Binge Realization

[Lost Dog]

[Rant] I realized today that it's been a constant struggle NOT to binge. I don't always do it, but I always want to.

The worst part is that I went over a year without EVER binging. I knew then what it was like to be in control of this feeling. I find this feeling unpleasant and annoying.

I think that my good year (as far as binging is concerned) was a result of seeing constant progress. That year saw a steady drop in weight and fat. Since my "stall," I've not been motivated to keep on track, since it seems that no matter what I do (good or bad) nothing changes! [/RANT]

[Johnka]

Hey LostDog,

Sorry to hear about the stall. How long have you hit your plateau?

One of the things I've noticed is that the more junk you eat, the more you want it. E.g., McDonalds isn't even slightly appealing to me. In fact, it ranks down there with pickled beets with my all time least favorite foods. But on my move to Denver I stopped at a McD's drive through in Kansas. The meal made me feel like total shit, but a few hours later, I saw a McD's billboard, and somehow it looked appealing.

Long story short - my 'cheat meals' are typically something that I don't usually eat, but nothing in the realm of frankenfoods.

Take last night, for example. I went backpacking over the weekend, and I burned WAY more calories than I consumed. So I awarded myself a decadent meal at a German restaurant after I got off the trail. I got a 12 oz elk fillet, together with gravy, egg noodles, mushrooms, cranberry sauce, a salad with blue cheese dressing, and a tray of wonderful rye bread with real butter. Normally, I wouldn't eat the gravy, noodles, dressing, bread, butter, or cranberry sauce, but I wolfed down every bit of it, and damn was it good.

That's a cheat meal that I don't have to feel guilty about, because I needed all those calories (about 2000 [img]smile.gif[/img] ), and they were from whole foods. I'll definitely be going back to that restaurant.

Anyway, I'm not sure about your specifics, but sometimes it's necessary to completely shake everything up to break through a plateau. Break the routine, from what you're eating, to your workout. If you're shopping at Costco, go to a local market and choose completely different meat and produce (or vice-versa). If you're doing general weight training, switch to a specific program, like power training, or bodybuilding - whatever is furthest removed from your current routine.

Hope this helps.

[Lost Dog]

Thanks for the encouragement.

I've been at this general weight and bf% since about March or April!

After a few months of plateau, I switched from TT to CW's Waterbury Method AND upped my cals a bit, PWO. While, I've gotten more muscular and stronger in some lifts, weight and fat remain the same.

Granted, my tanita says 12% and they're not known to be accurate, but I'd like to see some movement numerically or visually.

In order to see change, I'm afraid that I might have to go drastic, one way or the other. One way is very low, like a Velocity Diet (my wife would have me committed, so that's likely out).

The other way is to raise cals. John Berardi wrote somewhere about how some folks respond to more calories by losing fat. Seems unlikely, but five or more months with no changes seemed unlikely after two years of steady progress, too! What's the worst that'll happen. I'll gain a bit of muscle and fat? At least I'd KNOW I'm going the wrong way...

I'm almost done with round two of the Waterbury Method. I'm thinking of trying his Outlaw Strength and Conditioning, which is TOTALLY different from anything I've ever done. Plus, he recommends NOT doing it in much of a calorie deficit due to the demanding nature. Sounds fun.

Here's a link, in case you're interested. Outlaw Strength and Conditioning

[RacerBill]

I want very much to be encouraging, LD, but I'm not really sure what I can say that might help.

I can certainly understand and sympathize with the binging. Just a few days ago I was at my folks' house and my mom had made chocolate chip cookies. I thought I'd have one... you know, just a small treat. And this would be my first cookie in at least a month or two. Then I had to have a second one. Then a glass of milk, and one more wouldn't really hurt, would it. When I finally broke out of my sugar trance I realized I had probably polished off at least ten of the things, probably more. It would be easy to just plead that I'm a recovering sugar addict and I had a minor relapse.

I've read lots of your posts and lurked around your log and I see lots of similarities with myself: a year ago I was 38 and weighed 220 and had been overweight since I was about 16. My initial kick-start came from following TAP and I've been I've been trying to work out regularly and follow a clean diet but there have been lots of weight plateaus and setbacks and sore joints, etc. And recently, based on your recommendation (and a few others) I got TT for Fat Loss and hope it will help push me a bit further.

There have been times I've been frustrated with the plateaus and thought I'd just do that Velocity Diet, too. But wasn't it you who said that it's not worth it to go on a diet that you can't maintain for the rest of your life (I searched for that post but couldn't find it... or maybe my memory's playing tricks on me, or I've reworded it beyond all recognition). I'm not convinced that an extreme diet is healthy. And I suspect the rebound effect when the dieter goes back to real food is going to be profound. Your wife's right to question that approach.

Maybe raising cals would help, as you mentioned. I've made the mistake of constantly lowering calories again and again, until I was eating 1800 per day and still no change. After some experimenting, I've found that changing the balance of macros sometimes works.

Other posters (notably Kaiser) have mentioned that they have seen no change in a Tanita reading but their BF shows changes when measured with calipers. That's something to keep in mind.

That Outlaw Strength & Conditioning sure looks like nothing else. Hope that works for you.

[emartin10]

LD - Wow. I am in the EXACT same boat right now. My girlfriend and I were talking this weekend about how cheat meals sound great to me right now, when in the past they haven't.

I decided that I've been working hard all summer, and that to keep my sanity, I needed a few days off from everything, watching my food, resting from my workouts, etc. I've seen this advice given a few times, and it seems to be working for me. I'm itching to get back to it, and for some reason, a big bowl of ice cream just isn't sounding good.

My advice, give yourself a day or a few days off. It will keep you sane.

[Lost Dog]

I'm feeling a little better today... I even had some planned ice cream with the kids, that DIDN'T lead to a binge afterwards!

Thanks for all the kinds words. Although, it's too bad others are in similar situations, it's nice not to be alone in things.

I've still got to decide what to do, what to change. This is my last week of The Waterbury Method, so I either need to repeat it at the end or move to something else.

Time to change the routine AND the diet around a bit, I'm thinking!

Take care, all.

[emartin10]

Good luck man, it's tough to be HYUGE!!! If it was easy, everyone would be chisled.

Get out there and kick ass, and eat good too.

[BamaDave]

Originally posted by Johnka:

E.g., McDonalds isn't even slightly appealing to me. In fact, it ranks down there with pickled beets with my all time least favorite foods.

Johnka, LOL. I could have written those very words. Pickled beets are at the very bottom of my food list. The thought of them makes me gag. That disgusting texture, color, etc. {{{shudder}}}} And I will eat and actually like almost everything (McDonald's = gross, though). OTOH, your "cheat" meal is really a pretty modest "cheat." "Cheating" means that you go to the Cold Stone Creamery and pound down about 1,200 calories of ice cream packed with all kinds of bad stuff!

Lost_Dog, everyone binges and plateaus. There's great advice here about shaking things up by changing diet and exercise. Hang in there! You're probably still changing, just not as dramatically as when you first started.

[Lost Dog]

I love pickled beets...

[Lost Dog]

I've also noticed that it's been a long time since I've taken time off. Don't know if that can play a factor in fat loss or not... However, I've got a sudden business trip to go on in two weeks. I'm going to drop my regular program for next week and just lift for fun, do some lifts that I've wanted to play around with, etc.

Then, on my trip, I'll just play around, run, and just have fun in whatever "fitness center" my hotel has available.

Hopefully, I'll come back refreshed and ready to knuckle down with a different routine.

[Johnka]

Originally posted by BamaDave:

quote:

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Originally posted by Johnka:

E.g., McDonalds isn't even slightly appealing to me. In fact, it ranks down there with pickled beets with my all time least favorite foods.

Johnka, LOL. I could have written those very words. Pickled beets are at the very bottom of my food list. The thought of them makes me gag. That disgusting texture, color, etc. {{{shudder}}}} And I will eat and actually like almost everything (McDonald's = gross, though). OTOH, your "cheat" meal is really a pretty modest "cheat." "Cheating" means that you go to the Cold Stone Creamery and pound down about 1,200 calories of ice cream packed with all kinds of bad stuff!

Lost_Dog, everyone binges and plateaus. There's great advice here about shaking things up by changing diet and exercise. Hang in there! You're probably still changing, just not as dramatically as when you first started. [/quote]I'm glad to see that someone else shares my utter disdain for pickled beets. My Grandmother used to try to get me to eat them. Oh the humanity!

By the way, I'm going backpacking again this weekend, and I plan to hit up that same restaurant for another decadent meal.

[Johnka]

Originally posted by Lost_Dog:
I've also noticed that it's been a long time since I've taken time off. Don't know if that can play a factor in fat loss or not... However, I've got a sudden business trip to go on in two weeks. I'm going to drop my regular program for next week and just lift for fun, do some lifts that I've wanted to play around with, etc.

Then, on my trip, I'll just play around, run, and just have fun in whatever "fitness center" my hotel has available.

Hopefully, I'll come back refreshed and ready to knuckle down with a different routine.

Sounds like a good plan. Just don't fall into the same "anti-routine" that I'm currently in. Ever since packing up and moving to Denver, starting a new job, etc., I've been averaging only about 2 workouts with weights per week. I've got to get on a plan and stick with it, lest I return to my weedy days of yore.

[Marinewithego]

Since Johnka and JB are big on endorsing the 90/10 rule, I have decided to save up all of my cheat meals for the month of December.

Instead of a cheat day, I will have a cheat month. This way I can have all of my wifes baked treats!

[Chris Correia]

Originally posted by Lost_Dog:
I love pickled beets...

I like pickled beets, too.

One other thought on cheating and binging. I sometimes overeat a lot of a good food, and then have a lesser amount of a bad food. So, I might stuff myself, but I mostly ate something not too bad, and just a bit of the bad thing.

Most recently, I took my son to pizza hut for a last-day-before-school lunch. I ate a ton of salad but then had four pieces of pizza (granted, they are cut pretty small, and I got the thin crust that was set out). But, the last thing I tasted before leaving was cheese and sause (hmmmm.... sauce), and I was stuffed, but I really didn't eat that much pizza.

The other thing I do is that I have one or two meals a week that are whatever I want. I look forward to those, and they keep me on track the rest of the week. (And, by now, those "whatever I want meals" are not nearly as bad as a real, die-hard pigout).

I've also found a couple or three times when I was getting the urge to eat more and also feeling like I might need a wee break. So, I'll go a long weekend with no exercise at all, eat a hefty amount, and then I've found that I gained a pound but not necessarily fat. Kind of a regenerating and refueling.

[Lost Dog]

Johnka,

Stuck for time in your new digs? Check out Joel Marion's Time Efficient Hypertrophy over at t-nation.com.

Looks pretty good for those short on time...

Time-Efficient Hypertrophy

As for me, I'll try not to get distracted. This next week will give me a chance to try out some of the "weird" lifts in Waterbury's routine, figure out some starting weights, and just play around with some lifts I've just wanted to try out.

I tend to get very focused on the routine at hand. Time to allow myself some leeway on a day or two.

[Lost Dog]

Originally posted by Chris Correia:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lost_Dog:
I love pickled beets...

I like pickled beets, too.

[/quote]Sometimes, I think the salad bar has them only for me. I never see anyone else eating them.

What about 3-bean salad? I love that, too. Never see anyone else eat that at the salad bar.

[ZachL]

I read something about the hormone leptin in muscle and fantasy a few years ago. It said that to keep levels of this hormone in the right spot, you should have a high calorie day every so often. The higher your bf, the less often (like 20% was something like every 14 days if i remember correctly). I think around 10% they suggested a person have a high calorie day every 5-7 days or thereabouts. Just something to look into, although muscle and fantasy is generally not a great source of solid info.