Binges?

janejellyroll wrote: »

atgnat1 wrote: »

Well this thread has been pretty eye opening. I'm definitely not going to call my instances of careless overeating 'binges' anymore as going by some of the examples given in this thread the term really does seem to refer more to something psychological at work way beyond anything I've ever experienced.

In my experience, people use the word in two ways here. Some people are referring to overeating, some people are referring to an actual ED. When it's not clarified, it can sometimes get confusing.

Yeah, a lot of people will use binge and overeat interchangeably, which is common irl. I will sometimes clarify the disordered binge eating as a "true binge" to distinguish it from emotional or mindless overeating.

Running_and_Coffee wrote: »

I don't have BED but have a few techniques for dealing with the urge to eat when I'm not actually hungry: I drink copious amounts of water and tea, or I chew gum (a lot of it.) The gum chewing probably isn't good for me, either (sucralose volume) but sometimes I just really want to chew something, and this way, I'm not getting any extra calories that I'd later regret. Apologies if this is more about the serious side of bingeing vs. simply eating when you're not hungry....

You are good, I think the OP didn't realize there tends to be a difference and thought it was based on calorie count. I think those are good tips to prevent mindless eating and cravings. I definitely chew gum because sometimes I just want something in my mouth.

I think the word binge is used universally to indicate someone has eaten something or somethings they wish they hadn’t.

It becomes a challenge to understand whether the binge was one rooted in pieces of BED where the solution is eating disorder treatment (and really nothing else), or whether someone ate a cookie they didn’t mean to - where a number of techniques can be helpful.

I’m not begrudging anyone choosing to indicate that cookie incident as a binge. The word “binge” has become commonplace in our language for all kinds of behaviors.

But it does muddy the waters some and make it difficult to provide real help if someone needs ED treatment but is told to just distract themself or up their calories - or someone who ate a cookie is told to seek ED treatment.

RelCanonical wrote: »

Duck_Puddle wrote: »

I think the word binge is used universally to indicate someone has eaten something or somethings they wish they hadn’t.

It becomes a challenge to understand whether the binge was one rooted in pieces of BED where the solution is eating disorder treatment (and really nothing else), or whether someone ate a cookie they didn’t mean to - where a number of techniques can be helpful.

I’m not begrudging anyone choosing to indicate that cookie incident as a binge. The word “binge” has become commonplace in our language for all kinds of behaviors.

But it does muddy the waters some and make it difficult to provide real help if someone needs ED treatment but is told to just distract themself or up their calories - or someone who ate a cookie is told to seek ED treatment.

It's definitely still a muddy situation, and still is for more commonly talked-about disorders like anorexia. I think people have gotten a lot better in this forum about questioning the person about how they feel about whatever poor eating action they took, and it's helped to distinguish the two. I agree that's it's far from perfect, though, and have gone into some threads thinking people are totally overreacting, and gone into others thinking "why is no one seeing the red flags?"

Exactly.