Potential binge-eating disorder - please help.

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fika_
fika_ Posts: 3 Member
in Motivation and Support
Hi MFP,

This account is new, and I made it for the purpose of joining in community discussions. My other account contains some personal data (i.e. username that links back to social media sites) which I would rather not disclose in this forum. Anyway, here goes. I am honestly at odds with myself and I need support. For the past 4-5 years, I've been on a cycle of (successfully) losing weight - but this never endured long enough for me to even get close to my goals - followed by gaining more weight than I initially lost. This has caused a gradual increase in weight over the years. I tend to partake in emotional eating, including one particularly bad time last year when university became too overwhelming and stressful (went from 141 to 162 over a span of 2 months).

At the start of this year, I put my foot down and resolved to work hard, with a couple changes set in place that I hadn't made before: losing 1.5 pounds a week instead of 2, exercising more, having less snacks around. It was quite successful. In fact, I'd been incredibly happy with the results - from January to the end of May, I went down from 162 to 141. This was more than I'd ever lost, and once I reached 139, it would be the lightest I've weighed in years. But I noticed that when I did slip up (happened maybe once every 3 weeks), it'd lead to the "well I messed up, might as well go all out" binge mentality. For a while, this didn't happen anymore - if I ate over the limit, I'd be disappointed that I wouldn't be making progress, but I wasn't backtracking. But in the process I also told myself that it's okay to slip up.

For some reason, in the last 2-3 weeks, I've noticed the amount of times I've binged has increased. Since the first one or two slip-ups in that time, I've been making the conscious decision to dedicate entire days to splurging and eating as much as my body can handle. I've snuck food into a room at night, locked the door, and opened the packaging inside so that the people I live with wouldn't find out, and I'm absolutely horrified with this. Worse yet, I don't know why this is happening, and it terrifies me to think that I may have developed an eating disorder overtime. Before, binges would indicate that I didn't eat enough, but right now I average 1,600 calories a day, and I don't think that's the problem. I just went on the scale, and it says I weigh 152 (10+ pounds since the last time I weighed two weeks ago) - no doubt due partly to the bloating and water weight from all the binging, but I'm positive that in the last week I gained 3-5 pounds at least. I don't know what to do from here. I'm also living in a foreign country until September, so my resources are limited.

It's just completely soul-crushing that I made such amazing progress - more than I have in years - only to relapse and go absolutely nuts for reasons I can't discern. I'll take all the advice and support that I can - please help me.

Replies

  • buckleten
    buckleten Posts: 205 Member
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    I can recognise myself and my eating behaviours in this. Wish I could understand it too! I definitely have that problem that once I eat even a tiny amount of something I know I shouldn't, my brain kind of takes over and makes me eat until I can eat no more! I mean whole cakes, packets of biscuits sometimes, because I have obviously ruined that day so may as well! I can easily put on 10 or 20 pounds in a short space of time. My worst time is the evening, after dinner and before bed. What has really helped me to overcome this is saving most of my calories for the evening meal so I can have something bigger, and dessert too without going over my calories. During the day I will have some fruit and small snacks, and plenty to drink, and never feel too hungry as I know come evening I will feel nice and full! It may be worth a try, it certainly works better than anything has done previously for me! Add me if you'd like to :-)
  • fika_
    fika_ Posts: 3 Member
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    buckleten wrote: »
    I can recognise myself and my eating behaviours in this. Wish I could understand it too! I definitely have that problem that once I eat even a tiny amount of something I know I shouldn't, my brain kind of takes over and makes me eat until I can eat no more! I mean whole cakes, packets of biscuits sometimes, because I have obviously ruined that day so may as well! I can easily put on 10 or 20 pounds in a short space of time. My worst time is the evening, after dinner and before bed. What has really helped me to overcome this is saving most of my calories for the evening meal so I can have something bigger, and dessert too without going over my calories. During the day I will have some fruit and small snacks, and plenty to drink, and never feel too hungry as I know come evening I will feel nice and full! It may be worth a try, it certainly works better than anything has done previously for me! Add me if you'd like to :-)

    Thanks! It's so relieving to be able to hear different perspectives on it (and know that I'm not alone)! It's just so difficult to stop it after it starts. Sometimes I convince myself to be less strict about my daily goal and have that second cookie, and next thing I know it's blowing up in my face. And since I've been binging as a more regular thing lately, the damage isn't short-term - I keep examining myself in the mirror and feeling like there is a definite visible difference. It's just awful. I'm hoping that eating less during the day and more in the evening will help! I also added you.
  • pricea1284
    pricea1284 Posts: 2 Member
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    I feel I may have the same issue, I was doing so well for a while and was down to my goal weight, went through some personal stuff and have been binging on junk ever since. I do pretty well during the work week but weekends tend to be harder and I keep telling myself I'll do better but it doesn't seem to happen and then I just feel disgusted with myself. A little motivation would be wonderful!
  • fika_
    fika_ Posts: 3 Member
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    pricea1284 wrote: »
    I feel I may have the same issue, I was doing so well for a while and was down to my goal weight, went through some personal stuff and have been binging on junk ever since. I do pretty well during the work week but weekends tend to be harder and I keep telling myself I'll do better but it doesn't seem to happen and then I just feel disgusted with myself. A little motivation would be wonderful!

    It takes hard work to exercise that self-control on a day-to-day basis, and the visible results overtime are really rewarding! I think that slow and patient but result-yielding process just amplifies how bad it feels to go on binges that happen regularly. It just takes a weekend-long binge to discredit what was accomplished in 7 days' time. It's been a few hours and I still feel terrible. I've added you as a friend so that maybe we can try to hold each other accountable in the future. I'm a wreck right now and I wouldn't trust myself to offer motivation or support, but I'm always more than willing to be an outlet for you if you need.

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