Binging / Binge Triggers

personally i find that staying away from the trigger foods doesn't work. i've battled with this since i was 12. i may have stumbled upon something that works for me. i have a tendency to binge on sweets. i found a great brand of sugar free cookies. i have been having a serving of them every single day. just one. its like 120-150 calories per serving. and some of them actually have fiber and protein. this has curbed my sweet bingeing over the last few weeks. don't make it so forbidden. its why i don't do radical diets. make things forbidden and you are bound to crave them.

I know this feeling all too well! But the good news is that it is possible to over come it! I am a sucker for Mexican food and candy! I have a huge sugar addiction! I have found a solution and so far so good! Ever since I got serious about my weight loss and getting healthy for me and no one else, many things have changed in my house. My husband is even doing this with me. I used to insist I have candy in my house at all times...if I could not have candy I would make sure there were fruit snacks or Kool Aid or real sugary cereals or some kind of pastry or cheesecake. But now things are different for me because I told myself if I really want to change my life around I have got to sacrifice some things and practice stern self discipline and learn to have control! So now we see it this way: If it is not in the house then we can not eat it. There is no longer a way to access it. We do not totally deprive ourselves though. We allow ourselves to just pick 1 small item when we go grocery shopping which is only once a month because we are on a fixed income in our house, but we pick something small that we can enjoy and when we eat it we make sure we allow ourselves only what ever the nutrition label says is equal to one serving and we put it away and we stay out of the kitchen after 8 pm. We try to stay out of the kitchen except when it is time to have breakfast lunch and dinner and when we need to refill our water bottle but even then sometimes we go into the bathroom to get the water so we don't get tempted. I used to binge on Taco Bell late at night once a month. I would order about 7 things or so and be able to smash them all! Then I would feel guilty afterwards and be like what the hell did I just do? But now we don't even eat fast food and we do not even go into the parking lots of a fast food place! We learned to eat at home and we use MFP to help us track everything we eat and we stay under our calorie allowance. We also make ourselves exercise harder the same day and the next day if we allow ourselves anything sweet or fattening. We do not drink Kool Aid anymore. We only drink water with crystal light drops to give flavor or the Disani brand. When it comes to candy, I buy sugar free candy now. We do not by snack cakes either or sugary cereal. We cut sugar every which way we can in our house. We do not eat mashed potatoes anymore or white potatoes and no white bread, no white flour, and no white rice or pasta. Everything is going good the way we are doing it and it seems to be working great! We both have lost a good amount of weight. We still have ways to go but we have made some good progress! I have lost 32 lbs since Thanksgiving and my husband has lost 26 lbs since January! If you really want to make a change try applying some of these tips people on here are giving you and really really fight it! Seek counseling and a nutritionist if need be and make sure you tell your family and friends you need their support in this battle as well! Add people on here as friends so you have a support system of some kind on here who can relate to what you are going through. Do not allow junk food to have power over your right to have a healthy life! You deserve to be happy, healthy and successful! You only have this one life to live! Make the most of it! :flowerforyou:

What a great reply! I too struggle with this except mine is associated with my Pmdd, I don't do it any other time of the month. But I can't and wont let that be a reason or an excuse to keep doing it. I know how hard it is, you go into a zone and you don't come out until you are ready to explode cause you have eaten so much. And always followed by self loathing and embarrassment.

I love this site and I love you guys for posting and sharing because it can be the thing that helps you change.

Good luck mate, I'm with you!

I really used to struggle with binging/emotional eating. im not going to lie i tried and failed several several several times but finally i did break the habit and have overcome it..im not going to lie i do still have an off day here and there but NOTHING like it used to be. so i am going to tell you you can stop binging but do not give up on yourself! it is hard and and frustrating but you can do it. a binge went like this for me: usually when i would binge it would be because i would not eat every 2-3 hours like i know i should which would result in me STARVING when i got home from school or work... a binge would then start out with just a little something like a bowl of cereal which turned into two bowls of cereal then pretzels in peanut butter, peanut butter with ice cream and chocolate syrup, just chocolate syrup and peanut butter, and maybe some chips....my mind would be blank i wasnt thinking about wha ti was doing or cared all i wanted was to eat..(this sounds so awful and embarasssing now but i am sharing this with you so i can help you and see how bad i was and how far i have come and that it is possible!) i felt so sick after and would want to just lay in my bed and wait till i felt better... the worst was having to be social or go to work after a binge...anyways to finally stop binging i read some books that really helped a lot, and also just seeked support on here. and i finaly decided i couldnt keep hurting my body like i was, i lost and gained the same 5 pounds numerous times which is so unhealthy and just makes it harder to lose weight. my main advice is to: 1. identify your triggers and try and cut them out for a couple months and slowly add them back in when you become strong enough to have them in normal portion sizes... 2. track your binges and try and see how long you can go without one 3. find other ways to handle your emotions (for me this really helped, i found painting, running, hanging out with friends really distracted me from binging and a lot of times after i have a meal illl want more or a dessert the first thing i do so i dont do this is either go to the gym, get out of the kitchen or go hang out with friends) and 4. have patience with yourself i promise promise promise you you can overcome with this!!!!! and if you really do think you need therapy do not be afraid to see a counselor i wish i wouldve i think i would have overcome it a lot sooner! but anyways good luck! you can do this!

Thanks for all the help everybody, I've read through all your replies are they've really been helpful to me!

I've slept and do feel bad for myself about this problem but I've also received a lot of messages that I cannot be more thankful for with all sorts of advice and tips to help myself.

I'm going to change the way I act starting from today, I realised that my diet has been pretty restrictive so I am going to alter the ways and also what I eat so I can hopefully overcome this problem. I know it's not going to be easy and will take time but as I've told yield already, if I've come this far with my weight loss I can also beat my binging if I give it my all!

From the advice given to me from many of you I've started with some simple basics, one of them being finding out when I have an urge or trigger and this is usually around 6:30/7pm so I've just set a simple reminder on my phone to tell me not to binge and instead read a book or go on a walk, I know it's not much but it's a start.
I've also placed all the foods I binge on in my cupboard on the top shelf where I have to stand on a chair to reach them, I hope this will help stop me as it is tricky for me to get to the foods so it should slow me down at least.
And finally I'm going to allow myself each few days to have something sweet or treat like but only something small, I think my main problem is that because I restrict the foods I eat when I have one thing I tell myself I shouldn't have I go crazy and have everything I want, I think if I slowly introduce them every 3 or 4 days in smaller portions into my diet it will become easier to cope in the long run.

I do however have my 21st birthday coming up this weekend so I know this is going to be a tough one, thankfully we will be having a giant cookie instead of a birthday cake and cookies are on what I call my 'safe list' as I can easily have one or two and not start binging, something about them just doesn't make me crave more and more. So as long as I'm not given lots of sweets and chocolate I should be fine especially since I've told friends and family that I only want money as I'm going travelling in May so I need all the money I can get so buying me food would be a bit of a waste in my opinion. So to be honest it should be an ok day, and since it will be happy my binging shouldn't happen as its when I'm upset I get triggered.

Sorry for the essay, but thanks again everybody, I really appreciate all the advice and help I've been given and am definitely going to start changing the ways I act towards these foods and my binges!

That is great! Keep at it! Everyday you can make a positive change as long as there is breath in your body! Please keep us posted as to how you are doing! I just know you can be a success story! God Bless!