binge eating journal

Started by tired, November 13, 2015, 12:24:24 AM

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tired

starting this out of desperation.  hope it's ok to dump this here.  i know i can fill out worksheets that have spaces for what you ate and how you felt when you ate it but i don't do well with journaling unless i have an audience.  i grew up feeling like no one noticed anything because they didn't so doing things that no one sees just makes me feel worse.

anyway

here's what i had today

half cup of pasta with olive oil-i wasn't going to eat this and once i started i  knew the day would become a binge day
half gallon grapefruit juice
two small brownies
two candy corn pieces
couple handfulls pumpkin seeds
cup fried breaded green beans
two cups chocolate milk
skinny vanilla latte
half cup sesame seeds
half cup beans
half cup greasy chicken, the last remnants left on the roasted whole chicken before i tossed the carcass
that'sall i remember

a lot of this was eating after clients and response to stress
also after the gym in response to stress

stress is the feeling of doing something wrong, making mistakes, saying the wrong thing, not being perfect, being fat and inappropriate and not witty or smart

i always think of my mom and how somehow it's related to her and also related to not being perfect but thinking of her is the distraction that causes me to make the little blunders.   it's not that i'm trying to be perfect. it's just that i do things that i didn't want to do and say things that aren't me.  it's like i'm not even making my own mistakes; i'm acting like some other person i don't like and the mistakes or faux pas situations aren't even me.  i can't laugh at myself for example.
this isn't fun.

i looked up some cbt worksheets but i'm going to try this first.  maybe this will get me over my fear of admitting what i'm doing to myself.


C.

I have issues w/binge eating too.  How do you feel about seeing comments here?  I think this is a great idea for you to post here. 

I know sometimes I feel like I'm swallowing a lot more guilt w/my food than is necessary and it looks to me like you made some pretty health choices in this list of foods even if the guilt and feelings leading to the eating were unpleasant?...

Dyess

I know there are a lot of good videos on Katimorton.com (or look her up on u tube) about eating disorders. You may want to check some of those out and see if there's any good info for you. I go from eating anything that is not tied down to not eating anything. I really don't enjoy eating, just do it to sustain life :)

tired

I need comments .  I have to turn this into something comprehensible.

I don't keep anything unhealthy in the house. I've been trying to plan binges once a week and I will go to the store and allow myself whatever I want with the idea that I won't binge more than that one day a week (one hour a week was my former rule which kept my weight stable ).  Anyway yesterday wasn't supposed to be a binge day so I didn't go anywhere and only ate what I had at home which would have been fine if I hadn't already had a junk binge the day before .

I will look her up. 

I do ok if I make rules and follow them but lately my brain seems to be on break all rules mode.

Dutch Uncle

I'm not so much a binge-eater, but I have a troubled relationship with food.
I posted some thoughts/experiences/memories on it here:
http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=2898.0

Perhaps you'll find it interesting or helpful. Perhaps not.

tired

I had read that post earlier....
My  memories of food in my house: My mother was a good cook. Not gourmet, just hearty stews with rice. She was health conscious and would dish out a bowl of cooked vegetables in a hearty broth and eat it with gusto, commenting on how delicious it was and how I should try it and how wonderful the vegetables looked.  She didn't always make me finish, the way people do in some households, and would say just finish the meat or something like that.  But my dad, if he was around, would make me sit and finish every bite and sometimes I would feel stuffed. When he left the room I would try to sneak it back into the pot. 
I think those memories of being with my mom, getting some comfort food, were the few good memories I have.  When no one else was around and especially when dad wasn't there to make me finish food I didn't like. 

this is making me sad.

this morning i got up and had coffee and resisted the urge to put any milk in it which would trigger another day of eating.  just black coffee.  i ate enough for a week over the last two days and i feel stuffed and uncomfortable.  sometimes there's a thought in my head that if i'm uncomfortable in any way eating will fix it, which doesn't always make sense.  i feel better when i don't solve every problem with comfort food and the problem is that i need it to be comfort food made by someone else.  making myself a salad does nothing for me.  my mother didn't make salad; she made stew. i guess i could cook food the way she did because it was healthy but somehow that is not something i allow myself.  i tried that and what happens is that after i eat it, and enjoy it, i have to punish myself afterwards with an unhealthy food that my mother would disapprove of like donuts. i remember my sister was 14 and had a job at a donut shop and my mom commented on how unhealthy american food is and how fat my sister was getting. forget that she was responsible and hard working and took care of us when mom should have been doing it. forget that she reported me being abused when i was 6 and was dismissed; they accused her of having a crush on the guy and didn't believe her.  she ended up getting good grades, was social and became a doctor and took care of my parents.  yes, very fat and probably an eating disorder. forced to marry someone but made it work.  anyway.  i don't know if that's related to my need to eat junk food after i eat healthy. maybe a sense of being loyal to my sister. my mom had a way of creating a rift between her kids by putting us down. she would tell me things that implied i was better than my sisters.  i felt like i was special in a weird way but it didn't make me feel good entirely; it made me feel like i wasn't part of the family.

a couple years ago when i talked to mom for the last time i called my younger sister and said i don't know what happened, she was so mean. i thought mom liked me best and it doesn't seem like she likes me at all. my sister's response was, what are you talking about? mom never liked you. then she said, don't feel bad, she never liked any of us ever.

tired

i went on katimorton and found the link to psychology tools. i'm going to look through the worksheets.  scared but going to do it.

arpy1

you know what, tired, i really admire the way you are always determined to find answers even when you're feeling so bad at times.  you're incredibly strong.  do you think you are dealing with so much of this stuff around your mum now becos of her recent attempted breaches of nc? it seems to have triggered a lot of things in you that seem to me to be directly related to the recent struggles. 

which makes me think that you are even more amazing for the way you keep working at finding solutions.  thanks for keeping going. it helps me to see that it's possible.  :hug: :hug: :hug:

Dutch Uncle

Quote from: tired on November 13, 2015, 11:49:19 AM
my sister's response was, what are you talking about? mom never liked you. then she said, don't feel bad, she never liked any of us ever.
Ouch!

:hug:
dear Tired.

tired

Not at all hungry but the car dealership has free hot chocolate. Hoping that since it's mostly water and 80 calories it won't trigger me to eat. Hard to pass up free food and they have little snacks while I'm waiting. 

So tired and falling asleep.  I had a coffee too with cream and sugar. 

Anyway


Dyess

I really like katimorton's videos, she seems so down to earth and explains things where anyone can understand. She started her work in working in a place for eating disorders and I think that's her true love. But she has expanded out so much more because people wanted more. Don't know how many times I've had a question about something and I go search her videos and find something to help. It's just a good resource for me. I know she has some worksheets for SH and ED and she plans to expand that list.

tired

my mission today seemed to be finding something i can eat that won't trigger me. i got some frozen grapefruit juice and ate it with a spoon which ended up being about 400 calories worth.
then i was preparing dinner and i couldn't resist and ate all the skin off of a chicken.  i' m trying not to worry about it because that will make me eat a billion calories. hopefully i will fall asleep before i get to that point. i started to notice how i was feeling and it was a rebellious in-your-face emotion as if someone is saying you can't eat and i'm saying oh yeah watch me.  i read that a chicken breast skin is only 50 calories so if you figure four times that i had 200 calories plus 400 plus maybe 100 so that's still only 700 calories for the entire day .  i don't feel hungry at all, still super bloated from the last  two days.  my main concern isn't to watch calories but just to avoid foods that trigger me to eat. for example i could have had a salad which would have been less than 700 calories and healthier, but it would trigger me to eat for some weird reason.  i think i start to panic that i won't digest the food so i'm more likely to eat things that seem to digest easily but unfortunately they are also calorie dense. so even on my non binge days i allow myself for example butter, which to me feels like not-food.  so i don't panic.  butter, juice, water, it's all the same to my brain. i'm trying to add in the chicken skin to that category and convince myself that i can digest it and it. when i eat normal food like vegetables i think, ok i'm going to be sick today so i may as well eat all kinds of crap because apparently i've turned today into a sick day.  i'll think, ok if i'm going to be bloated i may as well take this opportunity to have a pizza, since it won't really matter. 

i think really though, the rebellion is a bigger theme. i mean the obsession with certain rules comes after the emotions.  then it all becomes habit and i can't stop. 

so stupid.

C.

I read up a lot about "flexible restraint" as it relates to eating at one point.  Often those of us w/eating issues struggle w/flexible restraint.  I find myself on one side or the other and struggling to find that middle ground.  In other words I either want to eat only sugary, fatty foods all the time or I simply don't feel hungry and don't feel up to eating anything...neither of which is healthy.  But, I'm learning to find that middle ground and when I do it's great.  I too try to have one day a week where I can get whatever treats appeal.  In fact I lost a lot of weight during a time w/a weekly very large chocolate chip cookie. 

I wonder about the rules you mention...they work sporadically w/me...I find that if I feel "deprived"of treats I'm more likely to overeat.  Lately I'm trying to find healthier treats like yogurt w/granola or frozen cherries & dark chocolate.

tired

I gained a lot of weight when I had a baby and I had a rule that I could eat any treat I wanted if I only had one bite.  That worked but I didn't have the weird mental thing I have now. I'm obsessed with my digestion. I did ok for awhile on a very low fiber diet.  Then it just got out of hand. 

I do well if I figure out a rule that I can follow. Right now I don't know what that would be.  It seems like my rule is get fat and ruin your life.

Whobuddy

I found a lot of help from the book, Eat to Live by Dr. Fuhrman. He has a cookbook to go with it now.

Have been using this plan since June and it really agrees with me. Let me know if you would like more details.