Preparing for a Binge

 Binge eating, Cravings, fitness, food, food guilt, food habits, Food Memories, food mistakes, limiting calories, Losing weight, relationship with food, trigger foods, weight loss  20 Responses »
Feb 182013
 

Something I remember all too well is that intense feeling of excitement right before a binge session. It was an overpowering excitement, like the feeling you got on Christmas Eve as a kid. The anticipation was almost better than the actual event.

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When I was 250 pounds, I definitely had food issues. I didn’t know what a calorie was, I didn’t know what a portion size was and I didn’t care. I thought I was eating healthy. I wasn’t. A lot of my problems were Boredom Eating. I used eating as an escape and as a hobby. Most of the overeating was in front of the television. I was bingeing on food and mindless TV.

But every once in awhile, I would participate in what I’d call an “intentional binge.” I planned it. It was usually on a weekend, so Friday night I’d stop at the store and get a bunch of treats that I wanted. It was usually a carton of my favorite ice cream, some mint oreo cookies, a gallon of milk to go with the cookies and maybe some candy bars, too.

I’d go home and order a pizza and eat the whole thing by myself and then tear into the desserts I’d bought. While this didn’t happen a lot, it happened more often than it ever should have. And I loved it! I ate all of my favorite foods and enjoyed every sweet bite of it.

pizzza

Check out some of my old posts regarding binge eating:

Bingeing

Coping- Then and Now

Instant Gratification or Long Term Goal?

Redefine Your Relationship with Food

The Challenge is Always There

Food is Not The Answer

Why Wednesday – Why I Don’t Have a Cheat Day

Binge Eating Demons

Food Addiction

Like I stated in the beginning of this post, the anticipation of the binge was often more enjoyable than the actual eating of the food. I don’t know why–maybe it was comforting, or familiar, maybe it was just about the ritual of eating my favorite foods in massive quantities. The point is that it a mindful act: I prepared for it.

How are things different for me now?

While I still struggle on occasion with binge eating (often times more fighting the desire than actually doing it again), I am doing pretty well. It’s been years since I’ve actively planned a binge eating session. In fact, I don’t even remember the last time I did it.

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Having a steady exercise routine helps a lot with the urges to binge. I find that when I exercise I feel happier, healthier and in turn I want to eat healthier things. I also find that when I consistently eat healthy foods, I don’t crave the JUNK as often, either! I firmly believe that junk food has additives in it that makes you crave it more–but if you cut it out, that craving disappears.

Something else that helps is having a partner who is supportive and (usually) understanding. There’s also a level of embarrassment — I don’t ever want to binge eat in front of Michael. The idea of it makes me cringe, and that cringing keeps me from ever doing it! It brings me out of that moment of “oh, I would love to eat a bunch of my favorite foods that I haven’t had in years” and back to the moment of “I really don’t WANT to do that.” It’s funny, Michael was out of town for work a few months ago and I had that anticipation of “I could do anything I wanted and eat anything I wanted all weekend long!” What did I end up doing? I bought some Indian food from Trader Joe’s and watched a bunch of Netflix. :) Not exactly a binge. Thankfully!

Now your input: did you PLAN binges?

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Coping – Then and Now

 fitness, food, Losing weight, Obesity, relationship with exercise, relationship with food, trigger foods, TV, weight loss  8 Responses »
Dec 182012
 


If only it were THAT easy!

Well, sometimes it is that easy. Fat Kitty is the King of Cheering Mom Up. Nothing makes me happier than pulling into my driveway to see his little face perk up in the window, then disappear because he’s running into the kitchen to greet me with his belly exposed for rubs. Seriously, that’s what I walk in to every day and I love it! Fat Kitty gets belly scratches before I do anything else.

He’s really good at sensing when I’m stressed out or upset and he perches himself on my lap, his paws on my shoulders, looking up at me adoringly and purring happily. It’s hard to be upset or sad when you look down and see this:

So my question for you: how do you deal with stress, anxiety, sadness, anger, etc? Basically, how do you COPE? And has that changed now that you are trying to be healthier?

I ask this because my coping mechanisms have changed dramatically since I was 250 pounds. In the past, my way of coping with any kind of emotion or stressor in life was to turn toward food. Specifically, ice cream. I could go through a huge tub of ice cream in just a few days.

The other way I dealt with stressors was escapism. My preferred method of escaping was watching TV or movies. It wasn’t uncommon that I’d have a weekend marathon of Law & Order episodes on USA. Escaping was so much easier than dealing.

Unhealthy Ways of Coping with Stress

(source) These coping strategies may temporarily reduce stress, but they cause more damage in the long run:

  • Smoking
  • Drinking too much
  • Overeating or undereating
  • Zoning out for hours in front of the TV or computer
  • Withdrawing from friends, family, and activities
  • Using pills or drugs to relax
  • Sleeping too much
  • Procrastinating
  • Filling up every minute of the day to avoid facing problems
  • Taking out your stress on others (lashing out, angry outbursts, physical violence)

Do any of those ring a bell? They sure ring a lot of memory bells for me!

So change the situation. Get the temptations out of the house. Get yourself out of the house. Try another way to deal with stress than any other method that has “worked” in the past. I use quotes for worked because while binge eating and escaping into TV land was unhealthy, IT WORKED. There was something inside of me that WAS feeling better, a need was being met, until it became painfully obviously that it wasn’t really working (i.e. gaining 100 pounds).

How is my coping different now? It’s pretty drastic in its differences. First, I normally don’t turn towards food. I’m not 100% cured of that urge, but I do pretty well most of the time not turning toward food or alcohol to dampen emotions that are uncomfortable.

Second, exercise. Instead of spending my entire existence on the couch, lost in other people’s lives instead of dealing with or living my own, I use exercise to calm unhappy emotions or get nervous energy out. Sometimes when you’re mad, there’s nothing better than going for a run! Exercise fixes so much!

Maybe using exercise to cope with stress is just another form of escapism, but at least it’s a healthier one. Because you know those TV marathon escapism sessions included binge eating! They went hand-in-hand. It’s kind of hard to binge-eat ice cream while you’re on a treadmill. :)

It’s all a learning process. Where are you in this learning process? How do you cope? And how is different now than before?

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