r/BingeEatingRecovery

I’m in bed crying because I’m truly starting to hate the person I’ve become. My body has been through so much - miscarriage, pregnancy, c-section, cancer, chemo, radiation, surgeries, etc… and I was determined to come out stronger after every challenge. And I did it. In a span of 9 months I lost 25 lbs, I felt great. I didn’t have food noise. I was just so happy to be alive and able to workout again.

Then I lost it all. Gained every pound back and then some because I got lazy and started binging again. Every damn day I start off strong with food planned, drinking my water, collagen, electrolytes, you name it. And by the evening I’m binging on bullshit. Tonight it was peanut butter and sugar free chocolate chips by the spoonful.

I feel heavy, and sloth like and uncomfortable. I hate how I look, my clothes are all too tight. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I stop 😭😭😭

I think the root of my binge eating started in October. I started a new job in June and started to weigh less from under eating and stress. Before this whole cycle began I weighed in the range of 143-150 at 5’9 (female). Since June I was walking and exercising more and I think the loss was somewhat accidental. I weighed like 126 pounds at my doctors appointment in October. around that time is when I developed these episodes of feeling out of control around food. At work events if there was a table of cupcakes or brownies, I would feel absolutely uncontrollable around it and just keep taking more. My brain became/is hyper fixated on sweet palatable items. These episodes got worse with the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I started really stressing out when I knew I would be around social events that had access to lots of desserts. These binge episodes could be 4000 till like 8000 cal. Initially, I would try to limit calories the next day and this would just perpetuate the cycle.

I think intuitive eating would be absolutely useless because my brain will just use it as an excuse to binge. So right now I am calorie tracking to make sure that I’m eating a healthy amount, and I’ve actually found some temporary success by increasing my daily calories and planning out three set meals a day. I find that I specifically binge on sweet items—protein bars, Kit Kats, cookies etc. I never binge on savory. I’ve tried cutting them out (end up bingeing at work events, accessing vending machine) and tried incorporating them into daily planned intake (which works for 3 days and then I binge the rest of the box in one sitting). Is it time to cut out protein bars and packaged sweet stuff entirely??

Most recently I was able to go five days eating 1800 and feeling great, but was on a string of night shifts. one of the last nights I barely got any sleep and at work ended up having a binge that lasted until the morning. This threw me completely off track, which was especially hard for me since I had just had almost a whole week of what I thought was freedom from the cycle. Overtime, I realized that my biggest triggers are of course restriction, but also sleep deprivation, boredom, loneliness. I also have black-and-white thinking where if I have one snack that is unplanned or something that I deem unhealthy get spirals and I end up binging because I feel like I already ruined the day.

I’m at the point now where I eat normally 4-5 days of the week and the rest are absolute binges of 4-6k calories. I’m at like 150 lbs right now but I’m sure a lot of it is water weight that would drop fairly quickly if this horrible cycle ends…This is affecting my quality of life at this point and I’m thinking of setting up with a dietician through nourish. Does anyone have any advice for me?

Does anyone have any random/ not generic tips that actually helped their reocvery ( not just like eat intutively lol). For example one of mine was stopping vaping? think it helped with my oral fixation or dopamine regulation? anyone have anything eles?

So I have been intermittent fasting for a while now, usually doing 18:6 so I usually ate some lunch and some dinner, and I was doing keto as well. Keto is hard for me to stick to long term but it really does help me not binge because eating carbs/sugar usually trigger me to just eat and eat and have a hard time stopping. However, like i said its hard for me to stick to so ideally I want to be able to just eat a normal diet and have it not trigger a binge.

This past week I decided to try doing 20:4. The first few days I was doing 20:4 I actually lost weight and it was going really well. The last 2 days of the week I overdid it and ate way too much in my eating window - I didn't exactly gain but it just stayed the same. I typically was eating a snack right when my eating window opened up and then dinner. But when I say I overdid it - I ate way too much of a "snack" and then ate dinner and was so full it was uncomfortable. So it was basically a binge just within my eating window.

With that being said, I think I might change to doing OMAD/23:1 because that one meal can be a larger portion since it's my whole day's worth of calories in a single sitting, and I am FULL by the time I get done eating that one meal. I don't mind it if I want a small sweet treat but it has to be small, which is easy because I'll be full enough from dinner that I won't overdo it because I physically cant. Doing 20:4 I noticed my stomach shrank and I got full very quickly, or at least it felt that way. That is not a bad thing imo.

Anyways, I wanted to get input from you guys to see if this has worked for you if you've tried it before? I don't want to hear anyone say don't do IF because it really does help me regulate my eating, and I'm not even hungry so I don't mind doing it. I also only fast during the week and on the weekends I try to stay mindful and not overdo it. My biggest issue is to control my brain when it says "more!" especially when it comes to sweets because my adhd brain loves sugar lol. I gotta get her reined in. I just want to make this a lifestyle change I can stick with long term!

Looking at food delivery and restaurant sites. This is one of the first signs that a binge is coming. I was in the ICU for 2 days last week with blood sugar close to 900, so it's really important I not binge today. I had a healthy, filling breakfast so I don't need to eat. I just need to stay strong.

I hit my highest weight in 10 years and I’m so disgusted today. I’m so alone. I can’t even talk about this with my partner because they’ll tell me to shut up about it and cook for them. My house is disgusting and my partner doesn’t care so long as the food is made. I feel like our lives just revolve around food. I hate it. My partner makes 10 million lists and plans and demands I proofread it and approve it for them but they don’t get out of bed until 5PM every day. New routine, new agenda, new diet, every week. All plans, no actions. I know it won’t work because we’re both spiraling in this disorder. I eat and eat and eat. I’m starting a new job soon and I’m so happy to be away from this place and praying I can stop this way of living and fill the void with busy work. I feel so overwhelmed while doing nothing. Constant food noise in my head. Constantly on my phone. Constantly trying to escape my thoughts. Sorry for the vent. I want to stop this cycle so bad