What qualifies a binge?

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In mid-September of 2012, I apprehensively went to a doctor's appointment. I made an appointment to discuss my high blood pressure, but really for the sole purpose of talking to my doctor about my binge eating episodes. My doctor and I discussed what happened and how I felt during a binge. After discussing how compulsion runs in my family, it was determined that I needed to take a low dose of Prozac to help combat my binge eating episodes. Since compulsion runs in my family, my doctor thinks that mine comes out in the form of compulsive overeating and binge eating episodes...

I took my Prozac for about nine months total which includes about two months of weaning myself off the pills... With my personal definition of binge eating, I have not had an episode since my doctor's appointment in September of 2012. But, what constitutes a binge? According to Wikipedia:

Binge eating is a pattern of disordered eating which consists of episodes of uncontrollable eating. It is sometimes a symptom of binge eating disorder or compulsive overeating disorder. During such binges, a person rapidly consumes an excessive amount of food. Most people who have eating binges try to hide this behavior from others, and often feel ashamed about being overweight or depressed about their overeating. Although people who do not have any eating disorder may occasionally experience episodes of overeating, frequent binge eating is often a symptom of an eating disorder.

About one in five young women report that they have had binge-eating symptoms, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Women account for about 60% of binge-eating disorder symptoms.

Binge-eating disorder, as the name implies, is characterized by uncontrollable, excessive eating, followed by feelings of shame and guilt. Unlike those with bulimia, those with binge-eating disorder symptoms typically do not purge their food. However, many who have bulimia also have binge-eating disorder.

In my previous searches for binge eating information, I saw that some people classify it as eating more than 2500 calories in one sitting while some people say it's 3000 calories. There are a lot of different sites with a lot of different information regarding binge eating.

What do I think constitutes a binge eating episode?

Loss of control and being ashamed. Those are the biggest factors to me. I still overeat and I overeat often, but I do it consciously not because I lost control. I do it because I'm in the habit of eating more than I need to survive. I don't hide in my house alone when I want to eat... I don't feel ashamed after because I lost control... I feel slightly ashamed when I overeat just because I'm never going to lose weight if I keep overeating, but I'm not ashamed in the actual act of overeating...

Since September of 2012, I haven't sat at home eating because I just cannot stop. I haven't eaten until I'm physically ill and then felt so ashamed that I did it. While I do overeat, I don't believe that I've eaten more than 1500 calories in one sitting since my official diagnosis. The meals with that kind of calories intake are usually when I eat out at a restaurant or have seconds of an especially decadent dish I made at home. I don't eat an entire box of macaroni and cheese, four waffles with butter and syrup, and a ginormous bowl of cereal within a two hour period. That's the episode that made me realize I needed to seek help...

I think that that Prozac really helped me to understand when I was in a binge. I can now consciously make myself stop eating if I feel a binge coming on... and I do it often. I fought the urge to binge just the other night. I wanted to eat everything in sight even though I had just had a delicious and semi-healthy dinner... I forced myself to go to bed instead of binge. It has taken a lot of work, but I honestly feel like I've conquered my compulsive binge eating.

I just wish I could figure out how to control my overeating. While I no longer binge, I am still highly addicted to food. I feel like I need to discover a diet that tells me what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat it. I think that the less control I have over what I can eat, the better I would do. People always tell me to buy only healthy groceries and to plan my meals in advance... and this works for a few days, but then it doesn't work anymore. I need a meal plan where I have no choice as to what I eat. Anyone know of any healthy meal plans like this???

Obsessions

I said in my previous post that I have a new celebrity obsession. Those of you that have read me for a while may know that I tend to get a bit obsessed with things. OCD runs in my family and mine comes out in the form of celebrity obsessions... (and compulsive overeating)... I'm not some crazy psycho stalker, but I get obsessive about certain people. For example, every show I watch, I get a crush on someone in it. I'm not sure that I can name any show where I haven't gotten a crush on one of the characters on the show... About 95% of the time, that person is a guy. Once I become obsessed, I watch everything that I can find with the actor/actress including interviews I find on YouTube. I also scour the web for other like-minded fans of said actor/actress... mainly in the form of fan pages.

My newest television show obsession is Freaks and Geeks. I had it on my Netflix list for a long time. I was looking for a show with only one season after watching eight and a half seasons of How I Met Your Mother. I wanted something short and awesome. The cast is what got me to watch the show to begin with. I mean, c'mon... James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Martin Starr, and John Francis Daley with guest stars like Rashida Jones, Shia LaBeouf, Lizzy Caplan, Kayla Ewell, Ben Foster, and many more. I immediately thought, "This show has to be good."

Jason Segel as Nick Andopolis

I started it around 11:30 am on Wednesday, January 1st and was immediately hooked. I watched it (almost nonstop) until 1:45 am on the 2nd. I even had to work that day, but I didn't care... I was finishing this series! I LOVED IT! It's such a great show.

If you don't know what it is, the show centers around Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini) who is a smart and goody-two-shoes high school student in 1980. She starts hanging out with the burnout "freaks" Daniel (James Franco), Ken (Seth Rogen), Nick (Jason Segel), and Kim (Busy Phillips). Her little brother Sam (John Francis Daley) is a freshman and considered a "geek" along with his friends Bill (Martin Starr) and Neal (Samm Levine). It pretty much describes my life in high school and I can totally relate to it...

My crush from this show? You might think James Franco's Daniel because, c'mon, James Franco is pretty good looking... but you'd be wrong. My nerdy 16-year-old self fell in love with Nick Andopolis (Jason Segel). I actually posted this on Facebook at like 2:30 in the morning after I finished the series:

I find it amazing how different television shows make you feel differently about the same actor... I finally caught up on How I Met Your Mother recently and, while I enjoy Marshall on that show, he's definitely not my favorite character... yet today (or yesterday I should say), I discovered Freaks and Geeks and I absolutely loved the character Nick. I was rooting for him throughout the entire series... which I watched all in one day because I got hooked and seem to have insomnia. I wasn't really happy with where they ended it, oh well... but now, I gotta say, I'm a huge Jason Segel fan... and a big fan of Freaks and Geeks as well.

I mean, here's the deal... the dude is totally my type. I've always been attracted to tall (6'4"??? Yes, please!), lanky (which he usually is), and hilarious guys... Jason does not disappoint in any of these aspects. I also think he’s just really adorable in general. I love the photos of him with his sexy ginger beard… (as pictured to the right) or clean shaven… or just about any way, to be honest.

Did I mention the guy is hilarious? Wait… I did, didn't I? Well, he is. Since discovering my love for him as an actor, I have watched just about everything he's been in. This includes many hours of interviews he's done on YouTube. Never has anyone made me laugh as much as he does. The interviews he’s done with Paul Rudd are so funny my sides hurt from laughing so hard. Out of all of his movies, my favorites are Jeff, Who Lives at Home and I Love You, Man.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is about Jeff (Jason) and Pat (Ed Helms) who are brothers. Jeff is a 30-year-old pothead who lives in his mom's basement. Pat is fairly well off with a good, professional job. Jeff thinks that everything is a sign. The entire movie, pretty much, is based off the fact that Jeff gets a phone call and the guy on the phone asks for "Kevin". He's positive that it happened for a reason. I definitely thought it would be more comedic than it was with Jason and Ed as they're both known for their comedy stuff, but it wasn't hilarious. Yeah, there were funny parts, but it was mostly a drama. I even cried at one point... I'd recommend it though if you haven't seen it. It was pretty amazing.

I Love You, Man has Jason and Paul Rudd as the main characters. Paul plays Peter who is a real estate agent. He gets engaged at the beginning of the movie and, after realizing he has no close friends, goes on a mission to find a best man/best friend. He meets Sydney (Jason) and yeah... It's hilarious. I love it and could watch it over and over again. Haha. Great movie.

Gary (Jason) and Walter

Jason has also said my new favorite quote from a movie:

You always believe in other people, but that's easy. Sooner or later, you gotta believe in yourself, too, because that's what growing up is. It's becoming who you want to be. You have to try.

- Gary from The Muppets

I watched this movie because of my Jason Segel kick... Heck, I didn't even know the movie existed. I did watch The Muppets as a child, but I hadn't seen anything related to them in years and years. I can honestly say that I loved the movie. It made me cry to see something so iconic from my childhood brought back in a beautiful way. I adored it... and I loved the cameos from some amazing actors/actresses. Just an all-around fun, family movie!

So, as you can tell, I am still pretty obsessed with Jason Segel. After scouring the internet, I was incredibly surprised to learn that he didn't really have a fan site! There are a couple of websites with his name attached, but they are either not up to date or not finished. An amazing actor and comedian like Jason deserves to have an amazing fan site… I can honestly say that I have had crushes on a lot of celebrities over the years, but none have singularly gotten me hooked enough to make a fan page for him/her. From what I've seen, Jason seems like a normal guy who has an awesome job. He comes off as being so laid back, down-to-earth, and sweet. He seems humble even though he's turned into such a well-known celebrity. It also amazes me how open he is. I mean, he doesn't shy away from being a grown man who cries... and he's said in several interviews that he has cried... like when Kermit first said a line he wrote or when his best friend moved out of his house to go to medical school... He’s said numerous times how he feels honored when people want to work with him... It's pretty cool.

Overwhelmed

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I am majorly overwhelmed at the moment. I have this habit of biting off more than I can chew and getting stressed because I have too much on my plate. When I get into this place, I tend to shut down. I don't know where to begin to accomplish my too-ambitious to-do list so I do nothing.

I need to work on my Supernatural fan site. My website hosted a photo scavenger hunt that ran from mid-December to early January. I was hoping to have the results posted by the 12th of this month. Almost two weeks later and I'm not anywhere close to going through all of the photographs submitted for it. I still have a couple of week's worth of work on it, I'm guessing. Though I'm planning to spend quite a bit of time tonight and tomorrow working on it. Also, I do a whole new layout on my fan site each year. I haven't even updated a single page yet. Yikes. I need to do that as well. I'm basically going to be wiping away the entire site and slowly re-uploading all of the pages. I feel like I need to do this so that all of the pages are completely fresh. It's going to take a while. I'm hoping to work on that again within the next couple of days as well.

I also started a Jason Segel fan site. I have never considered doing a fan site for a single actor/actress before as most of them already have amazing sites and it's hard to keep a site like that updated. Well, when I became obsessed with him earlier this year (I don't even think I talked about that, I'll save it for another day), I searched for a great website for him and found nothing. We can't have that, he's an awesome actor and comedian and seems like an amazing guy. I started a site for him and hoped to be almost done with it by his birthday which was January 18th. That didn't happen. Bummer... I need to work on it again soon, but considering it's a new website with no followers as of yet, and I have so much to do on the Supernatural site, I'm placing this one on the back burner for a little while... This doesn't mean I love Jason Segel any less though. Haha. I would marry him and have his babies if he asked me to... Yeah, I'll definitely have to do an entry about him soon. I think I posted one on my other blogging site, but was too embarrassed to share it here. I've decided that part of what makes me who I am is my obsessions so I need to discuss that too... and I shouldn't be embarrassed about who I am. So, that's that...

I have been planning a baby shower for my best friend as well. She gave birth on December 11th, 13 weeks prematurely, to a little blessing named Dylan. Her baby shower was originally planned for February 1st and, after Dylan was born, she decided she wanted to keep it that date. It's hard to believe that Dylan is already a month and a half old... or 32 weeks, 5 days gestation. He's doing wonderfully... he's just over 3 pounds and off his nasal cannula for oxygen. They're guessing he'll go home between 36-40 weeks gestation. Since he's doing so well, my fingers are crossed that he'll get to go home closer to the 36 week mark. I haven't gotten to meet him yet! Any case, our mutual friend Sarah and I have been planning the shower. It's going to be at my parents' house next Saturday from 2-4 pm. Sarah and I are going out Sunday late morning to do the shopping for it. I'm excited! I just wish the people invited would RSVP already. We need a semi-accurate account of who's coming so we don't go overboard on food and supplies...

AND I've been slacking around my house. My to-do list there is extremely long. My bathroom needs thoroughly cleaned. My bedroom closet needs gone though... both the clothes and the non-clothes items. I need to finish rearranging the living room. My parents got us a new DVD stand for Christmas... previously our DVDs were just on a bookshelf. I need to finish moving all the stuff off the bookshelf so I can get rid of it and move some tables and whatnot around so the living room isn't all cluttered. I need to get caught up on laundry and dishes. I need to clean out my fridge... Ack. Why can't there be more hours in the day!?!

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♥ My nerd worlds colide... books and Doctor Who! ♥

I've also let this blog go and I'm super sorry about that. I love writing in any form and I feel like neglecting this blog is neglecting myself. I don't know if that sounds weird or not, but I feel like I need to keep this blog up and write about my life just to be sane. I have been slacking on my book writing as well. Writing in general just isn't happening for me right now. That makes me incredibly sad. Writing is an outlet for me... I need to really put it on the front burner and quickly.

On the plus side, I've been reading more. I've already read three books this year and am about halfway through a fourth. Reading is the most wonderful thing. I love when I really get into books. I read a couple of books in a series that really hit home to me. I'm going to have to do some research and look into things... which I hope will help me in all aspects of my life. I know this is vague, but I'm not getting into anything about this topic on a public blog. *shrugs* I just wanted to bring it up to say that I know because of this series, my life is going to be bettered and that's an amazing thing... It's so completely mind-blowing that a series of books can affect a person the way the series has influenced me. Just sayin'...

Okay, I really think this entry is long enough and I'm hoping to have more up and running soon. Talk to you all later! :)