Hope in the Storm

[Robert Dave Johnston]

Binging is a devastating condition that strikes millions of persons around the world. When one is caught in binging, it seems like there will never be a way out. Persons trapped by this monster know they are killing themselves but, unfortunately, are unable to stop in most cases. Such was my plight. My binging and compulsive overeating went on for more than 10 years, culminating with me alone in a dark apartment contemplating and even planning my demise. There are no quick fixes to this condition, and neither is my intention to lead anyone to believe that such is the case. What I CAN say, however, is that the discipline of fasting gave me a new lease on life because it went deep to the source of my toxicity and, over time, eliminated much of the food obsession from my life. It also has given me spiritual insight and a willingness to change old and destructive eating and thinking patterns that kept me going back to the destructive foods that were harming me. It takes time and commitment. But, my dear friend, you can do it! That is what this forum here is all about. So let us join together and provide mutual support so that we can all benefit from our collective wisdom and help each other overcome this crippling condition.

God Bless Always!

Robert Dave Johnston
Fitness Through Fasting - Webmaster

[maggy]

Hi - I have the same problem. I've fast for 3 days and lost weight. The problem is that for a small reason, I start to bing and all the work done is lost. I try to start the fast again, and sometimes I have success, but then I binge again and I am in the same circle.

How can I break this cycle?

Once I was in a clinic and the doctor put me on a juice fast for 13 days. I lost lot of weight and I felt great. I want to try it home, but it's so difficult because family, job, food around. I just start to eat again. One thing I can say is that 3 days of fasting make me lose weight and feel great, but when I brake the fast and binge, I end up feeling terrible.

Thanks in advance for any support, motivation and advice.

[Robert Dave Johnston]

I can feel your frustration and pain. It is very heartbreaking to fast and lose weight, only to return to binging. The best way out of this cycle is to understand that permanent eating habit changes will be required once the fast is over. This means knowing that once I break the fast, all of the hunger and emotional needs that led me to binging will come back with a vengeance in an attempt to regain the ground that I captures through fasting.

If I have not made preparations in relation to food, the fast ends and I just return to where I was before I started fasting. It's like entering into a battlefield in a bathing suit.

Many persons I coach seem surprised when they break their fast and find that the impulse to eat hits them like a ton of bricks. What I always tell them is this: Don't be surprised. Expect it. Brace yourself to the palm tree and just let the wind go by. It does subside. But you have to continue to "fast" from the destructive foods that make you gain weight to begin with. In other words, eating correctly on a daily basis and continuing to walk through the hunger impulses until new habits are developed.

This process usually takes anywhere from six to nine months. Once that is accomplished, the hunger impulses are lessened because the emotional addiction to destructive eating starts to be disconnected. Instead, during that time you can learn to handle your emotions and human hunger impulse WITHOUT falling into binging, chronic nibbling and/or compulsive overeating.

Keep writing on this forum.

We just started it a few days ago, but I have faith that over time there will be more and more people coming in to share their experience, strength and hope. God bless you and thank you for sharing your process!

[April]

Hello everyone, and thank you Robert for creating this forum! I am so excited to have found it.

I feel that posting here will really help me.

I can completely relate to what you said Maggy. I am in the process of digging myself out of the binge cycle. Oh and Robert, I completely understand what you said about being depressed...at the time in my life when I was most toxic, I also felt suicidal. It's a long story, and I don't want to clog up this forum writing it all here just now since I only just joined and I'm new here. Anyways, a few years ago I started fasting regularly, and while I felt great after each fast, I consistently returned to eating junk food out of habit even though after fasting my body did not even want it.

Each time it would be the same: I'd fast, eat healthy for awhile, then mindlessly put some chips in my mouth simply because it was my habit to eat them. Then of course the physical addiction would be fed and gain strength, compelling me to eat more and more junk food leading to binging again! Very, very frustrating! Being in this cycle is so discouraging and in the last few months has started to undermine my mental attitude. I have felt myself slipping into depression again. I know this is because of the toxic junk food and refined starches/sugars/fats that I am addicted to.

The problem is compounded by a stressful year; all in the past year, I have completed university, gone through a career change, gotten into a new relationship and for the first time started living with my boyfriend (I've lived alone all through university and basically on my own since I moved out of parental abuse at home at 17), and had to deal with an unreasonable landlord; we are moving at the end of this month. Dealing with all the changes and uncertainty in my life has lead me to turn to junk food.

All that being said, I have decided enough is enough and I want and need to pull myself out of this trap. I am in the process of finding support such as this site, setting goals and making plans that will lead to permanently changing my destructive patterns. I am doing a herbal cleanse right now and just started fasting on the Master Cleanse lemonade. I also include herbal and green teas, and Greens+ powder in water because I need the chlorophyll to help me detoxify.

When we move into our new place I can set up my juicer and start adding juices. I'm not sure how well my fast will go, because I know this is a stressful situation right now (moving and everything, then looking for a new job) and thus not the most conducive to healing, but I am desperate to start changing my habits. I also realize that I must set a PLAN into place for after my fast so that I can avoid junk food.

Sorry to ramble on and on thank you all for reading, and God bless! I would love to have comments and support, and am looking to "meet" some people here who can support my efforts.

Take care.

[Robert Dave Johnston]

Hi April!

First of all, you are NOT clogging up the forum or "rambling" at all. I am glad that you felt comfortable enough here to write about what you are going through. It takes a lot of courage to face everything you are going through right now. I salute you for what you are doing in spite of all the changes.

I know that it is not easy, and I certainly understand what you said about "mindlessly" putting chips in your mouth. In my case it was more like pizza and donuts - yet the result is always the same regardless - shame, disgust and YES, lots of weight gain.

The weight gain leads to more negative thoughts and feelings, which in turn lead to more destructive eating - ad infinitum. It is a horrible cycle that makes the soul feel utterly trapped and pressed down. It is, as I recall, a state of complete hopelessness. Add to that the new relationship that you are in, and the stress is undoubtedly doubled since all relationships require work. The unfortunate abuse you endures as a teenager could very well have instilled in you a negative self-image, as I had for so many years.

Food was my friend, the only one that never talked back to me or yelled at me. It always gave me instant comfort and gratification. So I grasped onto it like a desperate child yearning for acceptance and affection. At first food gave me all of that.

But, then, it turned against me through obesity, decreased health and a liver condition brought on by toxicity incited by my destructive eating. Not to mention deep depression and even the frequent fantasy of ending my life. So I ate some more. But the food stopped comforting me and I would emerge from each binge with nothing but shame and disgust.

That is when my fasting path began. At the very pit of my self-made hell, I had a moment of clarity that led me to spiritual books which talked of fasting as a discipline that led to freedom. The story is long, so I won't bore you to tears with the details.

One thing I can tell you: when I first started fasting, my biggest foe apart from the hunger pains was always the endless loop of sadness, fear, depression and self-hatred that emerged from the depths of my being. Whenever I would end each fast, the feelings would intensify and bring on monstrous hunger pains which led me to "mindless" acts of gorging.

It took me much time and pain to realize that the real change had to happen in my thinking. If I continued to give in to my thoughts and emotions, the result would always be the same: more overeating, obesity and self-hatred. I had to become willing to face these challenges toe-to-toe and feel whatever discomfort and hunger I had to feel to get to the other side.

Once an enemy realizes that it is losing grip over its prey, it often will fight its hardest to retain the prisoner. But, in the end, hunger and self-hatred had to yield to my determination for change. My refusal to find myself ten years down the road in the same place, or worse. So what you are doing is very brave and, honestly, it simply IS what you have to do at this point.

It may seem hard and rocky, but it will be even harder and more painful down the road if you get sick from obesity and/or toxicity. Not to mention the shame that comes with one succumbing to this monster and giving up on one's dreams and hopes.

I encourage you to continue and walk THROUGH the discomfort NOW. Eventually the hunger pains and "mindless" hunger impulses diminish and become but a minor irritation.

So hang in there and never give up!

You are closer than you think to reaching the breakthrough point.

From there, I can tell you ... your life will never be the same!

Rob

[April]

Thanks so much Robert for your encouragement! It's wonderful to read about other people who have accomplished what I am trying to accomplish myself. You're right about the shame and disgust, absolutely. It is no way to live at all. It's not how I want to live, and I don't want to find myself 5 years down the road still doing what I am doing now. And the change has to happen in my thinking, in my mind, like you pointed out as well. If all I do is fast with no direction and clearly defined goals for where I want to get to, I will continue to find myself back in the binge behaviours. So that's what I am working on, setting goals, writing them down, and thinking and praying on them. In time the goals will become my reality. I noticed that I also have to be a little less harsh with myself about it. I believe I have been using fasting as a "punishment" for bingeing, and then binge as a "reward" for fasting. Completely and utterly the WRONG way to be looking at things! I know that if I stay away from processed food for long enough, the cravings will go away and won't be a problem, as long as I don't feed them by eating junk food.
The thing is, I already know what specific way of eating makes me feel my best. 90% raw fruits and vegetables, a few cooked vegetables and soups, and small amounts of lean proteins. That is my ideal diet. I know that because I have spent years experimenting with diet and the times when I ate this way I felt better than I ever thought possible. I know how amazing it feels to be cleansed and super-charged with energy from living food. My goal is to get back there, and stay there. The reason that I strayed from that path was that I kept giving in to fear from well-meaning people, and "experts" alike, telling me things like: "oh no! you've got to eat more than that! You'll slow down your metabolism and go into starvation mode if you don't!" "you don't eat breakfast? oh but you have to! otherwise you won't be healthy, your body will starve!" and another big one "you dont' eat grains? you have to! grains are a necessity to fuel a healthy metabolism! your body will shut down if you don't!". Each time people would tell me this, I'd get scared and think, oh no! I must be damaging my body by eating this way! I'd start trying to eat like most "normal" people do, and the result every time, was that I'd get sick, tired, sluggish, lacking energy, and depressed and heavy-feeling, and then I'd binge out of despair. I personally know that my ideal diet as I described above, approximately 700-1000 kcals per day, along with my active exercise program that I usually engage in, makes me feel awesome. My challenge now is to let go of the fear that takes over when people say things like that. I guess they scare me, for some reason I am vulnerable to what other people tell me. There is so much emphasis by nutritionists and dieticians that a woman should eat an average of 2000 kcals per day and I know that if I ate that much, I would get sick.
Thanks for reading everyone. God bless

[rachel421]

this forum is so excellent. A real breath of fresh air. My big binge trigger is carbs/sugar. After weeks of small daily fasts, feeling in control and energized, I made the mistake of grabbing half of a toast my friend left on their breakfast plate one morning on my way to work,,,,bad idea. All day long I suffered intense cravings and was so very tired. All this from one little piece of bread! I know the urge to binge can be complex and different for everyone. I feel my personal cleansing will take at least a year to find some sort of natural balance to my system. So nice to find people who are speaking my language. Professor Erhert and Dr. Shelton are great writers and total ground breakers, but its this forum that has the voice of those with simalar day to day struggles and questions. Im in the process of getting my parents educated and today was my mothers first day of cleansing. Shes almost sixty, and reported more energy, more mental clarity, and oddly, a heightened sense of smell. I never said a word about that effect, so I know she is really getting it and tuning in finally. Sharing this tool of health really feels fantastic!

[tonifaye]

Thank you so much for this thread. It helps to know there are others like me who suffer with binge eating cycles. For me it's been going on most of my life and I'm so sick of it sometimes I don't know if I can even take living like this anymore. I'm not going to commit suicide or anything, but sometimes I wonder if it's worth it if I can't allow myself to live the life I deserve because I can't break free of the binging cycle and all of the self-hatred that goes along with it.

I do have some experience with fasting and juice fasting is amazing. I'm hoping to find the courage to tackle a fast. I need it desperately.

[April]

Yeah, the self-hatred is the worst of it. It takes away your belief in yourself and makes you feel very disempowered.

[Unicorn]

Oh my word - do you know when you suddenly realise... "Im not actually alone in this place!"

Im so glad i found this site... Thank You Robert!

Yeh - i definitely have self hatred … and like you say – It makes matter worse

This is one vicious cycle

I just pray I can break it because Ive had enough.