need encouragement after binge

trdepalo

I just had the worst few days at Uni, things had been getting stressful and bad for weeks and yesterday/today things finally boiled over and I spent the last few days in tears. The next week I have a great deal of work ahead of me with no time to exercise, and today I binged like I haven't in months. I'm worried that instead of at least managing the school and bouncing back from the binge I'm just going to keep excessively eating for the next week until the rough patch is through. what can I do to get through this and recover from my colossal binge?

wildcatmom81

When I have a day where I have one of those i'll just eat what I want and to heck with the consequences kind of "binges" I just look at the big picture. I've been doing good, I don't have many days like that, and I deserve to eat a ton of food if it makes me feel better every once in a while. I just make sure that I don't do it for days at a time. and I get in exercise as soon as I can again. if you "fall of the wagon", hey that's life... but the most important thing is that you get back on! I went from 180 to 118 in a matter of a few months a few years ago... but it was too hard core for me i'm too busy, I have three young kids, and I LOVE food! so I quickly went back up and leveled off at 150 for a couple years, then I started not caring and eating what everyone else was eating and over eating and then I started to pack on more lbs.... as soon as I saw this happening I got back on a weight loss routine i could manage with my life style. I look at it this way, i'm never going to be super model thin, i'm always going to have binges, but at least i'm trying to manage my weight and trying to eat right, and that's better than not trying at all. so don't let one bad day get you down, keep fighting the fight, don't give up, and do whatever you can do, that's better than sitting around not doing nothing at all! hope I helped at least a little bit

a39emm

I feel ya, I too have been super busy with school and work this month, it's finals time and I work full time to pay tuition, too, and today my bf lost a job that was bringing in a significant portion of his income (luckily not his only source and he's extremely resourceful, but he's still devastated) After three days of working and very little sleeping and eating (terrible, I know, but I don't eat when I get stressed, I've been trying to hit my calorie goals but...) I just gave in today. I don't think I went too too far over my calorie limit but I ate A LOT and now I'm sitting here feeling sick and regretful (because of my stomach ache haha). You'll feel better about yourself and your work load and everything else though if you eat a little healthier. At the end of the day even if you have nothing else you can at least say to yourself, "Self, today I made some good decisions!"

If you don't go that route:

Here's how I see it: Life is made up of many days and some of them are going to be great and you're going to be proud of yourself and some of them you're going to mess up and make mistakes and not be so proud of your actions (I'm not just talking binges here, I'm talking anything - saying hurtful things, forgetting an appointment, anything). But you move on and time eventually swallows whatever mistake you are beating yourself up over and it gets forgotten and/or forgiven. The key here is to recognize that, take a deep breath and forgive yourself. We learn and grow every day.

Sorry, I've been thinking a lot about mistakes today haha

On a side note, if I go over my calorie goal I try not to worry too much (as long as it's not very often) because I'm still eating at a deficit so as long as I don't eat over TDEE than I am at maintenance of a deficit (albeit a smaller one) and math don't lie - you won't gain back everything you have lost with just one stress binge.