To Binge or Not to Binge

When you were obese, did you find yourself binging a lot? What was the trigger that made you want to binge?  Did you have a disagreement with someone that left you feeling off balance?  Was it an attack on your character that made you feel misunderstood?    Were you deliberately avoided and singled out as a target for others to take their best shots towards you in order to elevate their own beliefs?

Binging was a way of life for me during my 14 consistent years of obesity, and when I decided to delve into this place of subconscious self-destruction, I would eat anything and everything in sight of my conscious mind.  Burying the pain, disbelief, and sorrow that were too hard to bring to the surface.  It was a way of self-preservation and feeding the soul and body with love, comfort, and silence.  If only for a moment, the feelings were buried as the food kept coming until I felt safe once again.  On a deeper level, it was a way of saving ourselves from feeling anything. 

It was a way out and food was a way in.  The more I would binge, the better I felt.  Food was giving me peace and joy by entering my body to calm myself down, if only for a moment.  If I didn’t feel immediate relief from this ritual, I would continue to binge at another location, which would offer me a place to focus on my time with my habit and enjoying it in a private setting.  Most of us probably binged in private, where no one could see what we were doing.  It was a secret that only we knew about and food was not going to betray us in revealing this time we had together.  Our friend was there through it all.  We could always look forward and count the moments when we would be together for this event.

As a result, after we had awakened from our experience, we often had a hangover.  During our hangover, shame followed knowing we repeated our ritual with much regret afterwards.  We came down from our high and the feelings came back even worse than before since we didn’t deal with them at the moment when we had the chance.    The cycle continued, and the same result kept occurring.  Our weight numbers would escalate to new and greater heights, and our need to binge also escalated as well.  It took more food, more privacy, and more events to keep us stimulated by our ritual.  The never-ending self-destruction was at its peak.

Until one day we learned.  Once we became healthy, reborn, and aware, we were beginning to understand why we reacted this way.  I met a person who is eight years out on their journey, and had gained not only all of their weight back, but also became larger than before their initial surgery.  They told me that their old behaviors never left them, and each year after their weight-loss surgery, they slowly became the person they used to be by not having closure on what made them obese to begin with during their life.

As each day passed, they forgot about self-care, self-love, and self-preservation.  They forgot about making time to eat healthy, and committing to a workable exercise routine that would keep them on track.  They forgot the lessons they've learned while they were on the straight and narrow path of wellness. 

After my conversation with this person, it made me aware that we can all have this happen to us if we’re not conscience about our behavior towards negative encounters, our emotional triggers, and remaining accountable for our actions especially about our eating lifestyle.  Perhaps this conversation was a message to me that it can and does happen.  We have the choice to take our success, and lead others’ to continue as victors and not victims.  We have a choice of what we decide to eat and when we decide to exercise.  Every day we have the opportunity to remain fit.  What’s your decision today?  To give into your old habits, or has your new habits become a way of life for the rest of your life?  It’s up to us to decide.  Let’s remember where we were, and where we want to be.

Linda Hegedus, ©