Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

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Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby roundcoconut » Wed May 04, 2016 3:00 pm

Wanted to start a thread that's about binge eating -- how do you make a plant-based diet that is (more or less) binge proof?

My thoughts are not going to be comprehensive at all, so feel free to jump in!

Mostly, it would be nice to have one place where people are able to say what helps and what doesn't help. Jump in -- all comments welcome.
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby roundcoconut » Wed May 04, 2016 3:15 pm

My first thought on the topic of binge eating (and food addictions) is that utter abstinence from trigger foods is not the absolute, only answer. It may be one answer, and a very good one for many people, but not the only one.

So, for example, Chef AJ (is wonderful) has discussed her food addictions at great length and she considers sugars, flours, nuts, etc. to be unsafe across the board for her. If she eats these foods on a Monday, she will be in addict mode on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, trying to procure more off-plan food. (Or in white knuckle mode, trying to let the relapse-moment pass.)

So, practicing abstinence from trigger foods altogether can be a very good solution for people.

For me, while I have abstained from sugars and flours at various times during my plant-based eating, i've noticed that I can eat these foods just fine if I have safeguards in place. Like, bread is weird, and I would never buy a loaf of bread thinking, "I will just eat four slices today" -- I wouldn't do well with that scenario.

But I commonly order a veggie sandwich -- maybe four days a week -- at a little coffee shop in my town, because it would be impossible for me to go back for seconds, thirds, or fourths. In other words, I have no binge response to bread (which is actual commercial rye and may very well not be a perfect, whole grain, or no oil food! <GASP!>) when i eat that bread as part of a sandwich, in public (meaning, not terribly quickly), in a situation where additional portions are for all intents and purposes impossible.

I have a siimilarly weird response to sugar, but can have a sweetened beverage once every couple of weeks (like a small soy latte) because all the same rules apply. One latte this week, doesn't lead to two next week, or four the week after.

So, I just want to mention that people may not have to completely abstain from processed foods, who wish to clear old binge patterns. Some people -- who are very prone to food addictions -- may find the above safeguards to be not enough. But others may find them a good strategy.

That's one thought for now! Anyone else on how to reverse engineer your environment, to make it totally safe against binge patterns?
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby kirkj » Wed May 04, 2016 4:07 pm

In general, I avoid trigger foods like sugar, nuts, and even dried fruit like raisins if they're not part of a recipe. I stopped eating bread at home because I can have problems eating too much of it. Even plain old bread with nothing on it. I eat bread when my Dad and I to to Subway (Veggie Delight) but I don't find it bothers me with cravings later.

I put a measured teaspoon of sugar on my oatmeal, and don't find myself craving sugar all the time. I do have to measure it, though, or the teaspoon tends to get larger over time.

It's a strange problem. I'm in my late 50s and never realized I sometimes was a binge eater until the last few years. But the behavior has been there since I was a kid.
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby roundcoconut » Wed May 04, 2016 11:02 pm

Yes, it's interesting that something that would otherwise be a trigger food, can be perfectly fine, if distributed throughout a dish. 1 tsp of sugar in a bowl of oatmeal, or say, a Tbsp of raisins in a curry dish, doesn't trigger a sugar-binge, precisely because it's almost impossible to fish it back out again and eat it in its concentrated form. This is my experience as well -- trigger foods are sometimes dicey in their concentrated form, but perfectly tolerable when eaten together with heatlhful foods in the same mouthful.

Sugar is one thing that I would not want to keep in the house, though, so it's noteworthy that you are now able to keep it in the home and use it safely. I could bring home a sugar packet from work, if I needed to, but I've long ago decided that I only keep food in the house that I can eat freely. Meaning, no bag of brown sugar calling to me in times of boredom or stupidity.

Anyone else, experiences? workarounds?
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby WyldMoonWoman » Thu May 05, 2016 7:26 am

I'm a binge eater. I've been a binge eater all my life. I've substituted ginormous bowls of healthy foods for the boxes of cookies that I used to eat to get me through stressful times. I'm still a huge volume binge eater. I am fortunate that my husband and I eat the same, so we have absolutely nothing in the house that is a bad food except his peanut butter and some raw cane sugar.

So people talk about trigger foods...I have trigger emotions...my emotional state feeds my binge mode.

I could have a binge proof plan, then something will come up and I'll go into a binge mode. I've been on a huge emotional rollercoaster since January carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. Sole breadwinner. Working non stop. My husband getting sick and having two surgeries, not being home near my family. Add to my stress my second being murdered...I was so sad that I ate non stop for two weeks...her mother, my first cousin, my "twin sister" cousin, hung herself last week because of grief...and here I am drowning my sorrows in rice because I'm feeling guilt for not being there for her. It's never ending the cycle of stress and food.

I just eat good food...lots of it...but it's good food. That's the best coping mechanism that I can come up with.
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby Werner1950 » Thu May 05, 2016 7:43 am

I don't think I've ever binged. On normal foods, that is.

But give me a tube of those Pringle's potato chips, I'll eat the whole thing.
I've come to realize that "all things in moderation" doesn't work for me. Because it isn't the craving of the food that gets turned on necessarily, its the discouraging voice that says, "Well, today is in the crapper already. Might as well go whole hog today, and I will get back on the wagon tomorrow."

THAT to me is deadly.

So I cannot compromise. At least until I have lost enough weight where 1-2 pound fluctuations don't bother me.
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby graciezoe » Thu May 05, 2016 7:55 am

Thank you for starting this thread. I have issues with food addictions and bingeing...this woe has helped tremendously but still it's a constant battle. I find that when I'm tired is when I'm more likely to binge so I make sure I'm getting at least 7 hours in each night. Also, making sure I always have compliant food available, as if I get hungry and there is nothing I start grabbing(never not vegan) non compliant items. I have a major problem with any nut product. Raw nuts, butters, bars, etc. if I eat one bar I'll binge on 15 within a short time. Because nuts are not allowed I have not had such an issue with bingeing. The only food I've had a problem with on this WOE is dates. Once again, if I eat one, I can't stop and I eat all that I have in the house. Solution don't buy them!!!
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby graciezoe » Thu May 05, 2016 8:16 am

I have this posted on my cork board at work and it helps:
The truth is...complete abstinence is the only thing that reliability works against addiction. The sooner you accept this the sooner you will recover. When it comes to addiction, moderation fails. Every-time. This is the simple (but not easy) solution to addiction. Avoiding the addictive substance at all times
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby Jerry Angelo » Thu May 05, 2016 8:16 am

I got rid of ALL my trigger foods... bread, pasta, rice and nuts, cold turkey and I haven't felt better...

Roundcoconut gave me some advice when i started journaling, which I took, which says not to count how long it's been since the avoidance began but rather focus on ALL the good stuf I can have... Good advice... I hope that soon I will forget how long it's been (7 weeks) because I forget just about anything these days lol

The point of what I want to share is that for me, and I suppose others too, there is 'no portion control' or 'just a little bit once in a while'... For me it took to take them out of my life completely and, so far, I've managed and done so well without. I don't worry about them because they are not in my house, I don't have to worry about just eating a little or when to make it because they don't 'exist'. They are great foods but I do not know how to eat a reasonable and responsible amount, period.
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby Jerry Angelo » Thu May 05, 2016 8:26 am

graciezoe wrote:I have this posted on my cork board at work and it helps:
The truth is...complete abstinence is the only thing that reliability works against addiction. The sooner you accept this the sooner you will recover. When it comes to addiction, moderation fails. Every-time. This is the simple (but not easy) solution to addiction. Avoiding the addictive substance at all times


We posted at the same time, I posted similarly... I agree wholeheartedly...
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby roundcoconut » Thu May 05, 2016 10:31 am

Yeah, I'm so glad we started talking about it because it seems like the strategies around binge eating are different from the strategies that other people use to contain convenience eating or social eating.

Like, the way I'm defining things, I see binge eating as eating in some upward spiral of consumption, nearly always in private, in one's car or at home, beyond the quantities you would've chosen for yourself or would've felt good about.

Anyways, I think the tendency to eat beyond the hunger drive is (for people prone to binge eating) very reliant on having extra quantities of ready-to-eat food in your environment. Like, some people may indeed make a pot of red lentil chili for the week, and eat one portion, and put the rest in bowls for tomorrow and the next day. But for someone who has a tendency toward volume eating, having seconds, thirds or fourths ready-made and waiting for you, is kinda setting yourself up for failure.

Personally, I think I could keep uncooked brown rice or dried beans in the house no matter what my emotional state, because there's no instant gratifcation to be had in that. The tendency to eat beyond the hunger drive only really has anything to act on, if food is ready to eat or easy to prepare (like rolled oats).

So, for some people, (and I am definitely one), having an environment with no ready-to-eat food can make your environment more like a wild homo sapien's environment. So, while a wild homo sapien would probably eat or pick all berries on a blackberry bush, once they have all been picked, the homo sapien can't go to Wegman's and pick up Round 2 of blackberries. There was a built-in stopping point in their environment, and many modern humans probably need same.
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby graciezoe » Thu May 05, 2016 1:54 pm

[quote="roundcoconut"...
Like, the way I'm defining things, I see binge eating as eating in some upward spiral of consumption, nearly always in private, in one's car or at home, beyond the quantities you would've chosen for yourself or would've felt good about.
.[/quote]


This is so what I use to do and still do when I have a binge. I "sneak" the food into a private area of my home so that no one knows that I'm eating or how much. I throw the empty date bag, or whatever it is, in the outside garbage can, burying it so that my DBF doesn't see it when he empties the garbage. There is a lot of guilt and embarrassment involved.
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby kirkj » Thu May 05, 2016 3:47 pm

I am so grateful for this forum. I come here and realize I'm not alone and that many other people have very similar experiences to mine. Thank you all.
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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby Maer » Thu May 05, 2016 5:38 pm

Jerry, when you say you haven't felt better, do you mean it's not helping yet to have cut your trigger foods, or do you mean you've never felt better (in a positive sense)?

If I think of giving up all my trigger foods, it doesn't leave anything left that I like to eat!!!

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Re: Thoughts for Binge Eaters -- Add Your Own

Postby Jerry Angelo » Thu May 05, 2016 5:49 pm

Maer wrote:Jerry, when you say you haven't felt better, do you mean it's not helping yet to have cut your trigger foods, or do you mean you've never felt better (in a positive sense)?

If I think of giving up all my trigger foods, it doesn't leave anything left that I like to eat!!!

Maer


Definitely positive Maer. I cut out flour products and nuts cold turkey. The first week I didnt lose any weight at all because I over ate to compensate. The second week I felt really good and started walking. A lot. I feel really good, better than I have in so long I cant remember. I dont have any cravings at all but I will be honest, I am mortified of taking a bite, so im not, not for a long time, I really want to bury these binge triggers...
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