Binge Eating Part 1

Yyyyyyyoooooooooooo everyone. Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I have been extremely busy lately. Hopefully this gave you a chance to read old articles on the site you may have missed, which I believe contain tons of useful information on health as well as insight into my experiences. I recently appeared on QVC as a before and after for Nutrisystem and was given the chance to speak on live television. Unfortunately they didn’t let me plug the blog, but the experience was still cool. Once I find the video I will post it on the site. Those of you who haven’t checked out the old posts please do! One last thing before I dive into this issue of binge eating. My Nutrisystem commercial is supposed to air this fall, but plans may change. I will keep you updated on its status. Anyways, I wanted to talk about the issue of binge eating because it is something I struggled with as an obese teenager and continued to occasionally struggle with after losing the weight.

Binge eating is a disorder in which an individual consumes a large amount of food in a short period of time and continues to do so uncontrollably for a long time following. People who binge eat are unable to stop even when they are full and many eat until they vomit. When I was obese binge eating was my lifestyle and simply the way I ate. I had no set meals of breakfast or dinner. I just continued eating all day long even when I was full. Honestly the only thing that stopped my eating was heartburn and acid reflux that occurred frequently throughout my final years of obesity. Binge eating is a serious disorder and the reason why many people struggle with obesity. Following my weight loss I regularly saw an eating disorder specialist to get to the root of my eating issues and highly recommend anyone with any serious issues such as binge eating do the same.

There are several types of binge eaters. Not all binge eaters are fat or even overweight. In fact, many are in great shape with athletic builds. I am not going to get into specifics on the different types of binge eaters, but I do want to talk about the people who binge eat, but manage to stay in shape because I was in this category following my weight loss. What would happen was that I would diet so strictly during the week that on a day off when I allowed myself to eat freely, I would end up binging. I was so worried about trying every food I craved during the week and eating everything I could before the clock struck midnight because I knew the next day I was right back on my strict diet and exercise program. This strict form of dieting also led to slip ups during the week in which I would give into temptation and have a bite of a cookie or pastry. This simple bite would soon turn into an all day binge in which I would continuously search the pantry in a crazed state for food, food and more food. I would just shove it in my mouth without thinking, eating while standing and walking rather than taking the time to sit and enjoy it. It was a weird feeling of extreme appetite and cravings in which I continued eating as long as I could even if I wasn’t truly hungry.

I used to call this transition the “switch” in which I transformed from a normal human being to some kind of hunger crazed lion. It happened so fast I often forgot how it began…fast… like the flick of a switch. Learn more about the switch and how I conquered binge eating in the next post!