APRIL RESET & BINGE EATING DISORDER

I had a rough few weeks in March.  My MS flared up and that always makes things tricky and I went a little off the rails - okay a lot off the rails.  Sometimes it doesn't take much to slide - but this was an avalanche.

For those who don't know - I have been fighting B.E.D. (Binge Eating Disorder) since I was a preteen.  This isn't the occasional overeat - this is not eating too many doughnuts or burgers...it's very different.

In a BED binge, you uncontrollably and usually very quickly, eat more than any person normally would in a short time frame, often without being hungry in the first place, often without feeling full or satisfied, often in private or secret, often with accompanying depression/guilt/anxiety.  This is most often, and in my case, NOT followed by a compulsion to purge.

In my case, after having it pretty well under control since late last year, it came out of the blue with no obvious trigger. I was not sad or angry, not particularly stressed...

But what started as a cabinet search / random dinner turned into this:

In 30min I ate:
1 can of Tuna + mayo
7 dill pickles slices
12 Trisket crackers

Then I cooked:
6 pieces of bacon + 2 XL eggs
Then another 2 eggs

Then I heated up 3 cups of leftover chili and cooked another 2 eggs (this is now 6 XL EGGS for those keeping up) and ate that with 10 poppy seed crackers

I washed this down with 3/4 gal of lemonade

Still not full, not satisfied - I am rummaging through the fridge, freezer and pantry (which are all pretty bare as I haven't gone shopping and just have random stuff left or this could have been much worse) and then ate...
1 orange
5 cookies 
Drank the rest of the lemonade

I finally made myself go to bed but had my fridge not looked like this - it could have been MUCH worse.  It is a horrible cycle to get into and THANKFULLY I have been able to rein it back in.  This is something I have yet to get truly under control after all these years. It is really hard to explain to anyone who hasn't been there but this isn't about emotional eating or over snacking - this is eating 3-4 people's worth of food in the time it takes most people to eat a normal meal...

I didn't get fat overnight and it isn't going to change overnight.  I know this.  I also know I have to develop new coping strategies for both my physical and mental issues.  That is a huge focus of this journey - change for both the body and the mind...we won't succeed in one without the other being in check!

So this brings me back to the beginning...I basically put back on everything I lost so I had to push that reset button yesterday.  But I have stopped the avalanche!

I have done a meal plan - shopped for it and made some new accountability friends in the wonderful Facebook iTrackBites group.  So we begin again....