Binging
Moderators: Boss Man, cassiegose
As a for instance, what do you binge on, and how do you binge? Are you trying to maintain weight, or lose some? Are you at the start or near the end of a diet phase?
You say it's now and again, so presumably not all the time, like eating well for 3 days, then troffing horrendously.
At this stage, I agree seeing a qualified specialist is an option, but I feel if we can find out more, we may be able to assist, before saying, a qualified person is your only option, as I'm sure if you could avoid the expense, and get be able to find an "ah ha" moment, that would be a more enjoyable outcome.
Anyway, it's up to you, but if you feel able to share further, and would like to, I don't see any problem in you doing so. Otherwise a qualified individual would be your other option as Sameey said.
I have a theory as to what you might be able to do. You situation potentially at this stage, fits the profile of a few peoples dieting scenarios, that I've read of before, but I won't develop any expectations or hopes, right now, until I am aware of more history / current eating behaviour.
If you do need to see someone qualified, I'd like to at least know we tried to do something for you
.
You say it's now and again, so presumably not all the time, like eating well for 3 days, then troffing horrendously.
At this stage, I agree seeing a qualified specialist is an option, but I feel if we can find out more, we may be able to assist, before saying, a qualified person is your only option, as I'm sure if you could avoid the expense, and get be able to find an "ah ha" moment, that would be a more enjoyable outcome.
Anyway, it's up to you, but if you feel able to share further, and would like to, I don't see any problem in you doing so. Otherwise a qualified individual would be your other option as Sameey said.
I have a theory as to what you might be able to do. You situation potentially at this stage, fits the profile of a few peoples dieting scenarios, that I've read of before, but I won't develop any expectations or hopes, right now, until I am aware of more history / current eating behaviour.
If you do need to see someone qualified, I'd like to at least know we tried to do something for you
.I'll do good for a few days , usually 3-4, at most 1 week, then I will reward myself with absurd amounts of food, such as cookie dough, ice cream, pizza in one sitting, then towards then after that I think, well I ruined it so far might as well just keep going. I barely even enjoy the food and feel incredibly stuffed, but I keep doing it. I don't know why I do this but it seems I do it often. Yesterday I had an urge so I drank a ton of water and paced the house and after about 15 minutes it went away, so I think I will try that but sometimes if I have an urge that is all I think about.
I am about 30 lbs overweight but with some of episodes I am surprised I am not 100 lbs overweight and know that as I get older the weight sticks more so I really want to control this.
I have already talked to a specialist about this and they gave me suggestions to do, but I always seem to come back to this pattern.
Any advice or don't you ever have enormous cravings that lead into binging?
I am about 30 lbs overweight but with some of episodes I am surprised I am not 100 lbs overweight and know that as I get older the weight sticks more so I really want to control this.
I have already talked to a specialist about this and they gave me suggestions to do, but I always seem to come back to this pattern.
Any advice or don't you ever have enormous cravings that lead into binging?
Well in answer to your final statement, no I don't give into cravings, as I never have had any. I'm Ectomorphic, so Metabolism doesn't require the same Caloric intake, as yours might, and has never been adapted to need more calories.
Occasionally since I started working out, I have had a packet of Crisps, (Potato Chips) now and again, or a Mars bar, but that was a conscious choice, not a mental obstacle I couldn't overcome, and I knew they wouldn't do me any harm, or make me want more and more, and such conscious choices have been eradicated completely for me now. I haven't had things like that for about 3-4 years. Apart from Easter Eggs, such savoury nibbles are all but gone from life.
I don't eat superclean, but savoury nibbles are history 99% of the time.
I don't and never have drunk either, so mindset is attuned to saying no, to what I don't want, and it's easy for me to be like that.
What I will say is, it looks to me like you have some kind of unstructured binging, so I think what you could do is structure the binge, and give it some kind of definable parameters.
This means picking a day, A Sunday is good a Saturday better, at the very end / start of your week, and schedule in a meal that isn't too great.
I would also limit the options, so you know what the binge is, so for example have two choices, like a Pizza, and some Ice Cream, or a greasy Chinese meal, and a small Bun, Cake, Doughnut, Pastry etc etc for afterwards.
This should give you better control of the binging, by deliberately defining what it will be, and when it will be.
This "cheat meal" kind of system, should help prevent you from just having anything that's there, in an unstructured way.
I also suggest if for example your meal intake is 6 a day, you make the cheat meal number 5, like a Saturday dinnertime, so you still eat clean at the end of the day, and don't wake up Sundays with a guilt trip, and keep the desire, to continue eating the way you did the night before, say around 9, 10, 11PM.
Plus eating that last meal of the day clean, will probably be better for things like sleep patterns, and mean you wake up Sunday, refreshed and ready to continue eating properly again.
If you're eating 6 times a day, in controlled healthy portions, 1 iffy meal on a Saturday Dinnertime, out of 42 weekly meals, won't banjax a weeks dieting.
If you still find that this one meal a week, does not satisfy your need to binge, then increase the cheat meals to two a week, so say Saturday, and Wednesday Dinnertimes, and make sure you know what both cheats are, so you give them structure and definition, and don't aimlessly eat whatever is there.
Be careful not to go mad and eat 1,000 calorie cheats, for example, so a small Pizza, and a Bun, shouldn't be a mega calorie cheat, not Like a KFC Bucket, Sides, and a tub of Ice Cream would be.
The other thing is you have to get a handle on what you buy.
You are only able to binge because you have such foods in the house.
There are certain ways you can control the binge buying.
1. If you live somewhere where there is one or more other people, who may eat binge food, then you need either two fridges if possible, one for their food, with a label on it saying your name, and something like "Keep out" on it, as a visual reminder not to have binge food, and use the other fridge solely for your healthy stuff, and your one or two scheduled binge foods.
2. If there is one fridge, allocate one section for your stuff, the other for other peoples stuff, and again, have some kind of notice warning you to not eat binge foods, so thereby taking off the shelves or other fridge that aren't / isn't yours, is going to feel like your taking other peoples food, and that's going to feel wrong.
I'd use the bottom shelves for other peoples food, so to get any you have to bend down, and make it harder to get at the food. Any little way to put yourself off, will work well.
3. If there is a weekly shop done by someone else, do your own, so you only buy what you need, as someone else may not always buy the right things for you, or if you shop for them, you might be habitually buying some binge foods for them, and inturn, conditioning your mind, to feel like it's an acceptable buying habit, and then doing it for yourself as well, with probably a big loss of control.
The thought being if you buy some binge food for others, you are used to it, and you won't just buy say a Mars bar for yourself, you'll be going nuts possibly, and shoving a few Pizzas, Cookies, Ice cream tubs in for yourself, because you're in close proximity to the temptation foods too often, and without a contolled buying pattern, a pattern which you would have, if you just bought one or two cheat foods in the week, with your healthy stuff, and only your stuff.
4. You buying solely for you, might seem selfish to others, but if it means you aren't having to walk down certain supermarket isles, or browse certain shelves a lot, you'll hopefully condition yourself not to go near the sections / isles where binge foods are stocked, except to buy one or two scheduled "cheat" items, so you then develop that buying pattern, of buying a little binge food for yourself, to cheat once or twice a week, but being in control, and not just buying anything you see, to binge on aimlessly.
5. If you live alone, then point 4 applies also, but you will need to be canny about your money. Never buy food with a card, as you'll be able to overspend often and easily afford more binge food.
Find some old till receipts, and tot up what you spent on healthy stuff, and what you spent on binge food previously, and give yourself a budget.
Obviously you might occasionally buy two for one deals on stuff, or certain promotional items go up a little in price, so you won't be able to spend exactly the same amount as before, but give yourself a few Pounds or Dollars, over your healthy spending limit, to allow for fluctuations in the cost of your weekly shop.
You could then account for one or two cheat items too, but by forcing yourself to budget your spending, and using Cash, not cards, you can't purchase excessive amounts of binge food. Otherwise eventually, you find you've got two Pizzas in your trolley, or basket, and no Potatos, or no Cereal, so what you going to do? Go without Cereal all week, in order to have a third or fourth unscheduled cheat?
You'd put a Pizza back, and get your Potatos, or Box of Cereal say.
Buying food with Cards, makes it harder to limit your spending, when you know you can afford more than is right for you. Also a purse chocka block with money is almost as bad, but one with about enough money for healthy food and one or two cheats, give or take $4-5 or £4-5, will restrict your spending so you can't overspend on cheats, you force yourself to minimise spending on cheats, or jeopardise your healthy food intake.
If you then don't have extra cheats in the house, you would have to make a special effort to go out and buy some, when you wanted unscheduled cheats, and having to do that for cheats, would then hopefully be the mental trigger that says NO, if you have to walk or drive somewhere to buy cheats, instead of getting ready access from a cupboard or fridge.
At this stage if you eat stuff that is designated yours, and it is Cheat Food, allocate yourself those one or two meals a week, know what they are and then throw out the remaining Cheat food, that is yours, and is unscheduled.
Sounds hard effectively throwing money in the bin, but until your next shop, when you are more properly prepared for the shopping experience, and have budgeted accordingly, for your healthy food and 1-2 cheats, any extra cheat food in the house, will be playing mindgames with you.
6. It might also be wise to draw up some kind of regimented meal plan, like some kind of wall chart or wall planner thing, people use for office work / meetings, if you don't already do that, so you know every Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snack, not just where to add the 1-2 cheats in, and then you don't need to worry about wondering if that night you'll have Chicken, the next night Pasta, then next night perhaps a designated Cheat. It's all written out in chart or spreadsheet form, to give all your weekly diet, more structure and definitive purpose.
It might seem tough and inflexible forcing yourself to assign Chicken, Pasta, Turkey, Fish, Cereal a cheat etc etc, a specific time slot per day, or per week, but regimenting yourself like that, will hopefully toughen your resolve, so certain things affecting your ability to binge control, will be easier to defend against.
Hopefully all that helps and makes sense.
It's going to be a bit hard, reconditioning your mind, and some of your buying habits, but hopefully with time and patience it will get easier.
GOOD LUCK, and know that you're not alone here, and we will do our bit to help you through this, and help you achieve your goals .
Occasionally since I started working out, I have had a packet of Crisps, (Potato Chips) now and again, or a Mars bar, but that was a conscious choice, not a mental obstacle I couldn't overcome, and I knew they wouldn't do me any harm, or make me want more and more, and such conscious choices have been eradicated completely for me now. I haven't had things like that for about 3-4 years. Apart from Easter Eggs, such savoury nibbles are all but gone from life.
I don't eat superclean, but savoury nibbles are history 99% of the time.
I don't and never have drunk either, so mindset is attuned to saying no, to what I don't want, and it's easy for me to be like that.
What I will say is, it looks to me like you have some kind of unstructured binging, so I think what you could do is structure the binge, and give it some kind of definable parameters.
This means picking a day, A Sunday is good a Saturday better, at the very end / start of your week, and schedule in a meal that isn't too great.
I would also limit the options, so you know what the binge is, so for example have two choices, like a Pizza, and some Ice Cream, or a greasy Chinese meal, and a small Bun, Cake, Doughnut, Pastry etc etc for afterwards.
This should give you better control of the binging, by deliberately defining what it will be, and when it will be.
This "cheat meal" kind of system, should help prevent you from just having anything that's there, in an unstructured way.
I also suggest if for example your meal intake is 6 a day, you make the cheat meal number 5, like a Saturday dinnertime, so you still eat clean at the end of the day, and don't wake up Sundays with a guilt trip, and keep the desire, to continue eating the way you did the night before, say around 9, 10, 11PM.
Plus eating that last meal of the day clean, will probably be better for things like sleep patterns, and mean you wake up Sunday, refreshed and ready to continue eating properly again.
If you're eating 6 times a day, in controlled healthy portions, 1 iffy meal on a Saturday Dinnertime, out of 42 weekly meals, won't banjax a weeks dieting.
If you still find that this one meal a week, does not satisfy your need to binge, then increase the cheat meals to two a week, so say Saturday, and Wednesday Dinnertimes, and make sure you know what both cheats are, so you give them structure and definition, and don't aimlessly eat whatever is there.
Be careful not to go mad and eat 1,000 calorie cheats, for example, so a small Pizza, and a Bun, shouldn't be a mega calorie cheat, not Like a KFC Bucket, Sides, and a tub of Ice Cream would be.
The other thing is you have to get a handle on what you buy.
You are only able to binge because you have such foods in the house.
There are certain ways you can control the binge buying.
1. If you live somewhere where there is one or more other people, who may eat binge food, then you need either two fridges if possible, one for their food, with a label on it saying your name, and something like "Keep out" on it, as a visual reminder not to have binge food, and use the other fridge solely for your healthy stuff, and your one or two scheduled binge foods.
2. If there is one fridge, allocate one section for your stuff, the other for other peoples stuff, and again, have some kind of notice warning you to not eat binge foods, so thereby taking off the shelves or other fridge that aren't / isn't yours, is going to feel like your taking other peoples food, and that's going to feel wrong.
I'd use the bottom shelves for other peoples food, so to get any you have to bend down, and make it harder to get at the food. Any little way to put yourself off, will work well.
3. If there is a weekly shop done by someone else, do your own, so you only buy what you need, as someone else may not always buy the right things for you, or if you shop for them, you might be habitually buying some binge foods for them, and inturn, conditioning your mind, to feel like it's an acceptable buying habit, and then doing it for yourself as well, with probably a big loss of control.
The thought being if you buy some binge food for others, you are used to it, and you won't just buy say a Mars bar for yourself, you'll be going nuts possibly, and shoving a few Pizzas, Cookies, Ice cream tubs in for yourself, because you're in close proximity to the temptation foods too often, and without a contolled buying pattern, a pattern which you would have, if you just bought one or two cheat foods in the week, with your healthy stuff, and only your stuff.
4. You buying solely for you, might seem selfish to others, but if it means you aren't having to walk down certain supermarket isles, or browse certain shelves a lot, you'll hopefully condition yourself not to go near the sections / isles where binge foods are stocked, except to buy one or two scheduled "cheat" items, so you then develop that buying pattern, of buying a little binge food for yourself, to cheat once or twice a week, but being in control, and not just buying anything you see, to binge on aimlessly.
5. If you live alone, then point 4 applies also, but you will need to be canny about your money. Never buy food with a card, as you'll be able to overspend often and easily afford more binge food.
Find some old till receipts, and tot up what you spent on healthy stuff, and what you spent on binge food previously, and give yourself a budget.
Obviously you might occasionally buy two for one deals on stuff, or certain promotional items go up a little in price, so you won't be able to spend exactly the same amount as before, but give yourself a few Pounds or Dollars, over your healthy spending limit, to allow for fluctuations in the cost of your weekly shop.
You could then account for one or two cheat items too, but by forcing yourself to budget your spending, and using Cash, not cards, you can't purchase excessive amounts of binge food. Otherwise eventually, you find you've got two Pizzas in your trolley, or basket, and no Potatos, or no Cereal, so what you going to do? Go without Cereal all week, in order to have a third or fourth unscheduled cheat?
You'd put a Pizza back, and get your Potatos, or Box of Cereal say.
Buying food with Cards, makes it harder to limit your spending, when you know you can afford more than is right for you. Also a purse chocka block with money is almost as bad, but one with about enough money for healthy food and one or two cheats, give or take $4-5 or £4-5, will restrict your spending so you can't overspend on cheats, you force yourself to minimise spending on cheats, or jeopardise your healthy food intake.
If you then don't have extra cheats in the house, you would have to make a special effort to go out and buy some, when you wanted unscheduled cheats, and having to do that for cheats, would then hopefully be the mental trigger that says NO, if you have to walk or drive somewhere to buy cheats, instead of getting ready access from a cupboard or fridge.
At this stage if you eat stuff that is designated yours, and it is Cheat Food, allocate yourself those one or two meals a week, know what they are and then throw out the remaining Cheat food, that is yours, and is unscheduled.
Sounds hard effectively throwing money in the bin, but until your next shop, when you are more properly prepared for the shopping experience, and have budgeted accordingly, for your healthy food and 1-2 cheats, any extra cheat food in the house, will be playing mindgames with you.
6. It might also be wise to draw up some kind of regimented meal plan, like some kind of wall chart or wall planner thing, people use for office work / meetings, if you don't already do that, so you know every Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snack, not just where to add the 1-2 cheats in, and then you don't need to worry about wondering if that night you'll have Chicken, the next night Pasta, then next night perhaps a designated Cheat. It's all written out in chart or spreadsheet form, to give all your weekly diet, more structure and definitive purpose.
It might seem tough and inflexible forcing yourself to assign Chicken, Pasta, Turkey, Fish, Cereal a cheat etc etc, a specific time slot per day, or per week, but regimenting yourself like that, will hopefully toughen your resolve, so certain things affecting your ability to binge control, will be easier to defend against.
Hopefully all that helps and makes sense.
It's going to be a bit hard, reconditioning your mind, and some of your buying habits, but hopefully with time and patience it will get easier.
GOOD LUCK, and know that you're not alone here, and we will do our bit to help you through this, and help you achieve your goals
.I really don't think this is a matter of will power, eating disorders usually stem from psychlogical issues. Again, I say to see someone who deals with these issues. If the first person didn't help, I suggest seeing someone else.
Last edited by sameey70 on Wed Feb 07, 2007 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks for both of your suggestions, i agree with you both. I think eating is tied tremendously to how you feel about yourself, etc. I will use both of your suggestions, I think it is especially hard at work, when people are constantly bringing in donuts and cake. There was a huge cookie left on desk before and I managed to throw it out , although I wanted to dig in garbage and get it later, but I didn't .... so baby steps and hopefully I can make it a habit.
It could also be partly a psychological thing, when trying to lose weight, and nobody else appears to be bothered, no support, no nothing, and that can make it harder to do anything like you're doing, when it seems like nobody appears to be bothered, or nobody shares your visions, or eats like you.
I know from reading about such things before, this can make someones efforts so much harder, especially for people who do things like Fitness, Figure, Bodybuilding contests, and need to train and need to eat properly, so you will have quite a task, but I am sure with those baby steps, you can make it, and I wish you so much luck, and I hope it all works out for you
I know from reading about such things before, this can make someones efforts so much harder, especially for people who do things like Fitness, Figure, Bodybuilding contests, and need to train and need to eat properly, so you will have quite a task, but I am sure with those baby steps, you can make it, and I wish you so much luck, and I hope it all works out for you