Restricting/binging cycles

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umbramirror
umbramirror Posts: 256 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm embarrassed to write this, but I really need some help and was hoping you all could give me some advice. Thank you so much in advance.

I have a history of restrictive eating and binging, but the behavior has never prolonged enough for an eating disorder diagnosis. This past month I have had 2 binges. One 3 weeks ago and the other about 30 minutes ago. Before that, I haven't had any since before my weight loss. I am incredibly disappointed in myself, and I'm afraid of what's to come. I was attempting to talk myself out of a binge all weekend (there is something about being in this house without going out for 2 days that makes me want to stuff my face!) I can go into more detail about this if it will help.

In about 1 year and 3 months I lost 92 lbs. For reference, I'm a 5'6" female with a medium/large frame weighing ~128 lbs. For most of my weight loss I was consuming around 1200-1300 calories with light to moderate exercise. I had set a target weight of 145 lbs but once I reached it, I had trouble maintaining the weight because my activity level is rather high and actually lost another 17 lbs. Recently I decided that I had lost enough weight, had reached my goal, and wanted to begin the process of maintaining. I chose to begin increasing my calories slowly, with a daily caloric intake of ~1500. I walk for about 2 hours or so 5 days a week and do calisthenics for about an hour 5-6 days a week.

Back to the binging... the first binge followed a day of being off plan. I had gone to a family event where food was being put in my face all day and I chose not to restrict myself. I exercised that morning and walked a good amount, but felt awful about what I had done. The next day at home, after a long day of travelling and a late dinner, I had my very binge. This afternoon, I binged again. I had been fantasizing about binging all weekend but had been talking myself out of it but I caved anyway.

I have feeling terrible over the past week because my body has been retaining water like crazy. The heat has been insane here, and I have been sweating almost non stop because we don't have air conditioning. I rehydrate myself but it seems that whatever I put into my body, it holds on to. Everyday it seems I am putting on a little weight, and after eating pizza last night (which wasn't that much), I put on another 1.4 lbs of water weight. Over the past week, that's a total of 2 lbs. I started to feel very frustrated, thinking what's the point of all of this work I'm doing if the scale is going to keep going up. I just couldn't take it anymore and gave in today. I exercised in the morning but have already surpassed what I would typically have calorie wise by 200 calories, and that's without dinner included.

I don't want to gain weight but don't understand what's going on with my body. Is this weight gain truly only water weight...? Am I doing something wrong daily that's making this happen? I rarely if ever see such increases on the scale that remain for so long and it's taking a toll on me. Also, the fact that I feel so incredibly bloated and weighed down.

Is there something I can do to salvage the day and get back on track? I'm tired of this water retention and afraid of what I'll see on the scale tomorrow morning.
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Replies

  • veganbaum
    veganbaum Posts: 1,865 Member
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    As others have said, I think you are seriously under-eating and that's at least part of the issue.

    I don't want to make it more complicated, but have you considered reducing your exercise? You're getting a minimum of two hours a day, but many days three. If that works with your schedule and your body, that's great, I'm just asking from a sustainability point of view. You don't say how old you are. I don't have time in my day to exercise that much. The most I do during my work week is about one and a half to two hours, on the days I both walk/run and do bodyweight exercises. And that's only two work days a week. One weekend day I'll get about three hours. At one point I had to make myself cut back a bit on what I was doing, because I knew it wouldn't be sustainable long-term. So you could both cut back a little on the exercise and up your calories, because 1500 is still going to be under your maintenance even if you reduce your exercise a bit. If that's not something you think is necessary, like I said, I agree with others that you just need to eat more.
  • umbramirror
    umbramirror Posts: 256 Member
    edited June 2019
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    @staticsplit I'm sorry that you're going through something similar but thank you for your support. ♡

    It is difficult transitioning from losing for so long to eating more when I used to have such an unhealthy relationship with food. I still do in a way, but I'm working on it and it seems you are too. 😊 I have to find a healthy balance even though it's tougher than I thought it would be. The water retention I'm experiencing right now is really making me have to work harder to not engage in unhealthy habits.
  • 150poundsofme
    150poundsofme Posts: 523 Member
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    Hugs
  • umbramirror
    umbramirror Posts: 256 Member
    edited June 2019
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    cmriverside wrote: »
    You're binging because you're under-eating.

    Set your Goal here to "Maintain." When you exercise, add it to the Exercise tab and EAT MORE.

    I would guess you need to be set at somewhere around 1800-2000 for your daily bottom line goal and add a few hundred more on days you exercise. Otherwise this continues. You may see a slight bump up on the scale - but stay the course over a period of months.

    Weight fluctuations happen - especially in maintenance.

    This is a good article, often linked on this forum:

    http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

    QFT.

    You lost fast with a large deficit and you're now lean enough that your continuing deficits are causing a blow back. By continuing to push down you're potentially increasing your chances of going up instead of protecting your loss.

    Find maintenance. Maintenance IS a range. If you're not used to weight trend apps figure a more than 5lb range.

    If you're *feeling bloated* by definition you're holding on to water (sodium, hormones, food in transit, injury, what have you) and you would expect your weight to show higher than baseline.

    And most emphatically all that @Maxematics also said!

    This makes sense. I've been reading a lot about this topic since I posted this thread and I've realized that this is what has going on. Thanks to the thread started by @Maxematics, it started to become clear.

    What do you think constitutes a "blow back"? And do you think the best way to combat it is to increase my calories more? I've been averaging around 1500 calories, which I know is too low but I increased from 1300 and I'm trying to increase each week. Maybe I need a more drastic change? I'm new to this and definitely don't want to loss the lean mass I've gained.

    I didn't feel bloated this morning, but I'm still up on the scale. 0.8 lbs from last week to be exact. The temperature has finally gone back to a reasonable height. I'll be travelling a lot tomorrow and will basically be on vacation for a week, so hopefully my body will recover.

    Thank you so much for contributing.
  • umbramirror
    umbramirror Posts: 256 Member
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    150poundsofme wrote: »
    Hugs

    Thank you. This made me feel nice this morning. ♡
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,739 Member
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    umbramirror wrote: »
    What do you think constitutes a "blow back"? And do you think the best way to combat it is to increase my calories more?

    Glad to see you're researching!

    In the context of this discussion the "blow back" I was talking about is the propensity to binge that you've experienced.

    As to the best way to combat the issue, that's why I Quoted for Truth (QFT) @cmriverside 's post!
    It contains the majority of the answers you will need.

    Majority because it doesn't address a mental component. However, it is my personal belief that you start with the "easy" to fix! Under-eating, physically, by itself, and especially for leaner people (i.e. people with fat levels that are commensurate to what one would expect to see on someone below BMI 20 to 22), can cause binging and food ideation. Therefore, removing that stressor is the starting point. If you need additional help to implement the removal, or if you need to address concerns that remain once you've already removed it, then, of course, you do so!

    That post also includes a reference to one of the best articles you will find anywhere about water weight fluctuations. Based on some of your posts (and since you also do not appear to be smoothing out your fluctuations with a weight trend app), reading that article a time or two would be time well invested!

    You can do this! :smiley:
  • umbramirror
    umbramirror Posts: 256 Member
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    Ah, I see. Sorry, I thought it was a special term for what I was experiencing with the deficit and then the resulting water retention. 😂 No, it's just me potentially "blowing" it all by binging rather than simply just increasing my daily calorie intake. *Slaps forehead*

    Thank you for your help, also @cmriverside of course. I'm going to go read that article now!
  • umbramirror
    umbramirror Posts: 256 Member
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    @PAV8888, if you don't mind answering, I completed a TDEE calculator from damnripped.com and got the following results:

    BMI: 20.5
    BMR: 1326 calories
    TDEE: 2187 calories

    Does this look about right to you? And do you think I should just go right to eating that amount starting this week or should I start around 1800 and see how it goes?
  • maybe1pe
    maybe1pe Posts: 529 Member
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    umbramirror wrote: »
    @PAV8888, if you don't mind answering, I completed a TDEE calculator from damnripped.com and got the following results:

    BMI: 20.5
    BMR: 1326 calories
    TDEE: 2187 calories

    Does this look about right to you? And do you think I should just go right to eating that amount starting this week or should I start around 1800 and see how it goes?

    While I'm not specifically the person you asked but....

    I would say that looks like a good start. Honestly, just start eating those calories the "slow increase" doesn't seem like it'll be beneficial to you. In that... 1800 is still a deficit of nearly 400 calories from that TDEE estimation.

    Eat the TDEE calories... if you're going to continue to weigh yourself frequently, use a weight trend app and be mentally prepared to see an increase on the scale because you'll have more food in your system, more glycogen in your muscles, etc, etc. Give it a while (at least a month, preferably 2) and see what your weight is doing and make adjustments based on that, still losing weight -> eat more.
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
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    umbramirror wrote: »
    @PAV8888, if you don't mind answering, I completed a TDEE calculator from damnripped.com and got the following results:

    BMI: 20.5
    BMR: 1326 calories
    TDEE: 2187 calories

    Does this look about right to you? And do you think I should just go right to eating that amount starting this week or should I start around 1800 and see how it goes?

    I'm not Pav, but I think that looks about right. I'm at a slightly lower BMI, but around the same level of activity, and that TDEE isn't much higher than mine is.

    I'd say it's worth a try, and seeing how you feel. You might get a little bit of a bump on a scale -- 4 pounds or so -- but it's not "true" weight, it's just water weight from repleted glycogen stores, and literally poop/food weight.
  • dmt4641
    dmt4641 Posts: 409 Member
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    Yes I think you should go right to eating your TDEE and fully expect to gain a couple pounds of water. Your body loses water while in a deficit and then gains it back when you aren't in a deficit. It is your body's natural reaction and nothing you can do to change that by delaying maintenance. You will just be losing even more fat delaying it to only gain the water back at a later date. You just have to accept two pounds or so of water in your body as part of being a human being.

    You are hungry from too much of a deficit and are binging and fanaticizing about food. The physical reaction won't stop at 1500 or 1600 or 1700. You need to feed your body maintenance or even a little above for the hormones to regulate again. Once the physical reaction to food restriction stops, it will hopefully be easier to deal with the mental aspect. Your fear of gaining weight, even natural water weight, needs to be dealt with the aid of a professional. I wish you the best of luck.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,739 Member
    edited June 2019
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    PAV was PAVnapping and has nothing substantive to add to what the three ladies above me have just said! @collectingblues especially is an inadvertent "expert" at retaining water for obnoxious lengths of time!

    Honest answer to your calories question above?

    Depending on the accuracy of your logging and BMR and how closely you will end up tracking to the population mean?

    You are reporting approximately 3 hours of walking and calisthenics a day and proposing an activity factor of 1.65 based on your BMR of 1326

    Scooby's (and many other calculators I am sure) would assign an AF of 1.725 just to your calisthenics (nothing else) and would be pushing it to 1.9 depending on how vigorously you walk (terrain etc). Let's just say that 3 hours of *my* walking reliably pushes *me* into an AF of 1.9, if not 1.95

    So my first "instinctive" reaction was to say MFP very active and to maintain to start. (MFP Very Active is an AF of 1.8).

    Alternatively you could start with MFP Active (AF=1.6) and then add the calisthenics as a separate exercise. (It will still come close to around 1.8 in terms of calories overall).

    I doubt that any of these are final answers.

    But 2300 to 2500 Cal is a heck of a lot closer to actual maintenance than 1500. And your health is starting to say that, at this point of time, you are PHYSICALLY much better positioned to tolerate an over-shoot than a continued under-shoot.

    And of course reducing activity is also an option if you don't want to immediately increase calories to the degree you need to. Net calories are what drive weight change.

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