Binge Eating

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LeahMamaof2

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I am a binge eater. I have been since I was in my early teens. I’m currently about thirty pounds overweight, and have started Weight Watchers this week. I was wondering if anyone has suffered with this (and it is suffering, and I’m tired of it) and what they have done to heal themselves. I do a lot of eating during the night, and I eat when I’m not hungry.

Blessings,

Leah
 
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LeahMamaof2:
I am a binge eater. I have been since I was in my early teens. I’m currently about thirty pounds overweight, and have started Weight Watchers this week. I was wondering if anyone has suffered with this (and it is suffering, and I’m tired of it) and what they have done to heal themselves. I do a lot of eating during the night, and I eat when I’m not hungry.

Blessings,

Leah
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I suffer from it too and can highly recommend Weight Watchers. I think it is the only plan out there that is reasonable as a lifestyle change rather than trying a fad “diet”. They will teach you portion control and there are lists of vegetables with 0 points!

My best advice to you is to keep healthy snack foods at home. Cut up vegetables and keep them in plastic baggies in the fridge for when you feel the binge urge start up. I like to keep cucumbers, red peppers, carrots, celery and broccoli available. Small apples and other small fruits are good too. Also, drink lots of water! Most often we mistake our thirst for hunger pains! Explains why many of us are dehydrated and don’t know it!

Another trick I’ve learned is to brush your teeth when you feel like binging. Use a mint flavored toothpaste. The fresh mint taste will curb your appetite.

Best of luck to you Leah.
 
i would binge for days and then starve for days. i used food as an emotional coping device since as far as i can remember. there have been several threads on food issues lately so i’d browse them. 10 years of going to a 12 step program, attending healing masses, being prayed over for healing, and adoration helped me break free from the addiction and live in recovery mode one day at a time. i encourage looking into 12 steps because it isn’t about the food it is about why you are using food to cope with or cover up or run from something else. IMO you can’t live in recovery until you figure that out.
 
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LeahMamaof2:
I am a binge eater. I have been since I was in my early teens. I’m currently about thirty pounds overweight, and have started Weight Watchers this week. I was wondering if anyone has suffered with this (and it is suffering, and I’m tired of it) and what they have done to heal themselves. I do a lot of eating during the night, and I eat when I’m not hungry.

Blessings,

Leah
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Leah,
Have you spent any time trying to figure out why it is that you binge?
  1. Are you bored?
  2. Are you emotionally hurting?
  3. Is this a habit that was reinforced as a child?
    When you know why you do it, I think you will see that it is easier to identify when you are doing it. That of course won’t solve the problem, but if you pray for healing of that emotional hurt or purposely keep yourself active at the hours when you normally binge by doing something to help others it will help to curb the binging.
    If you can keep a small notepad with you and write down everything you eat, what time it is, and maybe something about how you are feeling, it will help you to identify what triggers you to binge. It will also serve to remind you when you last ate and what types of foods are
    a.) lacking in your diet
    b.) your comfort foods
If you feel compelled to eat, try to substitute raw veggies and fruits for sugars and fats in your diet. This will make you feel more satisfied if you are eating out of boredom since they take longer to chew and swallow than chips, fries and ice cream.

Other tips:
  1. don’t keep unhealth snacks around the house
  2. buy individual serving packaged snacks and limit yourself to one serving
  3. When you feel like snacking, try starting a craft project or taking a walk to get your mind off eating(and keep your hands busy).
  4. don’t despair when you do snack, even on foods that you shouldn’t. Just think, I will do better next time or It is ok to treat myself every so often, but don’t get down on yourself, that just makes it worse.
  5. before you try to lose weight, see a doctor for a checkup
Most of all, pray for guidance, remember that your body is a temple in which you ask the holy spirit to reside, and with deal issues before they eat you up…

this is my best advice…
 
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LeahMamaof2:
I am a binge eater. I have been since I was in my early teens. I’m currently about thirty pounds overweight, and have started Weight Watchers this week. I was wondering if anyone has suffered with this (and it is suffering, and I’m tired of it) and what they have done to heal themselves. I do a lot of eating during the night, and I eat when I’m not hungry.

Blessings,

Leah
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Congratulations on starting your recovery! Have you ever looked into the light weigh?

Here is the website:lightweigh.com/
 
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LeahMamaof2:
I am a binge eater. I have been since I was in my early teens. I’m currently about thirty pounds overweight, and have started Weight Watchers this week. I was wondering if anyone has suffered with this (and it is suffering, and I’m tired of it) and what they have done to heal themselves. I do a lot of eating during the night, and I eat when I’m not hungry.

Blessings,

Leah
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When I was younger I used to binge eat, esp when I was a teenager. I smoked pot back then and it does something to lower your blood sugar I think and makes you crave sweets and starches.

Now I’m not as prone towards this. I’m 48 and really can’t eat the quantities that I used to be able to consume in one sitting. After 7 pregnancies I sort of got sick of eating a lot. I just can’t ‘pig out’ like I used to.

30 pounds overweight isn’t really too bad these days. It’s definately not a totally intimidating amount of weight. If you lose 10 pounds in the next 2 or 3 months, then you’ll have only 20 pounds to go! Weight Watchers is a proven, common sense approach. Good for you!
 
Thank you all for your advice. I’m going to try to take it one day at a time, and not think about the whole picture. I’m getting married the end of June, and I would like to be thinner, but I’m not going to stress out about it. Its just something I’ve been struggling with for so long, and sometimes I get so tired of the struggle. Its just my cross to bear.

Thanks again,

Leah
 
I’m a binge eater too. I was thinking about drinking anti-freeze to tear up my throat so I have to be tube fed. Can’t binge on tube feed! 😦 Its better to have that than to get fat!
 
djamu said:
I’m a binge eater too. I was thinking about drinking anti-freeze to tear up my throat so I have to be tube fed. Can’t binge on tube feed! 😦 Its better to have that than to get fat!
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I don’t think anti-freeze will hurt your throat. It will kill your liver, and as W. C. Fields used to say, “When your liver dies they bury you with it.”

If you were serious about drinking anti-freeze, you should see your doctor. That’s not normal and you need help. It is not better than getting fat. I’m new here, but I’ll just bet self mutilation is a sin – a pretty serious one.

God bless you.
 
The main thing I think you want to do is to build better habits. If you shoot to take the weight off without changing habits you might put it right back on, or you might just stress yourself out and sabotage your chances. Your will-power will only get you so far, the best thing is to make good choices even when you aren’t trying. Better choices don’t always mean less satisfying food. A lot of good food is good. A lot of the food you like that you think is bad, can fit well into a balanced diet, maybe not always in the same amount.

Here is what I think might help:
  1. Make changes gradually. You might be all excited about changing everything now, but once your excitement wears out, you might just drop the whole thing.
  2. Plan out how you can more easily make transition to what ever diet changes. Plan out recipes, what to buy at the grociery store, what to do when you don’t eat something from home. What to avoid buying too much of at the store.
  3. Have a support system. Weight watches sounds good. In fact I’m sure they’ll help with a lot of the planning. I don’t know how they work. Also friends and family to help you.
  4. Figure out why you eat what you do and when.
  5. Forgive yourself if you make mistakes. It’s fine, you want to change general choices, one time doesn’t ruin it all.
It sounds like you want to lose some weight for the wedding. Keep an eye on your stress. If you get too stressed and a bit burned out, you’ll have a hard time with making as many changes as you’d like, much less doing everything you’d like. Transition is stressful, and sometimes the stress will keep you from doing everything you’d like without burnout leaving you in a state of irritablity and depressed. Feeling like that will make whatever you think worth it, not worth it.
 
I was bulimic for years, not completely over it yet, but therapy helped a lot, as did talking to the people around me and trying to be accountable to them. Keeping junk food out of the house is helpful, too. I hope you can get to a healthier place in both mind and body. It is possible:thumbsup:
 
Although I have never been overweight, I did fall into the sin of vanity over the years. I would binge one day and the next day I would starve myself to make up for it. It is a vicious cycle. I have for the most part, gotten rid of this vice. Praise the Lord! I try to eat healthy and excersize to make up for the bad stuff I eat. Keep healthy snacks around, do NOT buy the stuff that you binge on, for me it was candy and chips. Just dont buy it, it is hard to binge on nuts and fruit, but if you do, it does not have the same devastating effects.😃
 
Leah, you are not alone. I have struggled with this since I was a teenager, and I’m a “golden girl” now. Weight Watchers is a good program. They will give you the tools you need to eat right and to make wise choices in social situations, etc. But so often, binge-eating, like other eating disorders, has its roots in deeper problems, it’s not just about bad habits. Overeaters Anonymous is an option – I’m not into it myself (although perhaps I should be), but one of my coworkers is and she has had a wonderful recovery so far.

I have a few tools to help me head off a binge when I am tempted. I tend to binge when I am going through stressful times, so I try to find out “what’s eating me” when I want to go out and devour everything in sight. I remind myself that the devil loves it when I binge because it is bad for my health (esp. at my age when diabetes and heart disease are more common) and it is bad for my spirit because afterward I am filled with discouragement and self-disgust. Sometimes it helps me to think the words, “Choose Life” and to ask myself if what I am about to do is life-giving or life-destroying. And sometimes I deny myself the foods I’m wanting to binge on and offer it up for the Poor Souls or for a personal intention. And sometimes I still stumble and fall…sigh

Good luck with Weight Watchers, and God bless! 👍
 
Another vote for WW. I started in January. Although I have never been overweight I developed an unhealthy relationship with food. I would go through periodic binging, usually in response to extreme frustration, sadness or anger with myself. I would also binge to almost punish myself when I felt trapped and lonely. I always chose healthy foods, but stuffing yourself is stuffing yourself.

I have been doing the WW flex program for 8 weeks and haven’t binged once.:clapping: I am on maintenance level points but I use the food tracker and I scrupulously write everything down and follow WW recommendations exactly and I don’t miss a meeting. The meetings are an absolute, for me. I tried the WW online and had no success in changing my behavior.

I’m not sure of the why, but I now feel in control of my eating instead of it controlling me. I feel as though I am on the road
to making this behavior an ingrained habit and it’s been a lot cheaper than therapy!
 
I’ve been there too, I’ve struggled with binge eating along with bulimia for several years now. I’m currently doing nutrisystem and it has really taught me portion control and how to eat healthy (plus the food isn’t too bad either). I still struggle with both the binging and the bulimia on a daily basis and I just trust our Lord to get me through it. This may be just me but when I think about food I stop and pray for strenghth and a lot of the time if I am wanting to go on a binge I will say the rosary and ask for the intercession of the Blessed Mother to help me with my problem.
 
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