too late!
Six years ago, I had the opportunity to facilitate an Am I Hungry? Mindful Eating Workshop in a retirement community. On the first day, one of the participants, 70 year old Velma, said, “Honey, I’ve been on every diet invented. I don’t see how this one’s going to be any different, but why quit now?” On the last day of our workshop, with tears in her eyes, Velma said, “Why didn’t anyone teach me this stuff forty years ago? It makes me sad to think of all of the time, energy, and money I’ve wasted—but I’m not going to waste one more minute of my life dieting!”
And that is why I always sign my books, articles, and emails with…
Eat Mindfully, Live Vibrantly!
Michelle May, M.D.0 -
(From the book Binge No More by Joyce Nash... found this on a bloggers post.)
In order to change your behavior, you have to change how you think. We often make mistakes with our thought processes. We adopt all-or-nothing mentalities, or rely only on our emotions that are often negative. We overgeneralize the way we eat and/or look. We see doom and gloom in the future, or think we know how others view us. All of this negativity sabotages our efforts not to binge, and we all have these voices in our heads:
The Critic - the judgmental voice that chips away at our self-esteem
The Excuse-Maker - the coping voice that justifies your behaviors (boy, this is a big one for me!)
The Worrier - the voice that predicts disaster, that you'll get fat if you eat that potato chip
The Caretaker - the voice that puts our own needs on the back burner in favor of the needs of others
The Victim - the voice that says it's unfair to be afflicted with these problems (yeah, another one I'm guilty of - I've noted my resentment often, that I can't just eat what and when I want)
The Enforcer - the voice that cracks the whip and demands perfection in our eating and exercising
The Voice of Negativity - the voice that points out all your flaws
The Voice of an Eating Disorder - the voice that tells you "this is who you are and how it is" when it doesn't need to be that way
Coping with disordered eating is an entirely different beast for me. Nash talks about problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping uses problem-solving strategies and other active methods of change that can influence a situation. I suck at problem solving. I'm not an outside-of-the-box thinker at all. In fact, even obvious solutions are often a mystery to me. Emotion-focused coping occurs when there isn't much about a situation that can be influenced, including negative feelings. For the disordered eater, this results in avoidance and escape.
Nash's strategy problem-focused coping is:
Define the problem
Generate a list of alternative activities
Choose a solution and execute it
Nash's chapter on the causes of disordered eating offers a lot of information. From cultural factors (such as the popularity of super-thin models) to biological and psychological influences, it's packed full of discussion that I cannot possibly convey here properly.
Family Influences:
* bulimic and BED - controlling parents, families are conflicted and disorganized, seldom express feelings**
* anorexic - controlling, overprotective parents, rigid, avoid conflict
* mother/daughter relationships - if the mother exhibits disordered eating, the daughter is likely to**
* father/daughter relationships - father's attitude towards food/weight influence daughter's perception of food/weight
Trauma
* abusive/unsafe environments lead to anxiety, low self-esteem, desire to please at any cost
Self Concept (role one plays in family)
* Worthless Self - unsupportive families lead to using food as a way to cope**
* People Pleaser - self-worth is related to how others see them and will do whatever necessary to gain approval, including giving in to pressures related to food and weight**
* High Achiever - pressure to be perfect leads to stress and need to be in total control**
Environmental Influences
* School - peer pressure, adolescent vulnerabilities affect self-esteem
* Peers - teasing and sharing of diet related information make dieting more likely**
Psychological Factors
* Comparing oneself to others****
* Calorie restriction**
* Low self-esteem and stress**
* Desire to escape negative feelings**
Biological Influences
* Hormone changes
* Carbohydrate craving (like Fairburn, Nash thinks there are problems with the theory:)
When carbohydrate cravers consume carbohydrates such as chocolate, they experience improved mood and less fatigue, whereas non-cravers report feeling more depressed and more fatigued after eating carbohydrates.
So what is wrong with the theory that eating carbs increases serotonin levels in the brain? The research did not involve human subjects - though, I would sure sign up to eat chocolate!! Nash also questions whether binge eaters really have low levels of serotonin. I say, do some darn studies!! I know eating chocolate makes me feel good (at least at first) and I still can't wrap my head around the "myth" of carbohydrate craving. I feel like I experience it - how can it be a myth?
Other Influences
* Genetics - possibly, but more studies are needed
* Hunger and Starvation - obsession with food, mood swings, irritability, loss of control lead to binge eating
Chemical Dependency - like Fairburn, Nash doesn't think there's a complete parallel between binge eating and alcoholism/drug addiction
* primarily because no studies show direct biochemical influences of consuming a forbidden food
* "cravings" for foods, like sweets, are more like learned responses - the increased serotonin from consuming sweets "trains" us to want those foods when we're experiencing negative feelings
* the addiction model encourages "all-or-nothing" thinking, which can lead to more binges
Types of Binges
* The hunger binge is triggered by physical deprivation. Restricting food can cause mood swings, obsessive thoughts about food, suppression of hunger (especially when endorphins are released from exercise). Eventually, something is going to give, and it will most likely be your control. The best thing to do? Eat regularly - most of the recommendations I've seen say 3 meals and 2-3 snacks. I try to do it that way, and eat every 3-4 hours.
* The deprivation binge begins with a sense of wanting or needing something but not knowing just what it is that is wanted. This is most often seen when the dieter has forbidden foods. For me, it's the chocolate and other sweets. Sometimes, it's all I think about and I focus more and more on what I can't have. Then I lose it.
* The stress binge, sometimes called "emotional eating," serves to alter moods and can produce dissociation - a state in which emotion is split off from reality - allowing the person to feel less overwhelmed. Eating is a way to escape from whatever we're experiencing. I know there are times when I'm stressed and all I want is to stuff my face. My son's first day of preschool is a good example. I was so upset when I bough that ice cream for him that I really just wanted to eat it all up right there in the grocery line. (Though, I am proud to say that I have not touched that ice cream at all!)
* The opportunity binge occurs because of the combination of boredom and unstructured time. When I have nothing to do, I tend to want to eat, but if I am constructively occupied, I barely think of food!
* The vengeful binge is a way of venting hostility. Oh, this is definitely me! When I get mad, I eat. It's probably the one emotion most likely to trigger a binge for me. Then I get angrier, of course, and binge some more.
* The pleasure binge is triggered by the desire for stimulation and entertainment. Eating as a reward. I'll admit, I do this on occasion. When I was doing Body For Life, I had a "free" day every Sunday as part of the plan, and I could eat whatever I wanted. I quickly learned that I cannot handle a free day because it would be a binge and not just overeating or a small cheat. I found Mondays extremely difficult for getting back on plan.
*The habit binge is the binge that is on automatic pilot. Also called a grazing binge, it involves almost non-stop eating without effort to control of feel guilty about it. I've done this many times. Overeating at a restaurant, I'd have excessive dessert. Then I would buy more junk food on the way home and eat all of it. Then I'd raid my freezer or pantry for whatever else I could get my teeth into.
Stages of a Binge
* Tension Buildup - whatever factors lead up to the binge
* Tension Release - the eating itself, and any behaviors (such as purging) that bring the binge to an end
* Recovery - a low energy phase with symptoms that may include headache, nausea, fatigue
* New Beginning - often just a short period of time when the individual attempts to stop binging and lose weight, and usually leads to another binge cycle
Triggers of a Binge - Nash lists an entire page of triggers, which I won't copy here. The usual suspects are there: stress, anxiety, hunger, obsessions, boredom, low self-esteem.
---I put a couple stars above by each one that has triggered me, and family life plays a role in it. I'm not blaming anyone, it's just interesting to see that list on the BED causes, and me fitting all the stuff. (none of the personality disorders)
Maybe some of this article will give someone insight!0 -
Does your partner know about your BED struggle? Definitely helps when there is no trigger food in the house! I've had urges to binge, and we were out of nutella, didn't have pop tarts....ice cream..any of that -- I can't binge on veggies! LOL. So it helps me. Unfortunately, the people I live with do not keep those out of the house long...we usually have something.
Logging everything helps u stay accountable.
No, I wouldn't log it into todays calories -- clean slate. Fresh start , eat when you're hungry... if it's less than usual, that's fine.
I've overate at night before and when I logged it into breakfast calories, it only made me guilty the next day and made me feel pressured to skip meals/make up for it... more guilt, I slipped and binged later.
I had the same problem with my family, not anymore because I'm getting a divorce, but I cleaned out one cabinet and put my food in that cabinet. I could only eat food out of that one cabinet. I also asked that cookies, brownies, and other snacks not be left in the open on the table or the counter.
At 1st I was ignored, I would then put the trigger food away but after a few binges while I was putting it away I decided a different route. If any of that food was openly displayed I would throw it in the trash.
I guess you not shocked that I'm divorcing. But that's a whole other rant, but at the core was lack of respect and not caring about my needs.
But I was struggling and no one in the house cared. Honestly, they still don't, but they did care the snacks were trashed so the behavior stopped.
It's hard when you don't have the support of your family.0 -
Such great information! I can't wait to read more pages!0
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Hello!
I am new to MFP and this group. I had trouble with binge eating and recently gained 19 pounds of the 120 I had lost.
I am hoping to find ways to cope with Binges here.
Karen:happy:0 -
@ Karen
19 lbs isn't too bad! You can do it.
Quote I found from a website :
"Binging because you went ‘off your diet’ is like killing someone because you accidently injured them. "
Haha, so true.0 -
Hello all:
Here is the conversation link for 2013:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/831903-be-support-group-conversation-thread-20130
This discussion has been closed.