February is National Eating Disorder Awareness Month. That being so, I decided to dedicate this post to spreading awareness about binge eating, the specific eating disorder I have been struggling with for the past year and a half. In the general public, not much is known about what eating disorders TRULY are, and common articles and writings about the mental disorder tend to center around anorexia and bulimia. However, binge eating disorder (BED) is actually the most common eating disorder among adults. Each year, more and more patients have shown symptoms of binge eating disorder, so much so that the most recent publication of the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) now recognizes binge eating as its own diagnostic category. Just recently, former tennis great Monica Seles opened up about her struggle with BED and her journey to recovery. The more awareness that is spread, the less stigmatized eating disorders will become and the more hope will be brought to its suffers.
Binge eating, or the way mine has manifested at least, is basically an “addiction" to food. It is characterized by repeated episodes of uncontrollable eating without compensation like over-exercising or purging. In attempting to convey what it is like to struggle with BED, I will share an excerpt from a post I wrote in my personal blog just over a year ago:
I am entirely, completely, disgustingly, shamefully addicted to food. Literally. "Yeah, me too!" Says the common passerby. "I enjoy a good burger and fries from time to time! And don't get me started on how much I eat at buffets or thanksgiving...!"
Food plays a HUGE role in our lives. It is not only used to nourish and sustain our bodies, but also for pleasure and enjoyment. It is strange to be at a social gathering where there is not some sort of beverage or snack served, and often a good time with friends involves dinner or going out for ice cream. America LOVES using food as pleasure, and there is honestly nothing wrong with this. Overeating for pleasure or for social occasions IS healthy sometimes.
However, overeating on a continual basis is unhealthy both physically and mentally. This type of eating, known as binge eating, involves eating obscene amounts of foods in small periods of time, often in an uncontrollable state. Think back to being a young kid on Halloween. Back to that coveted moment when you happily dumped the contents of your sack across the kitchen table - your mouth watering at the beautiful array of candies, gummies, suckers, and one random apple from the dentist down the street. Think back to how your mother told allowed you to have five pieces, ten, fifteen...("C'mon, mom, it's Halloween!) until eventually all that was left on the table was a plethora of wrappers (and the apple). You're full, sick to your stomach even, but satisfied because it was so good and so fun. Halloween is awesome. You wake up in the morning too stuffed to eat breakfast, but continue with your daily activities and by lunch-time you're hungry again.
....but what if you hadn't stopped eating after all that candy? Let's say immediately after you have an entire pizza, a bag of chips, some peanut butter sandwiches, popcorn, and ice cream. Now you're SUPER stuffed so you go lay down for awhile. Soon, you crash from all the sugar but wake up a few hours later to go to the restroom. Yawwwn, you're so tired. You flush, and the sound wakes you up even more. Suddenly, your mind wakes up. Food! It's saying. Let's go eat some more food! So you sneak out into the kitchen and eat some more peanut butter, cereal, chocolate chips, bread, crackers, and ice cream. You're eating so fast and its all so good and so yummy but you aren't really paying attention to that. In fact, you aren't really paying attention to anything. You only stop when you regurgitate a little bit of food in your mouth (gross, I know...are you a freaking bird?) Painfully, you tiptoe back to your room, slip into bed and vow to treat your body better in the morning.
....So you do. You wake up, SUPER duper bloated, groggy, sick, and full but you know that you MUST have breakfast because skipping meals may lead to overeating later. So you have a bowl of oatmeal and some eggs and fruit. Ahhh, some good fuel for the body....you're sooooo full at this point, though, so why not have even a little bit more? You decide to make yourself some pancakes, but don't even end up using the griddle because you eat all of the batter with a spoon while waiting for it to heat up. You are now in full-flesh binge-mode. The rest of the day will consist of eating hot cocoa powder straight from the jar, a whole loaf of bread, more chocolate chips, ice cream, peanut butter, muffins, chips and cheese, frosting, and more.
Stephanie embracing the NEDA symbol with a smile these days
As I mentioned, the excerpt was written about a year ago, when I was struggling very badly with bingeing. I would binge maybe 3-4 times a day on anything and everything in sight, and my caloric intake for each binge would range anywhere from 6,000 calories to 25,000 each day. Not surprisingly, I was in a lot of pain and gained a lot of weight over my first few months of my battle with BED. My face, fingers, and feet were perpetually swollen from the imbalance of electrolytes and the inconsistent blood sugar levels I was experiencing made me want to do nothing but lay down and sleep all day.
Today, I am practicing much healthier habits, and even exercising again, but I still binge about 4-5 times a week on average. After a year and a half of intense bingeing, it's been difficult for my body to adjust to eating “normally" again. My body necessitates at least 3,500 calories a day to maintain since I have a high metabolism and am an athlete, but even eating this amount makes me feel like I am starving myself. I have stretched out my stomach so much that I hardly feel full after eating a “normal"-sized meal.
The hardest part about struggling with an addiction to food is that you cannot abstain from giving your body nourishment. A recovering alcoholic never has to have another drink in his/her life, but a recovering overeater must have food to sustain life. Additionally, I don't want to turn to a diet that would restrict certain types of “binge foods" in hopes of recovering from BED because that could possibly lead me down the path to orthorexia again. This wouldn't work for me anyway; I binge on all types of food groups: cookies, cereals, oatmeal, fruits, bread, etc.