Binge Eating and WLS

I was wondering if anyone here has Binge Eating Disorder or former Bulimia:  Has WLS helped with the symptoms of either or made them worse.  Let me hear your thoughts

I was not diagnosed with either but would go through periods all my life where I would binge eat, like standing in front of the pantry with a bag and just eat until I was miserable and not understand why I couldn't stop. I did not purge. I still have the compulsion at times but catch myself and create a different environment because now it causes more physical pain if I eat too much or too fast. I would say the surgery has not specifically changed the compulsion but what I was required to change prior to and since surgery, the lifestyle habits and the awareness has helped. There are times when I still feel it... a couple of times when I indulged (with painful consequence) but now I work harder to redirect my energy  and focus and just don't give in.

Don't know if this makes sense but it's complicated and confusing sometimes.

Oy, I totally remember making love to the pantry.  Nothing was safe- uncooked Ramen Noodles, cake frosting, dry cereal swallowed by the handful.  Standing there eating until it hurt.  What a life that was...

And here I was thinking that I was the only one who ate cake frosting...right from the container...yum!

It HURTS to binge. At this point for me, even soft things get uncomfortable if I eat too much. Too much, too fast, or too big (a bite) can really be uncomfortable. So what once was 2 donuts in 1 minute would have to be 2 donuts in 20 minutes. Just takes all the fun out of it. And you still have to do your day. Can't get that same stoned, saited feeling. Just pain under the breast bone, sweaty, yucky.

I am working on getting over the binging while it is still like that - want to teach myself not to binge rather than learning new ways to binge with the new tummy.

 Girl what you mean 2 donuts in a 1 minute? You wasn't doin it right!! 1 minute was enough to have at the LEAST 6 and half a glass of milk lmao 

Okay, 30 seconds, but that was eating in the car outside of Albertson. So there were witnesses around.

 ah understandable 

I'm a life-long binge-er.  WLS helped in the beginning, but now that I can eat more at 20 months out, I still struggle.  I often find these behaviors creeping back into my life and I need to stop them head on.  I'm actually dealing with this right now.

I very recently wrote about this very subject on the RNY message board, but it definitely applies here.  I was quite the binge eater back in my day.  Hardly a plate left my sight without being emptied of its contents.  My mother, coming from a poor family in the Philippines, taught us to finish everything on our plate.  But I don't blame her; it's my fault for piling that plate with a metric ton of food.  Now, more than two years after the surgery, I can eat just a little more than I could in the beginning.  We were talking about fear of eating "normally" again.  Here was my take.  So, excuse me for being lazy and doing a little cut-and-paste-

I don't ever want to eat "normally" again.  Normal for me was pull up a chair and eat until I pulled something in my gut.  I remember, because I used to work so early in the morning, I'd take a shower at night.  But I always made sure to take that shower before I ate dinner, because I knew that I would eat so much that taking a shower at 380 pounds with an overloaded belly could only have disasterous (or, some would say, humorous) consequences.

What I have trained myself to do is to think about food normally.  No foods are evil.  Conversely, no foods I see as comforting.  I no longer assign food human qualities.  It's just food.  I eat what I want when I'm hungry and stop when I'm not.  So far that's worked very well for me.

Chris