Day 934 : No binge today. 
Day 270 : No coffee today.
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I don’t keep sweets in my house. Not any.
I have an outbuilding that I have cookies in for guests, I have organic hi cocoa chocolate bars, I have some frozen cakes. Occasionally ice cream.
That stuff is more or less in a “safe spot” even though I go out there and ride a bicycle.
A few months ago after having the cookies about 5 feet from where I ride the bike and never ever even thinking about them I decided I’m going to have JUST ONE. Well that’s not exactly what happened. Did I come here and post for help? No. I ate about a half of the pack.
Like a ravenous Cookie Monster.
Maybe once or twice a year I will eat some of it. OK maybe three times.
I know I can’t just have one or I will eat all of it.
I have power bars in my glove compartment for when I need them. Sometimes I do.
If I kept them in the house I would eat them all. Or eat more than I want in any case and yes and during the night or before I go to sleep.
If you have other people in your household who are eating the sweets that’s a problem.
I don’t have a sugar-free counter going because basically I don’t eat sugar.
And haven’t for years and if I want to have a little bit then I want to have it I don’t want to go for the rest of my life without ever having a cookie.
But I have to beware because if there’s more around I will eat it.
Best bet on having a cookie is at somebody else’s house.
I would say if sweets are a problem for you then yes start the sugar counter and just tell yourself you can’t have any.
My problem time is the later it gets in the evening. Part of its procrastination on getting ready for bed.
Short of intermittent fasting one thing that would be good for me is to have a cut off time. No more food after this time. The problem is I have a hard time with self-control when it has to do with food. That would be helpful to you
@crystalclear
My biggest “Binge” food right now is fat free Greek yogurt.
Sometimes it’s walnuts also. I keep them in the freezer.
I’ve gained weight in the last year for the first time in forever. I don’t know why. Basically I eat healthy food but I eat too much of it. I’m tired of it.
Yesterday I decided instead of griping about it anymore I need to get my steps way up and then see what happens.
So I’m going to start adding 1000 steps a day until I get up to seven or 8000.
Then wait for cooler weather.
Yes it’s very hot. 100 plus daytime. But I can wet my shirt and I can drink cold water and use a flashlight.
I decided that it’s not fair for me to do all the griping when my steps have gone way down. I’ve always been a walker and now I haven’t been. So I need to quit griping.
I ride an indoor bike a good bit ( 19-21 miles, 90 minutes) and I also do a certain amount of lifting weights but that doesn’t make up for the lack of steps.
I walked this evening and maybe for the first 10-15? minutes I carried a 20 pound kettle ball on one side, switching to the other hand about every 100 steps or so, going up and down a hill. It’s not hard for me. This is good for my back and my posture. I’m not doing it, or even know if I’ll get extra calorie burn.
A lot of what I do and don’t do depends on niggling orthopedic stuff.
I talked to a friend today about weight watchers. Basically most of what I eat is their zero point foods.
I track my calories on Noom since 2021.
For years I’ve had half of an avocado a day. For the last bit of time I haven’t been. Maybe when I started gaining weight. But I’m going to add it because the healthy fat might be what I need in my diet.
@crystalclear I’m glad you are here and that you are ready to make a change for yourself. I’m very sorry about your twin sister. Stopping drinking very much helped you and now you can try to get the weight gone or some of it in any case and get your fitness level back.
Start walking slowly. They say to add five minutes a day. So to be prudent if you’re out of shape start with something simple like that. If you have stairs in your house. Go up and down the stairs some.
If it’s hot where you are go to the grocery store or go to Walmart and walk around for a while.
@Faugxh Thinking about you during this time of challenge and uncertainty
and things that upset you. I hope it will all soon get better.
@Misokatsu I hope you have a good trip home and I hope that the siblings behave themselves. If not you know what to tell them. There’s a whole thread here about it.
To all of our good health and fitness.
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Thank you so much for this!
Here I am at 11pm telling myself I don’t need to eat.
I will not eat.
I am not hungry.
I will not eat.
I am not hungry.
Just need to sleep and get through this craving. Now is when I usually crave and binge then feel guilty in the morning. Sound familiar??
I live with an 18yo daughter and my husband. They try to help limit what we keep in the house and even hide things from me. My biggest issue is carbs more than sweets. Anything baked - crackers, bread, muffins, cereal, cookies, cake, buns - it is ridiculous at this point. We don’t keep much in the house and when they buy it they don’t buy a lot.
I am checking in each morning and night until the worst part of the cravings and the withdrawal is gone.
Thanks so much. 
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No more food until breakfast for either of us. Yes that’s the same type of stuff I would go for except I don’t have it. I’ve known since I was a child that that type of food more or less sedates me, pasta included. There Are some saltines in here but I don’t go after them.
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It’s been 8 days since I’ve overeaten. I must admit I’m a little anxious because I feel like I might slip at any moment. I say this because I crave food a lot and have been going back to having one small midnight snack every night. I know I should drink water instead of having the snack, but I feel I just can’t get there. Any tips?
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Hi @crystalclear and welcome to the thread! My biggest tool I’ve posted about just a bit further up, it was developing a functional and conscious relationship to my body and to food, rather than just calorie counting or wanting to be “thin” as I did when I was young.
On days when I lift, I have no issue sticking to my assigned macros. I used a macro calculator back in the day (and since when my weight changed) to find out how I need to eat, here’s the one I used, never mind the salacious name, it’s a very reliable one that anyone with any activity level can use: The Leangains Macro Calculator | RippedBody.com
Since then I have got a lot of practice and I can do that routinely, I don’t need to count calories. I also hardly ever eat any outside or restaurant food. I just dislike it. But it makes it easy for me too to stick to what I need to eat.
When I’m very depressed and can’t lift, I can overeat or rarely also undereat extremely. There are multiple reasons for that I sometimes write on, but it is also been studied that exercise has a hunger regulating effect. Influence of resistance and aerobic exercise on hunger, circulating levels of acylated ghrelin, and peptide YY in healthy males - PubMed
It’s probably that same effect that I mean when I say conscious relationship. Actually feeling my body and my hunger more than when I just eat and eat and eat, ignoring that I’m beyond full and got a belly ache already.
Like @Alisa (thanks for your kind words!), I don’t keep binge foods in the house. Potato chips, sweets or bread or even processed vegan meat substitutes (recently ate a 2kg bag of vegan sausages my mother sent along in less than two days. Yup.). When I do buy it, I accept that I will eat it, like for an occasion, and I’ll be fine w it. But I don’t buy it on the regular.
If you crave carbs, I would recommend you generally up your fat and protein intake. You can fiddle around w that on the calculator I linked above.
Also, I would do something active when you crave. Go for a fast walk or a short jog or just some calisthenics on your yoga mat. That’s my biggest recommendation. Focus away from your lust for food, into a conscious sensation of your physicality.
Happy to have you! And you look really cute in your pic, thanks for posting! 
Edit to say this: before I was a weight lifter and when I still drank, my eating has horrendous. I had some healthy habits like eat lots of root vegetables instead of any pure carbs because they would just not fill me up but always make me want to eat even more. But that said I would overeat with almost any meal to the extent that I had to lie down and sleep after. Or I would restrict and not eat. But if I was eating, that was it for the next couple hrs. I had no control over it. I had shame around eating. I could not eat with other ppl, at all. (Still struggle w that a tiny bit but it’s gotten way better.) No structure, no idea, so much stress. I also binged and purged, not daily or weekly from a certain point, but for years.
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As a binger the best things I do is either eat lots of vege sticks or fruit, or have a large sweetened drink （not a bought one, made at home）. Both give me a full tummy feeling and I don’t allow myself to feel guilty after.
I also weigh myself as little as possible. One every two weeks at most. And for weight loss I aim at one kg for two weeks. So a pound a week. Very slow.
I also only use stairs at work. I work on the 3rd or 4th floor, and have to go up and down between classes.
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It’s the morning. I made it. 4 nights in a row I haven’t eaten after my dinner. That’s the most days I’ve strung along in a while.
@Sissychris39 8 days is fantastic! Well done. Shut the door that’s open in the back of your mind to allow the midnight snack or whatever you know you shouldn’t do. Knowledge isn’t our issue. We all know. It’s the actions we must change. For me when I start thinking “I might slip”, “I only ate xyz earlier so I can have abc” - any kind of mental gymnastics going on means I am planning behavior I know is not healthy. That’s when we pause, call a friend, take a walk, drink some water or a tasty beverage, get on here and be honest about what’s going on. I’ve learned in recovery that honesty and humility are key. If I’m not honest with myself about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, I’ll never recover.
@Faugxh thank you for all the info! I don’t count calories, I don’t weigh myself every day, I can’t handle macros because I will get OCD about it, I agree I do need to up my protein and healthy fat intake - also veggies. Usually when I crave it’s after 10pm and I’m not asleep like I should be. I don’t crave during the day at the moment - very thankful for that. I guess that’s one plus of being so busy with work. So being active after I’ve taken all my evening medication isn’t an option. What is an option is getting my butt out of bed in the mornings to go for walks again. It’s incredibly hot here in Texas right now so daytime walks aren’t an option. We’re running around 100°F daily. I don’t have a treadmill or any equipment in the house but I have to figure out a way to be more active. Historically I know that when I exercise regularly, I have less issues with over eating.
Thanks again for welcoming me so warmly!! Y’all are amazing. 
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@crystalclear well done on another day my dear. Thinking of you and sending you hugs and love 
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Thank you so much for your response, I appreciate you. And you are right when you say we have to be honest with ourselves. I think I’ll journal when I get a craving and have some water. Thank you again!
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I just had to hit the reset option for grazing. It’s my third time since June 20th. I was doing well for a few days but started grazing again and wasn’t honest with myself, letting milestone after milestone go by (yesterday was 10 days). Now I am honest with myself. I’m going to journal and drink some water whenever I want food but know I shouldn’t have it (I’ve noticed I eat whenever I’m bored). I’ll always struggle with food and that’s okay. I refuse to give up or beat myself up because that will make things even worse. I’ve got this.
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One hour: no grazing
I just had half a muffin, a small Coke Zero and one string cheese about an hour ago, and already I want to eat. I know it’s not in my best interest, but the food is so tempting! I’m going to drink a cup of water. Eating disorders suck but I’ll get through this.
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Thanks for this very helpful post! 
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Checking in, I did fuck things up again this afternoon. Once I was driving home from work I started craving food, and I finally stopped at the gas station. It was totally unnecessary, and I’m angry at myself. Afterwards I went back to my normal self; I went for a long walk, did the workout challenge, made a healthy salad for dinner. Sometimes I feel like I’m not myself when I go into “eat eat eat mode”. Damn!! 
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Day 7 of not binging with food. Chocolate 
is tempting but the late acidity in my stomach is helping lately with food
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@Jesile don’t be so hard on you! Take it easy. Food is everywhere and we need to eat but we are fighting against the disorder and we do it slowly and with kindness. Courage my friend!!!
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Day 935 : No binge today.
Day 271 : No coffee today.
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Just got in bed at the end of day 4. If I manage not to raid my kitchen tonight it will be 5 nights in a row I haven’t binged on stuff I shouldn’t be eating in the first place.
I went to a gathering tonight to see a friend from high school I haven’t seen in person in 4+ years. The pictures she just shared with me that were taken make me want to throw up in disgust. I look massive. Unhealthy. Dead behind the eyes. One of her friends I’ve never met in my life looked me dead in the eyes at one point tonight with all the sincerity in her voice and said “are you ok?”. I’ve never met this woman in my life. And she picked up on the fact that no, I’m not ok. I’m wrecked. I just want to go to sleep and escape feeling like shit. I’ve been faking it all and pretending I’m ok for so long, and eating my way to a slow miserable death. I don’t know how I’m supposed to work tomorrow in this mental state. 
I’m so sad.
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I thought you looked very nice in your picture. But apparently this person either is very ‘kind of strange’ or she really did think that in her mind you didn’t look like ‘you were OK’.
Maybe you seemed uneasy or something.
If you haven’t had a check up in a while maybe it’s time to go get a check up.
I thought you looked healthy in your picture. I can appreciate that at some place where you haven’t seen people for a while you would feel uncomfortable because you had gained weight.
I failed last night but not in a big way. I ate about a third of a portion of yougurt.
Thanks to this post it was on my mind not to do it and to be aware.
Rest easy this evening and be proud of yourself for the four going on five days of not eating after your cut off time. That’s huge and it will end up making a big difference for you. Think positive and try to get some good sleep tonight. You have turned all this around and that’s great. Your five days into it.
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Day 3 of admitting I have a problem with carbs. It’s easy to not have alcohol in the house but not so easy with fresh croissants, especially since the kids also like them. I am going to make myself a hard boiled egg for breakfast tomorrow so that I have protein.
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