I can't stop eating!

i love to eat, its my hobby, my drug of choice. I started my journey as a chef and culinary school at 17 and now 12 years later with a masters in nutrition. Suffice to say my entire adult life has surrounded itself around eating amd food. I have no adive other then if you dont wana stop munching go be more active. I want to eat like an adult male body builder, and i am a 5'2 120 pound sedentary woman haha. My bmr is 1300 I go and work out and do active things litteraly for the point of getting to eat more.

Cough Drops. Strong ones that make you not want to put food in your mouth.

peachybum21 wrote: »

Ok, so for those who are pedantic - I can stop eating, its not like i'll die if I stop stuffing my face.

Technically speaking the opposite of this is true. If you stopped eating eventually you would in fact die. You'll die one day anyway even if you keep eating. Just later. Unless something non-food related kills you sooner of course. Tons of variables here.

I try not to buy the junk that I know I can't stay out of. I don't buy chips or chocolate, because it never ends well. Its difficult to keep this stuff out of the house sometimes because I live with my parents, but I tell myself that its their food and I'm not allowed to have it.

For salt cravings, I do keep 98% fat free single serve popcorn available. For sweets, I can usually satisfy it with some cereal.

This is me now after I stopped working out and eating right since March. I have been in carb craving overload. I think mine is due to changes at my age. Anyway, I agree that having it around is making it harder so I am going to do as others suggest and get it out of the house. I will say that when I ate more protein at all of my meals I did not crave food as much. Try upping your protein intake. As for when you are watching tv, if you must eat something switch to low calorie items such as popcorn or eat a protein like yogurt.

Are you struggling with binge eating? Or just struggling to limit how much you eat in a day? For example do you eat an uncontrollable, obscene amount of food or do you just eat more than you should, but not to the point where you are going to be sick.

If you are struggling with binge eating, here is a general framework that I developed from my own story to get start. Feel free to ask questions, so I can further understand and reverse engineer a solution for you.

First, admit there was a problem. For three going on four years, I blamed externals, my drive, and my dreams for my actions. Ignoring people in my life hinting at me that I may have a problem, including family, close friends, and girlfriend. I lied to myself, rationalizing it with the mask of a cheat meal. As the punishment for binging increased so did the amount of times I binged. At first once a week, then every couple days, every other, until it consumed my thoughts. At times I would drive to Walmart just to eat it all before coming home. Chances are if you are reading this it is because you are looking for help. Good for you, you are lightyears ahead of where I was!

Second, I learned to love myself for me, as a matter of fact I am still learning how to do this. Today, the emulated physique is seen as happiness. It is published on social media, magazines, and posters as the symbol of happiness. I believed it, I chased it and chased it. I had it for some time and I was still just as miserable. How you look will not make you happy! Now don’t twist those words as an excuse to just let ourselves become overweight. Chances are you will break step 1 which is lying and rationalizing it. We have to learn to accept our imperfections. We all have them and everyone tries to hide them. Here are my flaws (some I can fix, others are what they are):
Relationships: I am aweful. I wrecked a 15 year friendship with a highschool sweetheart, I was selfish and an *kitten*. I can also be abrasive and brutal with little to no compassion. However ever since I shared this personal story, I have gotten better. Although I am by no means finished working on this.
Skin Damage: I never wore sunscreen as a kid. Now I have moles, freckles, and scars. Some I wish weren’t there. Some girls won’t talk to me because of them. I am not “sexy” enough. They aren’t “interested”.

Don’t let your imperfections stop you from loving yourself. You are the only you this world will ever see, embrace yourself. Perhaps the worst thing about this cycle was I hated myself, I hated my life, I did not want to look in the mirror, I thought I was a failure that I would never make it, I contemplated suicide. When I would binge, I would punish myself. Don’t do that we are human, life is meant to be enjoyed. Life is much too short to never treat yourself to what you love to eat whatever that maybe for you. Look yourself in the mirror directly into your eyes saying “I LOVE myself” at least 10 times a day, if not more. P.S. try not to smile when you say this (harder than you think).

Thirdly, there is no such thing as good food, bad food. Placing labels on food, leads us to ban them from our intake. We say, “No, No, No, No, No…” We push for the perfect diet, once we eat this food that does not fall into this neat diet box; we throw our hands up, saying we failed so now is the time to eat everything we can. This leads to punishment. Which leads to more restrictions. This is the vicious cycle we as binge eaters face. I used to believe it myself, that there was clean food and bad food. It simply is this manifested idea. If you ask a vegan, he/she will say animal based foods are not clean. Someone who is a vegetarian will disagree, and say it is just animal products that are not clean. Then a paleo guy runs in screaming about how meat is clean, but grains aren’t. So someone has to be right? They are all wrong. Instead, adopt my grandmother’s wise old adage of “everything in moderation.” AKA IIFYM

Fourth, going along the lines of moderation. You can eat whatever you want just not all at once. I believe I heard Layne Norton say this, I believe this, like the 11th commandment, in fact it should be an amendment to the constitution. When I first began to escape cycle, I would eat one “treat” at every meal. Nothing crazy, but it will allow you still get your “fix” but you won’t binge on it. Any action in the right direction gave me more motivation and encouragement to keep improving. The small wins kept snowballing into large victories later that slammed the door on binging. Disclaimer, it is wiser to eat this food item from a plate not from the container. Don’t test your will to fight binging if you do not have too. As the old saying goes, “work smarter, not harder.”

Fifth, no more crazy spreadsheets and tracking of nutrients line item by line item like an accountant. I did not worry about counting calories and the works. I would instead eat (3) meals, breakfast, lunch and supper possibly a snack if I was hungry. I would eat slowly, and as I began to feel fuller I would stop eating. You may be like me and scared that you’ll get fat. Well what is our other choice? We can keep binge eating which is not working, because you wouldn’t be reading this. Or we can reach out and try something new. I need to be conscious of my eating, instead of speed eating (still struggle at times).

Sixth, 180, 190, 160, 225, 200…what number was it going to be today I thought I as I closed my eyes scared to look down at the scale after a night of binging (these were all weights I reached during this cycle). You do not need a scale to help you. It’s about small wins, small wins, they add up trust me; I have been there too. Most people overestimate the damage of a binge. You need to eat in excess of 3500 calories over your normal intake to gain a pound of fat. It is not as bad as we create in our minds. Additionally, when we stand on the scale after a binge our body is bloated, full of food, sodium, and other goodies. This only compounds the guilt feeling.

It is your lucky day! I said six, but here is a seventh tip. So, what about eating at restaurants and parties? Parties were my kryptonite, the amount of food that I saw and I thought I had to eat three people’s worth of everything. What helped me to win at parties was I made this a game in my head (who cares no one else knows..plus now you know I did it). I am very competitive; I hate losing even if it’s go fish with a girlfriend (I will be a terrible father I will never let my kids win). Since eating slower and not getting seconds was a struggle at first. The game I created was to be the last one done eating, and the last one to get seconds. This helped me in many ways, first to help me eat slower I talked with people, this helped to repair the relationships I had damaged in the past, plus I was not over eating (win/win). Which is why I was last to get seconds, so often I would eat so quick that my stomach didn’t even know it was fed until I was already 4-5 plates of heaping food deep.

Make that eight, workout for fun! For so long in this process I trained for results no I do not mean goals; I simply worked out to look good that’s it! It was the complete wrong direction, it made training no fun, I dreaded every gym session, and was having a miserable time. It doesn’t matter if you are into bodybuilding, figure, physique, cross fit, powerlifting, strongman, marathons, etc. just train for fun, train to get better and challenge yourself. For me this was powerlifting.

@peachybum21 that doesn't sound like an obscene amount of food, let's just say....indulgent. Did you finish the whole bag of crisps in one go? That would be obscene. On my worst days I'd finish a loaf of bread in a single day but even so my therapist said that was not binge eating.

I think you've got some stubborn old habits with a dash of hedonism on the side. Habits can be turned or modified to more productive activities.

I humbly suggest that you get a large supply of celery and jicama. Choose to munch on that. For one, it's much lower calorie than your crisps. For two, it's much higher fiber than your crisps.

Don't keep junk in the house. Eat high volume meals (choosing foods that give larger amounts for fewer calories, like vegetables, fruits, and some other things like salted popcorn, and limiting low volume foods that are the opposite like baked goods, sweets, fatty things, and added fat and oils to cook with) Everyone like SOME healthy things so list what those are and base your food intake around them. But to state it again, just Don't Keep It In The House! Don't set yourself up for failure. Fill your stomach on low-calorie things and fit some small higher calorie things in where you can, not the other way around.