Right...I can't add much insight because what works for me probably won't work for you...but I do seem to have a temporary fix in place, that seems to be holding firm.

This is really long, so please don't feel obliged to read. I'm going into detail firstly to set out my 'binge credentials' and secondly to explain what's working for me....

Background: My mom was very restrictive with food because she was slim herself but had two teenage overweight daughters - I was the third (& youngest) daughter, and in her eyes I 'exhibited symptoms' of heading towards obesity, so when I was eight years old she took me to a doctor to have me put on a VLCD. The doc refused, saying my weight was fine, so mom had to make up her own plan, which was basically to restrict my food to one meal per day (evening dinner). Up to that point I don't recall any out-of-control eating (in fact mealtimes were stressful as I had a very small appetite and she was a tartar about us clearing our plates); but fasting for 23 hours per day triggered some compensatory behaviours, and I started eating in secret, sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to eat. Mom knew, and started locking me in my bedroom at night (yeah, I know...). The fasting also set off a cycle of lying and evasion, because I had to lie to my teachers that I'd eaten my lunch already etc., so they wouldn't keep questioning me about why I hadn't brought lunch to school...

Fast forward a couple of years, and the urge to binge is off the charts. I'm still struggling to eat the large portions of unpalatable veggies my mom dishes up in the evening, but before dinner I'm thinking about food ALL the time. Without access to either the food I craved or the money to buy any, this led to me stealing (usually from dad's wallet, sometimes from my mom's purse) - I'd buy lots of sweets and crisps, and literally gorge on them until I was physically in agony.

This behaviour continued through my teens, which is when I hit my highest ever weight. My mom refused to buy me clothes because she thought it would encourage me to get even fatter, so I literally wore the same pair of jeans (my brother's cut-down cast-off pair of size 36 Levis) for two years, though they caused a weeping ulceration across my belly because they were so tight. In the end I had to remove the zip and sort of lace them corset-fashion to relieve the pain and discomfort. I'd sprinkle them with perfume/talc/febreeze because I knew they must smell, but I didn't have alternate outfits to wear. I didn't dare wash them, in case they shrunk and I would literally have had nothing else to wear. Apart from school, I never left the house. Mom believed in harsh medicine but instead of being shamed into weight loss, I just kept on gorging in secret.

Anyway, things improved when I left home for University. I became less of a hermit, ate better and got more exercise. My weight started to drop...I was still fat, but no longer stealing and gorging. Through my twenties and thirties I yo-yoed - losing up to 80 lbs (not in a healthy way) then regaining it quickly through a return to my old habits of gorging in secret. I'd met my husband by then, and when he became seriously ill gorging was a way of coping...

It wasn't until 2012 that I started to properly improve. I lost 88 lbs in 18 months, to reach a healthy BMI for the first time in my adult life in November 2013...and, having discovered MFP, I'd lost the weight in a healthier way than previously.

But, in the 10 years between then and March 2021, I still regained back 80 of those 88lbs. I still had episodes of secret gorging...and I also habitually overate through large portion sizes and between-meal grazing. But I WAS getting better. The gorging happened less frequently, and for shorter duration. I'd 'confess' to it when I got home, which took away some of the shame. I went completely cold turkey on chocolate and some of my favourite trigger foods (e.g. Doritos and dip) - at first I banned them from the house, but after a while I was able to resist them even if we had them in the house if they were unopened...and eventually I was even able to resist them if they were open... So at first, complete elimination of those foods was essential - it took me a loooong time before I had enough control to eat my trigger foods in moderation.

I guess I used that decade of steady weight gain to learn some really key lessons, and really start to understand myself. I watched myself, my behaviours, my triggers, my successes and failures closely, as if I were a laboratory rat. I kept a detailed food diary for the whole decade, even though I wasn't counting calories. I had certain 'lines in the sand' which I simply wouldn't cross. One was that I NEVER, EVER ate fast food from the major chains (McDs/BK/Dominos etc). Another was that I never ate anything that was totally lacking nutritional value....so if I ate chocolate, for instance, it either had to be really good quality chocolate with anti-oxidant properties, or it had to have some protein (e.g. the nuts in a Snicker bar) etc. That way, if I gorged on 10 Snickers in a row, I'd at least be able to say I got a good hit of protein!

I tried to shift my focus more onto health, not weight. I made it a goal to eat nutritionally-dense food most of the time, with an emphasis on organic, seasonal etc. I'd still eat too much of it - and was gaining weight as a result - but I was gaining weight through good nutrition, rather than eating crap. It became a sort of game to me - I'd challenge myself to eat better than the day before...than the week before...than the month before.

When the urge to gorge happened, sometimes I had no defence against it, and I'd just cave immediately. Always in secret. Always eating as fast as I could, literally hurting my throat to swallow as fast as possible. But another of my challenges was to be honest...so I'd come home and tell my husband about it, and we'd discuss what had triggered the behaviour. I became better at understanding what my triggers were, and better at defusing the situation before it escalated into a full on binge.

After a while, I made up another game. If I could feel the desire to binge getting stronger, I'd say: 'Just wait 5 minutes, then you can start eating....' Once the 5 minutes were up, I'd say 'Just wait 5 minutes more...' and so on and so on... When I'd successfully deferred the start of the binge for a whole hour, I'd award myself a tick on my binge deferral chart (yeah, I know...geeky!)...then start on the next hour...and the next hour. I'd distract myself...take the dog for a walk...or watch an episode of 'My 600 lb Life'...or run a bath...or try to get absorbed in a good book...or sometimes just buy the damn food that I wanted so badly, and then immediately stow it away in my food bank donation bag.

Of course sometimes the food didn't make it to the food bank...but sometimes it did, and that was progress.

I also started putting money in a jar for every time I successfully resisted buying my trigger foods when I was in binge-mode....it was another game/challenge...seeing the coins/notes mounting up gave me a sense of pride, and was a visual reminder of the money I waste on food that has no nutritional value. And when the jar was filled and I got to take it to the food bank and hand it over, it was such an amazing feeling....

So that's how I used that period from November 2013 to March 2021. Watching my weight steadily go up-and-up-and-up, but learning so many things about myself.

And finally, in March 2021, I felt ready to try to lose the weight, without throwing the lessons I'd learned out of the window. I felt I'd learned enough about how to head off binges...how to make better choices...how to keep my interest from flagging by making up challenges for myself...how to spice things up...how to talk myself into a better frame of mind.

And...fingers crossed...it seems to be working. I haven't had any urges to binge since I started losing the pounds, not even when I went through the big hunger experiment at the 6 month point. I successfully navigated through Christmas, even though y'all knew how worried I was about going off the rails... I have a pantry full of trigger foods - open and in full view - and I can eat them in moderation, or not at all.

For me it's all been about shifting the focus to HEALTH. Not weight. That was an important one. Treating my body well. Respecting it. Feeding it properly.

The second thing that helped was the challenges. Silly ticks on a spreadsheet if I resisted eating crap for 5 minutes...silly coins in a jar if I put the chocolate back on the supermarket shelf...silly stickers on a wall-chart if I ate my rainbow of veggies...I channelled my inner 5 year old and strived to rack up those rows of gold stars!

I tapped into my social conscience and used that as a tool to keep me on the straight and narrow...and it felt good to donate money/food via the food bank to those who actually needed it, rather than to gorge myself on food I clearly didn't need. The pride had a snowball effect...it made me want to try harder.

I write every day in my weight journal. It helps keep me focused on the important things and allows me to spot trends and behaviours I'd otherwise overlook.

And I make good use of this group, which has helped immensely.

Am I totally cured? I doubt it. I'm sure I've not seen the last of my binges, or put weight gain behind me forever. But I do genuinely think that I have better coping mechanisms than previously.

Whew...that was a long one!

I do remember one memorable evening which came after a solid week of bingeing thousands of calories each evening on salted peanuts after leaving my husband's hospital bedside. I'd literally come home from the hospital and sit on the sofa with a fresh family-sized tub of salted peanuts and pour them into my palm, then shovel them into my mouth like an automaton, until the tub was empty.

This one memorable evening I bought home a fresh tub, opened it, and then forced myself to eat the peanuts with a pair of chopsticks. In an hour I think I managed about a palmful before quitting in frustration and going to bed instead.

So sometimes creative solutions can work...