In the immortal words of Peter Quincy Taggart (Galaxy Quest) - 'Never give up, never surrender!' She's not a totally lost cause - I mean, she starts the diets and exercise doesn't she? So there must be some motivation there. That's more than half the battle won. You just need to address the issues. 'A bad day', 'a craving', Try to really zoom in on exactly what the binge triggers are and see if you can knock them over 1 by 1. Maybe get her to start reading the message boards here, and posting - maybe sh'll open up to some of the gals.
Good Luck
ALANPOIRIER 8/8/06 5:45 A
Thanks guys. Having others to bounce ideas off of and get suggestions from really helps out alot.
LISA_IN_CA 8/7/06 11:41 P
There really isn't *anything* you can do and I don't think you should take on that role ( co-dependency).
I think you should tell her that you love her unconditionally and yet you cannot do anything about her actions and so she is going to need to step up.
Perhaps she should look into seeing a professional to make sure that her binge eating is not a tool she is using to try and cover up for some other unfounded dis-ease in her life such as untreated depression. People who suffer from untreated depression often will use food or alcohol in order to try and ellivate depressive symptoms. She may be suffering unnecessarily.
She may want to start reading up on nutrition or seek the help of a nutritionist .. if she is eating the wrong kinds of food .. that can easily set a person off to binge.
Hang in there and let her know you love her, but that you can't help her find out why she is self-sabotaging .. but that you will help her find someone who can help her .. and go with her to the appointments.
: ) Lisa
RUSS1985 8/7/06 1:20 P
I'll preface this by saying, I can only speak for me. My question is when she tries to make these changes to her diet and exercise is it a gradual shift, like you're wading into a pool or a headlong dive? If it's a sudden all or nothing dive in, then she's setting herself up for disappointment. Everytime except once, when I've taken an all or nothing approach to weight loss, I've found myself scarfing down burritos or burgers and then shortly after that calling it quits for the attempt.
Also on the binging, let her know, it's ok to blow it from time to time. We're not perfect. I've been working on this for almost three months now and even though I know what I should be doing with my diet and I follow it pretty tightly, I still catch myself eating a lot of bad foods on occasion. She's probably ready to flog herself everytime she does it. Encourage her to learn from it: Why she ate it? Was she hungry or was it just there? And then, after she's learned from it, encourage her to drop it. It happened. Adjust and move on. If she holds onto the lapse in judgement, then she will be ready to stumble over it again and again. Remind her that tomorrow is a new day and just leave it at that.
That's all I got for ya today. Do your best to help her get through it.
ALANPOIRIER 8/7/06 12:34 P
My wife works SO hard at losing weight. She does everything: works out, counts calories, tries every idea in the book and does really well... for a week or so. Then she has a bad day or a craving, gets depressed and then goes on a huge binge.
She keeps coming to me for help and support, which is fine. But what do you do when it starts sounding like a broken record and you're banging your head against a wall? I often don't want to try anymore because it seems so pointless (i.e. it's not doing anything.)
