very scared about sleep binge

It will cause the scale to go up. And then you'll get it to move down.
I BET it's the ambien. There are LOTS of reports of sleep eating, sleep texting, sleep sex, sleep DRIVING. You name it.
Discuss another option with your doctor. If you did it once, I'm willing to bet you'll do it again. Maybe even sleep cooking, which would be dangerous, obviously.

To me, getting to the root of it is more important than how many one-time calories you ingested. Good luck!

Ambien will do that to you.

I never specifically sleep-binged, but I would get into bed, start feeling sleepy, and suddenly think that a snack was a really great idea. I'd wake up the next morning with a package random food (crackers, dried cranberries, chips) on the nightstand or in the bed next to me. I would remember "Oh yeah, this seemed like a really great idea last night "

I'd definitely talk to your doc and see if there's another medication you can switch to. If you're sleep-walking to the fridge, it's possible you'd try to drive or otherwise do something dangerous without realizing.

If we assume it was 5000 calories, worst case you might gain up to 1.5 pounds. (Based on a 250 calorie surplus resulting in a 0.5 pound per week weight gain). You obviously don't want to do that every night, but I wouldn't panic too much about the damage from last night. Just get the medication adjusted or make a plan to avoid doing it again in the future.

thecunninglinguist wrote: »

is there some way you can stop yourself from getting out of your room when you sleepwalk? like locking your door, or even tying something like a string to your toe so it wakes you up if you get out of bed

dont worry about this one particular instance, just prevent it from happening again

Stopping the ambien is the safest way to prevent it from happening again. In my experience people on ambien can do anything they can when awake so unless you have yourself locked up such that you can't possibly get out on your own it won't work....and that's just not safe (like if there was a fire or other emergency).

Assuming it was 5000 calories, that's less than a two pound weight gain. The calories are what they are. As for the sleep walking, have you tried using Benadryl?

I did some whack-a-doodle stuff when I took Ambien; including sleep-eating. My best friend woke up one morning and found a six-pack of beer and two packs of cigarettes on the dining room table. She figured out later that she had driven to the store on Ambien.

I won't take Ambien anymore. I'm not advising you to not take it; that is between you and your doctor. Be glad that you didn't get in your car and drive somewhere or walk out into traffic. Definitely talk to your doctor about your amnesiac episodes, though.

GretaGirl8 wrote: »

understood on the ambien front. it isn't that I am downplaying the sleep eating...but right now I am still in shock the amount of food I ate (both calories and volume.)

What's done is done. There is no point stressing out about something that happened in the past, all you can do is move forward from here.

I'm a big believer that things happen for a reason. If I was guessing, I would say this was a message from the universe about how Ambien might be dangerous for you.

Can you reframe this in your mind a bit? Take a deep breath, say a quick thank you for the warning, learn from it, and move forward.

Sophsmother wrote: »

When I was on Ambien, I left my house and went to my new next door neighbor's house and banged on the door looking for food. I woke up in the hospital the next morning with NO memory of anything. Luckily, my daughter was out for the night so she wasn't left alone. And my neighbors had a sense of humor about it. I never took Ambien again.

The scale will go up for sure, but it will come back down. Just give it some time. But I'd be more worried about the ambien. How long have you been on it? Talk to your doc.

This could have been horribly tragic, but since it wasn't, I got a visual of what this must have looked like and I'm still still laughing. I can just picture the flummoxed look your neighbors must have had on their faces.

GretaGirl8 wrote: »

this is absolutely mortifying...yes, because of the ambien...but also it takes me a long time to lose 1.5 pounds. I can't believe I gained it back in a day.

Anything you gained in a day is due to more inherent waste in your system, water retention, and topping off your glycogen stores. Even if you over-eat substantially, you don't put on fat that fast. Your body doesn't work like that.