My story...almost 10 years struggling with BED...

I take it one day at a time, but here's my story. I'd love supportive friends who are dealing with similar things. I know that I'm bigger than this, but sometimes it wins.

First, I should say that I have an AMAZING group of MFP FRIENDS. They are always so supportive and I truly LOVE THEM ALL! I want to share some of my story and how I got where I am today:

My first experience with dieting was when I was 16 years old. I was a little heavy (150 lbs- 5’2”) but I was active playing both soccer and field hockey. As part of field hockey conditioning we had to “weigh in”. Most of the girls were at least 30 lbs lighter than me (and also taller than me) so even though that day going to conditioning, I didn’t have an issue with my weight, I left feeling very different. I left thinking WOW, I NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT, so that night at dinner I lied about dinner for the first time. I told my mom that our coach had bought us pizza, so I didn’t want dinner.

These lies would continue for the next month or so…telling friends I couldn’t eat with them, because I had eaten at home and telling my mom and dad that I wouldn’t eat dinner because I had eaten a big lunch or eaten with friends…really though I was eating only 30 saltine crackers/day and 2 cans of v8 juice. The only meal I ate was one piece of pizza…Friday night was pizza night at my house
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At the same time I stopped eating I also started running more. Naturally, from my heavy restricting and heavy exercise, I began losing weight. My parents noticed, but I assured them that it was because I was running more. About 6 weeks after I started “dieting” I had lost 30 lbs. I now was 120 lbs…now I was just like the other girls, but not where I wanted to me. I wanted to be smaller, so I started eating only 15 crackers a day.

Shortly after switching to 15 crackers a day, at an evening practice, I passed out. Turns out I passed out , because of low blood sugar. I never told the truth about what I had been eating, but I did say that I hadn’t been eating much. The next day my mom took me to a nutritionist and therapist. With a strict meal plan coupled with weekly therapy sessions I began putting weight back on. 8 weeks later I was up to 145. I felt fine and I promised myself that I would never do that again. I stopped seeing my therapist and nutritionist. This was Ocober ish…things would stay good for awhile…until Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving had been a great day…I spent the day with my family, ate sensibly (for the holiday anyway), and was turning in for bed…ALL I could think about, however, was the pumpkin pie on the counter. I told myself that I would have just one more slice. I went down stairs…ate one more slice, then one more, the one more…and before I knew it I had eaten an entire pie and and an entire tub of whipped cream. Immediately after, I felt great, but an hour later I hated myself. I knew I had to do something since I had consumed over 4,000 calories in one sitting (well, I was actually standing, but that’s besides the point). I found some laxatives in the cabinet, took a few of those and by the morning, most of the pumpkin pie was gone.

In the morning I told my mom that I had eaten the entire pie, but because of my eating issues just a few months before, no one said anything against it. In fact, it was the opposite, everyone was happy that I had eaten it…truth be told, so was I. After eating the pie and taking the laxatives, I had actually lost a pound…no one loses a pound on Thanksgiving, but I had AND I had eaten an entire pie. NICE! This would begin my binging/purging episodes for the 6 months. Eventually, I wasn’t able to have a BM on my own, because of my overuse of laxatives. Again, I got help…put on a little weight…I was back up to 155 and it was time for college.

In college I continued to binge, but I no longer purged. I only binged about twice of month, but when I did they were bad. Just to give you an idea of my binges…some that I remember:

2 boxes of fruit loops and a gallon of milk

Half gallon of chocolate milk and 8 bananas

a bag of oreos and half gallon of butter pecan ice cream

3 pints of Ben and Jerry’s

12 eggs and one loaf of bread

500 g of almonds

They weren’t all that bad, but they ranged from 1000 calories to 7000 calories. Of course I gained weight…40 lbs to be exact.

After college I weighed 195 lbs, I started the v8 and cracker diet again and started running A LOT. I ran 2 marathons, 4 half marathons, and countless 10ks. I lost 60 lbs and kept it off for 2 years. During this time I still binged, but not as often. I was living with my boyfriend, so it was difficult, but whenever I was alone for more than a couple of hours, I would EAT! Usually I would walk the “binge trash” down to the dumpster or bury it in the trash can, so my boyfriend didn’t see it.

Then, in December 2010 I moved to Korea and the binges began to be more frequent, because I didn’t have anyone to hide from…in October 2011 my boyfriend and I broke up and the binges got worse. I gained 40 lbs. I kept exercising, but with my intense binges, there was no way for me to lose weight, so I joined MFP to keep track of what I was eating…this just made me more obsessed with my calories during the day and unfortunately, made my binges worse at night. I upped my exercise and was able to lose a bit of weight...I've lost 20lbs since June.

Recently, I’ve become more honest with myself and my friends and I’m ready to beat this. I know it isn’t going to be easy, but I’m ready! I had a 4,000 calorie day yesterday, but I started today with a great workout and

I’m starting over today!