Hello? Welcome? Stay a While? I don’t really know what to say to you,possibly strangers, as you read my inner most thoughts and feelings. Maybe, be kind? I’m not sure, so I’ll just say what I would say to anyone of my friends- “Hey, what’s up?”
If you’re reading this I feel like we need to talk about the purpose of this blog. First, this is not the part where I tell you that I’ve overcome binge eating, that I’ve lost a ton of weight, and have the magic secret to dealing with years of hellish emotions that have translated into an enormous amount of weight gained. This is not a place where I share about the feel good emotions that come from forcing myself to see a therapist after literally belly flopping onto a bounce house (that’s another post for another time. It was awful and I officially hate bounce houses). This is not where I tell you what to eat or cook; I don’t actually love food; I kind of hate it sometimes. In other words- I am not your therapist, your dietitian or your poster child for beating binge eating. I am simply a woman trying to recover, that likes to write and decided to share what I’ve been dealing with to the entire Internet (because that seems like a good idea somehow).
I have been dealing with binge eating behaviors and disordered eating for at least twenty years. It took my mother passing that I realized I was an emotional eating. It took a night of eating a full dinner, drinking three beers, and then inhaling another 1,000+ calories on my way home to realize I was a binge eater. This all happened within a period of four hours. I wish I could say this was unusual but it wasn’t. The more I explored binge eating behaviors I realized that I exhibited them. I would go out to run errands by myself and decide that I needed a #10 value meal at McDonald’s (large size please!) and have it eaten and my drink gone by the time I got home ten minutes later. I was on the hunt and I never missed my mark. This was the first time ever that ice cream has sat in my freezer for longer than a day; eating an entire pint generally happened within two days (and I wasn’t sharing). I loved drunken stupors because it meant it was acceptable to eat all the Taco Bell I desired, except I realized that as my husband ordered a beefy five layer burrito I was still eating a nachos bell grande and two chalupas and there were never leftovers. I would go to dinner with my friends and they would say “oh I’m so full” and I would join in, except I would keep eating. There was absolutely nothing that was off limits.
I decided in December of 2018 that I needed serious help. I was seeing a number on the scale that terrified me and I knew I was out of control. I had absolutely no idea how to stop; I had actually developed an eating disorder and I was sick. The night it hit that I had a problem with binge eating I looked into therapists. I knew that part of my problem stemmed from some childhood experiences and I needed specific help. Everything I saw was for the traditional eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia, and were all inpatient services. I literally just prayed that God would direct me to the right person and thankfully I stumbled upon my therapist. I called the next day and an appointment was made for the following month.
My writing began earlier this year and when I started writing about my experiences with food, I found my voice. I love to write, if I don’t write daily I feel weird, and my dream is to write with the humor, wittiness and edge as David Sedaris. This blog is both partly for me and for you. I needed an outlet to write (and honestly, if someone wanted to let me write for them, I wouldn’t complain) and maybe you need to read this. If you’re someone that has dealt with binge eating behaviors and felt like no one understood you or maybe you’re someone that just CANNOT lose weight and keep self sabotaging then I’m your girl. Regardless of why you chose to take three to five minutes out of your day to read this, I’m glad you did. So hey, what’s up?
BellyFlop 