Anyone have experience with combating Binge Eating Disorder B.E.D or night time eating?
GYMFOCUSED1
Posts: 8 Member
Just curious how people combat B.E.D or night time eating. Any tips, experiences, and strategic methods?
3
Replies
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I sure wish I knew the answer to this! What has helped me is eating enough so I don't end up starving. I get on this binge/starve cycle. I am now trying to eat more so I don't get so hungry I end up binging. Hope this helps.
Best to you.6 -
I sure wish I knew the answer to this! What has helped me is eating enough so I don't end up starving. I get on this binge/starve cycle. I am now trying to eat more so I don't get so hungry I end up binging. Hope this helps.
Best to you.
This. The body compensates for lack of food by ramping up hunger hormones especially ghrelin and cortisol. Eating enough is what helped me.7 -
Getting enough sleep is one part of it. If you don't sleep enough, your hormones shift and you will be hungrier.
I find that exercise and generally doing things all day helps, because then I don't want to stay up and eat all night, when it's bedtime, I want to go to sleep, I'm tired! So figure up how much sleep you need to be rested, count back from when you need to get up, and there's your bedtime.
I also have found that personally a snack with protein, fat, and carbs in it is what I need before bed. Currently that is cheese and crackers, but everyone has their own way of handling this.
Past that it's figuring out my triggers and working out ways to handle them. My binging feeds on secrecy and shame; I handle it by telling my partners when I'm doing it or telling them that I did it last night. I get munchy when I'm in pain. (I have chronic pain.) Often the proper thing to do if I am munchy in the evening is for me to take the evening batch of pills, and wait fifteen minutes; often then I am no longer munchy and restless, and can just do something else. Like going to bed on time.
Cause if you go to bed on time, you sleep through all those problematic snacking hours!7 -
Been doing IF for a year and a half. It is the ONLY thing that's ever helped me with binging (and especially, night time binging). I eat between noon and 7pm. I couldn't begin to articulate why IF has helped me conquer binging where nothing else has; all I can do is report the results. Something about having a "rule" or "system". Also, I've gotten used to it and so hunger pangs, binge cravings, and such, have been greatly reduced. Especially the binge cravings - massively reduced with IF.
I never binged because I was hungry; I binged because I wanted to binge. Hundreds of times in my life, I finished dinner quickly with people so that I could go out by myself and get what I really wanted: a pizza, or BBQ beef sandwich, or a couple of Big Macs, or a cheese steak, or a party size bag of Doritos. Literally minutes after eating a 1,000 calorie meal. This is why I question - for SOME not all people - whether macros, nutrient density, will make any difference at all for binging. I binged when I was hungry. I binged when I was full. I binged when I was stuffed and knew I'd feel sick from binging. It had nothing to do with macros and there was nothing I could've eaten or not eaten before the binge that would've prevented it, at least I don't think so - you never know.
IF has been very, very helpful for me, but not might be for you. It works for some, but not for others. All I can say is, I am 57 and at no point since I was 5 or 6 have I had such self-confident control over my own eating habits. I do occasionally slip up, though, which serves as a useful reminder that once a binger, always a binger, even if you're not binging this day/week/month.
Separate from that, I have gradually fine-tuned my diet (and also the kinds of foods available in the house) away from the junky stuff I love, toward healthier fare. This doesn't "prevent" binging, per se, but you can only eat so many sardines or blackberries, versus chips, candy bars, ice cream. So even if you go crazy some night at 3 am, you'll consume 300 or 500 calories instead of 4,000, and your diet will be in tact, which in fact makes it easier to stay on plan and less likely you'll binge going forward. It's a lot easier to control a nighttime binge if there's nothing good in the house to binge.
Good luck.6 -
I stopped over restricting, or letting a bad day make me think of restricting.
And therapy.2 -
Staying busy and engaged. I start to feel 'hungry', even 'starving', when I'm understimulated.
...do not ask how the Covid lockdowns and restrictions have gone for me...8 -
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I sure wish I knew the answer to this! What has helped me is eating enough so I don't end up starving. I get on this binge/starve cycle. I am now trying to eat more so I don't get so hungry I end up binging. Hope this helps.
Best to you.
This. The body compensates for lack of food by ramping up hunger hormones especially ghrelin and cortisol. Eating enough is what helped me.
Yes I have to try this also! thanks for the suggestion0 -
AlexandraFindsHerself1971 wrote: »Getting enough sleep is one part of it. If you don't sleep enough, your hormones shift and you will be hungrier.
I find that exercise and generally doing things all day helps, because then I don't want to stay up and eat all night, when it's bedtime, I want to go to sleep, I'm tired! So figure up how much sleep you need to be rested, count back from when you need to get up, and there's your bedtime.
I also have found that personally a snack with protein, fat, and carbs in it is what I need before bed. Currently that is cheese and crackers, but everyone has their own way of handling this.
Past that it's figuring out my triggers and working out ways to handle them. My binging feeds on secrecy and shame; I handle it by telling my partners when I'm doing it or telling them that I did it last night. I get munchy when I'm in pain. (I have chronic pain.) Often the proper thing to do if I am munchy in the evening is for me to take the evening batch of pills, and wait fifteen minutes; often then I am no longer munchy and restless, and can just do something else. Like going to bed on time.
Cause if you go to bed on time, you sleep through all those problematic snacking hours!
Yes my sleeping is horrible so thats something i need to try to improve
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New_Heavens_Earth wrote: »I stopped over restricting, or letting a bad day make me think of restricting.
And therapy.
Interesting you mention therapy, I considered this0 -
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GYMFOCUSED1 wrote: »New_Heavens_Earth wrote: »I stopped over restricting, or letting a bad day make me think of restricting.
And therapy.
Interesting you mention therapy, I considered this
Therapy is the only thing that helped me. I had to get my mental health under control, switching coping mechanisms didn't really help me.2 -
Hey there! I do. It started years ago when I was so in shape and really “watching what I ate”. Eventually I allowed myself “cheat days” and that’s when hell broke lose. All week, I restricted myself so much i would look forward to cheat day all week, it’s all I would think about. When cheat day came, I would binge so much because of course we binge eaters have the All or Nothing mentality. My stomach hurt so bad by the end of the day.
These cheat day eventually led to cheat weeks, cheat months, and eventually weight gain not to mention guilt and Shame.
It was a cycle for years, lose weight, binge, gain weight etc.
I cannot explain this but some days I’d eat healthy and in the night while sleeping, I’d wake up to go to the bathroom and it’s almost as if I didn’t have control of my body. I would open the fridge and eat something like chocolate or cookies, etc. the next morning I would think, huh? Why did I do that? Up to now, I’m still not sure. Now I try to avoid these sweet and snack to have around the house at all. It’s a trigger!
Fast Forward: I accepted I’m a binge eater and it’s been months of me eating healthy and losing weight. What am I doing different?
-I internally accepted my weight loss journey as a life style, not a diet!
-I don’t starve myself. I am in a calorie deficit but I also listen to my body. If I eat very little, that’s when my body is starving in the night and binges get triggered. I try and avoid that by eating healthy satisfying foods.
-I cook foods I enjoy so I’m not so restrictive. I make my diet a part of my normal life, not something temporary.
-intermittent fasting
-when I do have cheat days and cheat meals, I mentally prepare myself to avoid the feeling of GUILT. This is a big one for me. I view this day as a normal day, no shame. The next day, back to making healthy choices.
-I try my hardest to not view foods as good or bad, black and white.
Hope this helps! Binge eating is dangerous because we are addicted to something our life needs every day, food. I am not 100% there yet but I’m in better shape physically and mentally!
Best of luck, I’m sure you can too. Just takes times 😊
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