Binge Eating

Hi there,

You are definitely not alone in this. I've experienced this feeling several times throughout my life, and still struggle with it from time to time.

If you're anything like me, you've probably told yourself countless times that you'll stop, but for some reason, you find yourself repeating the same cycle over and over again. It feels like no matter how confident you are that you will stop, it just doesn't happen.

From my experience, binge eating is almost always a sign of other underlying issues, and the food is being used as a way to comfort yourself from those things. And although the food does provide that comfort, it's not actually good in the long run.

Of course, everything has different stages to it. I dont know exactly how much you're eating, or what you're eating, or your overall health, but if you're reaching out for help, then I have to assume that it's affecting you in various negative ways.

For me, I had a lot of issues that I was dealing with, and was using the food to help heal, but in reality, it was only making things worse. The problem is, you can't always fix those other issues in the immediate future. So with me, I had to get the food under control first.

For me, I knew that shutting everything down, cold turkey, wasn't going to work. It just wasn't realistic. So I started slow. For example, potato chips were a problem for me, and I would buy multiple bags at a time, for variety. So instead, I bought a single bag, and tried to make it last for a few days. I started to treat that bag as a luxury item, rather than a constant, only taking a bit of it at a time. I knew that each bowl only contained x amount of chips, so I would take my time with them, and spread them across the session in which I was eating them.

It was painful in the beginning, but I've always found that if you can survive just a few days of restricting yourself, that it becomes much easier after. Your activities during these binge sessions may also be problematic in the beginning. For example, most of my eating took place while I was watching tv shows, because I've always associated food with entertainment. And because I would watch a lot of tv, I would binge eat a lot, hours upon hours, at a time.

The best solution actually became, to cut back on my viewing hours, because when I wasnt watching tv, I wasnt eating as much. So I did, I took a break, and instead, switched to playing games, where my hands were more occupied. I noticed a big change after that, and slowly but surely, my intake began to decrease.

Of course, the best solution is to avoid spending too much time with video games, or tv shows, in general, while focusing more on being outside, or just away from your house as much as possible, but I understand that this isn't always possible for everybody.

My best advice is to just take it slow. Slowly cut back, and force yourself to ration your own snacks. It'll be painful for a few days, but after those few days, you'll teach yourself, and your body, that it's possible to live without the excess.

Anyway, sorry for writing a novel, haha, but I hope I helped in some way, and if not, feel free to ask me anything else you'd like, and I'll gladly listen :)

@Daylily1 Hug to you! Your friends are assholes for making fun of you. Tell them so. I would do that anyways. That being said: I know overeating and binging can be hard. I have done that myself.