Binge eating - rant, then questions.

I really can't say... I just feel for you. I have been trying to get the last of my fat off.. like 5 lbs. (5'11"-165) I don't care about my weight, just want to be lean... those days of eating elephants and not gaining an ounce are long gone, but I still have the appetite. Actually, compared to my peers I still eat a ton... but anyway.. I can drop a pound or two, but them it comes back. And I am not trying to be crazy... pound a week, steady drop... but then I can't take it any more and eat what I want. I feel like I am always hungry. I can maintain my weight, but training and trying to drop a couple pounds... wow. Trust me, my diet is no where near yours.  My crack of choice lately is granola cereal with a lot of cinnamon and brown sugar with some butter... no milk, just that. MMMMMM.

Sorry, back to you... My point is, coming from someone that is mildly OCD and a addictive personality... dude, put down the crack. What is the problem? You are a frickin health machine! I could not match any of your times. (45) Your digestive tract must be spotless. Your cardio vascular system is a picture of perfection. 7th in that AG... my God! Yes I totally get you wanting to be on the podium, you are really close. But wow, the whole OCD food thing you got going on, that isn't the way.

OCD is never the way. Sure it's entertaining and passes time... I mean I have to do something... but no. Balance is the way. Moderation is the way... not that I have ever had any of that, but that is what they tell me.

There are some people genetically gifted to be lean, there are those that are not. Does not mean you have to be overweight, but 7-8% BF is a gift, it usually isn't a diet. Keep your focus on the big picture, not the pixel. I hope you find some peace.

I'll start by saying I am a freakishly detail-oriented and well-read
person when it comes to nutrition, so the "eat fruits and veggies! Stop eating
snickers and drinking beer! Drink water!" ain't helpful. I already do all
that. It ain't that, trust me.

I measure, weigh, and log my food every day and have been doing so for years. I follow all the advice on eating low-to-medium glycemic carbs from veggies, fruit and whole grains,
get lots of lean protein and I honestly, from a quality standpoint, eat a much
healthier diet than all of the really fast athletes I know who've got body fat. I just eat a lot. I'll binge on carrots and hummus sometimes! Or if
I'm feeling really wild I just eat a ton of fat free greek yogurt with chopped
up apples and bananas. It's just a numbers game that I feel like I can't win.
I'll run a nice deficit of 300-700 calories (depending on how much you think I
burn in a given workout) for a few days then I just crash, feel like crap, and
binge and undo it all and my weight goes nowhere. It usually goes well for 2-3
days, then crash and binge, then repeat the cycle.

It's really, really frustrating because everyone's like "you're not
really hungry, you're just dehydrated!" or "if you're getting enough fiber and
protein you won't FEEL hungry and still lose weight!"

Ummm...no. I pee once an hour and it's crystal clear every time. As for
fiber intake, well, I'll spare you the details but I get more than plenty of
that. I eat tons of fruits and veggies, no fried food ever, no booze. My biggest
vice is on my long ride days I'll usually go grab FroYo afterwards and during a
long (4-5 hour) bike ride I'll sometimes drink some dr pepper towards the end, but I will never
drink soda of any kind at any other time for any reason. The only liquids I take in are coffee
or tea (w/honey or agave), and water. I eat at least one big salad full of leafy greens every day.

But nonetheless, I am just thinking about food all the time, especially
at work where I am chained to a desk all day. I'll drink herbal tea - still
hungry. I'll drink a bunch of water - still hungry. I'll grab a big salad. Still
hungry. And I'll have to constantly get up and like a racehorse to
boot. I'll have my lunch of baked chicken and quinoa. Still hungry. What the
hell am I supposed to do?

I've gone to an RD a few times this year. I have OCD (hence being freakishly
detail-oriented) - not super intense, but bad enough that I take 5mg of Lexapro
(an SSRI antidepressant that is also used to treat anxiety disorders) daily. She
thinks honestly my diet is really, really good in terms of quality and that I
make all the right food choices, but my OCD makes me very prone to nervous and
binge eating. There are psychological aspects I need to overcome with a
cognitive-behavioral therapy-like approach.

I agree and think there is a big psychological/obsessive component to it for
me for sure - the knowledge that I am not actually hungry does not make me think
any less about food. It just makes me think more about food to the point where
the only way I can stop thinking about it is to go eat. I'll almost always go
eat something healthy, but the bottom line is there is an intense discomfort
there that causes me to eat more calories than I need to, which, regardless of
the source of those calories, will prevent me from losing weight. Telling me I
am not hungry and to not think about food is like me telling you to stop
thinking about flamingoes. What did you just think about?

So my question is, has anyone struggled with this problem before? Eating
obsessively/compulsively? Any books or resources you can recommend for
overcoming the head games you play with yourself? The standard advice doesn't
seem to work for me - it's gotten me most of the way there (14% BF is pretty
good for the average American, afterall, but not gonna cut it if I want to be a
true badass) but I need to go the extra mile and get my head in the right place
with eating. I wish it were simple for me, but it ain't. If you have OCD or some
similar disorder that you had to deal with on top of it and aren't comfortable
discussing it out here PM me if you want.

MANY PEOPLE struggle with the same problem. It is called emotional eating. People eat for comfort, to make themselves calm, less intense, more intense, to kill sadness, boredom, loneliness, numb their feeling  etc . Therapy will  help , but you have to keep going it for -do not quit after a few months. Also keeping a journal and writing down how, why  and what you feel and think when you have an urge for a binge helps a lot.  It will help you identify why you eat  . If you feel intense discomfort you have to find out what causes you to feel the intense discomfort and find other ways to give you comfort.

I have had many traumatic events in my life starting in my  early childhood. At one point I was 230. Now Im 145 , 5.7, size 6. I would love to be 125 or at least size 4. I totally understand how frustrating is not to be able to lose the last 10 pounds despite doing everything correct It makes me want to eat the entire container of ice cream. I'm totally prone to binging, but when I train I simply have no time for binging. I leave my home at 8 and get back at 1030 to tired to binge.

You can look at this website www.shrinkyourself.com It will give you a lot of good insights and tools. I could write about it for hours but I have to go for a run.

I've struggled with this for years as well. I've had ton's of advice that always focused around food.

But for me, it had NOTHING to do with food. For me it's all about anxiety. Anxiety that i didnt' even realize was there, until I started mindfulness training, DBT.

Now i observe my moods carefully, and when i have compulsive thoughts, I do some DBT techniques, similar to CBT.

I am far more observant of my emotions, and that has helped me tremendously with most of my escapist behaviors... food being one of them...

You can Google DBT for more info. lots of online resources out there... 

There are some people genetically gifted to be lean, there are those that are not. Does not mean you have to be overweight, but 7-8% BF is a gift, it usually isn't a diet. Keep your focus on the big picture, not the pixel. I hope you find some peace.

That's so true. I'm one of these people who gain weight just from looking at carbs. My bf is 6.2 and lean. He eats like a horse , about 3500 calories a day. He also could be an excellent runner if he wanted to. He is not really athletic, he  only runs 3 mile twice a week.

A two months ago he ran a hilly 5 miler with me. I struggled to do it in 45 min since I never trained on hills. He also finished it in 45 min, but he did not even look tired.

It makes a perfect sense. I'm the same way. Training, especially long runs kill my urge to binge. I crave salads, eggs, and veggies when I'm in training. I'm sure that there are many other things that beat the anxiety. You just have to discover them.

My brain is simply hard-wired that way. It is not possible for me to NOT be constantly monitoring and absorbing little details about everything. 

Interesting. My brain is hard-wired to constantly day dream and reflect on things.         I get lost in my mind.

My brain is simply hard-wired that way. It is not possible for me to NOT be constantly monitoring and absorbing little details about everything. 

Interesting. My brain is hard-wired to constantly day dream and reflect on things.         I get lost in my mind.

To a point, yes.  "Diets, rules and restrictions are NOT the answer," should be amended to "Blind and 100% obedience to diets, rules and restrictions to the point of unhealthy obsession is NOT the answer."  

It's still worthwhile to eat whole grains, lean proteins, and fruits and vegetables, which are restrictions.  However, as human beings, we're not perfect and can't adhere to these restrictions 100% without going crazy.  I follow an 80/20 rule where 80% of the time I eat healthy so 20% of the time I forgive myself for not.

Flexibility to those diets, rules and restrictions is what keeps us sane and helps with food-related psychosis.

C'mon, you have OCD?  

I'd say it's either your meds or just the need to simply "chill out" a bit.  I'm not sure how you'd chill out given what I just read but there's got to be a way.  

Mine has not shut up since birth. I was driving my wife nuts once and she said I was making her head hurt... I said you should try being me for a day.

I can't say I have a diet problem.. but the other stuff you mention, ya... I can relate. The only thing I can think of is asking if you are getting enough fats? Like the other poster said though you probably already know how fats work for you... nuts, fish oil, olive oil... fat. Fats are not evil, they are essential.

I just know how an obsession and compulsion go... once the thought gets in your head, you can't stop it...once you do it, you have a compulsion to keep doing it no matter what. So even though you may have a great impeccable diet compared to most... at this point it is ritualistic. The preparing, monitoring, logging, weighing... binging. That is a behavior, not a diet. But behaviors can be corrected. And I can't say I have anxiety, I'm sort of opposite, I can totally relate to that being a stimulus to eat. I work 12 hour shifts and at work you would think I haven't ate for a week. I mean just nonstop... but at home on my days off, I don't even really think about food. But you are on the right track taking a look at this and asking for advice. I'm sure you will keep working on this till you find a solution.

This is what I was thinking. You said you take Lexapro (me too, holla!) so I'm guessing you see a psychiatrist. If, however, your pysch is like me, you just go in for medicine management, not therapy. I think seeing a therapist would be very beneficial for you.

Good luck.

300-700cal deficit may be too much for you to not feel super restricted.

Try cutting it in half, or eating maintenance calories for a few weeks.

I find that I undo weight loss efforts when I try to lose too quickly.

Like the others have mentioned, your IM training and hyper focus on all things tri seems to have become your coping mechanism. You mentioned that you are not hungry on long workout days because the emotions are beat out of you. I've been there. My compulsive behaviour was how I avoided all of my emotions. On hard days I was too tired to think or feel anything. On light days, when I was bored and the feelings reared up, I stuffed them with a dozen bananas. This worked for me until I found myself in a serious depression.

"This is just the way I am" is a cop out. It means that you want to cling to your OCD and resulting behaviours because they serve a purpose for you right now.  It seems like the only reason you want to curb binge eating is for triathlon performance and weight loss, not because you have identified it as a disordered behaviour related to emotional development.  There is more going on here that most posters are begging you to address right now. Be really honest with your therapist and/or psych about your intentions and actual behaviours - do they know how much time you invest in tri training? Does it take you away from other aspects of your life? What is your standard of 'healthy'? Are you truly happy? Why do you tri? What are you avoiding with your compulsions - mentally, socially or spiritually? It's hard stuff but nobody said that life was. If you don't deal with this now, 10 years from now it will be even more difficult.

I wish you the best!