Hi there, fellow fighters! I have noticed an interesting pattern that on the (rare) nights that I manage not to horribly binge right before bed, which has been my pattern for the last 4 years, I have DREAMS that I’m binging. Then I wake up, and for a second or two I genuinely believe that I woke up in the night and ate, that it wasn’t just a dream. it’s so strange. Anyone else experience this?

I can’t work out in the morning because I get so hungry during the day. I use to wake up early and go but it would increase my chances of a binge eating.

So now I don’t have time to go in the evening.

My point is, I am taking this month off at the gym to sort my eating habit out :( I feel kinda sad but I hope this will motivate me to understand myself a bit more and help towards recovery. I will still keep active in my lunch break going for a 1 hour walk and maybe I’ll do a few at home exercises in the morning which is what I did before I went to the gym.

Anyone else done some thing like this before and did it help?

I need to re-organise myself before I go back again with a plan. So, right now I am just focusing on working on my binge eating and finding other ways of relieving stress because binging is my biggest issue right now and one I will prioritise.

I've been doing great. Eating healthy fruits, veggies, lean meats, low-fat dairy,exercising regularly and not drinking more than twice a week. I was feeling good, proud of myself. I was able to get below a # that I have been stuck at for years.
Then I start binging. Day 1. Girl scout cookies. I was going to have 1cookie out of 2 different boxes. Next thing I know, the 2 boxes are empty and I've had half a bottle of red wine and am drunk texting my husband who is out of town. I ate some frozen meals, cheese, crackers and other stuff. Ugh...

Day 2. I went to my friends pizza place for lunch/dinner. I had wings as an appetizer, half of a med pizza, a slice of cheesecake, and a glass of wine. All of it was so good!

Day 3. I ate the other half of my pizza for breakfast. I'm up 5 lbs. My stomach is not feeling great. My pants are too tight. I regret eating all of this junk. I undid 3 weeks of hard work in 2 days.

Why do I do this to myself?

I follow this sub on my main account but don’t want my other half to see this, so created this alt.

I sometimes [Edit: often] end up calling in sick to work due to my binge/purge episodes. I feel fat, ugly and can only go back to work once I’ve purged and then fasted for at least 1 day. My motivation to go back to work is to ‘get back on the diet and lose weight’.

Does anyone else miss work?

I also feel disgusted at how much I binge in comparison to what some people have posted here. I can easily reach over 5000calories in one sitting...

[Edit: Thank you for all the responses thus far. It’s weirdly reassuring to know I’m not alone in this ED hole.]

Ive struggled with disordered eating for 6 years. Mostly just obsessive behaviours with calorie counting, restrictive eating and excessive working out. Started with orthorexic tendencies stemming from anxiety disorders. My weight in the past 5 years has varied by 20kg. Recently had a unique situation where I tried to give myself freedom from restrictions. Started bingeing and I am so so scared. Its been 3 days a week for the last month and a half. This community has helped me already but i feel I need to get this under control before it spirals. Today was binge free. Heres hoping tomorrow remains that way too. How did you start in ending the behaviour? Im wondering if its a sort of sugar addiction at this point or if it has anything to do with it. Any tips welcome. (F 21, 61KG, 5"4)

I've been trapped in a restricting/binging cycle for months now. I'm trying so hard to lose weight but I only seem to be gaining. Does anyone have any tips for dodging cravings/staying on track with calories? I really would appreciate any help I could get.

I really really want to stop binging but the only way to stop (from all the research i’ve done) is to stop restricting.

I don’t want to stop restricting. I want to never eat sugar again, I only want to eat fruits and vegetables and eggs. I want to eat as little calories as possible. but this restriction always leads to binges. I can restrict all week but as soon as friday after school hits I binge, then I binge all saturday and either binge all sunday or become so depressed that I eat nothing then get back into restricting and the cycle continues.

This sucks! TW!!

I’ve gained 5 kg (~10 lbs) and I hate myself more than I did when I was bigger than this. IM SO FAT UGH

Feeling sick and gross. Just wanted to share with people who would get it! One positive though is I didn't eat everything I bought. Most of it, but not all.

I consider myself more of a binge eater than a bulimic. I've been bingeing for years but would only throw up when I physically got to the point where I had to. Recently I've been trying to throw up my binges more often but suck at it so I don't consider myself a bulimic. Just a binge eater that occasionally throws up 20% of her binge.

What are your experiences with purging after a binge?

It’s mostly do to stress but I can’t stop eating. I’ll eat a snack after I just finished a meal even if I’m full. My stomach has been making noises after I eat. I think that may be a sign of a health problem. Or maybe it’s just normal I don’t know. I have no clue. I do not have self control when it comes to food. I only stop eating after I feel disgusted or when I’m really full. I need help managing my eating behavior.

I will try to not write a whole novel here (edit: clearly failed), but all the details are kinda important for the story

TW: I am mentioning numbers and food here

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I'm a female, 19 years old. When I was 16 y/o I got an eating disorder. I was in the BMI range 19-20ish so I wasn't really fat or anything, but I thought so because my bodyfat% was high. It started as orthorexia and over time got worse. At the end of it I would only eat cottage cheese, fish and vegetables. I had an exercise addiction and no social life. I was very obsessed with having a low bodyfat% and muscle definition. I lost my period and without me realizing, I was at an unhealthy low weight (BMI 16). This was at the beginning of 2018. At Christmas of 2017 my mom made me cookies, which was very ''unsafe'' for me but I was in the mindset of just enjoying Christmas. I ate them and felt extremely guilty afterward. The day after I was bloated and went to the gym to feel better. This happened multiple times over the new year whenever there was cake or something involved. And then I started to make this habit where I would eat something high in carbs and sugar the night before I went to bed, so that I could lift weights in the morning without eating breakfast because I had so much energy (it is so stupid lol?). Anyway, I started to overeat slightly after each meal, and I gained some weight. Some of it was muscle too so I didn't really feel fat.

But then everything spiraled after the summer of 2018, when I took a year off from school and started working at a cafe. There were so many things happening in my life at that time and I was constantly stressed. My stepdad left my mom, my dog died, a guy at work stalked me and so much more. I wasn't being social either and I felt quite lonely. I also felt fat at that time (around 55 kg), and the overeating/binges were uncontrollable. I was trying so hard to lose weight, some days I was fasting up to 3 days. Because I struggled with orthorexia for so long, it was still a big part of my disorder, and I felt so guilty every time I binged on unhealthy food. I was always binging, restricting on clean foods, fasting etc..

I had gained 27 kg (59 lbs) in less than 1 year. I stopped working because my mental health was wrecked. I felt so disgustingly fat that I got depressed and I didn't leave the house. At my highest I tipped the scale at 69 kg. I binged up to 3 times a day. Every time someone came to our house I would hide in my room, because I felt so ugly. I cried a lot. And the binging was my comfort which is so ironic because that was the cause of it all. I also binged because I was lonely and bored (I lost interest in everything because I was depressed). (TW -->) At one point I even had suicidal thoughts because I felt like every day was the same and nothing gave me joy anymore. Life was a living hell.

Then, one day during a binge, I ate peanut butter out of the jar. I got an anaglyptic shock and couldn't breathe. And I was home alone. Luckily I got help but after that, I seriously got scared of everything (nuts, dairy, eggs, shellfish, chicken, soy, gluten). I couldn't binge on cake, cookies and ice cream anymore. I was too depressed to bake anything. Slowly I had to eat healthily again. It has now been what- 6 months? since the incident, but guess what! I'm still struggling with emotional/stress eating and binges. This evening I binged on 3 cans of tuna, broccoli and 6 homemade oat&banana cookies. I can drink gallons of oat milk, bowl after bowl of oatmeal, huge trays of roasted/cooked vegetables, salmon filets, tuna, bananas, dates. The list goes on. I easily overeat thousands of calories and I am so sick of feeling stuffed and bloated. And I will say this, I have tried everything under the sun- eating 1400, 1200 calories.. IIFYM, OMAD, keto, vegan even just intuitive eating but even though I eat plenty I still overeat! I don't know what to do anymore.

I have lost 7 kg from my highest weight, and I did get down to 57 kg once but to do so I ate 800 calories a day for 2 weeks (horrible...). I don't even know how I managed to do that. I only lose weight when I strictly count calories, when I stop counting, I gain again. I can eat in a lower deficit (1300) but it shows so slowly that I feel discouraged and eventually quit after a few weeks. I am currently maintaining between 58-60 kg because I struggle to eat under my TDEE. Note: a lot of people look amazing at this weight but my body composition is AWFUL and I don't look or feel good at all. My bodyfat% is probably around 30%

I ask for help but it doesn't' seem like anyone is taking me very seriously. My doctor is obese herself and she doesn't think I'm eating as much as I try to explain her. I might look ''healthy'' (my face looks ''normal'' my wrists are tiny and my arms look like spaghetti because I have a narrow bone structure, but I carry A LOT of fat around my waist (I have an 80 cm waist). I also have what you call ''saddlebags'' (atrophied buttock muscles). Sigh...the ass I worked so hard for... My muscle mass and bone density are very low and therefore I might look smaller. Clearly my mental health is so bad and I can't live a normal life. I am waisting my youth. I NEED help or else I will never function normally again.

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So I ask, people on reddit. Do any of you have any advice on how I can turn things around and get out? Things that actually helped your BED? I am too depressed to read a book just so I get that out lol. I want to fully recover from my eating disorder (BED, orthorexia, anorexia ...) because I have finally realized that I can't fully live the life I want without recovering. I haven't finished school yet and I don't want to be isolated and depressed for another year :'-(

It's taken me years to fully realize that water weight creates intense panic in me. When I used to binge/purge, feeling some extra padding on my face (especially around my jaw) would be enough to trigger the bulimia cycle, and to this day I feel intense anxiety when I'm holding water. Even though I know, on a rational level, that it's just water-weight, it's so uncomfortable that I can't help but believe that everybody is staring at me. Suddenly all my focus and effort shifts towards making sure nobody notices my fat face, which manifests in very robotic/artificial movements and gestures on my part. This is all so embarrassing. It's even heartbreaking. I do anything I can to avoid being around people. A day like this is the difference between a high-energy, ambitious, hopeful, friendly, talkative me and a me that is withdrawn, awkward, isolated, depressed, nervous, uncomfortable...

Any ideas on coping mechanisms? I think that I emotionally binge eat and I want to try to do something else when I feel bad so any suggestions would be great.

It sucks because I’m so depressed (because of the binge eating mostly) I can’t enjoy things like video games anymore, can’t even bring myself to turn the console on :( gaming was a good way to cope for me but I just can’t anymore :(

If it’s hot and takes a while to finish it forces me to slow down and I don’t feel as gross

Has anyone here had any success with taking depression medication to help with their binge eating? I’ve been on the fence with talking it. I tired Zoloft but quickly quit after a week because it made my binging a lot worse.

I’ve found watching dessert mukbang really stops me from bingeing - watching someone else eat turns me off of it

Today I felt like utter, total shit. I won't go into why because I don't want to start myself up again. I'm posting this to document what I think has been my worst binge ever. -bowl of macaroni and cheese made in the microwave -whole bag of cheesy pretzels -5 chocolate chip cookies -6-7 pieces of bacon dipped in ranch powder -mini bag of microwave popcorn with seasoning -3/4 2 liter bottle of coke

• 3 pieces of Pepperoni pizza

Writing it out it doesn't look like much. But it really seriously was. Today was a cycle of eating until I get sick, laying down, feeling better, and eating again. Even now I'm thinking of getting chocolate milk, ice cream, candy, etc...

Today when I was eating I knew it was all unhealthy but at the same time I could focus on that rather than how shit I've been feeling. Plus when I eat I feel like I go into a trance. I emerse myself in the flavor. It swaddles me in a comforting warmth that I don't know if I can get from much else.

I don’t know how everyone else feels, but I don’t feel like there is a lot of awareness in media etc. of binge eating... I almost feel like when I talk to people about it that it’s seen as a made up ED.

Why do you choose to self destruct? Why do you feel the need to take it on your body and your mind? You eat your feelings, you eat your anger. What is the point? Why do you take all the wrong decisions in a moment of self loathing and anger. Those feelings will eventually fade away but the damage done will be permanent.

Be grateful of the body and the health you were blessed with. Learn to accept the situation and try to work on things. Everything else will come and go but your health and your body will always be with you.

Just felt like writing it down.

Okay, so, I’m kind of doing good in terms of not binging for other reasons (comfort, hunger etc.) but like I get bored really easily and just go and shove a bunch of biscuits inside my mouth and I honestly don’t know what to do.
Thank you for your time!

I've been doing so good. But the new semester has really fucked me up and I'm so stressed. Last night I ate half a huge apple pie and I just ate like 20 kit Kats. I fucking hate myself and I feel disgusting. Even if I get better it still comes back. I feel like a fat pig and can't even look at myself now. I'm at work and I just want to fucking cry. I was doing so good. I wish food didn't control me.