Binge Eating - HELP!

I am a HUGE binge eater. I like my snacks. We have kids but you wouldn't know it to look in our pantry. We do not keep chips and the like in our house - primarily because of me. But I have kept myself in check by doing a few things:

1. I buy snacks for me - smart snacks. WW string cheese sticks, Jello fat/sugar free snack cups, 1/2 fat ice cream (HUGE fan), etc. Find your things you can't give up and don't deny them. Find healthier versions and measure out the servings in to baggies or snack cups. This way you won't be tempted to take another scoop, or 3, from the ice cream container.

2. Prepare. I make healthy snacks too. I eat my celery sticks (stuffed with a laughing cow wedge usually). I pre slice my veggies on Sunday for my snacks for the week. It really does help. But planning out your meals, and snacks for the week, helps. It doesn't mean that on Monday you'll have A for breakfast, B for morning snack, and C for lunch. It means that you have healthy options already picked out, prepared, and ready to go.

3. I eat about every 2 hours. You would think it's hard to do, but actually rather simple. An alarm on a phone or watch helps. I'm not talking full meals. For me, breakfast is the hardest meal to conquer. Getting up at 6am and preparing kids' lunches and breakfasts and getting myself ready at the same time. I don't want to eat so early in the morning after getting up. So I eat my breakfast over several hours: I eat within an hour of getting up - something small, like a cereal bar and maybe a little glass of non-fat milk to wash it down. 2 hours later, a piece of protein/fruit/or carbs (egg/orange/cereal), 2 hours later again, but I do not eat what I already consumed - but no double dipping (ex: no seconds on carbs). By lunch, I will have eaten a complete and full breakfast (all food groups). Repeat with my lunch (extending over several hours). Dinner is eaten as one meal. I find by dinner I am not ravenous, or even hungry enough to eat all that is on my plate in one sitting.

4. Have your snacks. After dinner, we have dessert, EVERY night. I LOVE ice cream, hence the reason why I pre scoop 1/2 cup snack cups ahead of time of a 'healthier' option. Jello pudding cups are great too (Cherry cheesecake - YUM!) I also have fruit sorbet tubes, frozen go-gurt, No Pudge brownies (these are a minute to mix and a minute to microwave 1 serving).

I've bought chips, cheese curls, and more at one time or another because I wanted them. The smart thing is that I always buy the healthier ones (baked lays) and I always put them in prepackaged, premeasured baggies for grab and go. With eating every 2 hours or so, I have found my cravings for these items to be way down. I've now gotten to the point where I RARELY want junkfood snacks. Even in instances where I have been up late at night at the store, and checked out with more than what I wanted (chips at checkout), I make better choices in choosing what to eat and I don't end up eating the whole thing. I think your tummy gets used to the ACTUAL serving size and your cravings subside after you've consumed it.

I should note that the 'prepackaged' sized that come from the manufacturers, like soda, is not usually for 1 serving. They can also be mismarked. I still can't figure out why the individual package of baked lays has more chips for 1 serving than what the big bag says 1 serving is.

There are certain foods that trigger me and I can't stop eating anything after I take a bite. Mine is cheese and anything carby. I feel your pain. Hang in there

Wow, lots of good advice in this discussion.

Ya know, we're all different. I used to binge and then feel bad about it. Although I don't think it was ever tied to emotions. More just if it was in the house, it kept calling my name. For awhile, I just didn't have anything in the house but that wasn't really fair to my family. And I would still binge when I was out somewhere, like a party or other social event, so it really didn't fix the problem anyway, just lessened how often I did it.

I started realizing that I had certain food labeled as bad foods and, if I ate them, I was bad, too, so I didn't deserve to be thin anyway so I might as well eat them. One day I was having lunch with a friend who has always been very slender, my husband thinks she's too thin...ya know, the type that was rid of her pregnancy weight in just a couple of months and such. Well, for years when we went out I would be jealous because she would order a meal and dessert, eat the dessert first, and then just eat a bit of her meal, box up the rest and take it home to eat for lunch the next day. I've seen her do that numerous times with jealousy as I picked at a salad or some other lower calorie choice. Then I had an Ah-Ha! moment.

Thin people splurge. Yes, every single one I know splurges. They eat "bad" food but they stay thin. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me.

Now I splurge when I want to, during my entire weight loss. And I never feel the least bit guilty about it anymore. There are no bad foods and I'm not bad if I eat them. I'm simply human. I'll simply log it in and eat what I need to keep within my calorie target for the day around the splurge item. I also zig-zag my calories throughout the week, with my real goal being my weekly calorie target, not my daily, so I do have days where I don't eat enough and I can "bank" those to "spend" later. If I know I have a dinner out to a nice restaurant or other social event with good food coming up, I'll consciously bank a few calories to spend at it so I don't go over my weekly goal. So I might have a day or two over my daily calorie target but not over my weekly due to the lower calorie days. It works quite well and I never feel deprived anymore.

And now I can have junk food in my house and not be tempted. If I decide I want something, I measure out a portion, eat it, and I'm done. No more binges. I know I can have it if I want it and I often decide, more often than not, that it's not what I want or should be eating right now. It's nice to have home-made cookies and other baked items in my freezer as well as ice cream and such for when guests pop in, crackers and chips in the cupboards, etc. I am ready for guests because I don't feel a need to eat them up anymore. It's a lovely feeling.

I have to admit, there are a few items (mainly overly sweet cereals like Cocoa Puffs, Cap'n Crunch, Lucky Charms that I can't have in the house because those are my trigger foods.

Another tip: there is a lot of research showing the flexible dieters are more successful in the long run, both at achieving their goal and maintaining it. So this is something to think about and see if you can switch your thinking to be more flexible.

Last tip: A lot of experts in the field of weight loss believe that people should occasionally take a full break from dieting. It's not only good to do psychologically but also physically as it raises leptin levels, increases your metabolism, and other hormonal changes that, when you start dieting again, help you be more successful. Most of the recommendations are taking at least one full week off every 2-3 months, or even two weeks off.

I've done this like over the holidays, while on vacation, and it's wonderful, I rarely gain more than 1-2# and it usually comes back off during the first week of returning to my reduced calorie plan.

Best wishes. I hope you can find something that works for you.

*hugs* I am a recovering binge eater, so I know how you feel. Here are my tricks:

In the SHORT term: I write down what I want to eat in a little notebook and tell myself I can have it later. There is something about writing it down and promising myself that I can have it eventually that helps. Part of me binges because there is a voice in my head that says, "What if I can never have this again? Someone else might eat it! It might go bad! I should eat it now!" If I write it down, I feel better, and then I often forget about it later.

For the LONG term, I keep a journal where I write down how I am feeling when I want to binge. Over time, I have identified my triggers and realized that my binges are very emotionally driven. Stress makes me fake-hungry. I'm not actually hungry, but I don't feel good and I am pretty sure that food will make me feel better. I journal to try to understand why I don't feel good and try to then solve the actual problem rather than stuffing my feelings temporarily with food.

I also have identified foods that are "dangerous" for me, you know, the ones where I can't have just one. Most simple carbs are like that for me. It takes a lot of self control, but I do everything I can to avoid bread and pasta because I have very little self control after taking that first bite!

Progress, not perfection. Over time, I am slowly getting better at controlling my bad habits. I mess up, but I just keep telling myself that I am making progress and that is really what counts.

I hope this helps!