My weight went up when I was a teenager, at 13 I was already heavy, about 130 lbs, then I started eating all the time because I was pretty unhappy. By the time I graduated I was in the 180's. In college I got it down to the 160's in an all or nothing starve or binge mentality. Then when I was 21 I married and had a baby, when I delivered I weighted 220. I immediatly went on depo provera and went up to 260. All this time I was very unhappy and eating constantly, probably close to if not more then 4500 calories a day at best guess, mochas and mega muffins for breakfast, snacks, chinese take out or pizza for lunch, huge beefy potatoy dinners...just grossness.
When I divorced my husband I went off depo, reclaimed my sanity and immediatly lost around 30 lbs. then in sept of 2006 I stared making a concerted effort at weight loss and lost about 40 lbs in 8 months. Got down to 176 and stagnated for 6 months...then I got pregnant again. I didn't gain that much being pregnant because I lost the baby, but after I lost the baby I shut down, shut the world out, drank hard liquor constantly, ate whatever I please and gained gained gained up to about 200 again. When I could no longer fit into my "new" clothes I stopped eating. a few weeks later I weighed in at 193 and came crawling back here.
I've got my compulsive eating under control now. I no longer binge or go for days or weeks eating constantly. I'm too aware of how destructive that behavior is. I also keep my drinking to a minimum and although I've never considered treatment for alcoholism the fact that I may have issues with it is always in the back of my mind. I don't go to counceling or to an over eaters anonymous group because I'm a private person, the internet at least grants me a bit of anominity. I keep a food diary and when I binge I write every single thing I eat down. The last time I had a real binge was July 5th, over a month ago and what stopped the binge was writing it all down and going on line and looking up all the calorie counts for the foods, even if I didn't measure it out when I ate it I had a good idea that one day of binging can add up to over 9000 calories, more if you don't eat yourself in to a vomiting stupor.
As far back as I can remember I've had issues with food. I remember being very young and my mom yelling at me to slow down when I was eating, that I was making a little piggy out of myself. As a teenager a friends little sister commented on how fast I was gobbling down food one night when we were having tacos over at her house, in front of her whole family she made huge deal out of it and I felt so ashamed of myself I went home and ate more food there. I still find myself scarfing down food at a fast pace. If I eat out with my friends I have to consciously eat as slow as possible. Right now I have a sense of control over food in my life because I am so focused on my goals and because I am letting very little distraction into my life.
Anyways, thats my story of compulsive eating.