Binge eating

It really helped me when I ate enough calories regularly. I'm not saying I never ever binge, just that it helped immensely.

I am troubled by that also---I eat more at meals and leave a bit left at the end of the day so I can havea snack at night--I still have to satay away from sweets tho--I have no self control where they are concerned--popcorn helps--I keep it around and have a handful now and then . Try filling up on vegetables and fruit

I kind of see binge eating like alcoholism or drug abuse. It's a type of addiction. I know that's hard to hear, but it really is. You are addicted to the feelings associated with binge eating, the secrecy- no one knows so you're getting away with something naughty. That's the high. Then, like other addictions, you crash- stomach problems, sleep problems, heartburn, and overwhelming guilt... So you look for something to take that pain away... It's an awful cycle.

I don't consider myself 'cured' from binge eating, although I am not binging any more. I still feel those feelings. When I am alone, tired, sad, and hungry, I still want to go through every drive through in town to get all of my favorites. I just don't. If I mess up just once, I think it would be too easy to go back to my old ways.

How to get started on the road to recovery?
~Get rid of the binge-inspiring foods from your home. For me that was Little Debbie snack cakes, chips, and pop tarts. I can't have those food around me.
~Plan your meals and don't get overly hungry.
~Make the mental choice that you are done, and stick with it.
~Don't plan one more binge and say this is the "last one". It never will be if you think that way. Your last one is already done. There are no more.
~On your MFP plan, make sure you have room for some of your favorite foods so you don't feel deprived. Feeling deprived leads to "I DESERVE a whole cheesecake cuz I've been good." No, you can have a piece of cheesecake if you log it and fit it in your day.
~Until you feel like you have your binge eating under control, do NOT have CHEAT days on mfp. This will end up being a binge day and you will start the binge cycle over again every week. Give yourself 6 months of no binges before you plan a cheat MEAL, not a whole cheat day. Cheat days are not good for us binge eaters.

I know some of that is hard to read. It's hard to admit it, even now. But I haven't had a binge since I started mpf and I was a multiple times a week binge eater. I freaked myself out a little at Easter because I planned it as a cheat day. There were chocolate treats everywhere, and I wanted to eat it all at once, all of it. It was a real test for my resolve not to binge.

I have plenty of treats in my days (diary is open to all) and I exercise too. The exercise is relatively new for me and I find it has helped my self esteem. It makes it easier to think of feeding and fueling my body, rather than using food to dull my emotions.

Hope that helps you. I accept friend requests if you find you need some support from someone has been there. (That goes for OP and anyone else.)

I am not the best person to take advice from but I have been doing ALOT better so I will say that there are certain things I just don't buy. AT ALL... Some people can buy a bag of chocolate take one bite and move on. I can not... I do not set myself up to fail like that.

I don't keep my "trigger" food readily available so if I want it. I have to decide that it's worth getting up, driving to wherever, buying it, driving back and eating it. Most of the time...my laziness prevents this lol.

Also ( and this has helped the most) when I really get a craving for something like a legit CRAVING I do not tell myself I can not have anything. If I want pizza I go buy A SLICE of pizza and move on.... but I've found if I tell myself you cant have this...Ill obsess and finally break down and buy an ENTIRE pizza .... Restrictions do not work for me ... they make the food "forbidden" and therefore MORE DELICIOUS. I just tell myself. You can have whatever you want but do you want it bad enough to backtrack or can it wait until tomorrow or ZUMBA day lol. I have been able to pass soooo much junk food up now that I know nothing is off limits, there is just a better choice.

planning meals out in advance has really helped me. I don't go looking for food because I know what/when my next meal will be.

this.....I do this too.

I kind of see binge eating like alcoholism or drug abuse. It's a type of addiction. I know that's hard to hear, but it really is. You are addicted to the feelings associated with binge eating, the secrecy- no one knows so you're getting away with something naughty. That's the high. Then, like other addictions, you crash- stomach problems, sleep problems, heartburn, and overwhelming guilt... So you look for something to take that pain away... It's an awful cycle.

I don't consider myself 'cured' from binge eating, although I am not binging any more. I still feel those feelings. When I am alone, tired, sad, and hungry, I still want to go through every drive through in town to get all of my favorites. I just don't. If I mess up just once, I think it would be too easy to go back to my old ways.

How to get started on the road to recovery?
~Get rid of the binge-inspiring foods from your home. For me that was Little Debbie snack cakes, chips, and pop tarts. I can't have those food around me.
~Plan your meals and don't get overly hungry.
~Make the mental choice that you are done, and stick with it.
~Don't plan one more binge and say this is the "last one". It never will be if you think that way. Your last one is already done. There are no more.
~On your MFP plan, make sure you have room for some of your favorite foods so you don't feel deprived. Feeling deprived leads to "I DESERVE a whole cheesecake cuz I've been good." No, you can have a piece of cheesecake if you log it and fit it in your day.
~Until you feel like you have your binge eating under control, do NOT have CHEAT days on mfp. This will end up being a binge day and you will start the binge cycle over again every week. Give yourself 6 months of no binges before you plan a cheat MEAL, not a whole cheat day. Cheat days are not good for us binge eaters.

I know some of that is hard to read. It's hard to admit it, even now. But I haven't had a binge since I started mpf and I was a multiple times a week binge eater. I freaked myself out a little at Easter because I planned it as a cheat day. There were chocolate treats everywhere, and I wanted to eat it all at once, all of it. It was a real test for my resolve not to binge.

I have plenty of treats in my days (diary is open to all) and I exercise too. The exercise is relatively new for me and I find it has helped my self esteem. It makes it easier to think of feeding and fueling my body, rather than using food to dull my emotions.

Hope that helps you. I accept friend requests if you find you need some support from someone has been there. (That goes for OP and anyone else.)

I'm in recovery from BED, and I couldn't agree with this more! Many people here are talking about over-eating/reactive eating, which is different than binging.

I prefer to think of the problem as poor portion control. That makes the solution simple: better portion control.

I try to buy things that are already portioned correctly, or that can easily be portioned correctly. A half gallon of ice cream has no obvious portion, so I binge on it. But a Lean Cuisine dinner is already one portion so I can't overeat it.

I also try to add crunchy veggies -- cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and celery -- to every meal. Those help me feel a little more full, and help my brain decide that I am getting the nutrients I need. I find that if I don't eat things like this first, my brain insists that even though my tummy is full, I have not gotten what I need.

Does anyone have help or advice? I'm sick of it.

If you haven't made a point of mentioning it to your doctor, that would be my first piece of advice. I suggest using the phrase out-of-control-eating rather than binging. Stress that it is a continual problem, not just a once a month issue. If s/he doesn't seem to take you seriously, INSIST that you need to be heard.

I have suffered on and off for almost 40 years and I don't want to see anyone else have to be in pain for that long. It's not necessary. If the internet existed back then the way it does now, I can't imagine it would have taken so long for me to get help. You have access to so much information now. It's not such a hidden secret to have an ED any more. There isn't as much shame attached for many of us.

Some bingers have trigger foods, some of us have emotional triggers. I'm fighting through one of my own right now. I lost control last week for three days and didn't even see it coming. Now that I recognize what happened, I am not angry or impatient with myself.....I'm accepting and am trying to find a different way to cope. The emotional trigger isn't going to go away.

I'm lucky in that I've had four years of intense therapy, but even that didn't "cure" me. It just gave me tools to try and better cope. Taking someone close to you into your confidence can help. If you find yourself in the middle of a binge attack, having someone come and be with you in person can sometimes help stop it in its tracks or at least ward it off until you feel better able to manage on your own. Last week my own friend helped me enough that I was able to take the binge food out of my house to the curb garbage bin (if I'd kept in in the house I couldn't guarantee I wouldn't have dug it out :embarassed: )

Looking at the responses, it should be obvious you are not alone. I'm sure each of us would be happy to help with any worries you might have. Feel free to lean on us. :flowerforyou:

Therapy. A support group. If you're uninsured/can't afford either, there may be online support groups that can help. Journalling has always been my free therapy, but that doesn't work for everyone.

I mean, sure, we can give you advice on how to weigh food, log calories, etc., but you have to battle the noise in your head first. Why are you binge eating? That's the first question you have to answer.

1) Look in to CBT - cognitive behavior therapy. Find a therapist or start with a self help book. It helps make you more aware of yourself and eating patterns and also more aware of your thoughts and choices leading up to your binges.

2) Don't be too restrictive in your eating. Don't try to go super low calorie and don't try to eliminate everything you love. For me, I found that when I made it part of my plan to have chocolate or peanut butter or cheesecake every day (whatever my trigger at the time seemed to be), I very quickly found that the urge to binge didn't hit like it would when I'd decide to be "good" and avoid it.

3)IF - intermittent fasting - has helped me. It may or may not be for you, but I found that when I did the 3 meals + 3 snacks or 6 mini meals a day, I constantly fought the urge to binge. I think part of it was because my meals weren't mentally satisfying...it would seem like I'd no sooner have a few bites then my meal would be gone. Now, with IF, I eat 2 large meals a day + have calories left for snacks if I need them, usually in the evening after dinner. I eat my first meal at noon and am usually done eating by about 8-10 p.m. depending on the day. Doing this also gives me those few hundred extra calories for a decent serving of ice cream, chocolate, chips and salsa, whatever I'm feeling in the mood for at the time. If nothing else, I found that this helped me, too, because I tend to binge at night, so not having a ton of calories early in the day means that if I do binge, I'm not going over my daily calories by as much as I used to.