journey to healthy mind & body

Hi everyone,

Today I decided I’m going to take it out there with all my binge and log in everything I eat everyday.
I find the posts, and stories here are very inspiring and makes me feel like, if you guys can do it, i can do it too.

My goal isn't so much about weight loss or BMI, since my current BMI still fall in the healthy range. But my lifestyle is far from healthy.

From a year ago, I realized that my weight fluctuation isn't just a normal holiday season bloating but a dreading binge eating.

I usually binge at home, where I feel like no one knows that I binge. When I’m around people, friends, and boyfriend, I’m normal. Well, not totally, I do have cravings for sugar, but not in the amount that you will call binge-ing.
So actually maybe all I need is to go out of the house more.

The challenge for me is because I am a freelance dancer. There are days that are full of practice and I'd eat normal all day, then once I got home I binge all night.
Then there are worse day when I just didn't have to get out of the house. On those days, I would eat anything and everything no matter what the time. I would nibble on anything non stop.
I'd try to distract myself with browsing, or reading, but then I'd multitask snacking which is usually much worse..

so I think writing all my foods here will make me feels like I’m around people, and hopefully will bring my sanity back to me!


so today, feb 19, I started my day with
- a glass of OJ
- a glass of tea (unsweetened)
- fried banana (and steamed banana! do you know some variety of bananas taste great if you steam it?)
- fried tempe

well, not the best things ever, considering the frying, but no added sugar exept the natural sugar from the bananas.

this is almost lunch time now and I hadn’t snack except for an additional piece of fried banana and a slice of tempe. so, not the worst morning. At the moment I feel slight hunger, which is a good thing, because for days and days I feel like I have forgotten what hunger feels like since I just keep on munching, no matter what the time was.

I’ll have stir fried veggies with rice noodles for lunch and hopefully no snack until dinner.

from 2-6 PM today I’m gonna have a dance practice so I don’t think I will be snacking during that period, but I haven’t figure out what I’ll have for dinner. I will bring something for post-practice/exercise I guess, because my binge often less horrifying when I do plan my foods in advance.

I’ll be back with my food log this evening!

So tonight I ate pretty much a leftover of what I had for lunch and a little from breakfast, that is the stir fry and the tempeh. Plus 1 mini orange and berries.
Pretty controllable so that's good news.

What's not so good is that I ate umplanned snack in the afternoom which was fried sweet potato, that my friend bought, and offered me.
Ugh, I really need to work on not giving in to those kind of offers.

Overall I'm not completely satisfied by how this day goes, but it's also not too bad. Hopefully tomorrow will be even better!

last night I got hunger pangs at 10PM. Not so much a binge trigger but more like false hunger alarm. I’ve eaten enough nutrient for the day, so I tried to just drink plenty of water and sleep it off, and I did!

What a win. Feels so good to be able to not give in. Plus, this morning I wake up feeling just as usual,not starving, so it WAS a false hunger alarm.

Hope today will be as good if not better. Oh, plus this is my vegetarian day. Wish me luck!

Okay, so today wasn't as good as yesterday.
These are what I had:

Breakfast: Cereal+low fat milk & OJ
Mid morning snack: papayas
Lunch: stirfry greenbeans&tempeh
Afternoon snack: mini oranges, dried banana, corn chips
Dinner: rice, water spinach, baked fish, and a shrimp (I ate out so it was a mix of things my friends and I ordered together)

All and all, its not so bad, I just don't really like the fact that I did snack, even though I didn't binge, and that I had fish for dinner while I plan to have a vegetarian dan today.

On the brighter note, this was one of my most active days. So actually it wasn't hard to keep in tract with not binge-ing.

Tomorrow I'll have nothing to do until mid afternoon, that's when the real challenge is gonna be for me to not snack.
Wish me luck guys!

I forgot, yesterday I also had Starbucks skim vanilla latte which was so out of plan, and thus a disappointment.
Anywaaaay, today I woke up, went to kitchen and saw a huge pile of various leftover cakes. I panicked a bit, ended up taking 2 bites then quickly ran back to my room before I lose it.
Then I made muesli with kiwi, and a glass of OJ.
It’s 10am here now and I get my usual hunger pangs. I’m trying to train my body to not snack between breakfast and lunch though, so I’ll try to hold it just for 2 more hours.

Btw, here's my recap of day 3:
B: 2 bites of cakes, muesli, kiwi, OJ
L: rice, fried snapper, some veggies, papayas
S: bananassss (quite a lot of them), some with peanut butter, a glass of milk
D: a slice of pizza and banana chips.


Again, not bad. No binge. But I just hate how my foods reveal how little control I have over my foods even without binge-ing.
I knew I am going to have late dinner, if I had dinner at all, so I snack on bananas, which was healthy, but I just ate more than a normal snack portion. Then the milk was also unplanned. It just stared at me from the fridge.
Then the pizza and banana chips. I wanted to have a nice clean dinner. But... Why oh why is it so hard to refuse foods that people offer. Oh well, I guess this last issue is not exclusive to people with BED or any ED. LOL.

I have to say. Me succeeding going through 3 days (even though its only been 3 days and I shouldn't be proud of anything) is mainly because every time I got the rush to binge I remember I'd have to report it to this forum and I just don't want that. I just really want to come here with good reports.. So thank you guys for simply being in this forum.

This is day 4, and I have not break.
But I feel like I'm walking a fine line between eating too much and too little. Between being in control and beating myself up too hard.
Some days I'd eat what I feel like a normal portion, but it's smaller than my binge portion (of course) then I would think 'with this small portion I would be hungry before next meal. I should have a significant snack.' Which I dont even know if I do need a significant snack or just small snack or no snack at all.
or I would eat quite significant lunch, and plan not to have either dinner/snack, but then I'd still feel hungry sround afternoon/dinnertime. Which is normal but I just feel like beating myself up because I did made up my mind to not have anything anymore.

seriously.. intuitive eating is something I didnt know I had until I lost it.

anyway, this is my day 4 food recap. If it sounds kinda weird to most of you, it's because I live in south east asia, so these foods here are very common to find.

B: low fat milk with cereal
L: chicken satay with peanut sauce and rice cakes
S: baked macaroni
D: we call it batagor here. it's basically tofu and fish cakes with peanut sauce

well that's 2 peanut sauced dishes in a day.. so very south east asian. LOL
anyway, I know my choice of foods are not healthy enough even though my diet of choice states 'Clean eating'.
Right now I'm really focused on not binging first. I want to limit my temptation to just snacking and binging, so that I don't suddenly break and lose control.

Day 5

B: OJ, banana&cheese tart
L: banana&cheese tart, fried chicken breast, chilli sauce, tofu, a bit of zucchini
2PM: a couple slice of shihlin’s fried chicken & mushroom
6PM: 100cal chocolate bar, a bite of cookie

Today is seriously a bad case of being unable to say no to food offered by people. I just realized how often I accept foods from people.

And while eating the fried mushroom, there’s a moment where I lost control a bit and take 3-5 bites more than what I promised myself regarding foods offered by others: Just 1 bite.

I kinda feel like I’m not eating enough regardless the snacking so I might finish the day with a glass of milk

Good work on the discipline...and keeping on track a_mand_a. I think that the strategy you have is a very beneficial and positive way in keeping focused on the end goal. Small steps is the best way to achieve the bigger goal.

Thanks for the positive positing

Day 6

my posts are getting more mundane by day.. LOL

B: OJ, milk&cereal

S (9.30): Papayas

L (16.00): Beef stew, fried fish, steamed spinach, & tokyo banana for dinner

S (18.00): Lychees

23.00: Chocolate milk



today I'm quite proud of myself, all of my foods are as planned.
I know my plan was not not snack, and I actually snack twice today. (3 times if you count the milk) But I do have a weird schedule today, and I know I'm gonna have very late lunch. To compensate that, I had pre lunch snack, and another snack to replace dinner, both being fruits. The tokyo banana was offered by my friend who just got back from tokyo, and before this I've said a couple times how I have problem rejecting foods offered by people. This time I actually manage to just accept it and not eat it right away, but adjust my lunch portion so that I can have it as dessert. Later at night I feel hungry so I drink milk because I don't want to stress my body from having just 2 meals (i'm afraid of being obsessed with foods/eating/not-eating again)


so far so good, I hope this time my progress really lasts for good

btw I weight myself this morning. and apparently the 5 days of dilligence has resulted in almost 2 kgs weight loss (approx 4 pounds). That is good I guess, but also not so good that I realize the number because in the past I often defy from my plan once I started losing weight.
anyway, this time, I am trying to set my mind to keep this small goal in first place, that is to not snack .

@AllanRSM yes, this time I really don't want to stress myself about what I eat, how much I weight, etc. I will, later on, but for now just being in control of when & how I eat is enough. Thank you for visiting too. Every comment and views to this thread has helped to keep me on track.

This is already very late where I live so I'm just gonna do a recap for a habitual purpose and add more details tmrw.

B: banana bread, rice cake with minced meat
S: 1 banana
L: Chicken cooked in coconut milk, green beans & baby corn, an orange
S: 1 banana, 1 passion fruit, 1 orange
D: chicken&shrimp French bread sandwich, peach ice tea, half pineapple-coconut-milk smoothie

Yes, quite a lot. But no regret.
It was our 7th anniversary dinner

I haven't logged my foods for several days because I've been kind of busy, going home late etc, but surprisingly I still haven't break yet.

But I'm being more and more inclined to snacking, less caring about what I eat, and I realized its because I no longer feel like people are watching what I eat day in day out, which was the purpose of me starting this thread.

So today I just had breakfast,OJ, fried banana, papayas. And I don't know if it's enough to keep me going until lunch, (I'm gonna have a heavy exercise class this morning) but a lot of normal people are having as little, if not less for breakfast and doing just fine so I should be too.

I planned to do HIIT last night but was so sleepy, and told myself I'm gonna do it this morning but also so sleepy. I don't know what is it with myself and sleepiness lately..

Yesterday I went on to eat

L: burger and sauteed green beans

T: lemon cupcake (just one)

S: a glass of chocolate milk

Been binge free for 2 weeks but this morning the urge is just so violent... 8 AM here and already had OJ, bananas, bread, coffee jelly pudding. Not too much damage but I just feel like eating continuously so much...

Help!

Day 16 recap
B: OJ, bananas, bread, coffee jelly pudding
L: oatmeal and fish soup
S: pear
D: sautéed veggies, fried breaded mushroom, shrimp tempura, chicken kungpao, coconut water

Ok, I ate so much yesterday.
I feel like I'm really starting to lose it.
I haven't binged again, but I'm getting the constant urge to eat back again.
Now I'm trying hard to fight it.

And, I should exercise too.
I haven't exercised for days, and I think that's one of the cause to my raising appetite

Day 17

B: OJ, bananas, papayas, chocolate jelly, more bananas

L: cooked beansprout and some fried cassava

D: McD chicken thigh (not my choice, it was what's provided for dinner), a couple of lays chips



Day 18

B: OJ, fried cassava, cheese bread loaf, banana, more bread loaf

L: cooked water spinach, papayas for dessert

D: big glass of chocolate milk



So, I've been having troubles controlling my appetite in the morning. Specifically between breakfast and lunch. I ended up always having early lunch so that I don't succumb to the urge to binge. Surprisingly, I don't get hungry much at night. Now that's new.



I don't know what triggers the morning binge urge but I do spend more time at home in the morning than at night.



Plus I've been very very lazy in exercising. Practically 0 exercise done this week. I need some exercise motivations!

Hi a-mand-a,

Here to read You did really well to avoid binge-eating for a fortnight and at least your binges involve healthy food. I wonder if you could make a change to your morning routine e.g. go for a run/walk when you feel like eating and then plan a controlled breakfast. I have binge-eating issues too and have struggled recently but I'm trying to get back in control!

Hi @bella-slimmer!
Thanks for dropping by. So nice to see another person who struggle with binge.. Yasss, I really need to get back to my usual morning exercises. I usually like doing HIIT but lately I've been feeling so drained out for no good reason. Maybe it's actually because the lack of exercise so its like a devilish loop.
But I will do exercise!
How are you doing with your binge?

Alright, I got a a confession to make.
I went through my weekend just okay in terms of not snacking and not binging, but not okay in terms of choice of foods, those being day 19 and 20. No actually its day 17 and 18, and today is day 19. I gotta backdate the previous posts.
But, as I said, I got a confession.
This morning I just had massive breakfast under the excuse that it’s national breakfast day where I live
B: OJ, cheese&beef bread, 1 massive carrot cake, a tiny slice of chocolate cake that stored with the carrot cake.

Alright, that’s bad.

Anyways.. I’m planning to have all breakfast meals day due to the national breakfast day, cuz its mah fave meal of any day.
This is what I plan to have for lunch and dinner and imma stick to it:
L: cheese&corned beef omelette, fresh cut fruit
D: Milo cereal with Ovaltine drink.

Yeah, not really planning to diet today, but keeping yourself happy is a part of healing no? (Please say yes.. Please say yes..)

While I’m online I’m also gonna report my weekend meals:
(The correct) Day 17
B: OJ, bananas, fried tempe, fried cassava
L: fried duck, cabbage, rice
D: half a polvoron & 1 liquor chocolate

(The correct) Day 18
B: hotel buffet breakfast: broccoli, 2 spoonful of pasta, 1/4 waffle with jam & honey, a springroll, a chocolate jelly
L: clear beef soup with beansprout, rice, and rice crackers
D: 150cal chocolate ice cream sandwich & papayas

hey everyone..
so yesterday i did stick to my plan, except for additional veggies at lunch which is good i think.

this is today.
Day 20
B: OJ, Bananassss (plural plural), a bit of peanut butter
S: a walnut, an almond (definitely unplanned, i just cant resist! this PMS is driving me crazy
L: rice noodle & veggies, beef in cooked coconut milk, grapes
S: a doughnut & green tea latte (I actually meant for this to be my dinner, but I exercise again afterwards which left me quite hungry. also thanks to this PMS)
D: cheese&beef bread, chocolate chiffon cake

Right now I feel totallyguilty for the chocolate chiffon cake because I knew the bread alone had been enough.
Even after that I was still scouring my pantry for more foods. At the very last moment before I start munching on some cookies I remember that this is day 20. And I always believe, since I read it somewhere, that it takes 21 consecutive days to build/break a habit. I believe this is kinda like the last temptations that I need to power through before it gets easier.

my goal is 40 days without snacking, but obviously I've been snacking, but never a binge so far. I really hope I can maintain it and even improve it.
I think I need new challenge in the goal so after assessing my food diary these last weeks, I decided my next goals are:
- no taking seconds: to teach myself how much is the right portion, and avoid snacking because I think I hadn't had enough in the main meals
- max 1 flour based meal per day (bread, cake, cookies)
- max 1 fried meal per day

those are things 'i think I need to improve.
as always, little steps first.

Day 21!
I'm torn between disbelief and feeling like I've always knew I can make it this far.
Weird.

Today I went meat free, but it wasn't going so good, snacking wise.

Day 21
B: klapertaart & chocolate chiffon cake. Unnecessary snacking on some peanut
L: roasted green beans, fried tempeh with coconut milk sauce
T: chocolate bread, 2 pcs of candies
D: rice cake, veggie, a bit of tiramisu, a bit of caramel pudding, a bit of coconut drink

In my defense, I was doing a show in which there were a buffet. For a buffet this can be considered new achievement for me, but in terms of my non snacking goal, its just another miss.

I'm starting to be able to detect actual hunger and whenever I just had my clean meal I always get hungry very quickly. So maybe I have been preparing my clean meals wrong or something, that result in hunger and later snacking/binging.

But there's also a possibility that it's just my brain playing with me because it knows I'm having healthy foods.

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with my BED, retrieving my intuitive eating, recognising signals from my body..so excuse me for debating with myself here.