Does Medifast CAUSE Binge Eating?

I've been struggling lately....for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I tend to OVERDO....on....well, everything.

The exercise I do for my health and the sake of my fibromyalgia (if I sit too long my muscles turn into concrete, so weight-training exercise is important;  and cardio is important for, let's face it...ALL of us...) has gotten a little crazy lately.  The gym modified its schedule and suddenly there were MORE Spinning classes.....and then my trainer suggested Kickboxing (trust me, Kickboxing is NOT a good idea for a 59-year-old fibromyalgia sufferer LOL)....which was a disaster.....and one thing led to another....my husband has health problems which are hard to deal with because like mine, they are chronic and can't be solved with a simple pill....

....and Winter droned on.....

Anyway.  I wound up in "Binge Land".  Those of you who've been there know what this is like.
It's a not-great place....where all you think about is what you're going to eat 'next'.

But a funny thing happened once I finally stopped struggling and just WENT with it.  I set a date on which I would go back on my program.....my Medifast 5&1 program, which is how I lost the weight to begin with....and I decided that, until then, I was going to let myself eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I wanted to, WHENEVER I wanted to.

And....suddenly, I didn't WANT it anymore.

Forbidden fruit?  Maybe.  Maybe that was part of it.  But not totally.  The bottom line was, once I allowed myself to eat 'anything', I suddenly realized that I just didn't FEEL great, physically, when I ate sludge. ("Sludge" by the way is the Medifast-term we call anything fried, greasy, sugary desserts, junk food...you know, all the stuff we all KNOW is bad for us).


In fact I was bloated, nauseous, my hot flashes came roaring back (personally I think this has to do with the soy protein in the MF meals, by the way), and I hated the way I looked and felt.  My waistband seemed to DIG into my waist....and it was an elastic waist!  My face looked puffy and bloated.  And I was exhausted all the time.

NOT GOOD.

So....back OP I go.  But I got to thinking....especially after reading (yet another) binge eating behavior book that swears that 'restrictive diets can lead directly to binge eating'.....if perhaps all that time (over 2 years!) on Medifast has made me CRAVE the forbidden foods even more so, and that being on this program actually CAUSED my binges.

But I thought long and hard about this, and my answer to that question is "NO".

Because first of all, I was a binge eater WAY way before I found Medifast in 2012.  In fact, I remember being a 'sneak eater' as early as my childhood when I found where Mom hid the good chocolate and
I memorized the squeaky parts of the stairs so I could creep down them in the middle of the night.

Secondly, although the books that assert restrictive diets cause bingeing swear that we develop this 'thing' about 'forbidden' and 'bad' foods, I never really bought into the concept of certain foods being 'BAD'.

Food, after all, is just FOOD.  It doesn't have motives.  A brownie doesn't sit there going, "Aha!  I can't WAIT till she eats me so I can put FAT on her butt!"
Food doesn't make value judgments.  Food doesn't plot against you (that cheesecake calling you in the middle of the night notwithstanding LOL).

Food is just FOOD.  And although I know that sugary desserts are bad FOR me, they aren't inherently BAD.  They are just....wrong for my body because they incite the sugar+fat response which means I get this 'moremoremoremore' thing going on in my head and soon I'm out of control. 

Who needs it?  Right?

I mean, seriously.  The world won't come to an end if I never eat a cookie again.  It won't!  In fact, I'll probably live longer.

OK, eating cookies is great.  But so is eating an orange!  What's wrong with enjoying THAT?

WHY....who SAYS....I 'have' to eat sludge to be 'normal'?

What IS normal?  I've blogged about this before.....normal is whatever YOU want it to be.  Whatever you decide.  Whatever works for YOU.

If it's normal for you to eat every 2-3 hours, and eat something healthy but a small amount, then by all means DO It!  If it makes you happy, keeps you healthy, keeps your weight at a reasonable level, gives you energy, what's wrong with it?

No.  I will never believe that Medifast CAUSED my binge eating.  Medifast helped me get to goal weight.  And once at goal weight, realizing that nothing else had changed.....guess what?  I still hadn't won the lottery, I still lived in the same house, had the same problems, still had fibromyalgia, etc......I had to reconcile the fact that being at goal wasn't the be-all and end-all.

So maybe I .....'experimented' a bit with going back to eating sludge for awhile.

I learned....the hard way....(like we all do LOL).....that eating like that serves me no good purpose and in fact makes me pretty miserable.

It's NOT WORTH IT.

So I'm going back to what worked for me to take the weight I unfortunately gained during this 'experiment' off again, and I'm older and wiser.

I know now, getting to goal is nice, but it's just the beginning, LIVING MY LIFE -- accomplishing my goals....doing what I want to do and making my life all it can be.....is what I want, NOT some magical fudge-covered dreamland where I'm always at goal no matter what I eat LOL.

That's fantasy and it's for those who kill themselves exercising, maybe....I don't know.  But I can't do that, either.  I have to be reasonable.  A reasonable amount of exercise means NO kickboxing and only one Spinning class a week, because it's all I can do physically!  A reasonable amount of exercise means, if I work in the garden, I can't do the gym that day, and vice-versa.  I still have to WATCH what I do and I can't do it ALL.  Or I wind up in bed, in pain, and unable to move.

That's a fact of life for me and it's something I've had to prove to myself, over and over again.

And maybe eating?  Is the same way.  I had to PROVE to myself that I didn't NEED all that food to be happy.  Because I don't.
True happiness comes from those around me, from my home, my family, my pets, my garden and my friends.

So do restrictive diets cause bingeing?  I would say 'YES' and 'NO'.

"YES" if you're doing a cabbage soup or bananas-only diet....you know the ones, the ones you KNOW aren't healthy but you fall for them anyway.  This includes the latest 'miracle diet pill' which has as its only miracle the fact that millions of people plunk down good money to buy something that doesn't work!  They led to binge eating because they are depriving your body of full, good nutrition!  Period!  We weren't MEANT to live on bananas alone.  No matter WHAT the ads tell you.

"NO" if you're doing either a well-balanced plan like Weight Watchers, or a good nutritious plan with a transition into a full 'normal' diet using a great balance of carbs, protein and fats like the Take Shape for Life Medifast plan. TSFL ensures fast weight-loss (important for those of us who are impatient, and tired of dieting all our lives and getting nowhere fast LOL).....which helps your ego and gives you the confidence to see that YOU CAN DO THIS....and then transitions you, slowly but surely (over the course of 12 weeks!  That's 3 months, people) into eating a 'full' normal diet including fruits, dairy, and whole grains.  NO, it doesn't advocate you go back to eating candy.  But YES, you can IF -- and this is a big IF -- you can control it.  But chances are, if you are like me and you wound up obese AND a binge eater, you cannot, simply CANNOT, have that type of thing around anymore.

So sooner or later you have to understand that, reconcile yourself to it, and learn to live with it.

HAPPILY.  EVER AFTER.

Which is how I intend to be!

Keep on keepin' on!....