I'm killing myself. (with eating)

I am having a really hard time. I really need some kind of help.

Devouring a box of Triscuits ...that's not a snack.
a bag of chocolate cookies...not a snack.
an entire package of chocolates...not a snack.

and yet...i consume them easily and quickly. more, more, more. food, food, food. then i have my normal meals for the day. every chance i get to eat, i take. if i see food that isn't mine, i wait til no one is around and sneak some. it's disgusting. i will eat pure sugar from packets if nothing else is around.

don't look at the calories...it's already done, so that would just be depressing. that's how i rationalize not facing just how much i've eaten. but it shows up..boy, does it show up.

i have gained an enormous amount of weight...nearly 30 pounds since mid-July. nearly 30 pounds in less than 4 months. (note: i was 96.5 and a bit thin but still it's a LOT of weight to gain. i'm 5'1. it shows up big time)and it's due to hardcore binging.

i don't know how to say no. i don't know the feeling of hungry. i don't know the feeling of full...only the feeling of wanting more, even when i've put so much in that i can barely move.

there is no simple solution.
i just really need help.
i don't have the money for a therapist and i don't have health insurance.
i work during the time of the one overeaters anonymous meeting around here every week.

i eat so much. there's no thinking or sense involved. no moderation involved at all.

i just want to be...normal. see food normally. not be obsessed with it and eating ALL the time.

:( i don't want to gain anymore weight but most of all...

i just want to be happy and live. but i'm setting myself up for DEATH. all this crap...sugar, fat, thousands upon thousands of calories OVER what my body needs for the day?
i've grown out of my clothes...when i'm not comfortable in my clothes, i can't concentrate on anything else. also i have been doing horribly at my job because i'm so full that i can barely move.

the sensible answer is..."stop. you know these things are bad for you. you've typed out all these awful things. just stop.'

i wish i could. i know i can but i just don't let myself. i think there are a lot of psychological reasons why i've latched back onto my old awful habit of hardcore binging.

i've got to LET GO. i have got to get FREE from this...

i feel like a failure...therefore it is what i am. is it really that simple?

Please, any words of advice, wisdom, and/or encouragement are appreciated.

delicious!

Didn't get to weigh myself this morning, but I feel like I was 110-something lol. Is it possible to feel a number? Breakfast was an english muffin...half was topped off with peanut butter and the other half was topped with sugarfree orange marmalade.
I had an hour before work and was still hungry, so I decided to go ahead and have my 'mid-morning snack' soon after breakfast...a light fatfree banana cream pie yogurt (my favorite flavor) with original fiber one. hit the spot!
Lunch was a can of 40% less sodium Progresso soup. It was called "Zesty Chicken Gumbo" and it was absolutely delicious! The multigrain saltines were a perfect addition.
My afternoon snack was soooooo good. Chocolate covered pretzels that come in a pack that helps me stop at 100 calories worth? Now, that's a great thing to have on hand! It was the perfect thing to satisfy my persistent little sweet tooth (or who knows...maybe all my teeth are sweet teeth haha).
Dinner was the BEST!!!!!!!!!! it was the same as last saturday--chicken cordon bleu....ham, chicken, and swiss are such an amazing combination!! I sliced some cucumber and had a few grape tomatoes as well...little added nutritional value but at least something so I wouldn't feel so bad about skipping out on fruits and veggies today!

Today was a pretty high sodium day but probably less than last saturday when I also had soup and chicken cordon bleu. yummy intake today! gosh, i love food... :p

"Don't eat that. You'll spoil your dinner." haha

I began the day with a delicious bowl of oatmeal...it was .5 cup dry oatmeal mixed with a sliced fresh peach, cinnamon, and 2 packets of splenda. The peach actually carmelized a bit like bananas do when you heat them and it made for an amazing & filling breakfast!

Around 9:30, I had a cup of coffee w/2 packets of splenda and a little more coffeemate than usual.
Lunch was my FAVORITE! Peanut butter and banana sandwiches are the best! The banana browned a bit in the fridge but like I care...I'm a banana addict. A banana is a banana =).
Afternoon snack=sliced swiss cheese cubes.
Around 3:30 , a fellow employee and I made a second trip into the local icecream shop while we were out on deliveries. The first time we'd gone in, she'd grabbed a few chocolate candies and I grabbed a diet coke. The second time, her friend (who works there) offered me free icecream again and I decided to just go for it. I LOVE pistachios and I decided on the pistachio nut icecream. It came in the cutest little cup and it was SO worth the calories. yum yum YUM!

THAT is the way to enjoy food...slowly, savoring it...eating something you like instead of just shoveling food in without even caring what it is as long as it's food...and most importantly, not sneaking it for some kind of warped thrill.

Because I indulged in the icecream , I'm skipping out on dinner. I was excited about the chicken cordon bleu that i was going to have but I just can't stomach it after the icecream. I might have some veggies if I get hungry but for now, that's that.

EDIT: had 4 cherry tomatoes & cut a very thin slice of sharp cheddar cheese but i don't know how to get it so that i can put the pic at this point of the entry instead of the beginning, so you'll have to try to survive without that pic haha.

I work tomorrow and then Sunday is my day off =]. My weight this morning was 111.2. Gotta finally get past that number!

112.6. good day.

mixed original fiber one and honey cluster fiber one, banana, skim milk
coffee w/2 splenda packets & coffeemate
wrap with chicken, provolone cheese, light ranch dressing, a few squirts of hot sauce, and romaine lettuce
tall skinny caramel latte
garlic chicken alfredo pizza and a salad with light ranch

7 days of photo blogging =)

This morning's weight: 111.2 =]

Breakfast was loaded with carbs and delicious...1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup fiber one, & a light fatfree peach yogurt. I decided to finally go one whole day w/o peanut butter....peanut butter & peach? that just DOESN'T sound good anyway!
I had 2 fiber tablets and went to work. My mid-morning snack was a snack bag of radishes and a Minute Maid Light Raspberry Passion. This was my first time having this drink and unless we run out of diet drinks again at home, this will probably be my last time having it. The taste was just too watered down for me. It was sufficient, though. I also had a raspberry lemonade crystal light.
Lunch was a delicious, mildly filling sandwich made with whole wheat bread, a sliced mushroom, 2 slices of deli turkey, romaine lettuce, and a thin layer of gourmet garlic cheese (this stuff is goooood!).
My afternoon snack was a Diet Coke and a snack bag of baby carrots. wooo look at me fitting in those veggies today!
I was very hungry from 3:00 to 5:30, but I had purposed to wait and not snack so that I would appreciate dinner more. Boy, was I glad I waited. It's amazing how good even a side salad can taste when you're really hungry. I actually moaned when I ate a cherry tomato. ahh how weird is that?? lol.

On a more serious note, it is so liberating to abstain from counting calories. Sure, I'll measure things every now and then (I always measure oatmeal so I don't go overboard) or even average the calories for ONE snack or ONE meal in my head but then it's forgotten. My friend's dad made dinner tonight and added noodles and meat to lasagna hamburger helper.

Can I even express to you how wonderful it was to not be sitting there wondering what all was added and how many calories were in each thing??? how nice it was to instead put a decent-sized serving into my bowl and engage in some form of conversation instead of letting my mind go into a state of paranoia about calories and sodium?? I never thought that I could eat sensibly without counting calories to stay in control OR using the fact that I'm not counting calories to go completely OUT of control.


This concludes one week of success...now, onto the next! With each successful day, I am reminded even more that i am stronger than I let myself believe I am.

Day off work...and day of cheese. =]

Breakfast was by far my favorite meal of the day. Around 7:00, I began making coffee. When it was done, I popped a multigrain english muffin in the toaster. When it was ready, I added peanut butter to the top and it immediately melted from the heat--Yum! I had never had an english muffin before, and it definitely didn't disappoint! I added two splenda packets and coffeemate to my coffee and also poured a small glass of light grapefruit juice. a very yummy breafast indeed! (lol...)
Lunch was around 11:15...I always get hungry around 11 when I eat at 7. It was a friend's leftover portabella mushroom omelet from a local restaurant. It wasn't really appealing until I heated it up and discovered that it also had a layer of swiss cheese on top. I topped it all off with habanero sauce (my favorite!) and that was lunch.

Around 1:30, I felt a little weird physically...I decided it might be good to have a small snack. Today is, I suppose, just a day for cheese. I had two slices of swiss.
Between the snack and dinner, I had 2 crystal lights and 2 fiber tablets. Dinner was random and just thrown together. It was good, though! 5 saltine crackers with pb, 5 saltines with gourmet garlic cheese, and leftover chicken from a few nights ago that I finished off.
And finally, a glass of white wine. It had been forever since I'd had wine. It's not nearly as easy for me to gulp down as, oh , say, mango rum lol. I'm not big on drinking at all but mango rum is delicious! Anyway, I took about 45 minutes to finish my wine lol. I enjoyed it, though.
The effects of yesterday's sodium weren't as bad as they could have been. This morning's weight was 113.4. I stepped on the scale after dinner just out of curiousity and it had returned to my morning weight...that's why I decided that it wouldn't hurt at all to have one glass of wine. It was a little under 5 oz.

I've enjoyed my day off of work and I accomplished most of what I needed to get done around the house....now onto another week of work lol...next day off is Sunday, I believe. It'll all be worth it in 2 weeks when I get that big paycheck. I got my first one 2 days ago and it was alright but it was from less than a week's work because I'd just started the job.

Alright, I'll be back to update tomorrow =).

lots of sodium but overall a great day!

Breakfast was around 7:00 this morning and I followed my usual routine of adding yogurt to something or other. Tomorrow at least I plan to have something a little different =]. Today though, I had original fiber one cereal with peanut butter and peach mango passion yogurt. I have to say that the peach mango passion flavor is quite odd combined with the peanut butter flavor...but not odd enough for me to refuse eating it lol. We're running low on yogurt so I have to settle with the flavors I don't like so much. Cry me a river lol.
Later I must admit that I weighed myself. After breakfast, I was 112.6! What an improvement! I really lose weight at a decent rate when I eat well. After weighing myself I had a peach while getting ready for work.
Mid-morning at work, I had a crystal light. From 10-10:30 I snacked on my saltines instead of saving them for my soup. It was better than attacking the teeny bit of nutella that is the only food left out at my job.

I think this beef & veggie soup probably got heated for a total of 10 minutes! every time it was ready, a customer walked in or the phone rang so I had to keep reheating it. Finally though, I had my lunch (on and off) from 12:00-12:30. It was delicious but I need to buy low sodium soup! Why? The whole can of soup was only 200 calories, yes, but over 1,600 mg of sodium!! yikes! It was satisfying though and I really have no complaints. I'm too busy focusing on getting eating back on track to focus on sodium right now. From the hours of 1:00 to 5:00, all I consumed were 2 fiber tablets, a cherry coke zero, and water. You can bet I was hungry by dinnertime!

I had never heard of chicken cordon bleu before and that's what I had. It was breaded, but I didn't care. It had over 900 mg of sodium but I still didn't care. It was DELICIOUS and very filling. I had never heard of adding swiss and ham to chicken but the serving was only 290 calories. As you can also see, I had a pretty little side salad as well with light ranch dressing.

In order to combat the loads of sodium I had today, I'm trying to drink lots of water. I'm bloated but I could care less right now. I had yet another good day with food...yet another day of eating sensibly! In my mind, this was a sodium-filled yet victorious day! =]

Keep moving.

I started out at 7:15 with a bowl of Fiber One original mixed with Fiber One honey clusters and skim milk.
I still have a bad habit of eating too early but I opted for snacks this time instead of having my lunch early. The first snack was a light fatfree blueberry pomegranate yogurt.

Later I had a 100 calorie pack of beef jerky.
When I did have lunch, I had a good old-fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I don't usually like jelly but this kind is great. It's Orange Marmalade made with Splenda and is only 10 calories a serving. I decided to give one slice of the bread a good coat of peanut butter but didn't overdo it like I've been doing for the past 2 months. It was delicious. Peanut butter is the one thing I never ever get sick of.
Around 5:30, my stomach was growling and the crystal light I had obviously wasn't going to make it shut up. I knew I wasn't going to eat dinner for a little while still, so I had a snack. It was a little bigger than it needed to be because I added dry oatmeal to it. I did this not because I needed the oatmeal but just because (as you've probably learned by now), I like the combination.
Because I had the extra snack, I skipped out on the sweet potato that was planned as a side to dinner. Instead, I sliced raw mushrooms and had 2 slices from a Hormel meatloaf. After the picture was taken, I added habanero sauce to the mushrooms and also a few drops to the meatloaf. I love everything spicy!

The meatloaf was delicious. I could have eaten more (I always can) but the point is, that I'm trying to learn moderation (see title of website lol). I sat there for a moment staring out the window and thinking. I shared what was going on with my friend and they said that perhaps I am so used to making myself have that full feeling. It's true. This is going to take focus, hard work, and CONSISTENCY.

I may not be working out right now (because I'm working every day and I just don't have the time at the moment) but at least I'm bettering my eating. This is far better than eating. A plus? I don't constantly feel full, bloated, and pissy at the world as a result of my binging. I have a positive attitude towards what I can do. There are going to be times of temptation, but I'll just keep right on going. Sometimes I will give in. Sometimes giving in will be okay. What matters is that I just keep getting up and moving on towards something better.

"If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, keep moving". -Martin Luther King Jr.

lots of orange

Breakfast this morning was dry oatmeal, a bit more than a tablespoon of peanut butter, and light fatfree key lime pie flavored yogurt. I refrigerated it overnight. If you haven't caught on yet, I like mixing things with yogurt =].
Mid-morning, I had a diet coke and a snack bag of baby carrots.
For lunch, I had a delicious turkey sandwich with provolone cheese and romaine. I ate this from around 11:00-11:15. That's something I have to work on--eating lunch before lunchtime and getting hungry later!
This afternoon, I had more baby carrots. The kind of bread that I used for my lunch was higher calorie but healthier than the bread that I usually use. I decided to make up for this by having lighter snacks.
After work, I had another diet coke and a pink lemonade crystal light. Dinner was cheese and a sweet potato with lots of cinnamon & about a tablespoon of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter:Mediterranean Blend.
I haven't counted calories for three days (obviously never did on binge days either) but still have gotten through. To me, that is a huge step. I can guestimate a snack or something just to make sure I don't go overboard but I'm not actually counting. It's liberating while it lasts. seriously. i never though i could get through a day doing well without counting every morsel.

It's good that there are no extra snacks or food at the location I've been working at this week. While it'd be nice to say that I would have done well even if I was sitting at home, I know that that's not true. Work is definitely helping. And, it's so slue (for now..) that I'm finally almost done reading Wicked. I love it!

Another successful day =]

This morning took a lot of focus and I really want to credit this picture-taking thing. I could have easily continued my habit of consistently refilling my bowl. But, wait? If I did that, I would have to take another picture. And, by the time I concluded that that was not something I wanted to do, I realized that having to stop and consider it ended up keeping me from it altogether. Of course, this doesn't mean I will never go back for more. It would be easy to lie about something like this, but what would be the point of that? The only person who would be cheated in that situation is myself.

Today's intake was yummy....I started out the morning with this: a bowl of fiber one cereal mixed with light fatfree mandarin orange yogurt.
After I had been tempted to refill my bowl, I opted for a glass of light grapefruit juice instead.
My mid-morning snack were these cucumbers and my afternoon snack was almonds. (after lunch, of course but I took the picture of the snacks together obviously)
Lunch was a delicious grilled cheese sandwich made with 2 pieces of american cheese and grilled the outside was grilled with a light coat of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter: Mediterranean Blend.
I am glad that I am at work after lunch. There is generally no food there so there's no going back to snack or binge =). When I got home around 5:00, I had a crystal light. Then, for dinner I had a little homemade pizza. I didn't make the crust lol but you get the idea--I added my own toppings. Those toppings were: tomato sauce, habanero hot sauce, mushrooms, a considerable amount of american cheese, tomatoes, and chicken. Very good, a considerable size, and very filling.

I don't have to feel bad about the dinner. Why? Because I ate reasonably today. At most, I will maintain. I definitely won't gain after today. After weeks of the scale going up up up it's finally, slowly going to go down. I have confidence in this. And why is that? Because when one doesn't eat 1,000 calories for breakfast ALONG with other pretty big size meals during the day, chances are that things will begin to work out for them a little more weightwise.

Okay. Good day. I'm going to finish my Cherry Diet Coke, take a shower, and relax.