Binge eating; HOW TO STOP

I agree with keeping the junky type foods out of the house for now until you're able to control the binging. I tried keeping it at my house but I can't control myself just yet. It's not a forever thing, but it will help. At the moment, if I want to binge eat, I can go for baby carrots, spinach and stuff like that... Can't do much damage. Also there's no obsessive thoughts about whatever is in he fridge/pantry.

Here is something the Behavioral Specialist who works with our program said recently in response to someone inquiring about the same thing:

Thank you so much for reaching out for some assistance with your challenges, I'd be happy to help! Also, I am so happy to hear that some of my previous posts have been helpful to you. Let's see if we can't figure out what happened here...

So, what I think happened here is that you simply got swept away in the wave, and temptation took over. Your lower, animal brain (which you referred to as your "inner child") is deceptive in trying to convince you to eat. It sounds like it told all kinds of rational, logical things encouraging you to eat including "just eat something, you'll feel better" and "feed a cold starve a fever." Sounds like it used every trick in its arsenal to try and convince you to eat.

Remember, the animal part of your brain's main function is survival, it houses all of your survival instincts. When it's sending out thoughts, feelings, and urges encouraging you to eat it is doing so because it (falsely) believes that if you do not eat you will die! It remembers what got results in the past and it recreates those things.

It appears that the lines blurred between your true self and the part of you that wanted to binge (animal brain). Sounds like you began to relate to those thoughts and feelings, remembering the pleasure that certain foods brought you, and began to think that you were one and the same as your animal brain.

It also appears that you became emotionally overwhelmed by your urges to binge eat. Reacting emotionally only gives those thoughts power, strength, and the ability to influence you. When you let your cravings and urges make you mad, frustrated, depressed, anxious, or excited, you allowed them to take over your whole body and state of mind.

All of these things built up too high, stretching you to the limit, until you inevitably "snapped."

The most important thing that you can do to prevent this from happening in the future is to not give any thoughts, feeling or urge that encourages you to overeat or binge any power by believing that they can control you. They cannot. You have the power here. You have to begin to see those urges to binge as essentially meaningless. These urges are junk and only junk, emanating from the depths of your brain and not worth any further consideration whatsoever. These urges aren't truly you! Your true-self wants a better life!

I said previously that what I believed happened here is that you simply got swept up in the "wave." When we have these 'waves' our instincts tell us to try and 'endure' the wave, trying desperately to stay afloat until it has subsided (you mentioned using "every trick in my arsenal to stop thinking about food"). Or we might see the wave as a worthy opponent to be dominated, as a surfer might see a mighty swell. We might try and just survive it, trying not to get swept under, because we believe the wave has the capability of washing us out to sea. We believe they can control us, move us, toss us about. And if we make it through one wave, we will probably be pretty exhausted so if another one comes along we might not be able to muster the strength to ride that one out as well.

Instead, I would recommend that you stop seeing these thoughts, feelings and urges to eat as something that are capable of altering your course or washing you out to sea. Stop trying to desperately stay above the water and learn that you don't even have to enter the water. Instead, detach yourself from these thoughts, feelings and urges so you can watch the waves from the shore. You can watch one rise and fall, without getting all caught up in it and without becoming exhausted and weary. You can handle it because the wave isn't capable of affecting you. Instead of getting caught up in the wave, instead of struggling with the wave... You simply notice and observe the wave from the safety of the shore.

When we're able to detach ourselves from these thoughts and urges, then we can begin to recognize that they're probably not true, they're definitely not a command we have to obey, they're definitely not a threat to us, and they're probably not important - you have the choice as to how much attention to pay it. That's the key right there, you have the choice. And you can learn how to exercise that choice by seeing those thoughts and urges to eat for what they really are: nothing more or less than a bunch of junk from your animal brain. Instead of getting all caught up in your thoughts or giving into their demands, you can detach yourself from them and see them from a distance. They do not control you and there's no need to try and control them.

To answer your last question about the sense of relief you felt when you decided to eat (we don't say cheat here as the definition of that word is: "to act dishonestly to gain an advantage" which doesn't sound like what you experienced) we need to go back to where these urges came from. Remember that your animal brain believes that it is saving your life by encouraging you to eat. Therefore, when you decided to eat it rewarded you with all kinds of feel good brain chemicals! Guess where the feel-good chemicals in your brain come from? That's right! The lower, animal part of your brain! Our animal brain rewards us for things it believes lead to our survival (this is why eating and sex are so rewarding!).

I hope this information was helpful for you today and if you should have any other questions or concerns please feel free to write again anytime. Thanks

IMO clear out the cupboards and fridge of all high calorie and fat snacks/food.

Drink enough water (1/2 your body weight in ounces).

Chewing gum seems to help a lot of people including myself.

Have healthy snacks laying around instead.

When grabbing for snacks, grab one serving and tell yourself that's all you'll be snacking on. Eat them slowly, enjoy every bite. It will be hard, but after practice, it will become normal.

Hope this helps you as it has me.

My best method has been to log as I binge. It'll often stop me in my tracks.

Love this idea!

I have the same issues. I went to FA (Food addicts in recovery annonynomous) It was supportive and I meet alot of folks with the exact same issue. They are free meetings in most states.

I am a HUGE emotional eater. Granted I am only about 2 weeks into this round of weight loss (on/off since I was a preteen, sigh) but this time feels different and this is why...

2013 was the year of BODY ACCEPTANCE, and SELF ACCEPTANCE for myself. I stopped feeling sh*tty about myself if I ate a GD cupcake. I bought clothes in my actual size rather than hanging onto all of the clothes that I hoped I would eventually fit again. I really made an effort to accept my flaws and not feel that guilt anymore.

This year, I decided to be one of those annoying "resolutioners" (haha). I know a lot about weight loss and the kind of diet that I need from the last time I tried this (I've been on MFP for 2.5 years now...). I know that for ME, I can't completely cut out all junk food. I don't think of it as a diet so much as it is a lifestyle change (that's an obnoxious phrase, I know), and part of that is learning how to eat in real life. Real life includes going out for birthdays at restaurants, and having pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. What I do is take the knowledge that I have and apply it to that real life. Cutting all junk food out makes me want it more....instead, I weigh and measure it into 100-200 calorie portions (for some food this is easier said than done). I also love me some Starbucks so I get my lattes nonfat or skinny/no whip and that cuts down over 100 calories.

As an example, I've been craving Black Forest Cake for forever, so last night I found a reasonably-sized one (rather than one that can feed 20 people haha) and bought that, plus some disposable chicken pot pie foil pans/lids. I brought it home, divided it into approx 3oz portions (the cake made 6), weighed them, put them in the foil pans, wrote the calorie content/weight on the lids, and put them in the freezer. They still came out to an average of 350 calories each....so definitely still an indulgence but significantly better than a crazy binge at midnight because YUM CAKE.

So basically, I let myself eat junk food, IN MODERATION, to escape the binge. I also try to have veggies cut up in the fridge, which helps when I get those "OMG EAT ALL THE THINGS" out-of-control episodes. Water helps too. Or even a glass of milk (I LOVE milk but have been trying to drink less of it). And I utilize the freezer or my pantry in hiding treats -- "out of sight, out of mind" really helps me.

Hope some of that helps!

skipping breakfast helped me a lot with this

so does sugarless gum

Try an OA (Overeaters Anonymous) meeting. www.oa.org to get a list of meetings in your area.

Many of these suggestions are terrific, but none of them would have helped me before I found OA. The 12 steps helped me to develop a more healthy emotional and spiritual lifestyle. Even though I still have weight to lose, I am maintaining around a 100 lb weight loss for over 10 years. Food made me insane. INSANE! I couldn't stop thinking about food. I would wake up thinking about it. I couldn't stop eating foods (namely sugar) once I started. I ate frozen food, would drive miles for food, stop and get value meals in between lunch and dinner, etc. Crazy behavior.

I hope you find something that works for you that is healthy, balanced, and sane. I know that for me, feeling sane about food again was just as important as the weight.

Before you eat, ask yourself what is it (non-food) you are hungry for? Now think about how you felt the last time you finished a huge binge; are you willing to have that feeling of shame, self loathing again?

If not, have some water, take a walk, call a friend, pet your cat and congratulate yourself for making it through.

Good Luck!

I always enter in my food before I eat any of it. If I go to grab cookies and I enter it in sometime I will look at the calories and decide not to have them after all. I also measure everything out that I eat. If I want chips I get out my food scale, put how much I am allowing myself into a small bowl, then put the bag away. It helps so you are not mindlessly stuffing food into your mouth without realizing how much you are consuming.

First, it is wonderfully brave of you to reach out to others. I hope that you are able to find strategies to help you overcome this.

Second, I can only tell you what helped me. I hope it provides insight but everyone is different.

I lived with bulimia throughout high school and by college I was able to kick my purging. The binging persisted through my mid 20s. The purging was less intensive for me to end because I was a classical singer and I had a strong motivator to preserve my voice. I also sought some counseling to learn some coping strategies shortly after I quit the purging "cold turkey".

The binging for me was very complex and I had to commit myself to several changes:
1. Do not bring junk food into my home. If I wanted something, I had to buy it in a single serving or share it with others but there could be no leftovers.
2. Really plan my meals. This meant thinking about meals a week in advance and preparing with nutritious foods.
3. Exercise. For me just the act of exercise makes my body crave healthier food.
4. Practice mindfulness meditation - this was the hardest. When I got the urge to binge I had to stop, acknowledge my feelings, tune into my body, and think about what I really needed. In this practice I would remind myself that I love me. This could be very intense. There were times when I would be sitting with my eyes closed and tears streaming down my face.
5. Identify the ritual. For me it was standing in front of the pantry, eating straight out of the package. I was close enough to the garbage to get rid of the evidence and close enough to grab the next thing. I had to physically keep myself from opening packages in front of the open pantry.

Looking back now I can see that it was totally emotional for me. I would feel something that made me feel empty and then I would think about a specific food. I would fixate on it until I could eat it. When I started to eat it, I would eat it all. When that was finished, it usually wasn't enough. I would go to something else. I might finish it, I might stop before I was finished because I was already stuffed. I wasn't finished until I felt beyond stuffed. My stomach was so full I was uncomfortable and I could feel my heart racing. I would lay in bed too full to move, too full to fall asleep and that is when the shame would hit. It was truly compulsive behavior.

When I was ready to face it. I started by removing all trigger foods from my home. They weren't allowed back in my home for years. Eventually, I got to a point when I could recognize a binge as it started. Then I could stop it mid-binge. In the last six years, I can count the binges on one hand. When it has happened the most important thing I could do was forgive myself and go back to basics.

I still struggle with overeating when I am feeling stressed, sad, or defeated. I know I still have work to do but I am no longer actively binging. It is possible overcome it and don't be afraid to seek professional help.