Certain foods and food additives trigger me to overeat and sugar in ANY form is definitely the worst among them. I generally won't binge out on a bowl of fruit, but I know with certainty that if I eat a banana, I will be plagued by food cravings that are more difficult to control for the rest of the day. I've been known to binge on dried fruit, especially if I can get fat involved too; dates dipped in full fat greek yogurt, dried apples dipped in almond butter, chicharones and dried figs, etc.

The hard truth that I've learned about myself recently: I absolutely cannot have any paleo gray areas. Like a junkie -- dried fruit, dairy, miniscule (homeopathic amounts!) of flavor additives -- are the gateway drugs that will have me sitting in the Safeway parking lot at 2am with a pint of Ben & Jerry's and a whole cake. I'm surprised I haven't found myself scraping spilled sugar off the cupboard floor and heating it up on a spoon.

Morbid, but rather telling, my sister and I (when we were wee little children probably no older than 7-8) used to make "suicide pacts" that involved elaborate schemes in which we would break into the corner store down the street and eat candy until we died in a blissed-out sugar coma.

Six months ago, I was eating hot cocoa mix straight from the package at work and got caught by my boss. The coughing fit that ensued is office legend.

My words should be taken with a grain of salt, as I have had an eating disorder for most of my life. However, if I eat a lot of fruit, I get ravenously hungry-and then I eat anything and everything in site--and a lot of that "everything" will end up being very non-Paleo food.

My mother had the intuition to not allow sugar in the house (except for the occasional white Italian bakery bread) but I am very sugar sensitive despite it. I remember stealing a bunch of the chocolate bars I was supposed to be selling for my school and getting in big trouble because I "hid" the evidence (the wrappers) by flushing it down the drain and we had a giant clog. SOOOOOOO embarassing. I still blush when I think about my chubby 10 year old self watching in horror as the plumber fished out a bunch of movie sized candy wrappers in front of my mother. She also paid us 5 cents a piece for our Halloween candy. We made bank a few years. She also gave us the option of a big basket of crap candy or one small dark Godiva bunny and a small packet of jelly bellies for Easter. We totally went for the quality over the quantity. That woman is such a riot.

For the most part I avoid all paleo "junk food" My tastes buds can't tell the difference so it's just as bingeworthy. Obviously it doesn't give me a stomach ache like vegetable oil laden white flour cake but it's just a no no. Admittedly, I do indulge in some ice cream and dark chocolate once a month but it doesn't seem to set me off the way candy and pastries do.
Any time I eat too many carbs I make sure I have a large dose of butter or coconut oil/milk. It seems to settle the beast.

yesterday I had 1/2 a kilo of cheese. Today I ate 1 lb. of smoked lamb at a sitting. Why? Crazy!

I sooooooooooo did the same thing as a kid!! (minus the grandmother~!) ;)

I actually have tested this on myself and I think that I don't binge as much on fruit if it's not restricted. If I restrict carbs I tend to freak out on sugar at least once a week.

Steak and sweet potatoes is my favorite food of all time so that gets me pretty amped up!

Personally, I've never binged on a bowl full of peaches and bananas and haven't yet wanted to but I used to be able to put away a package of oreos in one sitting. Yes, a package.

I could "binge" on salad topped with steak or chicken and I think it would probably make me crave sugar and other non-paleo foods even less because I feel AMAZING after I eat a couple pounds of salad and meat.

A good fatty ribeye amps me up in the best way possible, muffins/pancakes/cake literally put me into a sleepy depression these days and now I know I'm much more likely to crave crap foods after eating crap foods.

I did the same thing - with Pez. I ate all the Pez that came with the dispenser (i believe 3 packages) and then the refill package (somewhere around 10 more packages of Pez). I have never eaten them since - and have never looked at Daffy the Duck in the same way since.

It summah time and I'm eating fruit salad! There, I said it!

I feel energized by it. It makes me very happy. I don't at all lose control eating it. Fruit's Paleo, right?

If I was left alone at the tender age of five with an unlimited amount of Nestle Quick, powdered Tang or hot cocoa mix, I would have displayed some horrendous animal-like behavior, for sure! I wonder, though, if I would have done the same with a simple bowl of sugar - purest of the purest form of sucrose. I really don't think I would. Without all that other exciting flavors added in, sugar is just like fat or salt to me, irresistible when mixed with other goodies, meh on it's own.

Dude, your post just triggered a flashback to my childhood. When we were kids, my mother would occasionally simply hand us a bag of cake mix and a spoon. We would roam around the house with chocolate-stained faces and coated tongues, clutching our bags greedily and shoveling chocolate powder into our mouths.

Yep.

For the most part, I don't binge on anything these days, though I do have uncomfortable overeats sometimes. However, when I heartily partake in savory things, such as steak or something -- yes, I do crave a sweet to counteract all the salt. Dark chocolate and fruit, FTW.

Yesterday, I was flying high for hours on one mug of green tea. Being almost completely caffeine free will do that to ya. ;P

Kamal, I used to eat the Nestle Quick powder straight out of the container also. (but only a small amount).

I don't think fruit has the same effect as processed foods with added refined sugar. Fruit has all that fiber in it.

I have procured a bag of allergy free chocolate chips on occasion and end up eating the whole thing within a day, but then I go months without doing it again. Could not do that before I went paleo. Always had to have a treat, especially after dinner.

Sugar has no effect on myself or my son (thanks the Gods lol). I had a similar experience with margarine when I was about 6 years old - I took a spoon and ate a whole tub of margarine, got sick as a dog and have never eaten margarine since, only butter :)

I've been a member of the animal kingdom my entire life. Well, except for that brief period during the summer of 2002 when I was vegetating on my couch for two weeks.

Reminds me of when I was 12 and visiting my cousin. We decided it would be an excellent idea to stay up all night. How did we manage that? Candy - lots of it - and then we ATE some of her mom's coffee grounds. Pinging off the walls doesn't cover it. We stayed up all night drooling over Antonio Banderas in "Desperado."

I'm still struggling to stay on the paleo wagon, but when I'm off it, it's horrible. I'll buy a bin of Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream and Smucker's Hot Fudge topping and finish it within two days. The last time I did that, I'd also bought a gallon of milk plus Nesquick (25% less sugar, bc that's helpful /sarcasm), Ghirardelli Caramel and Milk Chocolate Squares, and Cadbury mini-eggs (the bag of chocolates covered in a candy shell). ALL OF IT WAS GONE IN TWO DAYS.

I simply can't have sugar without wanting more.

But in a couple days I'm making Ropa Vieja (plus the non-paleo sides for my husband) and tonight I have pork chops planned and roasted brussels sprouts and I'm ridiculously excited for these things.

the only paleo foods i binge on are orange and ridicuously high in vitamin A. I have yet to figure out why I do this. peaches, grapefruit, any winter squash, sweet potatoes, shrimp, CLAMSSSS, beef or chicken liver, tomatoes, canteloupe, carrots, peppers and i hate peppers but i have this unearthly desire for them!! even pumpkin and certain green like kale and collards and some spices...

i will eat myself so uncomfortably full i can barely breath and i feel like my stomach is going to explode. I CANNOT FIGURE OUT WHY i do this and it drives me nuts. i will forgo an amazing lambchop

i would appreciate any insight into vitamin A binging

anyways, question at hand... my mom bought plain rice krispies, plain corn flakes- you know all the cereals store brand you shop in 5lb bags for on your knees. all taste nasty but we would get the sugar bowl and take it to our bowl making a disgustingly sweet milk. other than being able to add sugar to other food there wasnt much in the house. i remember being taught in school to make homemade pixie sticks by taking a cup of suagr to a packet of koolaid...

The few times I have tried to augment ZC with small amounts (like an oz or 2) of yoghurt, I was bingeing on it within 2 days.

We usually open our Christmas gifts in the evening(I'm from Scandinavia). One Christmas my uncle gave me and my sister 2 kg of candy and we ate it all without our parents noticing. After running around the Christmas tree for an hour or so, we started throwing up. My uncle still laughs of the episode now some 17 years later, and we talked about it every Christmas since!

For some reason my "binging" usually only happens with bread or grains like rice and oats. I started to allow my self a sandwich once a month provided the filling was paleo and the ingredients were just the basics (flour,yeast,salt,sugar). I absolutely INHALED the sandwich. It was like a switch in my brain turned on that said " You will never eat again so just eat everything you can NOW!!!" (at one pointt I actually had the loaf of bread in my hand and was chewing pieces off of it. Same with rice and oats. The hangover I feel is equally bad. No matter what meat and veggies I have with the bread I feel ravenous, irritable or extremely tired shortly after.

So yes, I know for a fact that carbs in the form of grains turn me into an an animal.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I have made myself sick on sugary things several times in my life! What's interesting, is that I read many years ago that in most cases a kid who gets sick on a particular food in childhood--enough to vomit--rarely will touch that food ever again. I've been checking the validity of this for years, and it seems to true. This study stuck with me because I remembered various family members who would never touch fish, or chicken, eggs, lots of different things that had made them sick as kids. The exception seems to be sugar.