For people who have beaten binge eating..

I don't consider myself totally healed from binge eating yet, but I've only binged once in the past 5 weeks, which must be some kind of record for me. Around 5 weeks ago, I read The End of Overeating, and while the book is a lot of research and the history of overeating in the U.S., (and a lot of skippable junk in the middle) it also had some good tips at the end that seem to be working for me. Essentially, it said that stopping overeating is not about willpower, but about creating an environment in your mind in which you won't need to use willpower. Kessler instructs his readers to make some personal rules about eating ("I don't eat fried food," as opposed to, "I shouldn't eat fried food"), so you can evaluate food before you eat it and decide immediately to eat it or not to based on your rules, without debating with yourself. He also tells readers to avoid cues that make them want to overeat, refuse to take even a bit of foods they find irresistible, and have a plan before you might be exposed to "hyperpalatable foods" (the ones loaded with salt, sugar, and fat that we find impossible to stop eating). I'd really recommend the book, because my synopsis is doubtless lacking.

I have also found that when I binge, I tend to keep bingeing, but if I can go 24 hours without bingeing, it's easier to eat well the next day. Get all your trigger foods out of the house, and just go one day without binge eating. And don't starve yourself, because otherwise the hunger will overcome you at some point and you'll suddenly NEED to eat something high in calories RIGHT NOW!

This is what I do:
1) Keep my calorie goal above my BMR. This gives me wiggle room for a moderate amount of treats.
2) Found the carb level where I don't get carb crazy. This took some adjusting and can vary with activity. For me, 150g max is my safe limit.
3) Eat on a regular basis and eat above my BMR, even if I am not experiencing what some would consider "hunger". I would tend to not eat for way too long because I didn't feel hunger, then eventually eat all the foodz. Now I do my darnedest to net at least my BMR, regardless of how I "feel".
4) Log everything. If I want a questionable treat, I will pre-log it and then make a conscious and deliberate decision about whether that is what I want to eat right now. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no, but it needs to be a choice.
5) I do not eat my emotions. This is what I started telling myself when I started this back in January. I have read The End of Overeating and I probably picked up the phrasing tip from that book. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg is also a really good read.
6) Learned to live with the temporary discomfort of feeling hungry. Since my previous mode consisted of "not hungry" and "way stuffed", it took a little bit of doing to be OK with a temporary feeling of peckishness. I could look at my food intake and see that I really didn't need to eat, and would be OK with a big breakfast (sometimes I would be hungry in the morning and eat more, most of the time the feeling passed and I ate normally). If the nighttime peckishness lasted more than a couple of days, I would start to leave a few hundred calories for a nighttime snack. If I really felt like I needed to eat something, usually a high protein boring snack would do the trick (chicken breast, can of tuna), or I could exercise to get more calories for the day.
7) Made a commitment to eat a vegetable with every meal. Not sure if this relates to binging or not, but it is a constant observable commitment to increased health and the bulk is filling.

It really takes some tweaking to figure out what your triggers are, and start to knock them down one at a time. My motto is No excuses, and for me that means whacking away at things until you figure out the real problem so that you can fix it.

Good luck!! :flowerforyou:

overeating is not about willpower, but about creating an environment in your mind in which you won't need to use willpower.


Looking for the book tomorrow as well...thanks, pretty powerful line up above!

I haven't beaten binge eating by any means but a few things have helped me.

-staying out of the kitchen in any way possible when it isn't a meal time. I used to hang out near the kitchen (eg in the TV room next to it) but that almost always leads to me eating so now I just watch TV downstairs or in my room and stay off the middle level when I'm not having a meal or engaged in something besides TV.
-portioning out meals and not eating anything that's not in front of you. Only put what you have caloric room for on your plate. The rest should stay in the pot or the fridge or wherever. Out of sight, out of mind.
-I used to binge at night but lately I've been working out in the evening and having a big ol protein shake to end the day. After I drink that I don't want food at all for hours and it keeps me full right up to when I fall asleep (even if that's something like 12 or 1 am). I recommend that if you have protein powder, or just try to include protein rather than carbs into your last meal of the day to keep yourself full.
-Personally I'm a college kid currently at home so I can't throw out the junk, but for people who have more control over the food in the house I would 100% recommend never buying junk and only keeping healthy food around . A binge on yogurt and fruit is bad but not as bad as cheetos and oreo cookies.

Good luck! Remember you're not alone, lot of people have been there. Just keep doing your best.

I've struggled with binge eating my whole life and although I've managed to keep it under control it's something I continue to deal with in my mind every single day. The most important things for me is to never let myself get too hungry and not to deprive myself; doing that keeps me satisfied so the urge to binge is usually at a minimum. It's gotten easier to control now over the last 10 months but I'm sure it will be something I'll have to deal with for the rest of my life.

I can't really say that I have beaten it yet... but I am going on 5 days binge free :happy: :happy: :happy: ! I have been struggling with it for years, but especially within the last 7 months. I've been trying so hard to fight it, but what finally snapped me out of it was a conversation I had on Saturday with my husband about wanting to have another baby. I refuse to go through another obese pregnancy, so I set a deadline for myself of January 6th 2014, which is the date of my next doctors appointment, to get to my goal weight. I started blogging about it, and marking my calendar, and setting alarms on my phone for weigh in's every Sunday... pretty much everything I can think of to help keep me accountable. Here's my blog - http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/racbergs Good luck, and add me if you want my support I don't have a big friends list, so I am able to give lots of support to everyone!

Edited to fix my blog link