Breaking the vicious cycle of binge eating.
Graceraeg
Posts: 84 Member
Hey everyone. I have been having a binge eating problem! I am having such a hard time stopping. I have gone about 3 weeks of clean healthy eating then I lose control and start to binge. I feel like my brain is trying to make up for calories not consumed during the good days. Has anyone else had a problem with this? How did you overcome?
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Replies
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Well, if BED is something affecting your life, I would recommend talking to a professional to see what your triggers are, and how you can avoid them.
In regards to your intake, there's no need to eat "clean"; and you'll find many people may challenge that here, since there's really no "good" or "bad" foods. Calories are calories. If you are restricting your intake to the point where you are binging, it may be time to consider moderating some foods you want into your intake. You don't need to eat chicken and broccoli for the rest of your life; if a bowl of ice cream or a cookie here and there over the week will help you avoid overeating/binging, it may be best to start practicing moderation.
I've personally never had a binging problem, but I've found that balancing snacks/treats with fresh produce/meat has helped keep me on track over a year.0 -
What I mean by clean eating is eating fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, nuts, and whole grain pasta or bread. Not things like chips, box food kind of things. On a binge I will eat ice cream, candy, chips, snacks I usually wouldn't eat.0
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I don't know. Is this an eating disorder?0
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I don't know. Is this an eating disorder?
In some cases, it can be. Sometimes it can be due to restricting one's intake. If you aren't allowing yourself stuff you want (and could fit into your intake), it can trigger a binge on those items. I balance ice cream, chips, ect with my normal intake, and I find I can be satisfied after a serving, since I don't restrict myself from those items.
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Hey! Former BED sufferer + "sugar addict" here! I found peace after working with an intuitive eating specialist and nutrition counselor for the last two years. Binge eating is triggered by:
restrictive eating, linking food to morality (such as, "A doughnut is BAD but apples are good"), feelings of guilt, "the last supper mentality," and poor self image.
It's not simple to fix, and I recommend a counselor for sure.
I had to put losing weight on the back burner during my process of undoing years of toxic ways of thinking. Read "Intuitive Eating" for a great cognitive approach. I DID gain weight during the process and am now back, with a new mentality to adopt sensible tracking and added activity in my life.
"Clean eating" is a bunch of crap. Foods are not "clean" or "dirty" and there is room in every diet for every food. If you do suffer from BED, your best bet is likely going to be avoiding restrictive diets like Paleo diet, detoxes, Atkins, low-carb, macros obsession, etc... and simply reduce quantity of food, eventually adding more movement and ADDING nutrient dense foods in.
For people with binging tendencies, it's much better to focus on adding nutrient-dense food INTO your diet, instead of focusing on what you must take out of your diet.
Good luck.
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I have/had binge eating disorder and in my case restriction is the key: I mustn't eat ice creams and cookies etc because once I start eating them, I hardly can stop.
B.E.D is a terrible thing with depression, low self-esteem and guilt, and it's always getting worse and worse :-(
Graceraeg, seeking professional help is a good idea (CBT could help a lot)0 -
Oh, a few more thoughts: Part of my road to recovery was exposure therapy and it really did work but it took a long time. I had to make a list of ALL the foods that I mentality categorized as "bad" or "dangerous" and "tempting." This list was pages, and pages long and included all the foods from my childhood that I demonized: think Twinkies, Frappucinos, cookies, pastries, pastas, breads, gummy bears, soda, ice cream, etc... I tackled one food at a time, essentially surrounding myself with it 24/7 and letting myself eat it without worry or guilt whenever I wanted. I kept sweets in the house ALL the time and I learned some valuable things:
1. I'd say 70% of the foods that I was demonizing, binging on, and obsessing over actually tasted like crap once I allowed myself to freely eat it without guilt and analyze the taste slowly and mindfully.
2. I realized that eating these foods, especially frequently and in large quantities made me physically sick, which in turn made me sick of them.
3. We want what we can't have. By the end of my first week I was craving smoothies and a raw kale salad. True story.
4. I no longer binge on sweets because whenever I want something I eat it. If I want a cookie I'll have a cookie. I don't need to eat the whole bag anymore because we have cookies around ALL THE TIME so they aren't this special "goodie." They're just f'ing cookies.
5. If your body wants the most decadent brownie sundae, don't try to fool it by getting low fat ice cream, because half the time you'll end up binging on 12 Skinny Bars to make up for one legit sundae.
Hope this helps in some small way. Losing weight is pointless if you're still carrying around pounds of issues in your head.0 -
This from experiencemissiontofitness wrote: »I don't know. Is this an eating disorder?
In some cases, it can be. Sometimes it can be due to restricting one's intake. If you aren't allowing yourself stuff you want (and could fit into your intake), it can trigger a binge on those items. I balance ice cream, chips, ect with my normal intake, and I find I can be satisfied after a serving, since I don't restrict myself from those items.
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Geneen Roth says that for every diet there is an equal and opposite binge. Restricting yourself is a lot like winding your appetites up like a coil. At some point that coil is going to bounce back with a ferocity that matches how tightly you wound it. Don't beat yourself up about it - it's perfectly normal behaviour. It's the way our brains are made.
I'm working on this now, as are some of my MFP friends. We're using a couple of books that are really helpful and very comforting. The best one is "How to Have Your Cake and Your Skinny Jeans Too" by Josie Spinardi (Awful title, damn those marketing guys - amazing book though.)
You can also try "Overcoming Overeating" by Hirschmann and Munter and "When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair" by Geneen Roth.
Each book will tell you to ditch dieting. If you aren't brave enough to do that yet, you'll still get a lot out of the ideas and tactics in them.
Every wise thing Elleelise said up there is true by the way. These books explain those things in detail.0 -
Stop restricting yourself. I had the same issue for years. I now have some form of dessert every night and don't allow myself to feel guilty about eating delicious things*. I still binge now and then but I'm finding it much less satisfying than I used to.
* I mean, I try. Not always successful lol but I don't beat myself up over it anymore.
Even if you do binge, that doesn't mean that your entire diet is ruined. Just start again the next day. Try to learn your triggers/patterns. Personally most of my binging slash hunger happens at night so I save more calories for after 4PM than I do for before that.0 -
Oh, and I also learned to just follow my craving. If I tried to replace it with something else, I'd still end up eating it anyway....so it's less calories just to go for it lol.0
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Thanks for all the helpful advice! I will look into those books recommended and talk to a counsler. It seems like its hard to do because I don't want to admit that I can not control myself sometimes with food. If I could I would go back in time to when I was younger and prevent myself from developing a bad relationship with food. I know its all in my head.0
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Oh good gracious...this is me to a T. I think my binges are due to restriction though.0
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Hey! Former BED sufferer + "sugar addict" here! I found peace after working with an intuitive eating specialist and nutrition counselor for the last two years. Binge eating is triggered by:
restrictive eating, linking food to morality (such as, "A doughnut is BAD but apples are good"), feelings of guilt, "the last supper mentality," and poor self image.
It's not simple to fix, and I recommend a counselor for sure.
I had to put losing weight on the back burner during my process of undoing years of toxic ways of thinking. Read "Intuitive Eating" for a great cognitive approach. I DID gain weight during the process and am now back, with a new mentality to adopt sensible tracking and added activity in my life.
"Clean eating" is a bunch of crap. Foods are not "clean" or "dirty" and there is room in every diet for every food. If you do suffer from BED, your best bet is likely going to be avoiding restrictive diets like Paleo diet, detoxes, Atkins, low-carb, macros obsession, etc... and simply reduce quantity of food, eventually adding more movement and ADDING nutrient dense foods in.
For people with binging tendencies, it's much better to focus on adding nutrient-dense food INTO your diet, instead of focusing on what you must take out of your diet.
Good luck.Oh, a few more thoughts: Part of my road to recovery was exposure therapy and it really did work but it took a long time. I had to make a list of ALL the foods that I mentality categorized as "bad" or "dangerous" and "tempting." This list was pages, and pages long and included all the foods from my childhood that I demonized: think Twinkies, Frappucinos, cookies, pastries, pastas, breads, gummy bears, soda, ice cream, etc... I tackled one food at a time, essentially surrounding myself with it 24/7 and letting myself eat it without worry or guilt whenever I wanted. I kept sweets in the house ALL the time and I learned some valuable things:
1. I'd say 70% of the foods that I was demonizing, binging on, and obsessing over actually tasted like crap once I allowed myself to freely eat it without guilt and analyze the taste slowly and mindfully.
2. I realized that eating these foods, especially frequently and in large quantities made me physically sick, which in turn made me sick of them.
3. We want what we can't have. By the end of my first week I was craving smoothies and a raw kale salad. True story.
4. I no longer binge on sweets because whenever I want something I eat it. If I want a cookie I'll have a cookie. I don't need to eat the whole bag anymore because we have cookies around ALL THE TIME so they aren't this special "goodie." They're just f'ing cookies.
5. If your body wants the most decadent brownie sundae, don't try to fool it by getting low fat ice cream, because half the time you'll end up binging on 12 Skinny Bars to make up for one legit sundae.
Hope this helps in some small way. Losing weight is pointless if you're still carrying around pounds of issues in your head.
I think both of the above are great words of wisdom. I still struggle with binging (just see my diary from yesterday). I personally have not spoken with a professional about it, but I'm rather stubborn about trying to tackle this on my own.
I have however done much better since increasing my calories in general to a moderate deficit, and incorporating "treats" into my everyday diet. For a long time I could not have sweets in the house at all without binging. And I had no clue what an actual serving size was for sweets. That said, the binges weren't due just to having sweets around the house. If I stopped buying any of that stuff, I'd binge on bread, cans of corn, or basically anything I could get my hands on.
To start, I stopped buying trigger foods. I didn't keep chips, candy, ice cream, or bread in my house. After I got used to not having those around, I'd buy things like a single serving of gelato out at a store where they weighed out the portions for product control. So I got used to a 3oz serving of gelato (and discovered that quality products are actually far more satiating in smaller portions because they are full of flavor).
That combined with increasing my calories so that I don't have a drastic deficit has helped. They aren't completely gone, but I usually do much better. I think the bigger thing I've found is that if I'm just sitting on my couch all day, I feel that I must eat. And it has nothing to do with actual hunger. It's the mentality of this that I need to work on now...0
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