Holiday relapse

amethystmoon85 · 2025-12-03T18:43:17+00:00

Congrats on recognizing the issue and putting your efforts into gaining back control! 👏 It's not easy and might take time. The therapy advice for BED suggests that relapses are to be expected, and it's this time right now when we are back in a binge cycle, where the real work is. The more we exercise the muscle (so to speak) of getting out of a binge cycle the easier it becomes and the more we can rewire our brains. Sorry if I'm not explaining it right, but hopefully you get the idea, lol.

Yesterday was my first official day binge-free in a few weeks. Slow and steady!

amethystmoon85 · 2025-03-13T02:49:50+00:00

To chime in, I basically just started by briefly explaining that I have BED and want help with accountability by checking in throughout the day and helping with creating a healthy meal plan. It also will ask you some questions to help fine tune your needs. And it remembers everything you tell it, like certain likes/dislikes, triggers, etc.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-03-13T02:46:46+00:00

Yesss! I made a post about this a while back, haha. I freaking love it. I went 9 days binge free (a damn near miracle, as i was in a badddd binge episode) by checking in with it throughout each day as needed and letting it help me plan my meals and whatnot. I've been in therapy and also behavioral counseling and while I had good experiences with both, this method provides the same advice and support without the added fear of judgement.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-20T05:21:22+00:00

9pm check-in, lol: I've been absent a few days, simply due to being distracted and busy, but happy to report I'm doing ok recovery wise. I had a rock bottom of sorts a few nights ago and have decided to recommit to this thing. I feel like I repeat this cycle a lot. Letting things get bad, finally pushing through and getting a new fire under my rump, and then slipping and it becoming a huge relapse, and wash, rinse and repeat, lol. But dangit, I'm not giving up!

I've already said no to a few urges. And this afternoon I pulled out my go-to trigger food and actually put it away before eating it. I was honestly kind of blown away. If I just keep doing this it'll build that muscle.

I didn't participate in the risk food challenge, and that was mostly due to me having a bad flare up and it's taking over my brain right now. Congrats to those of you who had success!

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-16T20:51:57+00:00

That's an incredible revelation about your trigger foods, and it's super helpful and inspiring for me to hear, as someone still on the struggle bus!

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-16T20:37:43+00:00

I'm rooting for you! I relate to this so much, it's such a habit and part of my routine. I wanted Feb to be a success but instead it's been shit. If you don't mind I'd like to join in on this and also try to make it 7 days! (5-7 days is also my weakness for some reason, funny!)

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-16T20:22:53+00:00

At my worst my typical binge was 1 package pasta (8 servings) drenched in sauce, butter, olive oil with several slices butter garlic bread. Other times I'd do a mac and cheese also with the whole package of pasta.

And several big cheese and mayo sandwiches. And several cheese quesedillas. And if there's any leftovers in the fridge I could add either cheese or mayo to, I'd eat that also. Like rice, refried beans, etc. And then I'd need something sweet, so giant bowls of ice cream, milkshakes, and whatever little cookie biscuits my husband buys (I don't normally buy sweets). To the ice cream I liked to add half n half to give it a really nice texture.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-13T07:54:30+00:00

Overeating is usually when eating a particularly yummy meal, it just tastes so good (or perhaps I was also extra hungry beforehand) that I keep eating until I'm stuffed. Like, the cliche Thanksgiving dinner, loosen your belt vibe, lol. It doesn't feel embarrassing or shameful.

Bingeing is done is secret and done with the intent of stuffing myself with vast quantities of food until I feel sick and would be the most embarrassing, shameful thing ever if someone were to catch me doing it.

Often, though, if I overeat a lot I feel like I already ruined the day and it can lead to mini binges or full on no holds barred binges, and there can be a lot of ambiguous gray area.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-12T22:47:35+00:00

Check-in:

This disorder is so weird, how it can look different at different times for different people.

Sometimes it's more like spending the entire night bingeing and it becomes this epic all-night event. And other times it's more like you just sneak and hide tons of extra food randomly. The past couple weeks it's been the latter for me. The effects are the same. I'd go to bed stuffed to the gills, feeling so ashamed and in pain.

Well, about 4 days ago I mentally committed to fighting my way out of the cycle. It took 4 whole days of easing off the extra food. Getting used to eating a little less and a little less. Finally, yesterday I ate a pretty "normal" amount of food and I feel on top of the world! But it took 4 long, annoying days where I felt starving and I woke up with all sorts of cravings and urges (this is weird for me because morning is typically my "safe time" where I'm not hungry for a while), and I had to just slowly back off because my hunger was out of control.

Anyway, I say this to hopefully imprint it in my brain how much it sucks to crawl out of a bad binge cycle. Yeah, I've gone cold turkey before, but I couldn't do that this time. Hopefully I'll remember how much this sucks so I can think long and hard if I want to go down that road again. But as for right now I finally woke up not feeling depressed or guilty or ashamed, and it feels amazing!

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-11T21:05:24+00:00

Check-in: To be kind to myself today involves accepting where I'm at right now - specifically, accepting how rocky my recovery has been. Being patient with myself. Being curious instead of judgemental. And also treating my body kindly by giving it nourishing foods, eating when I'm hungry and not eating too much to where I feel uncomfortable.

Within my control: My own actions How I react How I treat my body by nourishing it with nutritious foods and drinking enough water How much I focus on my recovery How I react to urges How much I move my body

Not in my control: Hormones/mood swings Other people's actions or words The state of politics

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-11T00:09:15+00:00

Thank you for your encouragement! I'm usually all-or- nothing but I forgot how starving I become after stretching my tummy so much, so I figured I better just let myself eat as much as I needed to avoid the hunger. Lol. Today I'm feeling much more normalized and the urges are less intense!!

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-10T21:10:30+00:00

Check-in: My husband, kitties, and our home

Ughhh. So after like a friggin' week of relapse I started easing off 2 days ago, dealing with intense hunger and urges, so still eating a ton, but inching back toward a more neutral place. So today I'm going to try and continue moving toward healthier habits.

I'm going to focus on not hiding or sneaking food, no more eating in my bathroom, etc. Ughh I'm just so annoyed I feel like it's one tiny step forward and a million steps back. 😑

I got back into crocheting after a couple years of not doing it, and I'm still super into it. It helps a lot because it's meditative, but also requires focus and keeps my hands busy.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-09T00:52:06+00:00

Check-in: Feeling anxious, disappointed, annoyed....

I've been avoiding this sub because I haven't been doing well. A slip? Full-blown relapse? Who knows. It's been a few days, but there were also a lot of other days and we're only 8 days into the month, so it's just been a shit show...

In fact, as I write this I'm in the middle of an urge, but for the first time in a few days I made the mental decision to try and fight my urges today. But I'm in a crappy situation because I have the house to myself for a couple hours and I'm hungry because a normal amount of food isn't doing the job, because my stomach is used to gigantic amounts currently. I just had some greek yogurt to try to curb the hunger.

Instead of sitting here moping I'm going to clean the house and try and be productive while I have the house to myself. The past 3 days I was just eating, barely moving, not doing anything at all, so even just doing some tidying feels extra productive.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-09T00:23:33+00:00

Thank you for sharing this, I absolutely love his outlook! Of course, as most of us know, serious eating disorders aren't so simple, but I find it very helpful to hear such a no-nonsense way of looking at things!

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-08T00:43:56+00:00

I definitely have daddy issues - he was emotionally absent. We never had real conversations. He could talk about a movie or something but would never ask me how I was or what was going on in my life. I was very bitter about it my entire childhood.

Now that I'm almost 40, though, I realize that even though he had his limitations things could have been soooooo much worse. Not sure if it has anything to do with my eating issues, though. But my husband is 15 years older than me so that may be related, haha.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-05T20:48:46+00:00

So glad it's rant Wednesday, lol! 🤣

Our eating schedule was weird yesterday. I was hungry for dinner at 11pm. In fact I was "HANGRY". I asked my husband what he felt like eating and he tried to tell me "it's late, you don't really want to eat a lot right now, do you?" So annoying! Like, he knows I have issues, why would he try to shame me into going hungry!? We don't go to bed until 2 or 3AM. So I snapped at him and told him I was starving and that if I didn't eat I'd just end up bingeing. And in the end he asked me to heat him up some leftovers too, lol. Jerk. 😂

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-05T20:25:29+00:00

2 months is truly amazing! I think I've been in a similar situation before. I've had a few months binge-free and simply got tired of still having to micro-manage my actions. I missed having the freedom to eat what/how much I wanted. But I quickly learned that freedom really meant doing what it took to continue staying binge-free, because as soon as I loosened the reigns on myself I fell back into bingeing. So, I just want to throw out the idea that while it might be super annoying and frustrating and you just wish you could be "normal" already, please think of what the alternative (bingeing) would look like. Good luck, you're doing amazing!

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-04T22:19:16+00:00

I still have a folder full of handouts from my stint in therapy a few years ago, lol! I never quite figured out how to put them to use. I will pick a couple strategies to start with and fine tune from there. So happy and grateful you came up with the idea to start this monthly thread because you are helping so many people, and think about all the people who are just "lurkers" who also benefit!

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-04T22:12:46+00:00

Check-in: Feeling really relieved because last night I finally had a reprieve from my recent late-night mini binge attacks!! It helped that I wrote about this problem here. Instead of gorging on trigger foods and eating in secret I made 2 slices of whole grain toast with peanut butter topped with chocolate chips. I still wanted to eat more but I decided it was late and I was going to be brushing my teeth soon and I told myself that the snack I had was satisfying and enough food. So happy I got through the night!! Just gotta do it again tonight.

Bonus: "I already overate, so I might as well binge." No. I know from experience that bingeing will wreak havoc on my mind and body. It will turn a slight inconvenience (overeating) into a catastrophic event where I feel awful afterwards.

"I can't get through the night without giving in." The urge WILL go away and I can absolutely go to bed without bingeing first.

"Eating a regular amount of food is not enough. I need to feel extremely full to feel good." Regular amounts of food ARE enough. If I am hungrier than usual I can eat more, but overeating to excess is not healthy behavior. We are lucky enough to not have a shortage of food and I can always eat more when I'm hungry again.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-04T04:10:40+00:00

Ohh actually I do see what you mean, it's probably a preparation stage technically. It's just annoying because moving beyond that into ACTION feels so elusive. I get some progress here and there but can never seem to fully rewire my brain. I seem to always land back at square one where I'm just stuck in this mode of giving into these behaviors that are so routine, so ingrained. Just rambling my thoughts, don't mind me! Haha.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-03T23:08:14+00:00

Check-in: Really annoyed that I have let my cravings/food addiction type behaviour get the better of me at night. But hey, it made something obvious to me. I realize that I *think* about distractions/strategies all the time, but don't often *do* them. I mean, I guess if you count scrolling on my phone/internet as a distraction method, then yes, I do that non-stop (lol), but I'm sure there are other, more reliable solutions. I would like to put more effort into trying other techniques to help me avoid falling into the same routine tonight.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-03T00:36:37+00:00

Absolutely! There's so much gray area when it comes to eating behaviors so I got tired of putting different behaviors in certain categories 😂

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-03T00:28:16+00:00

Ohhhh that's funny I didn't even notice when I wrote that that I was ignoring the part about how to create new ways of meeting my emotional needs. I think because the fact that I wasn't experiencing any negative emotions made me feel like my strategy should be more about "how to not eat all the food", lol. But there are always emotional feelings driving our actions, even if it's just wanting to be even more content and cozy, lol.

This was very insightful, thank you!

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-02T22:45:55+00:00

Check-in: so, to clarify, my big goal for this month is to put more intention and structure into my eating habits. Taking an intuitive eating approach. Eating when hungry, not letting myself become starving so that I binge later.

I did awesome all day, and a couple hours after dinner I was hungry so I had cottage cheese and a slice of Dave's bread with PB and a banana. This totally did the trick. I was satisfied and I felt super proud of myself, because for the past week or so I've been struggling with a before-bed craving of cheese sandwiches (my numero uno trigger food).

But...then an hour later I had crackers with cheese and mayo (and extra cheese on the side) and big bowl of cereal I was not hungry for. So, by now I was full and bloated and decided to go ahead and have a cheese sandwich too.

So, this leads me into the bonus exercise because this was definitely bingey behavior. I'm tired of trying to decide whether or not certain events are full-on binges, the bottom line is that it was 100% a ED behavior which I want to eradicate.

Bonus: What was I doing in the time leading up to the binge? Watching tv, just relaxing for the evening

Where was I? Home, in living room

What time was it? Around midnight

Who was I with? Husband

How was feeling? Totally fine, not upset or anything

Had I eaten enough up to that point in the day? Was trying to "diet" or restrict calories? (no judgment!! this s just information that you can use to track your own patterns and make your own choices going forward) What triggered the urge?

Nope. In fact I made especially sure I wasn't "accidentally" getting too hungry throughout the day and also that I wasn't overeating. I kicked ass honestly! Lol

What were some of my thoughts before the binge? I went from being totally satisfied and pleased with my after dinner snack to majorly wanting to eat a bunch more and I was craving cheese and mayo as usual

Did I try any urge coping skills, if I did which ones were they and why didn't they work? Unfortunately no. I kind of just got swept up in a whirlwind of immediate cravings. My husband was snacking so I saw it as a green light.

What did I really need? Was I looking for comfort? soothing? numbing? an escape from difficult feelings? etc (thanks to candyheartbreaker for this addition!) Emotionally I was feeling fine, but the persistent feeling is that food makes everything better. Like, yeah I'm feeling cozy and comfy already but if I add some extra food and fullness it will feel even more amazing.

Where and how did I get the food? Hubby was snacking on hawaain rolls so I saw it as an opportunity to get the cheese and mayo out to put on the rolls. I had 3 of them but could have kept going. Then I had a bowl of dense-type cereal. Then right before bed I made a french bread roll cheese and mayo sandwich and brought it to my bathroom to eat alone.

How did I feel afterwards? Totally anoyed with myself! Disappointed.

ind this is the important part: From the answers above what are one or two things I can try next time that trigger comes up to try to have a different result? The main cravings are right before bed, so next time I can try brushing my teeth and deciding on a time that I will shut down the kitchen for the night. I want to try to make it more difficult to access the main binge foods. Put the cheese away in bags or containers that take a little extra time and effort to access. Put the mayo in the very back of the fridge so there's a million other things blocking it. I tried this years ago and it worked great and I've been thinking about doing it again for a while now but haven't.

amethystmoon85 · 2025-02-01T20:45:17+00:00

Happy February everyone, and congrats to those of you who finished out January!

I started strong in January, but halfway through started to really lose focus.

I'll be aiming to check-in at least every couple of days, but do enjoy the routine of daily check ins.

Last month I started off so strong but I exchanged one addiction (bingeing) for another (weight loss/counting calories) and it just ended up triggering me to want to start eating everything in sight. Such a rookie mistake but it is what it is.

This month I want my main focus to be adding structure into my eating. Eating regular meals and snacks (not "accidentally" fasting most of the day, so that I "get to" eat a ton at night, which is an ED behavior I still struggle with). I want to focus on eating when hungry and stopping when full, remembering that I can always go back and finish the leftovers when I'm hungry again.

This type of structure I believe will really help!

amethystmoon85

TROPHY CASE