To beg you for help on stopping binging

Would giving up sugar include fruit and stuff like white bread?

I also used to have a huge sugar addiction. And it was a genuine addition because the more I ate, the more I needed. And I'd start hiding from people what I was eating and gobbling huge bags of sweets just to get my fix.

You have to see it for what it is. Like heroin. You can't just have a little bit of heroin. The only way to beat it is to get rid of it entirely. It's so weird but then you just don't crave it any more - it's the sugar making you crave more sugar. You won't feel like you're missing out once you've beat the habit. But you really can't just have a little bit!

The book that helped me was The Easy Way to Quit Sugar by Allen Carr. It's quite patronising and repetitive - but obviously it worked on me. I'm a year in now - I am at the stage where I can have sugar occasionally but i'm very conscious about how it immediately makes me want more.

You can genuinely do this. But view it as the drug that it is and go all in.

Just my personal experience by the way - hoping you can find something that works for you. Hugs x

Sending you lots of compassion because I'm aware how debilitating and awful this can be and how there's so little support (and often also so little understanding available). I found the books the f*ck it diet, brain over binge and looking into other resources on intuitive eating incredibly healing and helpful. Completely healing in fact - now totally binge free after a horrid journey with eating disorders in various forms. Never could have imagined I would be. Hoping you can be kind to yourself with all this - it can be so difficult to deal with.

I've ASD not ADHD. Don't do if you don't like the idea. This is something I've used and worked for me.

Stick a hairband on your wrist and ping it everytime you think about sweet food. Then carry on as you would have - eat the chocolate. When later you think about going for another one ping again and then do what you'd normally do.

You aren't trying to punish yourself just giving your brain a small negative stimuli to the thought of sugar.

I used a hairband with a metal bit as that provided the right level of 'sting' for me. But it's not about doing damage to your wrist and if you develop a bruise after a few days/week switch to the other wrist. Definitely don't try and repeatedly ping your wrist to make the thought go away, you just do it once then carry on. Its not meant to work overnight.

Apologies - I tried to quote @Sorrytomoan but failed!!!

No ordinary rice and pasta that you cook at home is not UPF. Look at the ingredients, if there's a long list and / or it contains anything you wouldn't have in your cupboard at home then it's indicative that it's an ultra processed food.

Well you clearly don't have bing eating disorder. Well done.

This is one of the most useful threads I've ever read on binge eating. Have been making notes!

Can I please ask if you give up upfs what does this include, does it include rice for example?

I suspect that you're having difficulty getting appropriate help because you're not very overweight so they're not taking you seriously.

I could have written this and I totally get where you are coming from. I also have ADHD and struggle with sugar. The reason that we are like this is because our brains seek out dopamine . We do not produce as much as we should so we look for it from outside sources i. e sugar . The sugar is a quick fix but you reallt need to look for another way of getting dopamine. What do you like to do? something that makes you happy ? You need to find that and then do it every day. That will give you the dopamine hit that your body craves. Also do you find it worse if you have had a stressful day ? I find it worse when I have spent the day holding it together and masking my symptoms. I then crave a hit of dopamine which can be in the form of sugar is I don't go for a walk or exercise. I read recently that those with ADHD need at least an hours exercise per day to help with our symptoms

This isn't how sertraline works. Fluoxetine can increase extracellular dopamine (in rats), and theres some evidence that sertraline weakly inhibits dopamine reuptake (thereby leaving it in the extracellular space) but this is debated. No clinical trial of SSRIs demonstrates a positive impact on ADHD symptoms. The GP shouldn't be prescribing them to treat ADHD.

Go back to the GP. Tell them you want ADHD meds, not depression meds (unless you are clinically depressed also). Demand better treatment, the GP at best doesn't understand how SSRIs work, or how ADHD works. At worst is fobbing you off.

@Bundlebee seems we have had similar experiences. Thank you for posting. I would love everyone to be aware of this combination as a way out of binge eating.

Hi OP. I've suffered from binge eating since childhood. I'm 51 now...and ended up morbidly obese and miserable. Over the years I think I've tried everything possible to beat it. Including:
Calorie counting / restriction / nutrient & macro tracking (multiple times)
Therapy
Hypnosis / Hypnotherapy (twice)
Mindful eating
Keto / low carb
Eliminating sugar completely
Fasting
Overeaters Anonymous
Every single book ever recommended on Mumsnet (including Brain over Binge which was helpful for a while)
Exercising to try and control mood / bingeing
Ozempic
etc, etc, etc.
Some of these worked on a temporary basis, some were actually very damaging mentally and physically, but in the end I always ended up bingeing again, often worse than ever before. I absolutely know the anguish you describe.

This is my experience, and I hope this will help you. There are two things that I can recommend.

1 - Gillian Riley - eating less programme that a previous poster referenced. I did this in person and on-line and it definitely helped me for a good period of time. Interestingly her methods are rooted in her days as a stopping smoking practitioner....However I did have to keep coming back to this, and over time I fell back into old habits, but less so.
2 - Eliminating ultra processed foods from my diet. This has been my game changer. For the first time ever that urge to binge is completely gone for me. Every single other thing I ever tried involved supressing, managing or trying to 'accept' the urges. But no matter what I did, they were always there. I was just sometimes more in control of what I did with them than at other times. But I read the Ultra Processed People book (which again interestingly references the Allen Carr Stop Smoking book) and understood how Ultra Processed foods are designed to be addictive. It's the whole business model of the biggest industry on the planet - how to get us to eat more of their products. So the smell, colour, flavour, mouthfeel, texture etc. of your chocolate yoghurt will all be designed to be addictive and simply put, moreish. I gradually eliminated these foods, educated myself on what to look for and just avoided it. And the urge to binge has completely disappeared. I'm not supressing it, or distracting myself, or managing it. It's gone. Now I can't promise you it will be gone forever, but it's been gone for months and months now. I highly recommend the book, and I've linked below to some of the Zoe podcasts that you might find interesting. I wish you all the best. I hope you can find some peace with it all.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Tg5DnNWj7k00LgK1T8G3F
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5VSvk8JFw0Y15KZdDAupNr

I haven't read the thread, so apologies if I am repeating advice, but the ONLY thing that has helped me with a 30 year binge eating habit is cutting out sugar and UPF.

I would binge terribly on UP crisps and crackers and then binge on biscuits and chocolate as a sort of 'pudding'. Always late at night, always when everyone else was in bed.

It became my coping mechanism when life got difficult and I would binge a good few days a week, despite feeling disgusted with myself and also physically very uncomfortable.

At the start of the year after reading a couple of books - Why we Eat too much and Spoonfed - I realised that UPF were at the root of this, the reason why I couldn't stop once I started.

I now only have plain crisps in the house for the DC, which don't lead to a binge, oatcakes which are similarly OK and plain biscuits. Also dried fruit if I need something sweet

It is still a work in progress and I haven't lost any weight, however if I stop binging that will be a massive step forward for me.

Good luck @Reallyfatandmiserable it really is a miserable way to live, but understanding that it is not simply lack of will power which causes this but rather the addictive nature of UPF will help you feel more in control of the situation

Not read the thread but here are some resources that may help:

Brain Over Binge - there's a book, a podcast, and an online course. Many people report that this really helped them
The Binge Eating Therapist - she's on youtube. Also has a book called I Can't Stop Eating - very good. She also has a podcast. Also a practising therapist who takes on clients
The Fuck It Diet - a book by Caroline Dooner
Intuitive Eating - the original version (but I found The Fuck It Diet a more accessible version of this)
There was also a good, longish thread on MN recently - worth searching for.

There's loads more - once you start googling for these, a lot of resources will pop up. Youtube is very good for finding coaches and therapists who will work with you individually if you feel this would help you.

Good luck OP. Many are in recovery from binge eating - it seems impossible to overcome but it's absolutely not! Takes time and patience and finding the resources that work for you.

To echo previous posters, it doesn’t sound as if your ADHD is being medicated correctly. I’ve read other threads on here where Elvanse is used to treat ADHD-related bingeing successfully.
Please go back to your GP and discuss your ADHD treatment. Otherwise I think you’re fighting a losing battle.

My binge is carbs.
My way of dealing with it is to eat 3 meals a day and 2 snacks. No weighing as it sets me off. Within those meals I include carbs.
And I treat it as an addiction.

Feeling fat or looking fat is enough to put me off food. If I ate lots of things in one sitting I would be freaking out, thinking how much weight I would put on. Try and stick to three meals a day. No need for snacks whether they're sugary or not.

This definitely helps me to kill any sort of craving outside of my fixed mealtimes.

I've been a binge eater off and on my whole adult life and I feel as though now (at aged 50) I'm finally getting some control over it. Here's a few things that work for me:

• I work from home and make sure I'm up, dressed and ready to work by 9am every day. Then I have a cup of tea with honey - but only AFTER I've done at least a smidge of exercise: currently, I'm doing planks (which hurt like helll)! The tea with honey is my 'reward' for the planks.
• I've started small routines - and introduced new elements very gradually. So, for instance, being up and ready to work by 9am - every day, no exceptions. Previously, I would stig around in my pyjamas until 10 or 11am and that would give rise to feelings of not, actually, being properly 'present in the day'... and I'd allow myself to slide into harmful or unhelpful behaviours because of that.
• don't try to do too much at once - very gradually increase your activity level; whether it's exercise or housework or anything else. I've built up the planks from 1 x 1min plank per day to currently aiming for 1 x 1min plank every hour of the working day. My abs are like steel.... albeit still nestling under a layer of fat, ha ha.
• find some health-focused podcasts and listen to one or two a week - again, I didn't go hell for leather listening to or watching everything I could find on improving my health because you end up with too many messages and too much info to process. I'm currently really enjoying Davinia Taylor's podcast series; 'Hack your Health' on Spotify.
• food-wise, a previous poster said to go completely cold turkey on sugar and I have to agree with this. I would easily eat four donuts in a row and a whole box of Mr Kiplings (and make sure the packaging was disposed of so my husband didn't see it). Sugar was my love and my nemesis! My husband doesn't have a sweet tooth at all, so it's been easy not to have sugary foods in the house.
• My moods were tied to what I ate and what I ate was tied to my moods. I try hard not to let myself get drawn into patterns of thought that lead to moods that would, ordinarily, lead to me wanting to binge. I'm not someone easily given to 'positive thinking' - by nature I can be melancholic and pessimistic. Changing my mindset is, I can honestly say, the biggest single 'thing' that's helped me find a way out of binge eating. It sounds so obvious but reframing your thoughts and diverting the potential for a binge is a truly life-changing skill - or, at least, it has been for me. If your therapist isn't helping on this score, I would definitely suggest finding a different therapist who can help and understands binge eating properly.

Best of luck, OP. I wish you well.

Hello @Reallyfatandmiserable

Sorry to hear of these struggles which sound really difficult.

What strikes me in all your posts is that you do not mention your feelings much at all.

What are the feelings that you try to avoid by eating like this?

I realise you might well not be able to answer this question, or you might not want to.

If this is your coping mechanism, you have to address the underlying problem/circumstances you are trying to "cope" with and only then act on your sugar cravings. I used to binge and purge constantly while being trapped in a very toxic working environment nothing would break the cycle - but literally, the day I left the company, it was all sorted as if by magic. I bought my usual assortment for the evening, and then had 3 mozzarella sticks and that was it, I didn't want to finish that tray of snacks, didnt feel the need to purge afterwards. That terrible "itch" was just gone.

Please pm I cam recommend a counsellor