I've recently discovered this group. I don't know why I didn't think to look here - perhaps I've been in denial. I've always had a big appetite and for the most part I've been able to keep it under control to lose weight over the past year, but since hitting maintenance I just can't seem to stay within my Cals and binge. Yesterday I made myself 3 lots of half a cup of icing sugar mixed with cream. Plus loads of biscuits and other sweets. By dinner time I felt so sick I couldn't eat dinner. I went to bed in pain. This is not a first occurrence.

Doesn't matter how much or how little I eat each day, when I feel the urge to binge my body just seems to take over.

I am worst about 2 weeks prior to AF, but lately that's slipping out further and lasting longer. Going to look through older posts and hope to check in here regularly. good luck to everyone.

I am going to try and count the days I can remain binge free with you all.

Hello all I'm new to this group Trying Intuitive Eating and finding that Bine eating is my biggest fear.. Today (first day in about a week I lost it and ate without being aware of what I was eating ie I Binged!! I need to release the guilt and get back into working the principles of intuitive eating. This is an absolute must for me.!!!

Hiya, I'm new here.

I have times where I'll be able to go for a week or so and feel fine, then I'll relapse. Summer has been awful for me and I struggle hugely because I don't have any structure in my day or anything at all to keep me busy. It's literally just waiting for time to drag by so I can return to college and get on with my life. I find it generally a lot easier to eat well at college because it's not constantly on my mind as I have other things to be doing.

I've only really developed this awful eating pattern earlier this year and I've gained around 10lbs from it which I want to lose so that I can get my confidence back and prove that I can overcome it.

Feel free to talk to me, I could use any encouragement.

Hi, my name's Brandi. I'm a 24 year old mother of one awesome little dude. I work from home on a computer. I first noticed I had a serious problem with food when I used to work in an office and I would go to the vending machine, buy Hostess cupcakes, then go in the bathroom and hide to eat them. That was roughly 3 years ago. I've always been heavy so I just chalked it up to that. But, it's gotten worse since starting to work from home. I'll go out after having just ate dinner an hour or two ago and eat my son's sugary cereal. That makes me feel really awful. I always say "This is the last day", but it never is. I'm glad this group is here to help. This is my first time really checking out the groups and I'm glad I found this one:flowerforyou:

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?

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?

(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!

Such great information! I can't wait to read more pages!

@ 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.