Need to Lose 100 LBS -Robins Thread !

@cellosmiles , On Barneys test link my result was " Your score was 43 out of a possible 46.
Scores in the 27 - 46 range indicate severe Binge eating behavior." I was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as having binge eating disorder. I am not difficult to diagnose. I can honestly eat over 20'000 calories in my most extreme binge sessions. I regularly eat around 10'000 calories in an evening. Once I start eating I find I can't stop. the act of eating makes me feel more hungry. Even when I eat to the point of physical pain 30 minutes later I want to eat more. I have carried on eating even during agonising gallbladder attacks or while have food poisoning. I should be a lot bigger than I am, the only thing stopping that is I have multiple food sensitivities which when I binge on junk cause me a lot of gastric issues and a lot of what I eat goes right through me without being absorbed.

The way I have treated my body is really bad, I am constantly sore and bloated from all the inflammation and fluid retention caused by eating foods I can not digest properly not to mention overloading my system so chronically. Just touching the skin on abdomen hurts because my small intestine is so inflamed. I have always been big and first remember secretive eating when I was maybe 5 years old. I used to go hide in cupboard under the staires with food I had sneaked away. That kind of behaviour just got worse and worse as I got older. My family were messed up in all sorts of ways so no one really paid any attention to what I got up to with food. By the time I was a teenager I had got into the whole throwing food away and then retrieving it thing. Sometimes food even made it as far as the big communal bins outside and I would still retrieve it. I tried the putting dish soap on food thing to stop myself but I would try to clean it off. Binge eating disorder has taken me to bad places. Eventually I ended up flushing food down toilet to stop myself eating it, no way to get it back then.

I truly am like an alcoholic but with food which is why I have at times turned to addiction 12 step groups for help even though they are not really what feels right for me. The only way I ever get myself out of this nightmare is to cut out all my trigger foods. For me my biggest trigger foods are grains and processed sugar. If I cut those out then food goes quiet, my stomach stops growling at me all the time, the cravings stop, the never ending hunger stops. It is just so easy to then convince myself it will be ok if I just have a little treat of x, y or z but it never is ok. The relentless hunger and insane craving kicks right back in. as Barney says it is then really hard to break out of that again.

Good news is it has been 1 month since I last binged. 1 month ago I cut out grains and processed sugar. I tried to work with food addicts group https://www.foodaddicts.org/ but it feels too cult like for me so I left. I realised I am not powerless or broken beyond hope. I have decided to be more gentle and forgiving with myself. Following a restrictive food plan may not sound gentle but for me it is. I am vegan and I now also do not eat grains. I checked with my medical doctor if this was ok and she looked over what I eat and said it is fine. I eat lots of veg, beans, potato, fruit, I also include select seeds and occasional nuts that do not upset my digestive system. I lost 17lb in the first 10 days and 27lb in total over the last month. Most of that weight was fluid inflammation that drained out of my body when I stopped eating all the foods that my body can not digest. I am no longer in pain. I can touch my abdomen without it being sore. My spots on face have all gone, the eczema on my foot has gone, constant gassyness has gone. My doctor thinks I have ulcerative colitis based on off the charts inflammation results on tests done last year. She also thinks I may have celiac disease and wants to test me for that but in order for test to work I must eat grains for 6 weeks before the test. Given how much better I feel having cut out grains for the last month I am refusing to start eating them again, so that test can not be done. I feel so much better eating the way I am now. I have PCOS and often suffer with my menstrual periods when they do happen. Yesterday I had bad menstrual cramps and severe nausea. I was not able to eat until it subsided in the evening but I was not hungry and when I then was able to eat I felt satisfied. That is so different to my normal behaviour. Normally the compulsion to eat would overrule nausea and if I did not eat in day I would binge in evening worse than ever. The last month has not been a battle, it has been easy. Amazing how simple things become when actually listen to my body and treat it with some respect.

I went vegan last year for ethical reasons but that change alone had health benefits, my blood pressure went down to normal, my cholesterol results came down to normal and my iron and b vitamins blood results etc stayed healthy. Dairy has always been another thing that upsets my system and when I went vegan that helped. I also used to be prone to getting food poisoning and that stopped. Now a year later cutting out grains seems to have been the final step needed to get my digestive system happy. For the first time in ages I feel like I can shift this weight without a huge battle.