What are your thoughts?

nwoutdoorgrl
nwoutdoorgrl Posts: 168 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I was recently told that for someone who has disordered eating, counting calories is not a good idea. I binge often which is the main contributor to my weight gain and my struggle to lose it.

I’m just curious to know what your thoughts are on this, especially from fellow binge eaters who have found success, or not, from calorie counting.

Replies

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,454 Member
    I believe knowledge is power.

    If the reason you binge is emotional, then maybe becoming too focused on the numbers will be bad for you, but in general I find my anxiety and control to be much better when I have the numbers. I guess you'll have to try it and see.
  • nwoutdoorgrl
    nwoutdoorgrl Posts: 168 Member
    lgfrie wrote: »
    I'm a binger. My weight peaked at 330 and was at 320 when I started my diet in May, 2019. I obviously didn't get there by eating berries and leaving food over at the table. I've had probably hundreds of binges in my life, and I mean serious binges. Like, eating a whole large pizza (for four) for dinner, then going to the BBQ joint for some pulled beef (bought in bulk containers, not an arrangement meal, and consumed with a fork on the spot), stopping at the grocery store on the way home for some New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream, grabbing a Family Size bag of chips and queso at the checkout line, and then at 2 am decimating whatever was left in the house and possibly going to the diner for some fried mozzarella sticks at 3 am. This has happened scores of times throughout my life. Like I said, 330 pounds - it didn't happen by nibbling a little too much.

    So, to your question, I've been calorie counting, logging, and also intermittent fasting (but that's off topic for this post) for 9 months. During that time, I have had 6 or 7 major binges, but generally the calorie counting has enabled me to stay on track. Recording every calorie in MFP, looking at it every day, weighing in every single morning, and striving to come in at my assigned calorie number, has been beyond helpful - life changing actually. In the next week I will drop under 250 pounds for the first time since 1998. Calorie counting has worked for me.

    The interesting thing is that my binges and temporary regains during this journey have mostly occurred at times when I couldn't log. Like going out of town, vacation, etc. When I don't have a food diary and a scale, the discipline breaks down and all hell breaks loose. For some people, but maybe not all, the rigorousness and mathematics of calorie counting gives them the discipline and focus they need. Maybe not for others.

    I think you just really have to get to a point where you're ready to make some serious lifestyle and eating habit changes. Not everyone who starts a diet is at that point. Some get started but aren't fully, totally, completely ready to give up a lot of X in order to achieve Y, where X = all the delicious food which is better than 99 % of the other things in life. You have to want that weight loss and a new version of you, and you have to want it MUCH more than all the tempting food that the modern world will shove in front of your face multiple times per day. People who are at that point can thrive with calorie counting. People who aren't quite at that point don't thrive, but don't thrive with other forms of dieting, either. I guess what I'm saying is that being at the point in life where solid, consistent dieting and weight loss is going to be the # 1 priority over everything else - including love of food and old eating habits - is the real issue. Once you know deep, deep down that you are ready to turn the ship around and really change things up, calorie counting can be the tool that helps you achieve it.

    First of all, congrats on your success in losing weight. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication. I lost about 25 lbs two years ago and it was far from easy. Unfortunately, I've gained it all back plus some.

    Also, thank you for sharing your insight. I think losing weight has a lot to do with an individual getting to the point where they've had enough and are ready to commit to doing what they need to do to create new eating habits as well as other lifestyle changes. That's where I was when I lost the 25 lbs. Life happened and I've been eating all my feelings since then. At times, I feel like I'm there but then realize I'm not. I want to be there but I'm not exactly sure what is holding me back. To say the least, I'm struggling.

  • nwoutdoorgrl
    nwoutdoorgrl Posts: 168 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    I have struggled with binge eating. I have personally found that setting reasonable calorie goals helps reduce the urge to binge and logging helps me with that.

    I have heard that from other bingers and I have noticed it as well. When I do log my food, I binge less. When I don't log, I see it as a free for all.
  • manderson27
    manderson27 Posts: 3,510 Member
    Logging ALL my calories at the beginning made me much more aware of the large amount of food I was eating. This helped me to cut down on the excess amounts.

    I haven't changed the things I eat, just the amounts. So for me logging was incredibly helpful. I won't call what I did bingeing exactly but I could certainly put away a high volume of high calorie food.
  • pink_mint
    pink_mint Posts: 103 Member
    Everyone will have their own reasons for binging. Sometimes a person's definition of binging is not what someone else would call binging. All that aside, I think one of the most common reasons for binging is restriction. Either not eating enough or even the mental restriction of believing you must not eat past a certain amount.

    Without knowing all the specifics of your situation I will say I can relate to the disordered eating.

    One thing that has been valuable in counting calories so far for me has been making sure I'm eating *enough*. Don't know where you're starting from in weight, weight loss goals etc but it calorie counting doesn't necessarily have to be harmful or disordered.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,598 Member
    nwoutdoorgrl wrote: »
    lgfrie wrote: »
    I'm a binger. My weight peaked at 330 and was at 320 when I started my diet in May, 2019. I obviously didn't get there by eating berries and leaving food over at the table. I've had probably hundreds of binges in my life, and I mean serious binges. Like, eating a whole large pizza (for four) for dinner, then going to the BBQ joint for some pulled beef (bought in bulk containers, not an arrangement meal, and consumed with a fork on the spot), stopping at the grocery store on the way home for some New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream, grabbing a Family Size bag of chips and queso at the checkout line, and then at 2 am decimating whatever was left in the house and possibly going to the diner for some fried mozzarella sticks at 3 am. This has happened scores of times throughout my life. Like I said, 330 pounds - it didn't happen by nibbling a little too much.

    So, to your question, I've been calorie counting, logging, and also intermittent fasting (but that's off topic for this post) for 9 months. During that time, I have had 6 or 7 major binges, but generally the calorie counting has enabled me to stay on track. Recording every calorie in MFP, looking at it every day, weighing in every single morning, and striving to come in at my assigned calorie number, has been beyond helpful - life changing actually. In the next week I will drop under 250 pounds for the first time since 1998. Calorie counting has worked for me.

    The interesting thing is that my binges and temporary regains during this journey have mostly occurred at times when I couldn't log. Like going out of town, vacation, etc. When I don't have a food diary and a scale, the discipline breaks down and all hell breaks loose. For some people, but maybe not all, the rigorousness and mathematics of calorie counting gives them the discipline and focus they need. Maybe not for others.

    I think you just really have to get to a point where you're ready to make some serious lifestyle and eating habit changes. Not everyone who starts a diet is at that point. Some get started but aren't fully, totally, completely ready to give up a lot of X in order to achieve Y, where X = all the delicious food which is better than 99 % of the other things in life. You have to want that weight loss and a new version of you, and you have to want it MUCH more than all the tempting food that the modern world will shove in front of your face multiple times per day. People who are at that point can thrive with calorie counting. People who aren't quite at that point don't thrive, but don't thrive with other forms of dieting, either. I guess what I'm saying is that being at the point in life where solid, consistent dieting and weight loss is going to be the # 1 priority over everything else - including love of food and old eating habits - is the real issue. Once you know deep, deep down that you are ready to turn the ship around and really change things up, calorie counting can be the tool that helps you achieve it.

    First of all, congrats on your success in losing weight. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication. I lost about 25 lbs two years ago and it was far from easy. Unfortunately, I've gained it all back plus some.

    Also, thank you for sharing your insight. I think losing weight has a lot to do with an individual getting to the point where they've had enough and are ready to commit to doing what they need to do to create new eating habits as well as other lifestyle changes. That's where I was when I lost the 25 lbs. Life happened and I've been eating all my feelings since then. At times, I feel like I'm there but then realize I'm not. I want to be there but I'm not exactly sure what is holding me back. To say the least, I'm struggling.

    The bolded seems like a pretty good insight, right there. If you've been eating your feelings, it's maybe about figuring out more direct and effective ways to manage the feelings, perhaps? Might that clear the way for you to re-address your weight and health goals on their own track? Do you have a therapist or treatment team who's working with you on that side of things? If not, could you have?

    We're all mostly pretty quick to turn to a doctor for physical health issues, a personal trainer or physical therapist for exercise/physical-function issues, dentists for toothache, lawyers for contracts, etc. Getting appropriate help with working through feelings and managing the related behavior should be no different, no more stigma.

    Short of that, I've seen others here recommend books and similar resources that help people apply cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to their own behavior generally and eating behavior specifically. I'm sorry that I don't have any of those suggestions specifically at hand (my issues are in different areas ;) ), but perhaps someone with that experience will chime in.

    Best wishes!
  • Kalex1975
    Kalex1975 Posts: 427 Member
    I've shared my story on these boards before (here and here). I've learned more about myself since those posts and think it may be pertinent to this discussion...

    I lost almost 250 pounds after suffering heart failure in 2015 and have been maintaining the loss for almost 2 1/2 years now. I was extremely obsessive about counting calories and hitting my macros. But I was still struggling with binges. I was caught in a restrict/binge cycle.

    So, about a year ago, I made probably the best decision of my life (other than getting serious about losing the weight)... to begin seeing a therapist around my disordered eating. I underwent cognitive behavioral therapy to address the binges. It also turned out I had some serious OCD which was related that we've been working on as well.

    There were 2 things we've discovered, in my case, that would trigger my binges:
    1. Abstaining/counting calories: I was an abstainer, thinking I could never moderate. So, by depriving myself of treats, I would begin to fantasize about everything I wanted to eat and would save it for a holiday or special occasion (which was always not logged - or "off book" as I called it to myself). And when those days came I went wild. I ate everything I was fantasizing about, and more, until I was physically ill. These binges even sometimes lasted a few days. On some random days, I would slip by having a little extra something that was off book (often near bed time). This would lead me to run out to 7-Eleven to get in as much junk as I could because I didn't want to "waste" my off book time because I would be back to abstaining the next day. Also, I would never eat anything without nutritional information because I didn't know how to log it - estimates were not good enough for me (re: OCD) even though I knew the nutritional information was an estimate itself. This lead me to never trying knew things that interested me and would just become another fantasy.
    2. Weighing myself: Every time I dropped below my goal weight I saw a green light to binge. In my mind I was underweight so it was time to get some extra calories - go ahead, binge away!

    At the urging of my therapist, I completely stopped logging and weighing myself before Christmas last year (I started practicing not logging before then on weekends only). It has been going great. I finally enjoy a treat here and there and I am no longer obsessing about hitting my macros. This has given me a sense of freedom and has greatly reduced my anxiety. The not weighing myself has also helped... I have not binged since I stopped weighing myself and I am no longer feeling the anxiety of knowing the next weigh-in is coming. I think I am actually losing weight currently (not that I want to). My clothes are getting looser and my belts are making it to the next hole. But I have no clue if the actual weight is coming off (maybe its just re-comping?).

    We are now working on the moderation part. I have been buying pints of real ice cream (no more Halo Top or Enlightened) and having just a scoop or two. I'm having a taste of that homemade treat someone brings to the office. If there is left-over food from a meeting at my office which strikes my fancy and I am hungry I'll have a little... I am starting to feel "normal" again. We're also working on my body image issue. I am in the best shape of my life but I still feel like the morbidly obese person I was. I also have a bunch of loose skin which has not helped with the body image.

    Ironically, my obsessiveness with counting my calories is what made me successful in my weight loss. MFP was THE tool that helped me to most in that regard and I am grateful for it. But, for me, it isn't something I can maintain forever. It was causing me too much anxiety and was harming my relationships.

    This is true for me. But many don't have my issues and have no trouble logging all the time. I urge anyone who thinks they may have an eating disorder to get some professional help. It has been an eye-opening experience!

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