Stop Binge Eating

Stop binge eating and food won’t call your name. If you have a food addiction, here’s how to end it. No need to stuff yourself and feel guilty.

When you stop, the freezer won’t be calling your name. You won’t finish the box of cookies when you told yourself ‘just one’.  You won’t feel that food controls you, you’ll feel in control.

If these messages speak to you, be assured that:

You’re an emotional eater but you can be helped!

How to Stop Binge Drinking

Binge eating is commonly attributed to young women, but older women, men and boys also suffer ~ and not all binge eaters are overweight.

You may be thin and toned, well-groomed or disheveled. You can live in the city or in a rural area, be employed, be educated or not.  Binge eating affects people from all walks of life. Anyone can be a binge eater, but the common link between of of them is guilt.

Many Bingers eat normally, or go on diets. They can feel very confident for awhile, but then, often for no apparent reason, they have an overwhelming urge to consume uncontrollably.

Binging can be a cycle ~ eat normally, then binge ~ and then they feel very guilty, telling themselves that it’s the ‘last time’.

Causes of Binge Eating

Fear of weight Gain

Obsessing

Guilt

Anxiety 

Binge eating is considered emotional eating because when you’re not eating because you're hungry. Binging is a misdirected attempt to satisfy an emotional need -- such as anger, or an escape from stress or boredom. This is about feelings, and when you binge on food, what you’re doing is escaping your feelings.

Food & Binge Eating

There are many reasons for eating. The obvious one is that we need to eat to survive, but from our earliest years, we've learned that we can get attention by eating, not eating, having particular preferences etc.We can have a love/hate relationship with food.  Our relationship with food can be have many meanings. 

Memories --  smells & tastes can bring you back in time.

Feelings -- How we feel about our bodies (fat, thin, ugly etc) 

Escape – We can eat and escape from reality – just like an alcoholic, a gambler or any other addiction. When you binge, or are a compulsive over eater, you get into a zone – and now you’re not thinking of the problem at all – until you stop binge eating.

Then you’re too stuffed or sick to think about it. So essentially binging is a dysfunctional way of coping with situations or thoughts that you’d prefer to avoid.

Obviously, it’s not simple to just to stop binge eating. Binging becomes a habit and there are many triggers that set you on the roller-coaster.

Steps to Stop Binge Eating

Think Ask yourself if food is really what you want

Ask Yourself– are you really hungry, bored, what’s going on???

Look at Yourself. Are you sitting down at the table or raiding the pantry?

Triggers Notice when you’re eating. Are you tired, or are you bored?

Being mindful and understanding your rituals around food is imperative because binge eating can be a compulsive behavior.

To stop binge eating, the first thing you must do is to be observant -- catch yourself doing it. Ask yourself what's really going on. Maybe you're tired, or lonely. If those are your answers, go to sleep,so you can change, reach out to friends or be resolved to make new ones.

Binge eating won't solve your problems, it will make more.

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Binge Eating Foods

Ice cream

Chocolate

Chips,

Cookies,

Pasta

Fast food

All these are on top of the list. Binge eaters crave unhealthy choices – high fat and carbs.

I have never heard of a binge eater devouring a 10 lb bag of carrots. The cravings are always about eating high calorie foods – eating them quickly, while staring at the TV or computer, standing at the kitchen sink or at the fridge door ~ Never sitting down respectably at the table.

And that's another key. Emotional eaters have little respect for the food they're eating. There is a real love/hate relationship.

When you eat fast, the brain cannot signal that you’re full. You become stuffed and you may have put away a huge amount of calories.

Emotional eaters eat quickly and mindlessly. 

  Although binge eating and all addictive behavior gives you a short-term escape, it does not bring long term relief. On the contrary ~ after you stop, you will feel even worse. 

Binge eaters, escape their emotions by stuffing themselves. For a short time, all feelings disappear. Just like a gambler stuffing yourself puts you in a 'zone'. For a short time, you think about nothing ~ till you stop. Then there's no dealing with anything. You feel down and depressed. You feel angry with yourself and guilty for your actions ~ and once again you promise yourself not to do this again...and again...and again.

Binging eating is a compulsive behavior, but you can be helped.

There are 12 step groups like Overeaters Anonymous, that can support you. But if you're an emotional eater remember, it's not about dieting. You know all too well what you should or should not eat. Every diet will work as long as you're on the diet. So what's going on with the binge?

This is not about food. You're on an emotional roller-coaster.

When you've untwisted your thinking, everything will come together ~ no diet necessary. You'll make the right choices -- guilt free. You won't sabotage yourself by binging. When you free yourself from emotional eating, it won't be a struggle. You'll allow yourself and be the person your want to be.

From Stop Binge Eating to Stop Being Addicted