I binged last night :(

I completely, totally, utterly blew it. I didn't even log it because I don't even know how much I ate. I just went into a food trance and didn't snap out of it till my belly was all stretched. I feel awful this morning - physically, mentally and emotionally. Any advice for me today? I just needed to get this off my chest.

It's just one day of binge eating, don't stress over it. How consistent are you with your diet/calorie deficit? If your on track 6-days a week. That one day you splurge, is not going to digress your gains. Your only adding unnecessary stress to yourself, and with that your body produces cortisol, which a hormone produces by your adrenal glands that increases blood sugar and helps store more fat/carbs/protein into your body. In turn adds more weight to your body, which you don't want of course. Jump back into your diet, and you'll be fine. At this point your just feeling the bloated affect, may retain some water. But other than that stay on track and you'll be back to normal.

Why did you binge? Was it due to an emotional response? Emotional eating can be very difficult to overcome. What you need to do is recognize why you felt the need to binge. You need to learn how to deal with emotional differently. Instead of eating, try going for a walk or clean or something that doesn't involve food. If you do find yourself shoving food in your mouth, try to slow it down and think about why eating that 5th cookie or 3rd piece of cake is going to make whatever is going on your life so much better. Once you learn how to handle your emotions with something other than food, you will see food in a whole new light. There are a ton of books out there about emotional eating.

To add to quotes from vichick20:

"Being overweight isn’t the real problem, it’s just a symptom of overeating. Forget dieting and exercising.

In order to lose weight and keep it off you need to get to the root of the problem. If you are overweight and are trying to just exercise or diet then you are trying to cover up your unconscious overeating with a bandage. Underneath the bandage the overeating habits will still be there. And even if you were to lose the weight, you won’t be able to keep it off unless you take a deep look at why you eat."

And also from Lawkat:

"Why did you binge? Was it due to an emotional response? Emotional eating can be very difficult to overcome. What you need to do is recognize why you felt the need to binge. You need to learn how to deal with emotional differently. Instead of eating, try going for a walk or clean or something that doesn't involve food. If you do find yourself shoving food in your mouth, try to slow it down and think about why eating that 5th cookie or 3rd piece of cake is going to make whatever is going on your life so much better. Once you learn how to handle your emotions with something other than food, you will see food in a whole new light. There are a ton of books out there about emotional eating."

One book I can recommend is The Yo-Yo Diet Syndrome - by Doreen Virtue. It is SUCH an eye opener, the author is really onto something! :noway:

It goes into WHY you binge-eat, the different types of binge-eaters (there are 5: binge-eating, emotional eaters, stress eaters, self-esteem eaters, and snowball eaters), and the emotional and psychological reasons behind binge-eating.

She even breaks it down to what kind of food you 'crave' and the emotions behind it. She's got another book as well, Constant Craving - which goes into very minute detail about that.

Been reading both these books - it can be quite intense and almost uncomfortable to read as it forces you to confront your emotions, but hey, I'm starting to drop the lbs now, and haven't binged in a while.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Constant-Craving-What-Cravings-Overcome/dp/1848505906/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1318773689&sr=8-6

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yo-Yo-Diet-Syndrome-Stabilize-Appetite/dp/1401923232/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318773722&sr=8-1