Hi All,
Really sorry for the radio silence, I had a bit of a rough time of it and sent myself down a bit of a spiral. I'll explain what happened below, but just a quick trigger warning that it's not pretty and for anyone struggling with binge eating it might set you off. Sorry, but I think this thread is about honesty, so here goes:
So I binged. I can't remember when or why and it's not important, but it was shortly after I fell off this thread. It was possibly my worst one ever. It was like because I was fully aware this was a binge and named it that, I gave myself permission under the heading of 'this is not my fault, it's a illness' etc etc. Anyway, I ate approximately (approx. because I can't actually remember the full extent):
A 15 inch chicken bbq pizza
2 large portion of chips
20 chicken nuggets
10 mozerella sticks
A tube of pringles
an entire bottle of garlic mayo
A whole chocolate cake and a full pot of 300ml double cream
Approximately 17,000 calories if anyone's counting. There's probably more. It was a single sitting.
I was so ill (predictably) afterwards I felt absolutely rancid. I was up all night really thirsty but unable to drink because my stomach was so distended and full i kept bringing water back up, but couldnt bring the food up (I tried). It was the salt making me thirsty I imagine. I distinctly remember at that moment thinking 'this is rock bottom. I've hit it'.
From there i just couldnt get a grip of myself at all. I had 3 or 4 further binges, none as bad as that first one but probably about 7,000-10,000 cals each over the next 48 hours.
I called my GP on the 3rd day because I felt so bloody ill and I knew somewhere in my head I was in danger. I spoke to the practice nurse instead of the receptionist because I was already crying and couldnt get words out, and she asked me to go in and see her straight away so I did. She explained to me that over the phone she could hear I was in crisis and it was very obvious we needed to do something fairly rapidly. She got me an urgent referral to speak to a dietician who specialises in eating disorder recovery and I had a phone appointment with her the same night.
I spoke to her for a good 90 mins and she asked some really hard questions but really focused in on my dieting/ restricting.
She worked out that my average 'diet' day I only eat about 800-1200 cals which for a woman my size is nothing. So, despite going on about losing weight the healthy way etc etc, the fairly normal diet plans I was following were in no way designed for someone morbidly obese which is why they usually fail. I'm not talking VLCD here, this is weight watchers, slimming world, low carb, LCHF etc etc. Even when you can 'eat as much as you want' on those plans, they are still restrictive enough to prevent a morbidly obese person from consuming enough calories to live without food cravings. Couple that with a fucked up relationship with food and you've got both your body and your animal brain working against your conscious self, it's no wonder binges happen.
She was great. Anyway, she explained that although I'd already identified that dieting was a problem, the flip side of it was I have never had a time in my life unrestricted, hence why even though I knew all the theory behind healthy eating, my body didn't. So even when I 'wasnt restricting' my food I was still half-consciously tracking my calories and because I'd been used to eating so little calories, my view of a healthy diet for someone my size was still off, albeit I thought I need less food than I actually do. She explained that diet advice is designed for the average woman, who doesnt exist.. so ignore it all and listen to her 
So now, under her supervision (weekly calls, a monthly face to face meeting and she and a nurse have access to my food diary all the time) I'm tracking my food and eating between 1998 and 2597 calories a day. there's no rules other than that and I can eat less if I'm not hungry, but the target is that range. I'm not allowed to weigh myself at all, but she'll weigh me once a month at clinic but I won't be told the result. On the app I have to use there's a tracker for 5 a day and also water consumed, so she's told me to focus on those and see if I can achieve them every day.
That calorie range terrifies me. It's MASSIVE amounts of food (binges excluded) to eat in a day, but I suppose that's the point: it's not a restriction, it's just a guide to help me learn what someone my size actually should be eating.
I've been warned to keep well away from any talk of dieting or calorie counting and to understand if I do come across it (it's unavoidable really) that the people on 1400 calories or less are either in a decent weight range already or will fail and binge/ regain weight. It's that simple.
Anyway, that's where I'm at and thanks for everyone's concern and love, I'm doing ok and I feel like I've got a road out at least.
Much love 