Update #2

So, I think I'm finally ready to move onto to Step #2. I can't wait. I am digging this step by step process because it's tangible progress that I can see. I'm someone that deals better when I can see my progression.

Step Two is all about eating on a regular schedule. I find that lately my binges are not emotional responses but are physiological responses to not eating in a timely manner. Four hours after breakfast, I binged on four pieces of buttered toast. I felt bad about that because if I was going to binge, I could have eaten something healthier like grapes or carrots. I did read that when people starve themselves they crave fatty foods.

It's not like I'm starving myself intentionally. I know that by not eating I'm only pushing my body into starvation mode, so it's slowing my metabolism and my body is hanging onto everything I eat and converting it to fat. I don't know. Lately, I don't feel like eating. I think my meds have something to do with that. Because I don't feel like eating. Then I get these headaches and I start to feel faint, so instead of eating, I lie down and sleep. When I get to that point, I just can't eat. I need a break from the headache first.

So, I hope that by completing Step Two, that I will have most of my binges under control.

On a side note, I explained to my mom, what I was going through and she has been very supportive. She is about to stop smoking and I am her support person as I've recently quit smoking.

Quitting smoking wasn't really that hard for me. I just stopped by cigarettes. This part gets a little nasty. I started smoking the butts in my ashtray because I still needed the nicotine. Over time, the need to smoke faded and I stopped smoking the butts. I threw out all of my ashtrays. My only worry is being around others who smoke. I have to say that I don't feel a compulsion to smoke when I'm out and about. I just need to know how alcohol will affect me. I normally smoke when there's alcohol involved.  

Weight Loss for Binge Eaters Step Three (Part Three)

This post is all about losing weight. Again, we are taking this very slowly. Why? Because we're changing habits and doing it all at once is not only overwhelming, when we fail we just go back to our old bad habits.
Since you've completed Step Two, you should be eating at regular intervals. Hopefully, your binges have decreased some. If they have, then congratulations! If not, don't worry. You will get there, I promise!
Exercise
By now you should be exercising every day for 10 minutes. You probably haven't lost weight at this point and that is okay. We're not too concerned with actual weight loss at this point. We'll get there. Remember we are building good habits!
Continue to exercise for 10 minutes a day.

Eat Eggs for Breakfast
Eat two eggs (whole) or four egg whites for breakfast. Add in soy milk and veggies and make an omelet.
Why? Studies have shown that eating eggs in the morning makes you feel full for longer. The added soy milk will give you more protein as well and the veggies like spinach, zucchini, or broccoli will give you added proteins, vitamins and minerals.

Take a Multi-Vitamin in the Morning
If you're like me and you don't eat enough vegetables, you need to supplement your diet with vitamins.

Eat More Whole Grains
What's a whole grain? Whole grains are oatmeal, brown rice, corn, quinoa, rye, spelt, farro, bulgur, wheat berries, and durum (whole wheat). This is not a comprehensive list. Just a list of what's familiar to most people.

Here's a sample morning menu:

Breakfast: 4 egg white spinach omelet with mozzerrella cheese, a slice of whole-wheat toast, and a small orange.
Snack: 1 cup cooked oatmeal, with flax seed, soy milk, frozen raspberries, and honey.

So you've had two servings of a lean protein, 1 serving of a vegetable, 2 serving of a fruit, 2 servings of a whole grain and 2 servings of dairy

Weight Loss for Binge Eaters Step Three (Part Two)

This post isn't about binge eating or weight loss. This post is all about increasing your self-esteem.

Too many people equate their issues and failures with their weight onto who they are. One of the issues that I have with most weight loss programs and books is that they don't focus enough on ways to increase one's self-esteem. I could lose all of my weight tomorrow and still feel the same about myself. Losing weight does not necessarily mean that I will suddenly start to love myself. The beliefs that we have about ourselves have developed slowly over the years. They just don't go away because we accomplished we lost the weight. Yes, we will feel good about ourselves and our confidence in ourselves will grow, but when there's an emotional crisis, stress, or something along those lines, we fall back into old patterns of self-hate. Those feelings lead us back to bingeing, which in turn leads us back to gaining weight.

So we have to focus on learning to love ourselves, while we are still overweight or obese. Because that's really how we're going to stop this cycle.

I came up with this after reading a few Tumblr blogs. There was so much self-hate and blame that I felt that even if these people beat binge eating and lost the weight, they would ultimately end back where they started because of those feelings that they have about themselves. I have those same feelings. I don't know about you, but I'm so sick of feeling down on myself.

So I've decided to add some self-esteem building steps to this weight loss program.

What Do You Like About Yourself?
Take a sheet of paper and write down all of the good things about yourself. Write down all of the things that you like about yourself.

Once you've written everything that you can think of down, save the list. Each day, try to find one more thing that you like about yourself.

What Do Others Like About You?
This part is a little scary, but it's good to see how other people see you. By now you should have told someone that you are on this weight loss journey and that you needed their support. If not, you should do this right away. It should be someone you know well and trust.

Ask that person to write down all of the things that they like and love about you. Chances are you, they will express something that you didn't think of.

Write Them Down on an Index Card
Write down your favorite items on the list onto an index card and carry it around with you. Include some items from the list that your person gave you and mark them with an asterisk. Ideally, this should be written on the back of your alternative activities index card. Whenever you feel down about yourself, read the card. Look at the items marked with an asterisk. It means that there is at least one person who doesn't think as badly of yourself as you do.



Why Do This?
This is just step one in building self-confidence.  Just like we are taking binge eating and weight loss one step at a time, we are going to build our self-esteem up one step at a time. 

Weight Loss for Binge Eaters Step Three (Part One)

This post is dedicated specifically to binge eating.

I used to smoke.  I quit a couple of months ago. I'm not sure of the exact date, but I haven't had a cigarette in a while. How did I quit? Whenever I felt/feel a craving for a cigarette, I substituted something else for the cigarette. Unfortunately for me, I substituted food for cigarettes. But hey... I'm not smoking anymore. Now if I can work on the food...

Anyway, that is what Step Three is all about. When you feel the urge to binge, do something else.

How to Substitute Other Activities for Binge Eating
Create a list of activities that you like doing. These activities have to be incompatible with eating. So reading a book is out, if you like to read and eat. An example is exercise (which is a good way to kill two birds with one stone), or talking to friends on the phone. Maybe you like playing video games. I'm studying for the LSATs, so maybe instead of bingeing, I can break out my prep books and study.

Make sure that these activities are active and not passive. The purpose is to do something other than binge and choosing to watch TV instead of bingeing isn't going to help.

Make sure your list includes activities that you can do during the day and during the night. For example, I think I would put on my list, taking a walk around the neighborhood. I don't feel comfortable doing that at night. So I think I might add playing a video game to my list because when I play video games I'm not thinking about food. I like playing MMORPG and there are no pause buttons, so I can't take a break and stuff my face.

Write Down Your List on an Index Card
This list should be available to you any time you feel like you're going to binge. Got bad news while you were on your way home and feel like bingeing, take out your list, pick something on the list that you could do at that moment or within the next five to ten minutes.

Write This Down in Your Daily Diary/Log
At this point you should be a monitoring king. Write down that you felt a binge coming and what activity you did instead. Did it work? Did it not work? Write it down and how you felt while doing the activity.

Why? You need to monitor everything. This way you'll know what activity works and which ones don't.  Also, when you see that you successfully avoided a binge by using this technique, you'll feel better and more in control!

Don't Get Discouraged.
You've probably had to repeat steps because you didn't have enough successful days. It's okay. Just keep trying. This Step may be hard for people because we have to stop before we act. For me this is really hard, but everything is so automatic that I don't stop and think about it. So if you forget to pull out that list, don't fret. The next binge, just try to remind yourself to pull out that list and pick an activity.

Why does this Work?
Like smoking, urges to binge will fade with time. So distracting yourself with an activity makes it easier to resist a binge. If you do something that you find enjoyable, then when the activity is done, you still won't feel the need to binge. Also by replacing a binge with another activity, you make it physically impossible to binge.

An Idea
This whole process has been difficult for me. I'm not an open person. It takes me a lot of time to figure out exactly what I'm feeling. I don't think about how I feel, I've buried all of my feelings down deep. If you're in this boat, it's okay. You will get better at recognizing how you feel.

I started off, writing really long posts about my day, from there I was able to see what I was feeling. 

Weight Loss for Binge Eaters Step Two (Part Two)

The previous post dealt mostly with binge eating. This post will deal with the weight loss steps.

Do Not Change What You Eat… Just Add More Vegetables!

Even if you don’t like vegetables, you still need to them to your diet. Vegetables can taste really good, if they cooked and seasoned right. Need help with this? See my sister blog: How To Eat More Vegetables and How To Eat More Vegetables Part Two. These two posts are about ways to introduce more vegetables into your diet.

If you are someone who eats out a lot, you still need to add more veggies to your diet. Ordering Chinese food, ask for extra veggies. Ordering a sub from Subway or Quiznos? Ask them to add more veggies. If you don’t like vegetables, too damn bad. You HAVE to eat them.

Adding more vegetables to your diet will fill you more. You will feel less hungry and you will get more of the nutrients your body needs.

Stop Drinking Soda… Drink water or fruit water instead

Soda, pop, sodapop, soft drinks or however you say it is nothing but empty calories with tons of sugar. Your body needs water in order to function. It doesn’t need soda. This includes diet sodas and caffeine-free sodas. 

If you don’t like the taste of water tough. Drink it. No one said losing weight was going to be easy. Don’t replace soda with juice either. Drink water. An adult woman needs about 2.2 liters of water a day. That’s about 9 cups or 4.5 16.9 oz water bottles. Men need about 3 liters a day or 6 16.9 bottles of water a day.

If you hate the taste water, then make a pitcher of fruit water. See the following link for the recipe: Fruit Water Recipe

Get Moving!

If you are not active at all, don’t go out and get a gym membership, yet. Let’s start with 10 minutes of exercise every day. We will increase the duration and intensity of exercising with time. Right now at this stage we are forming habits. When the time comes, it will be easier to increase the duration and intensity of our workouts because we’ve already established a good habit.

Remember this particular program isn’t about losing weight fast. How many of us can say that that has actually worked for us, consistently?

We should be more concerned about binge eating and stopping that before we focus exclusively on weight loss. Now is the time that we add or subtract small things that won’t send us over the edge into bingeing.

When To Move On To Step Three

Step Two will take several weeks before we can get it right. I won’t despair if I back slide or go into a binge and you shouldn’t either.

In order to move on you need to have 6 good days a week. Meaning, you had to have had days where you completed all of the objectives for the day. If you happened to binged between a meal or snack, you can count that day still as a good day.

Binges do not count as bad days. We don’t want to stress ourselves out.

When to Move onto Step Two

I probably should have posted this prior to the Step Two Objectives. As I was looking over my daily diary it just looked like a bunch of information that I wrote down for about a week. What does all of this mean? What should I be doing with this information?

You should review your daily diary twice a week for EVERY step. This is the most important part of this self-help program. It is where we learn what our triggers are, if we don’t already know them. Reviewing your daily log helps us see the areas we need to work on. And by reviewing our daily and weekly logs, we can determine when we are ready to move onto Step Two.

Review Checklist for Step One

·         Have I been monitoring?

·         Can I improve my monitoring?

·         Are any patters in my eating becoming obvious?

·         Am I sleeping on a regular schedule?

·         Am I getting enough sleep?

·         Am I weighing myself weekly?

·         How can I improve my sleep schedule?

·         Can I improve my commitment level to this program?

Moving On

As I’ve repeated before, if you’ve being getting at least 12 days of 6-8 hours of sleep and you’ve been correctly recording for at least 10 days, then you can move on to the next step.

If you haven’t accomplished those items then you need to ask yourself a few questions. Consider the reasons for why you recorded for less than 10 days or why you are not getting enough sleep?

I have to repeat Step One, because recording is very difficult for me. I absolutely hate it. I hate seeing that I binged on paper. Also, I’m a person that has to be kept on a schedule. It doesn’t have to be a strict schedule, but there must be some sort schedule. If I’m not on a schedule, things go haywire. I stop taking my meds, I stop recording, I start binging a lot, I don’t get enough sleep.

Also I’ve been stressed about money, like really, really, really, stressed. When I’m stressed, I can’t sleep. I have horrible coping skills. Absolutely horrible. I used to smoke. I have been cigarette free for a month? Two months? I can’t remember. Smoking is how I dealt with stress. Food is how I deal with stress. I binge.

The one thing that I know works for me is to come up with a financial plan. I have one in place. Secondly, I need to get back on a schedule. Once I do that, I know I will start going to bed at 10 pm, waking up at the ungodly hour of 4:30am, lying in bed for an hour mad because I can’t fall asleep. The last two hours will be spent reading a book or playing a video game. And blah, blah, blah. You get the point.

Wait, I haven’t made the point. Normally because I feel like I failed Step One, I would have gone a binge and quit. Sound familiar? When we diet and restrict calories or certain foods and when we fail our self-imposed rule, we binge to make ourselves feel better and then we repeat the process all over again like we’re on some sort of merry-go-round.

Well I’m getting off the stupid merry-go-round. I’m not going to quit because I didn’t meet all of the Step One Objectives. I’m going to start over and keep trying. Eventually it will become automatic. It will become routine.

If you suffer a set back with this, don’t give into the temptation to quit. Just start over the next day. We need to think of every new day as a fresh start. Leave that binge or set back you had yesterday in the past.

Weight Loss Binge Eating Step Two (Part One)

Congratulations! You’ve made it to Step Two! I, however, had to repeat Step One. I know that it hasn’t been two weeks, but I decided to post Step Two so that everyone knows beforehand what Step Two is all about. I broke this step into two parts. Part one will deal only with Binge Eating, and part two deals only with Weight Loss.

Before moving onto the Step Two, you had to have at least 10 days of successful recording and have gotten at least 12 days of 6-8 hours of sleep. If you haven’t, then you must repeat Step One. We still have a week left in Step One. Finish out the week before moving onto Step Two.

This program builds upon each step, which means you still need to carry on with the Step One Objectives while you work your way through the Step Two Objections. It means you still need to record and you still need to maintain a good sleep pattern. If you stop following the Step One Objectives during Step Two, you CANNOT move onto to Step Three. In fact, you would have to start over at Step One.

Step Two Objectives

Continue with the Step One Objectives

You should have settled into a regular sleeping pattern by now. If you are still unable to sleep, contact your physician right away. Insomnia may be a symptom of something much worse. If your doctor finds that there are no other health issues, you may ask for a prescription for sleeping pills. I personally take melatonin, which you can find in the vitamin aisle at your local drug store. Talk to your doctor first before taking any vitamin or over the counter sleeping pill!

By this time, writing down what you eat, how much you eat, how much you sleep and how you feel should have become a good habit. Keep this up. It's important to keep track, especially if you are seeing a therapist. 

Establish a Pattern of Regular Eating

The purpose of establish a pattern of regular eating is to displace our binges so that they become infrequent. Binging often occurs when we have unstructured time on our hands. For most of use binging doesn’t happen while we are in the middle doing stuff, like work, school, studying or so forth.

At this step, we will not rely upon our bodies to tell us when we are hungry. For binge eaters, the natural biochemical sensations that control sensations of hunger and fullness have been disrupted by our yo-yo dieting and binge eating. Also because we eat in times of stress or for emotional reasons, our bodies cannot differentiate between what is an emotional hunger or a physical hunger. So we have to disregard all of the popular advice that tells us to eat only when we're hungry. That won't work for us. 

For example, I know that I binge eat when I get stressed. When I feel stressed my body tells me that I am hungry. I’ve had this happen an hour after I ate dinner and physically I wasn’t hungry, but emotionally I was.

By us recording what we eat and how we feel, even though it’s difficult, you should start to see a pattern of when you binge. Is it at night? Or in between periods of activity?

You should eat three meals with two or three snacks each day.  Here's an example.

6:30 am	Wake up
7:00 am – 7:30 am	Breakfast
10:30 am	Snack
12:30 pm	Lunch
3:30 pm	Snack
6:30 pm	Dinner
8:00 pm	Snack (optional)

If you have a chaotic schedule and a chaotic eating pattern slowly start to change your eating pattern.

Start eating breakfast within 30 minutes to an hour of waking up. That's the easiest way to introduce a regular eating pattern. Once that has been established, work on a time to have lunch and then eventually dinner.

Do not go more than three or four hours without eating. 

If you know that you won't be able to eat until 10 pm because of work or another obligation, move your snack time further down to accommodate this. 

Do not skip meals or snacks.

Try not to eat between your meals and snacks. 

It won't be the end of the world if you do. The purpose of establish a pattern of regular eating is break up unstructured time. That's when most of us binge eaters, binge. 

If you do binge between meals and snacks, don’t despair!

Eat at your next scheduled time. Do not skip a meal or snack in response. You will probably binge eat. It's going to be okay. Make sure to mark that you did binge eat in your daily journal.

Get rid of "unsafe" food and stock up on "safe" food. 

Unsafe foods are the foods that you are mostly likely to binge on. I binge on food that is readily accessible, so anything like chips, cookies, crackers, ice cream, cake, and so forth, are my "unsafe" foods. "Safe" foods are salads, carrots, celery, protein shakes, smoothies, and so forth. 

Where possible, this pattern of eating should take precedence over any other activities. 

Don't delay a meal or skip a meal because of another activity. Try to plan your meals around your schedule. For example, I had an early morning doctor's apartment during my breakfast time, I decided to make a protein smoothie instead of eating my normal breakfast. 

Do not eat while you are distracted. 

Us binge eaters need to formalize eating. Meaning that we can't read or watch TV while eating. We can't chat with friends on the phone or play around the Internet. Pick one or two places in your house where you can eat without distractions. We need to take back control of eating so that it’s not something that’s automatic and without feeling.

I've decided that in the kitchen at my kitchen table is where I will take all of my meals. Now I have to go and clear off all of the junk on the table.

Plan your meals

Plan your meals based on your schedule. This way you have no excuse to skip a meal or snack.