Definately chocolate for me, since I discovered it as a trigger food four nights ago I gave it up and have no desire to binge on anything at all.  I have had sugar in the form of a sugar cookie but I was able to eat just 1 and not want to binge.  Acutally my appetite is more normal now and all I did was take out chocolate and chocolate flavored things as well.  No urge to binge at all and this is amazing since I have been binging every night after work in the ED for a long time.  But now that chocolate is out then I tell my self I can have vanilla ice cream but guess what it sits in my freezer because it is not tempting to me, tonight after work I came home and had a small bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins.  The ice cream is in the fridge and I chose oatmeal.  It was a very easy choice, I just did not want it because there is no chocolate so in comparison to my oatmeal it tied and I chose oatmeal.  But if I were comparing oatmeal to chocolate then I would not even blink an eye and definately choose chocolate.  Now my chocolate days will be once per year because I love this feeling of never wanting to stuff myself, it is heaven.

My worst trigger food is cookies/cake. The combination of sugar and white flour just overwhelms my resistance. Icing, chocolate chips and other extras don’t help. Just seeing or thinking about cookies and cake makes me want to binge. I often try to fool myself into thinking I can have just one bite or piece, but I almost invariably go back for more and more and more, until I feel ill or it’s all gone. I find when I have a really strong urge to binge on sugar, cookies and cake are the only things that “satisfy” the urge at all. Sugar alone, without the flour, just doesn’t seem to take the edge off.

Chocolate is a bad one for me but not as bad - I find that being rich makes it lose its appeal faster. I can only eat a little bit before I’ve had enough, though I often eat more than I planned and I do crave it. Chocolate bars with fillings are harder to deal with.

Fruit and white bread also trigger the urge to binge, though no where as bad as things which are loaded with refined sugar.

My trigger food is the little snack cakes that come 8-10 in the box, the ones that have a red-fruit colored/flavored filling and white icing, the little roll ups. Oh, gosh. I will eat the entire box of them one little cake right after the other till they are gone.
Them or the frozen toaster pastries with cherry or strawberry filling that are flaky and you can ice them with powdered sugar frosting.
One? No way. The whole container.
I can’t have just one.
And then the next day I have a huge migraine. Does that stop me from doing it again? No.

You know, I think that my trigger food is white flour.  I recently embarked on a series of binges and after reading this blog entry I thought back to see what I had eaten prior to the binges, and in every case it was something containing white flour, for example an english muffin, and, most recently, pretzels.  I always thought that anything with sugar would trigger a binge but I’m starting to think that it really is the white flour. 

I’m going to cut out white flour for a week and see what happens.  This is very interesting to me and if I find that white flour is indeed the culprit, I could see a dramatic drop in episodes of binge eating.

My trigger foods are popcorn, nuts, dairy and nut butters.  I can’t really put my finger on why but I can try…  Nuts have such high fat content and when I start to eat them, though I know some nuts are super healthy, I have no control over my portions.  Popcorn is different.  I can eat an entire box of three bags of popcorn in one sitting (this is new, only in the latest spree of binges has my quantity been upped like this).  I limit my dairy (cheese, butter) and have it only on occassion, otherwise I’d eat it with everything.  And nut butters are much like nuts in that I could eat gobs of it and still be left craving more.

Oh yeah, and sweets.  But I avoid them so they’re not triggers for me—just what I binge on if I give in to a different trigger (food or emotional).

DEFINITELY soft sweets like divinity, turron, marzapan, frosting, and anything sugary and creamy. Chocolate isn’t really a trigger because I personally don’t like the texture/taste that much…unless of course, it’s white chocolate. I recently gave up sweets (only eating them sparingly at Thanksgiving and Christmas), but I just went to Europe, where I was fed enormous portions of food.

Another HUGE trigger for me isn’t always sweets, but FULLNESS levels…once I get too full, I tend to get weak around sweets, and once I’ve started on the sweets, it’s all over. I’ve been on a three day binge of sugary/bready/dairy yuckiness, and am going to start fresh tomorrow (that’s what they all say). But at least I KNOW how it feels to NOT eat sweets and how GREAT it feels to be clean of it! Right now I feel SOOOOO gross. Sigh!

Ice cream. Breyers Half Gallon. And yes, I can eat it all in one night - and unless I put it down the garbage disposal, I will wake up in the middle of the night and eat it. I find this is completely related to depression- ie. I want it when I’m depressed.

The problem with ice cream is that it works when you’re depressed- no, it’s doesn’t last, but it has to be replaced with something positive, because it defintely makes you feel better. julie

One more thing- I agree with the post above- I defintely eat more sugar when I feel full and disgusted with myself. . Odd. julie

Julie, I think the sugar and the depression are directly related, one feeding into the other in a downward spiral. If I ate something with white flour in it, my mood would drop nearly immediately. Have you ever tried logging your food intake and your moods to see if there’s a correlation?

David and the Other Julie,

I have been recording my food intake for a month, as well as monitoring alcohol. I have been 90-95% sugar and flour free since my “three-day-binge” I referred to on my January 2nd post. It has been WONDERFUL! It really does lead me to believe that so much of this is not just psychological, but heavily physiological. When I don’t eat sugar, and make sure I eat a balanced diet of complex carbs, fructose (from fruit), and protein, I really don’t crave the other stuff. I might think I want it, but when I have some, it’s not that great. But I’m wise enough now to know that if I have too much, then it WILL start tasting great again, and I will revert back to the old ways of overeating and feeling sluggish, moody, and guilty.

The food recording has been very beneficial in terms of portion control and awareness of what I’m putting into my body. It’s also been kind of fun! I record not only food and alcohol consumption, but also exercise,relevant notes, supplements, and I rate my overall fullness level that day between 1-10.

If possible, I highly recommend everyone to follow David’s month-long challenges. I truly believe that some people just can’t eat sweets in a moderate and balanced way.

Thanks so much!  Julie