Developed a binge eating problem - Help me!

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zlottery
zlottery Posts: 25
in Food and Nutrition
I was doing so good until early November when out of nowhere I began having random binges. And I mean HUGE binges (normally 3500-4500 calories). They'll happen two or three times a month now and the rest of the time I'll be doing great.. dieting/working out, eating well. Even most of my binges tend to be on healthy food (with today's exception...) but I can't seem to kick the habit! It's setting me back miles and undoing days of hard work and I can't seem to stop! We could have close to nothing to eat in my house and I'll find things to eat.. fruit, cereal, and ice cream seem to be particularly costly weaknesses of mine. It'll start out that I'll reach 2000 and I'll already be over stuffed and tell myself "ok.. we stop here because at least we aren't going into negative ranges" and one more snack leads to another leads to another and before I know it I'm at 4000 calories and I feel utterly ill. I've thrown up a couple of times.. not voluntarily.. just from the amount of food I ate. I have no idea why I do it! Each bite makes me feel sicker and sicker and sometimes I end up just rummaging through cabinets and biting into things and SPITTING THEM OUT before I swallow because they're not satisfying and I'm sorry if this is tmi but I really need help.

I take an anthropology course at school about food in society and some kids did a presentation the other day where they covered eating disorders and apparently binge eating is a type of eating disorder and I'm afraid it may be something I'm developing? Does anyone else have this problem? How do you stop yourself???

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  • debdelilah
    debdelilah Posts: 82
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    I was doing so good until early November when out of nowhere I began having random binges. And I mean HUGE binges (normally 3500-4500 calories). They'll happen two or three times a month now and the rest of the time I'll be doing great.. dieting/working out, eating well. Even most of my binges tend to be on healthy food (with today's exception...) but I can't seem to kick the habit! It's setting me back miles and undoing days of hard work and I can't seem to stop! We could have close to nothing to eat in my house and I'll find things to eat.. fruit, cereal, and ice cream seem to be particularly costly weaknesses of mine. It'll start out that I'll reach 2000 and I'll already be over stuffed and tell myself "ok.. we stop here because at least we aren't going into negative ranges" and one more snack leads to another leads to another and before I know it I'm at 4000 calories and I feel utterly ill. I've thrown up a couple of times.. not voluntarily.. just from the amount of food I ate. I have no idea why I do it! Each bite makes me feel sicker and sicker and sometimes I end up just rummaging through cabinets and biting into things and SPITTING THEM OUT before I swallow because they're not satisfying and I'm sorry if this is tmi but I really need help.

    I take an anthropology course at school about food in society and some kids did a presentation the other day where they covered eating disorders and apparently binge eating is a type of eating disorder and I'm afraid it may be something I'm developing? Does anyone else have this problem? How do you stop yourself???

    Is there anything you feel(stress, anxiety) at the time you binge? Does it happen when you are procrastinating doing something you are nervous about? Whatever it is you feel, you could try to face the feeling - if nervous, get whatever it is you need to do out of the way. If stressed or feeling guilty or negative about something, actively interact in a positive way - even if it's just wishing someone happy birthday or congratulations on social networking. And if you can, take a walk and put yourself in a place where you don't have access to food, so that at the very least you have to put off your craving. And try to locate and stock up on the foods you find the most indulgent for the least amount of calories(like a bag of popchips, 360 cals in a large bag instead of about 1000 cals in a normal large bag of chips.)

    If it is not this simple, maybe see a counselor to help sort it out...

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