Avoiding a Binge

I have the same problem. I don't work on Mondays. So I'm home alone with all the food. I try to do stuff for most of the day to keep busy. It's so hard not to binge eat all day!!!

If you are careful about how you track your calories, and make sure you stay under your calorie goal, you can eat small servings of food that you crave, and still lose weight. The key is in portion control, i.e. staying under your calories, not in the actual foods themselves. "healthy" foods provide you with more protein, vitamins, minerals, fibre etc, for the calories in them, which is important, but so long as you're feeding your body all the protein, vitamins etc it needs, there's no reason why you can't include whatever else you like to make up the remainder of your calories.

Also, many people are caught in a cycle of excessive restriction and bingeing, and/or yo-yo dieting where they lose a lot then gain it back then lose it again and gain it back again... excessive restriction actually makes bingeing happen, it's a basic survival response. You can prevent a lot of bingeing simply by eating more, i.e. aiming for slow and steady fat loss rather than trying to lose weight quickly, as this stops that survival response kicking in. Even if the root cause of the bingeing is psychological rather than the direct result of excessive restriction, if you're also fighting your body's basic survival responses due to eating too little, you'll make the battle about 100x harder.

Losing weight does not have to be torturous, nor does it require so much restriction. You need to find a happy medium where you're eating enough that you don't feel hungry or deprived and you have enough calories in your daily goal to enjoy foods that you really crave, in moderation, yet you're still burning more than you eat so you get slow, steady fat loss. This makes it a lot easier to stick to the new lifestyle in the long term, and what most people really want, is to lose the excess fat and keep it away for life.

^ I very much agree with all of this.

I just wanted to emphasise the psychological aspect. For a lot of people, as soon as they start "dieting", they feel restricted, and part of their mind panics and wants to eat everything in sight. From when I first started on MFP, I've incorporated all the foods I like into my diet. I eat chocolate nearly every day, and rarely have a strong craving for those sorts of foods, because I know I can have them whenever I want. I just make sure that they're in appropriate portion sizes, and I am meeting my nutritional needs at the same time. That helps with cravings for certain types of foods. I don't think it helps to start demonising certain foods or food groups. Burgers and chocolate aren't inherently "disgusting" or "bad". They're not evil, and they don't, by themselves, make you fat or unhealthy. It's a common pitfall of dieting to try to polarise foods into categories of "good" or "bad", but that really doesn't help you develop a healthy relationship with food. Learning to eat the foods you like in moderation is invaluable.

By the way, I'm not saying you shouldn't make any changes to your overall diet if you want to, but those changes can happen over time. I turned down a quick and easy meal of a processed turkey steak thing yesterday, not because it's "disgusting" or bad, but because I knew it didn't have a huge amount of protein or other nutrients for the amount of calories it had, and I just wouldn't enjoy it enough to justify a not very well balanced meal. I chose to make the effort to cook some more nutrient-dense foods because it would be easier to meet my macronutrient goals. I then enjoyed some chocolate afterwards. My point is that you can change your eating habits, but trying to convince yourself that foods you enjoy are "disgusting" isn't really the most effective way of doing that.

Even when you can avoid the black & white thinking about types of food, there's still the issue of calorie restriction. As soon as I feel too restricted in calories, I start to get the urge to eat unlimited amounts of food. That was never a problem for me before I started calorie counting (I've always been an emotional eater, but not a binger). I believe it's a direct result of restricting my calories. Even with a small calorie deficit (or no deficit at all, now I'm maintaining) I can feel restricted just by the fact that I can only eat x number of calories. I have to be very careful about planning my meals so that I feel like I'm eating an abundance of food.

The fact is that people feel restricted as soon as they start dieting - whether restricted to certain "healthy" foods, or just restricted by their calorie intake. That is one of the main reasons that people fail to lose weight, or end up yoyoing. Find that balance where you don't feel (too) restricted, and yet you're in a calorie deficit, and you have a much better chance of being successful.

Evenings after 7 once back from work are really really difficult! don't know whether to snack or have an early dinner! Always end up binging!

My initial post was more about how those Pizza and burger commercials and things are just in your face temptation, Im in a very good state of mind to resist, but Im sure everyone can admit at one time or another these just make your mouth water, and sometimes it just feels like you'll never not want them.

Whenever I see the commercials, I just remind myself of what they're really selling. It might look delicious on TV, but what comes out of the drive-through tends to be a little different...

Have someone around to eat the tempting food for you.

I understand completely about commercials triggering cravings. I generally ignore commercials now when watching TV and do other things during commercial breaks to distract me. I still binge now and then, but they are smaller binges now and much less frequent. My binges generally come from stress/anxiety and trying to get rid of negative emotions in an unhealthy way. They also almost always happen when I am home alone. Also, I have read that waiting 20 minutes to act on a craving will make cravings go away. For many of my cravings this is true, but sometimes waiting the 20 minutes can be hard. Keep busy and take it all one day at a time and one meal at a time.

I generally go with distraction techniques! I recently taught myself to crochet which I do while watching tv, which has the side effect that I stopped thinking about food, especially during the adverts! Anything would work, fold laundry, read a book or magazine, check your email... check MFP and remind yourself of all the hard work you've done so far!

I hope this helps!

Lisa x