B.E.D. Recovery Review 5

My third review session in Step two of the 'Overcoming Binge-Eating' self-help program.

Step 2 is about establishing a regular eating pattern. I cannot trust my instincts and huger signals as they have become too distorted, so I need to create routine that I can trust. 3 planned meals a day plus 2 or three planned snacks.

1. Have I been monitoring?

Yes.

2.Can I improve my monitoring?

Try to do it nearer the time of eating still.

3. Are any patterns in my eating becoming obvious?

I can't keep snacky food in my room. Out of sight, out of mind. 

4. Am I weighing myself once a week?

Still having trouble resisting this. Had bad weigh in this week, gained 2.5lbs which took me up to 13 stone again. I didn't ever want to have to see that number again and it upset me a lot. This is turn made me anxious about not pointing food as I had said I would do. Instead of pointing i started using myfitnesspal yesterday to count calories. The novelty is making it easier to avoid eating and it hasn't been stressful so far as I have been at home without distraction. I don't know if this will be more stressful this weekend as I have distractions and have to be out of the house for long periods of time.

5. Each day am I planning regular meals and snacks?

there were a couple of days where this didn't happen, but yesterday I planned nearly everything in advance and it did work really well for me. I had my first fully binge-free day in ages. I need to do this more. 

6. Am I trying to restrict my eating to the day's meals and snacks?

There were a couple of very off days but yesterday I did WELL at this!

7.Am I skipping any of the meals and snacks?

Same as above. There was one day in particular where I binged all day and only had one planned meal, but yesterday was much better and Im feeling positive.

8.Are the gaps between my meals and snacks no longer than three to four hours?

On the binge days there were often long gaps between binges and meals because I felt sick and full.

9.Am I eating between my meals and snacks?

Only on the bingey days.

10. Am I getting back on track when things go wrong?

I have been noticeably writing days off as bad 'binge days' or good days. This is the all or nothing thinking that is talked about in the book and I need to address this.

11.Am I adjusting the timing of my meals and snacks to accomodate special situations?

As far as possible yes. 

12. Am I following the advice regarding self-induced vomiting and the misuse of laxatives and diuretics?

Yes. Haven't done it.

B.E.D Recovery Review 4

My second review session in Step two of the 'Overcoming Binge-Eating' self-help program.

Step 2 is about establishing a regular eating pattern. I cannot trust my instincts and huger signals as they have become too distorted, so I need to create routine that I can trust. 3 planned meals a day plus 2 or three planned snacks.

1. Have I been monitoring?

No. I tracked one day fairly fully, but then got progressively worse and didn't track at all yesterday.

2.Can I improve my monitoring?

Definitely. By doing it! I need to find ways to do it without feeling self conscious when outside of my home. I also need to NOT LET little blips throw me off track.

3. Are any patterns in my eating becoming obvious?

I'm suspecting that counting points in itself isn;t triggering for me, but when I've run out of, or am close to the end of my weekly points I am much more likely to panic, be anxious, binge and give up tracking. I need to take a break from counting points for a little bit. I'm still going to focus on eating healthy, but let my eating be entirely dictated by the timings of meals, rather than also limiting the points. It is more important right now to get my mind healthy than get thin, no matter what my gremlins say.

4. Am I weighing myself once a week?

I didn't weigh myself at my GF's house over the last couple of days as she doesn't have any scales, but once I was back home I started weighing again. This added to the fact that I found myself counting backwards from my current weight to my goal weight and imagining myself shrinking to calm anxiety about non-food related issues is setting off some major alarm bells. I've also noticed that the goal weight in my head keeps shrinking. When I started losing weight I thought 9st 6-7ish, then I started thinking 9st would be better. The other night the thought '8st 10lb would be just perfect' came into my head. I'm a bit frightened.

5. Each day am I planning regular meals and snacks?

This has slipped the last few days, largely because I was away from home and not actually in full control of when I would have meals. 

6. Am I trying to restrict my eating to the day's meals and snacks?

There have been some bingey moments, and it seems I don't take drinking alcohol into account...

7.Am I skipping any of the meals and snacks?

Trying not to, although the situation sometimes has meant I've had to shuffle things around.

8.Are the gaps between my meals and snacks no longer than three to four hours?

Yes. 

9.Am I eating between my meals and snacks?

I have done a few times. I need to stop this.

10. Am I getting back on track when things go wrong?

No. I've been spiralling downwards for a few days. Time to get back on track!

11.Am I adjusting the timing of my meals and snacks to accomodate special situations?

Sort of. But a I haven;t been setting very realistic timings anyway this has been a bit iffy. Note to self - I am not getting up at 8am, so there's no way I'm going to be eating breakfast then. REALISTIC schedules will be more helpful.

12. Am I following the advice regarding self-induced vomiting and the misuse of laxatives and diuretics?

Yes. Haven't done it.

Summary
Week Two
Step Two (monitoring + Regular Eating)
Binges: 6
Use of Vomiting/ Laxatives/ Diuretics: 0
Good Days (this week, days where I monitored consistently and accurately and did my best to stick to my planned schedule of eating, regardless of whether I binged): 5
Weight: 12st 11.5lbs (-2lbs)
Unusual circumstances, events which may effect eating habits: Spent the weekend at my GF's house, work meeting w/ cakes biscuits, babysitting.

I need to continue with step 2, and will attempt to follow this step without the addition of counting weight watchers points for a week.

B.E.D. Recovery Review 3

My first review session in Step two of the 'Overcoming Binge-Eating' self-help program.

Step 2 is about establishing a regular eating pattern. I cannot trust my instincts and huger signals as they have become too distorted, so I need to create routine that I can trust. 3 planned meals a day plus 2 or three planned snacks.

1. Have I been monitoring?

Largely, though I often forget to track drinks (water).

2.Can I improve my monitoring?

Numbers and quantities of foods may be useful in monitoring my hunger levels.

3. Are any patterns in my eating becoming obvious?

Same as before. Chocolate spread is dangerous.

4. Am I weighing myself once a week?

No. I've been weighing myself both days, and noticed how calm I felt after losing weight. I think this is a dangerous feeling to associate with my weight considering anxiety is a big cause of my binges. My relationship with weighing myself may be worse than I'd thought.

5. Each day am I planning regular meals and snacks?

I'm planning what times to eat, though not the foods themselves. I should maybe start doing this.

6. Am I trying to restrict my eating to the day's meals and snacks?

Yes. Apart from yesterday when I went completely off the rails following the disruption of my planned day, coupled with high anxiety and stress levels about jobhunting, househunting and my financial situation, plus a highly triggering environment for me (babysitting).

7.Am I skipping any of the meals and snacks?

Missed a snack one day as I slept in very late.

8.Are the gaps between my meals and snacks no longer than three to four hours?

Yes. They have often been rather short though as I have been sleeping in then cramming in breakfast, a morning snack and lunch within a few hours of each other. I either need to sort my sleeping patterns out or rethink this.

9.Am I eating between my meals and snacks?

Only yesterday when in 'binge' mode.

10. Am I getting back on track when things go wrong?

After a small chocolate binge yesterday afternoon I got back on track with a healthy tea, but then went off track again in the evening. Today I will try to stay on track.

11.Am I adjusting the timing of my meals and snacks to accomodate special situations?

I have been trying, although the idea of a 6 hour shift, without knowing if I'd get a break, and then a short window of time before babysitting threw me for a loop. This weekend is going to be all over the place so I shall try to plan ahead as best as possible.

12. Am I following the advice regarding self-induced vomiting and the misuse of laxatives and diuretics?

Yes. Haven't done it.

SMART thinking

This recovery thing is going fairly well.
Last night's weigh in showed a 2lb loss. After 8 weeks of gaining weight at a steady rate I was quite overwhelmed.
I suspect I'm still running on the novelty aspect but this step of the program is working well with getting me back on track with WW, as well as with my B.E.D.
I know there will be struggles to come, but for now I am feeling quietly confident.

This weekend will be a challenging one, I will be taken out of my routine, face several of my most triggering situations, and will be less able to count my points.
But I'm going to do my best to plan ahead, be smart about things, and keep in control.

B.E.D. Recovery Review 2

My second review session in Step one of the 'Overcoming Binge-Eating' self-help program.

1. Have I been monitoring?
Yes!

2. Can I improve my monitoring?
There's always room for improvement. It's not always easy for me to track when people are around, so I'm not always monitoring as soon as I've eaten, though i have done so as soon as I could. I need to remember to bracket my mealtimes.

3. Any obvious patterns?
Being alone is my biggest binge trigger, my binges almost always happen in total secrecy, and I need to find a way to deal with this. Being around other people increases my anxiety, and anxiety is also a very big trigger for me. This is a cycle I need to break.
Being in or near food shops is triggering for me. I think it will help for me to make and stick to shopping lists, and carry only the amount of money I need for the list with me.
I've found that if I eat slowly and savour my food I am less likely to class it as a binge, even if it is a 'danger' food.
I got unreasonably anxious seeing a pack of opened biscuits in the cupboard at my friends house, they are clearly a big danger food for me and it took a lot of willpower not to binge on them.

4. Are you weighing once a week?
After the sneaky peeks earlier in the week I hid my scales away and have been tempted to weigh (especially today, the day before W.I.) but have managed to resist. Out of sight, slightly more out of mind.


Other notes: My self-esteem and body image has been frighteningly bad this week and I have been crying a lot. I think getting back into excercising might help with this.


Summary
Week One
Step one (monitoring)
Binges: 5
Use of Vomiting/ Laxatives/ Diuretics: 1
Good Days (this week, days where I monitored consistently and accurately): 7
Weight: 12st 13.5lbs
Unusual circumstances, events which may effect eating habits: Spent the weekend at my GF's house.

As I have managed to follow step 1 for a week I am now moving onto step 2 of the program.
This involves me tracking as before, whilst also implementing set times of day for meals and snacks.

B.E.D. Recovery Review 1

In my last post I talked about my problems with Binge Eating and how I am starting a self-help recovery program for it.
This week I had to track everything I ate and drank NORMALLY (I.e. not attempting to diet or control my 'normal' eating patterns) along with whether or not I viewed it as a binge, if I used any methods to try and 'compensate' (Vomiting, laxatives, diuretics) and any comments or context. I have to review twice this week. So here is my first review.

1. Have I been monitoring?
Easy one. Yes I have.

2. Can I improve my monitoring?
There are few instances where I've just written 'salad'. Might be good to specify exactly what is going into my meals. I've been pretty good at monitoring as soon as possible after eating. I need to remember to bracket meals. I've done pretty well in writing comments.

3. Are any patterns in eating becoming obvious?
YES. Huge ones. All binges have happened in the evening and I have eaten reasonably well up til that point. As soon as people say they are leaving the house and I will be on my own my brain says 'binge'. Most binges happened in my bedroom apart from one when I knew everyone was out and would be for hours, and one while babysitting (also knew wouldn't be interrupted for hours). Being alone is clearly a big factor for me.
Foods binged on: Cheese, chocolate, sweets, crisps, bread and butter, veggie 'meat' products, nutella, syrup, biscuits, dried fruits.
Nearly all are high in sugar, carbs and/or fat.

4. Am I weighing myself once a week?
I'm counting my weight watchers weigh in as my official weekly weight, though I have had a couple of sneaky peeks this week. I need to hide my scales away.

I have to keep monitoring in the same way for the next few days, and then I can move on to the next section which I am excited about.

Biggest breakthrough so far: Getting the courage up to tell my weight watchers leader and my girlfriend about this. Both have been amazingly supportive. I was really scared of telling my GF, as she is a recovered anorexic and I was scared of triggering her, and how she would react but she's actually been amazing. She's given me some websites to look at, and suggested I might want to go to support groups with her. The thought of that terrifies me at the moment but I may work my way up to it. She's also made me see that if this has been going on since I was 9 (or thereabouts) and is affecting my emotions to the extent it is doing, then it is binge eating disorder. Just because I am going about my daily life roughly as usual doesn't mean I have to belittle this problem. This has become my daily life.