Hi everyone.
I am in pain as I write this: both physical and mental pain. The physical pain is caused by intestinal cramps and abdominal bloating. It's hard for me to find the right position in which to sit or lay down. The mental pain is a sense of disbelief, sadness, anger, and all directed towards me. The cause is binge eating.
I've been suffering from the disorder for almost three years now. I'd been quite chubby as a child. I was classed as slightly overweight (BMI was too high), but this was me eating "naturally". Looking back, I never ate much junk food or very large amounts. It was more that I ate slightly too much over years and years and was never active as a child. I loved reading: sometimes during summer break I could read for up to ten hours a day. Nothing against reading, but my physical fitness was about zero.
I lost weight in my early twenties: I randomly stopped eating all sweets for a month. I think I lost about 9 lbs. I was amazed: people told me I looked great, and after starting taking vitamin and mineral supplements, I was feeling better than ever. I tweaked my diet, started working out several times a week, and before I knew it, I had lost 23 lbs in a year.

I can still remember the first day I ever binged and how sure I was that it would be a one day thing. It wasn't, and I soon found myself binging every once in a while. In the beginning I would compensate by not eating the next day, sometimes even for two days. I always believed that the pain of fasting was enough not to ever binge again. After a while though, I'd often follow the fasting with another, even worse binge than the first one. I tried overexercising as well, but then my knees started hurting. A few months ago I decided to stop all forms of restriction, as many said that that was fueling my binge. It didn't help me, instead I ate and ate and ate and gained a ton of weight: about 20 pounds in a few months.

I was doing better for a while, but the last weeks I've been binging at least once a week. What's happening is that my weekly dieting and exercise are now simply to undo some of the effects of the binging. My weight loss has stalled, and I might be gaining: it's not so clear when you gain up to five pounds overnight every Saturday morning.
I feel more than ever like I'm losing. I was supposed to meet friends yesterday to go clothes shopping. The night before I'd had a horrible binge, and my stomach was so bloated that I felt embarrassed to go. I made an excuse and slept instead. There have been many times when binging has affected my work, my studying and worst of all, my relationships with the people I love most. Binging is now controlling my life: days are only defined by whether I do or don't binge, and nothing else.
I'm starting this challenge today. I'm being realistic, I don't think I can do it, but I'm going to try. My first goal is to go for ten days without binging: this would be the most I've managed in months. I also want to use these 60 days to look for help. I want to start talking about my problem and getting to the bottom of what's really going on.
Feel free to join. I would love some advice and support. I will be posting here every single day from today.