If you’re struggling with binge eating, or even in the middle of a binge right now, you’re not alone.
I’ve been there too, and I want to help you figure out exactly how to leave binge eating behind.
Binge eating disorder (BED) is a serious mental health condition characterised by recurrent episodes of binge eating.
It is to eat a large amount of food in a short period of time, often until you feel uncomfortably full. People with BED often feel a loss of control over their eating during these episodes.
BED can have a significant negative impact on your physical and mental health. It can lead to weight gain, obesity, and other health problems such as heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, but arguably more importantly, BED can also cause feelings of guilt, shame, and isolation.
While there is an official diagnosis, there’s thousands more people who will never get a doctor's sign of approval, but will struggle for years or even decades without reaching out for help.
While it is possible to recover alone, it’s usually an extremely long and difficult road. Those who work with a professional to create change in their lives are likely to see change much sooner, and stick around with much more consistency.
However, there are things you can do to start your journey to finding peace with food:
Eat regular meals and snacks. Skipping meals can lead to binge eating, so it is important to eat regular meals and snacks throughout the day. Aim to eat at least three meals and two snacks per day.
Start to try and understand your hunger again. It’s likely that after years of dieting and restriction you think “I just don’t feel full any more” or “I can always eat”. It feels like your body is broken, but it’s not. You need to let it communicate with you again, and be ready to listen. Try to notice when you start getting hungry, and let yourself eat. Ask yourself why you’re eating, is it because I’ve always emptied my plate? Is it because I’ve restricted myself previously and my body is nervous there won’t be any food later?
Challenge yourself to remove distractions when you’re eating. Cook food and take time to enjoy it without TV/Phone/iPad.
Look for some healthy coping mechanisms. Are there activities that help you win over the urge to binge? Which activities help motivate you to choose a different path? Maybe it’s exercise, relaxation techniques, hobbies, or spending time with family and friends. Know that you always have this to fall back on if you’re really struggling.
Be patient and kind to yourself. Recovery from BED takes time and effort. If you expect there to be ups and downs, and use any set back as an opportunity to learn and future proof your recovery, you’ll progress a lot quicker than letting those experiences drag you down.
Here are some additional tips that are helpful to work through in preparation to talking to a binge eating coach:
Identify your triggers. What are the things that make you want to binge eat? Is it really only situational, or is there something emotional behind it? Are you really eating enough or is your body actually hungry?
Identify your vulnerabilities. It could be that sometimes a trigger occurs, but you don’t follow through with the action to binge. What emotions, physical states, feelings make you vulnerable to following through on a binge action?
Understand the impact of structure. Some people binge eat because their daily habits point towards a binge, others mainly binge when the structure of their diet / lifestyle is broken or changes. Which do you relate to most?
How do you feel about eating in company? Would you binge eat if other people were present? Do social food occasions become stressful or are they enjoyable?
It is important to remember that you are not alone. Many people struggle with binge eating. I know how trapped you feel and how powerless you feel to change, but I promise it is possible.
A single blog post isn’t enough to stop you from binge eating (you know that because if it was, you’d have stopped a long time ago) but the ideas in here are the start to your journey. If you can action even just one of the points above you’re already 10x ahead of the version of you that took no action.
If you’re interested in how I work as a binge eating recovery coach, and what options we have available here for coaching, submit the form here and I’ll be in touch asap.