Diets and binges

[Jamez Bond]

Really, being start in treatment is definitely essential. There's no way I could have gotten the understanding into what I was really working with without being start. At that factor I just experienced so anxious and out of management that I would do anything to get out of the position I experienced so trapped in.

 

[Stansmith]

One minor thing that's helped me avoid binges a bit is instead of explicitly restricting myself of food (and making it that much more alluring), I tell myself "let it wait" or "leave it for later", and I usually end up forgetting about it.

 

[Thalassa]

I think the key to understanding why you have disordered eating lies some where in childhood. It is probably different for everyone, but for me I am now absolutely certain it's because I was forced to eat meat (or wrap it in a napkin, or feed it to the dog) as a child. It went further than the standard parenting of "eat your vegetables" it was more like a misguided worship of meat my grandparents had because of being young in the 1950s. I am pretty sure I was born vegetarian or pescetarian, but actually was forced to sit at the dinner table after everyone else got up because I didn't like meat at all. (Strangely this actually relaxed a little when my grandfather remarried an otherwise controlling woman, who allowed me to eat scrambled eggs for dinner and order pizza half mushrooms, tomato and black olives. ..but the damage had already been done, I had already been coerced into eating culturally instead of intuitively)...My eating is only mildly disordered though compared to my mother, who struggled with anorexia and only truly overcame this along with other issues she had when she had a complete change of perspective and took control of her life more and more approaching and during middle age. I am not saying parents should let their children eat anything they want, no not at all, but the way my grandparents went about it was totally wrong, obviously. I think within reason children need to be respected in some of their dietary aversions, which may indicate allergies or other conditions. For example if your kid wants nothing but sugar, offer them fruit. If your kid won't eat meat, give them beans, tofu or eggs as protein....like don't let the brat run wild and live totally off of McDonald's or Lucky Charms, but be responsible enough as a parent to make healthy swaps (there are charts now you can get that say this craving actually means you need xyz nutrient)...i think this may actually clear up some tendency toward disordered eating.

I don't know what your underlying issue is, but if you say your mom responded to your too strict diet by controlling everything you ate, the mystery might be solved somewhere in that pattern.

 

[Thalassa]

I was chronically overweight in my twenties (about 12-15kgs excess) and could not shift it no matter who much gym work I did or how carefully I ate. Then once I gave up trying to be my normal weight (in my 30's) I lost it all in 3 months and havent struggled with my weight since. Two important things happened to me....

1. I lost the stress I was constantly feeling about my weight. Stress hormones when chronic in the body do cause you to seek out binge food and also put on weight. If you have a lot of free ranging cortisol in your body you wont be able to lose anything.

2. I stopped eating what people told me I should eat, and just reached for the food my body told me I should eat. It seems scary at first, especially if you fear you'll end up living on chocolate cake or something. But actually our bodies are smarter than that. I didnt even notice at the time but what I ended up eating the most of was steamed vegetables and proteins and I hardly ever ate any grain or sugar. In 3 months with only walking as an exercise I went from 65kgs to 50kgs and have stayed there ever since.

There is a lot of misinformation about diet, most of it spread by health organisations. We no longer know how to eat or what to eat anymore. I personally believe that there isn't one diet thats right for all. Our bodies are individuals and while I blow up like a balloon if I eat grain, others can eat it and be healthy. We know what our best food is when we eat a natural diet (unprocessed foods) and listen to our bodies which do signal to us what it wants as food. My body craves protein and carbs from vegetables. Starchy carbs like grain bloat me and make me feel lethargic so I don't eat them. My way is unscientific and a lot of people will argue its wrong, I don't care. Its the only thing which has gotten my body to its natural state and that is proof enough for me. I am healthy now, carrying around 15kgs of excess weight wasn't.

Yeah this kind of matches my theory sort of. If you eat like a child, but stay away from processed food (which is sadly the control issue for some people who have eating disorders, I have a friend who is obese and diabetic in her 20s and she would constantly talk about how her parents never let her have snack foods or seconds, and she was a normal weight at eighteen when she left home)....but yeah its largely a control issue if you have disordered eating, it's one thing for bulimics, another for anorexic and yet another for overeaters, buy I think in all cases the intuitive form of eating has been blunted or obscured by emotional or psychological control issues. I sometimes wonder why my mother became anorexic, and me more of a binge/dieter but it could do more with personality. My mother may have viewed not eating at all as passive resistance, and I may have viewed binge/diet as rebellion and obedience (like how I learned to eat meat out of obedience, so now am not eating it at all now that I discovered this reoccurring issue in my childhood and adult life)...but it's ultimately about food becoming something more than simply a way to nourish your body, even beyond normal cultural family or societal reasons, to something very personal. ..i know another woman who was a child vegetarian despite her omni family who was eventually trained to eat meat who suddenly became obese after emotional trauma in her early twenties.

Society puts more pressure on women to be thin, but I think people of either gender role can have control or emotional issues related to food from childhood. And unfortunately the processed foods that actually chemically create food addiction don't help anyone, but especially those who are eating them out of rebellion as adults like my one friend who has made herself very sick with her diet, through overeating not under eating.

 

[Showbread]

Thank you guys so I just guess I should less concentrate on my body and more on other things in my life. It's just really hard, I've never been overweight (acording to official charts) in my life, but I used to be chubby during high shcool and I felt bad about it. It just felt so good when I lost 30lbs and got into being underweight, it was like my dream was comming true, it's just hard for me to accept this is going to be my past...I am still good BMI 18,7 but what bothers me is that the last time I started to binge eating from BMI 17 I went to BMI 23 in an year...It was terrible and I just don't want to end up like this again. I like being skinny, it's just hard to manage it. My weight was 93lbs before holiday and now it's around 101, but getting groser and it's going to be 130 soon if I won't change it, because I've been once there and I know how much I can binge...

It sounds like you really need to get into a healthy food rhythm and kind of let your body decide on a healthy weight on it's own... How have you been doing? This thread kind of got abandoned.

 

[Thalassa]

This is exactly what happened to me... I had the control and everything and now I can restrict for a few days, I lost a kilo or so and feel much better about myself and then suddenly something just turns over in my mind and I binge and gain...and then again diet, and then binge... crazy.
I felt like I'd do anything to get from the problems that make me stuck many times before... But I never did do anything about it. I still kind of feel like if I could reach my goal weight I could stop it and just be happy...

Obviously you should listen to a doctor, but in my amateur observation you may be a text book non purge bulimic (binging off set by dieting, exercise or brief periods of starvation)....the problem with this is that the cyclical nature is part of it, so nah reaching a magic number will absolutely not fix it. Bulimics can also be moody and it's common to feel a lack of self control then berate ones self for it. This behavior sometimes has co morbity with a similar binge/restrict attitude to drugs and alcohol, or OCD or mood swing disorder like being bipolar or borderline personality. Bulimics can also struggle with controlling impulse behavior and anger. It's not just about what you weigh. Not owning a scale is usually a tiny first step, because you are realizing it isn't actually about your magic goal weight and your self loathing in not being able to reach it. You have to work on that whole self loathing thing. Love your self (I know it's easier said than done).