Post by lychee on Mar 28, 2016 19:16:42 GMT -5
Hi again,
I posted here back two years ago or so, said I was totally recovered, and even posted a success story, but you guessed it, it's not always as easy as that, and I'm back with renewed enthusiasm.
I kind of went through an intense period of recovery at that time, and then called myself recovered. After a while, binge type behavior started to creep back, but I would tell myself that, no, eating two bars of chocolate and a bowl of cookies and five slices of bread with lots of nut butter, that's not really binge eating, since I wasn't going out to make dedicated "binge food runs" to the store anymore. I was telling myself that this was just normal people type overeating at times. But in truth, it totally did make me feel crummy going to bed, crummy the next day, chunks on the weight and I had those thoughts of "Oh well, might as well keep eating since I started; get it all in now; and START FRESH TOMORROW", you know, the typical binge mentality.
I actually recently read another book which goes along similar lines (also based on the ideas of rational recovery): Never Binge Again. This is just one of many other books that I read that built upon what I learned from Brain Over Binge, including The Willpower Instinct and The Happiness Trap being the most helpful ones.
The tools that I got from that most recent book were:
1. I have to commit 100% to never binge eating again. It's just something I don't do anymore. I'm not a binge eater that is going back and forth and has "ups and downs", it's just not what I do. And lest that seem unrealistic, I did change other aspects of my eating in a permanent way, in that I went vegan and I now never eat animal foods anymore. Even if that's the one binge type food that we have in the house, I wouldn't eat it, because it's just not even an option in my mind anymore.
The analogy to going vegan is actually really helpful to me, because it's something that's part of my identity now and I'd like for it to be in the same way to delete from my identity as I see it that I am a binge eater (always have been, always will be at heart... that kind of thinking). If I accidentally ate something that was not vegan, I would never just say, oh well, might as well eat a bunch of other non-vegan food. I would say, WHOA, OOPS, and make sure I don't make the same mistake twice.
2. I won't count "binge free days" anymore, because that is along the same lines of thinking that I am still a binge eater. I don't know how many days I've been vegan. Or how many days I haven't robbed a bank (the example from the book). It's just not something I do anymore from here on forward.
3. I have set up a detailed food plan with foods I always eat, never eat, foods that I can eat in an unlimited fashion, and those I eat subject to certain conditions / limitations. Setting a dtailed plan in advance is really helpful, so that I'm not second guessing myself in the situation where I'm already hungry and it gets hard to discern whether this is a rational decision or a slippery slope to a binge. I made sure that the plan is not too restrictive or diet-y, and there's food to eat the unlimited category if I'm still hungry (which I'm not liable to really overeat on past satiety).
Just some other thoughts for now: I find that the real problem for me is that I have tended towards both restriction and binge eating. I was never anorexic in the sense that I just couldn't or didn't want to eat. I dieted to lose weight and had a goal of being very thin. I did get very thin for very limited periods of time, but not to the level that my health suffered, just kind of bottom of BMI "normal" category type numbers. Once I got there, I was happy with my results and didn't want to lose and lose further and further, but due to having restricted so heavily, I had triggered the survival impulse so much that the binge eating came back. I definitely did take it too far in dieting and restricted my intake too much. If I were a binge eater only (without any restrictive tendencies or behaviors), it would be easy to just identify the binge voice and disgard it as junk. Anything that says "go eat a whole bar of chocolate and then let's see where that takes us" that would be nonsense. But the thing is that for me, the voice will also say, hey, it's not good to be too strict, and normal people sometimes eat chocolate, so you should too, and not be so restrictive. But that ends up being a binge slippery slope and I'd be better off not eating chocolate on impulse while I'm hungry and without having really made a deliberate choice about it. My binge voice masquarades as a a helpful, caring voice that is attempting to moderate what might be seen as restrictive tendencies...
I posted here back two years ago or so, said I was totally recovered, and even posted a success story, but you guessed it, it's not always as easy as that, and I'm back with renewed enthusiasm.
I kind of went through an intense period of recovery at that time, and then called myself recovered. After a while, binge type behavior started to creep back, but I would tell myself that, no, eating two bars of chocolate and a bowl of cookies and five slices of bread with lots of nut butter, that's not really binge eating, since I wasn't going out to make dedicated "binge food runs" to the store anymore. I was telling myself that this was just normal people type overeating at times. But in truth, it totally did make me feel crummy going to bed, crummy the next day, chunks on the weight and I had those thoughts of "Oh well, might as well keep eating since I started; get it all in now; and START FRESH TOMORROW", you know, the typical binge mentality.
I actually recently read another book which goes along similar lines (also based on the ideas of rational recovery): Never Binge Again. This is just one of many other books that I read that built upon what I learned from Brain Over Binge, including The Willpower Instinct and The Happiness Trap being the most helpful ones.
The tools that I got from that most recent book were:
1. I have to commit 100% to never binge eating again. It's just something I don't do anymore. I'm not a binge eater that is going back and forth and has "ups and downs", it's just not what I do. And lest that seem unrealistic, I did change other aspects of my eating in a permanent way, in that I went vegan and I now never eat animal foods anymore. Even if that's the one binge type food that we have in the house, I wouldn't eat it, because it's just not even an option in my mind anymore.
The analogy to going vegan is actually really helpful to me, because it's something that's part of my identity now and I'd like for it to be in the same way to delete from my identity as I see it that I am a binge eater (always have been, always will be at heart... that kind of thinking). If I accidentally ate something that was not vegan, I would never just say, oh well, might as well eat a bunch of other non-vegan food. I would say, WHOA, OOPS, and make sure I don't make the same mistake twice.
2. I won't count "binge free days" anymore, because that is along the same lines of thinking that I am still a binge eater. I don't know how many days I've been vegan. Or how many days I haven't robbed a bank (the example from the book). It's just not something I do anymore from here on forward.
3. I have set up a detailed food plan with foods I always eat, never eat, foods that I can eat in an unlimited fashion, and those I eat subject to certain conditions / limitations. Setting a dtailed plan in advance is really helpful, so that I'm not second guessing myself in the situation where I'm already hungry and it gets hard to discern whether this is a rational decision or a slippery slope to a binge. I made sure that the plan is not too restrictive or diet-y, and there's food to eat the unlimited category if I'm still hungry (which I'm not liable to really overeat on past satiety).
Just some other thoughts for now: I find that the real problem for me is that I have tended towards both restriction and binge eating. I was never anorexic in the sense that I just couldn't or didn't want to eat. I dieted to lose weight and had a goal of being very thin. I did get very thin for very limited periods of time, but not to the level that my health suffered, just kind of bottom of BMI "normal" category type numbers. Once I got there, I was happy with my results and didn't want to lose and lose further and further, but due to having restricted so heavily, I had triggered the survival impulse so much that the binge eating came back. I definitely did take it too far in dieting and restricted my intake too much. If I were a binge eater only (without any restrictive tendencies or behaviors), it would be easy to just identify the binge voice and disgard it as junk. Anything that says "go eat a whole bar of chocolate and then let's see where that takes us" that would be nonsense. But the thing is that for me, the voice will also say, hey, it's not good to be too strict, and normal people sometimes eat chocolate, so you should too, and not be so restrictive. But that ends up being a binge slippery slope and I'd be better off not eating chocolate on impulse while I'm hungry and without having really made a deliberate choice about it. My binge voice masquarades as a a helpful, caring voice that is attempting to moderate what might be seen as restrictive tendencies...