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Untitled 3 months ago

Does anyone here tend to binge around the full moon or during PMS? This keeps happening to me and I don’t know how to avoid it. This entry might be the first time that I’ve delayed giving into it. I drank huge amounts of water and tea, had 3 apples and spicy lemonade and called a helpline to see if I could talk to someone who’d give me some advice. They directed me to overeaters anonymous and not much help there, I ended up tripping on the 12 steps, falling all the way out of there. So, after searching online for ways to curb it, looking up various tricks to get away, I decided after inhaling some cedarwood to join this thread to relieve some of the pain of this urgent compulsion. Usually, I just give in, but it feels so agonizing to keep returning to this same cycle.

If I could only understand the reasons for wanting to binge around this time, maybe I could remedy it. Herbs, healthy food and excercize seem like logical solutions, but they don’t help with the root of the problem. Right around the time of my period I start to wonder if I’m pregnant and feel very bloated and ashamed of my appearance and I think that triggers me to eat insane quantities, to deaden feelings, resolve fears of deficiency and avoid responsibility when I feel thrown off by circumstances when trying to please others or avoid making anyone angry.

I’ve read so many books on emotional eating, looking at it from the standpoint of cognitive therapy, spirituality, mindfulness, social responsibility, etc., but none of it sticks because I get thrown off so easily by encounters that I lack the discipline to keep with it.

Well, I feel a little better after ranting about this and less focused on food. Maybe finding my own personal way of resolving this would help more than any book for now. I feel way too on edge in this situation to follow any program and I can only look to what exists in the present moment from my own biased perspective and gather what I can from that. Maybe when this settles down a bit, I’ll have a better time applying what I learn from others. Sadness and overwhelming obligations and exciting leaps into unknown worlds make me want to hide away in food. I think I just need to make art.

Oct 07, 02:38PM PDT

Comments:

ourladyofguadalupe

i had the same tendency to you. Wisdom and age started to show me that my “wild binges” and compulsive eating would happen for 2 weeks out of a month, most likely when I was pms, or something stressful or emotional was happening to me. but 2 weeks in a month is basically half of my life eating like that. needless to say, it created over 100 pounds of extra weight.

Now, I found a few things that helped me, because i came to this page today to actually report that I’m done with this behavior. I have not been bingeing since January. I had a few bouts in July, but feb, march, april, may, june, sept, and october, this behavior, i stopped this.

couple of things: i had to become super aware of when i am pmsing. so that i could be ready for this “storm” period.

I stopped SAYING, ” I have an eating disorder, i am out of control, what am i going to do?” I realized, that if this is a mental thing, that changing the way i thought could help. like magic, after 30 years of doing this, I started saying for about 1 month in the beginning. “I no longer have an eating disorder. I am healed of this. I used to behave that way, but not anymore.”
I told that to my brain, and I think i believed it, because i’m not doing it anymore.

Also, I greatly elimianted white flour and sugar from my diet , because i think they are triggers to binge behavior. now, i have them in moderation.

and, when things seem like they are about to get wild again, i might take an “inositol” tablet, which is a vitamin that med professionals give to binge eating folks. i found it at the vitamin shop.

Good luck, you can heal yourself of this.
Now, i’m going to make it official, that Ive done this. thanjks.

Oct 17, 05:25AM PDT | Respond to this 3 cheers

ourladyofguadalupe

and ive lost 30 pounds.

Oct 17, 05:27AM PDT | Respond to this

(This comment was deleted.)

Oct 30, 01:43AM PDT

LilaKia

Thank you so much! That helps a lot. I’ll have to look for that vitamin if I can remember it – - – In o- si – tal. I got some evening primrose oil a little while ago and it seems to help a little . Also for a few days now, I’ve stoped eating the massive amounts of sugar I use to eat on a regular basis even while not binging, and my emotions feel a lot more stable. Still have a long way to go to be able to say that I’ve ended this pattern, but convincing myself that I’ve changed gives me some hope that I won’t fall back. Again thanks so much, your encouragement means a lot.

Oct 30, 01:45AM PDT | Respond to this

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