Binge eating issues

Ryals_Cori

Hello - looking for support and suggestions on how to stop binge eating.
Backstory is I lost a lot of weight in 2014 was so proud of myself and my world was really great, 2015 I had twins and an additional little one following, since then I have been seriously depressed so much that I am currently meeting with a psychologist weekly. The biggest issue I have is binge eating I just can’t stop it and I also can’t identify why I can’t stop except that I think it’s mainly triggered by stress. Does anyone suffer from this type of eating disorder and how did you overcome it?! Thank you for any and all suggestions

harper16

Have you considered reaching out to a specialist about your binge eating?

RelCanonical

The only main advice I can really offer is to continue to work with your psychologist to get at the root of your struggles, as anything else would be band-aids. For me, my binge eating was a symptom, so once I coped better with my anxiety, the binge eating got better as well.

I did have to do a "reset". One big thing that had to happen is I had to quit focusing on losing weight, and instead repair my relationship with food before I could think about losing weight again. I accepted that I may gain, and instead focused on cooking from scratch, eating slowly and mindfully, and fully appreciating and loving food rather than hating it.

I'm not perfect and have struggled a bit recently, but nothing today compares to the period in 2014 when I was at my worst. Fortunately, a work friend at that time suggested a psychologist that worked for him, and I'm still going to the same person today.

LeWahnderful

It sounds like you’re an emotional eating (I am also!) and you use overeating as a coping mechanism when you’re sad or not in a happy place. Next time you binge, if possible, take note of how you feel and why you feel that way. Don’t look at the notes, just get it out. After a week, review how you felt every time you binged. Maybe that’ll help? Good luck !!

MelodiousMermaid

One thing I wanted to throw in from personal experience is to look at how much and how well you are sleeping at night (or during the day if you're a night person). The issues I have personally experienced are increased exponentially when I'm not sleeping well, both quantity and quality considered.

If you are struggling with this, I recommend getting it looked into asap, as it's a really big piece of overall well-being.

elisa123gal

There has to be a reason why you binge eat. If you discover that ...you'd be able to start to gain control.

I don't binge eat...but I did overeat after I got married 20 years ago. I gained about 20 or so pounds. during my weight loss journey, I pinpointed that my eating was directly related to my husband; whom I love but has a strong personality. Each time I felt controlled by him, I would go to the kitchen, tear off a piece of bread out of the bag and eat it with butter. Like a definite response, as if controlling food was all mine.

Once I connected the dots..... I worked to fix it. I was no way going to allow my lack of speaking my mind turn into an overweight person. I started putting myself first and standing my ground.

All these happy years later.. I still find myself once in a while doing the same thing. I close the fridge door. and speak my mind to the hubby.

swimmchick87

The only thing that helped me long term was eating more calories in the first place. It sounds counter intuitive but it worked for me. A long time ago I read the book "Brain over Binge" and that helped me. It's controversial as the premise is that binging is a biological response to dieting and not something that's caused by "underlying issues." I would say I halfway agree with the author. I can absolutely point to emotional triggers and "underlying issues" that led to binging episodes. However, feeling physically starved and having this black and white relationship with food where I felt like I either had to be perfect or "already ruined it, might as well binge" absolutely played a gigantic part.

When I first started this "new method" I was eating 1800-1900 calories a day, which was kind of terrifying at first. After being (trying to be) "on a diet" for most of my life it was crazy to purposefully eat what felt like a massive amount of calories. Yet, previously I was binging almost every day. I actually lose weight because I wasn't doing that anymore. Once the physical hunger was gone the desire to binge was also. Don't get me wrong- I certainly still "ate my feelings" at times and made some less than ideal food choices- but that desire to eat massive quantities of food was gone. I still have things I'm working on and am always a work in progress, but I haven't truly binged in years. I occasionally find myself wanting to stop and get take out on the way home from work after a stressful day (and sometimes I do), but back in my binging days I would have stopped to get takeout and gotten 3 meals just for myself. The idea of that now is just absurd to me, even though I lived like that for years.

podperson1

It sounds like your binging is emotionally triggered. You get stressed/upset etc and use food as a way to cope. Can you try asking your psychologist to help you to work on this issue in more detail - looking at what the underlying causes of your stress are as well as working on finding/implementing new coping mechanisms instead of food.

joanna_82

Another vote for working it out with your psychologist. I’ve had a lot of eating issues in the past and it was a very big goal of therapy to get past them. I had to work hard in therapy to be really honest and also to trust the process of delaying/stopping a binge and trying to tap into my emotions to understand how I was feeling and how to deal with that without eating.
I’m 95% recovered now, and losing my extra weight slowly and carefully. Still find myself thinking about food in stressful times, but mostly manage to avoid bingeing with alternative coping mechanisms. And I eat a lot of my previous ‘binge’ foods as part of my diet in small quantities, which brings me much more enjoyment.

Good luck, I hope you can tackle it,