Nearly a grand on ordering food in less than two months, please help

Please please don't listen to people recommending mounjaro. It won't fix your disordered eating so the issue will still be there.

I had therapy for my binge eating disorder and it was one of the most useful things I've ever done. I still use the tools I learnt every day.

Yes OP. I did.
I don't know the extent or how your ED displays itself.

But i had a massive issue with binging for many many years. I had periods of restrictive eating too.

I found over the years for me I had forgotten how to eat normally. I couldn't tell my hunger cues, no idea when I was actually hungry or full. No idea on portions (my judgement would change with whatever cycle I was in and the ED would take over) I was driven soley for food as an emotional crutch.
My recovery initially i would have breakfast lunch dinner 2 snacks. Even if I binged, whatever happened in the day I would sit down and prepare, have meal. It was to start getting in a regular pattern and getting my body and mind to start responding to the rhythm and mealtimes.

Food was never the problem, it was my association to it. I stopped looking at good or bad foods and tried to just think of all food as food. It was quite a bit further in recovery when I started intuitive eating and listening to my body and judging portions on how hungry I was.

I went to an ED unit in my teens. It didn't help. Later on therapy wasn't accessible. But luckily I have been recovered for a decade now :) I know its a broken record but I did find mindfulness apps quite helpful too and journals.
My miracle moment was when I could have a chocolate bar and leave some for later! Once my body started responding it made things a lot easier, I guess it's a disconnect because of the illness :)

Also if your like me..forget about the money spent. Stressing about the binging and urges only makes them stronger and hit the fuck it button and order more.

If the take aways are because you don't like cooking, try cook!
COOK | Frozen Ready Meals, Delivered Meals, Prepared Meal Delivery COOK

Not cheap, but cheaper than deliveroo etc.

Also, if I can't be bothered to cook, I use healthy chains on the too good to go app & collect on the way home. Pure and Coco di Mama are good. But if you're a bit of a junk food addict, there is a lot of crap on there too, so maybe not such a good idea.

when Do you order food? In the eve I g only or during the day as well? You need to identify the routine and Chang it. So if you order food every evening at 7pm - eat at 6.30 and then go for a walk. Do you keep the left overs and binge in the night? Smother them with washing up liquid and bin them. Make sure your meals have enough fat and some carbs as well to make sure you are satisfied after a meal and not hi Greg an hour later. Get therapy privately- you can’t wait

Mounjaro! You won't even want to order food or be able to eat it. Life changing and only £150-£200 per month so will save you money.

I ordered too much 1-2 times a week. On jan 1st I deleted my food apps. I've picked up a pizza once cause I was having a very shit day. But only once! Going out to restaurants with friends does not count. Every time I don't get a take away when I really feel like it, I transfer the amount to my investments. Also with the savings I can buy higher quality food and it is a lot more motivating to cook. Take out has gotten so expensive that it no longer match the quality.

Well mounjaro could put her life at risk if she has an eating disorder and/or is not overweight.

Not if she's got an eating disorder. Therapy yes, mounjaro no 🙄

Are there other actions you can take that bring you comfort, OP?

Do you enjoy a cup of tea and a book? A craft? Driving? Walking? Chatting with people? Watching people do crazy things on YouTube? Dancing like nobody’s watching?

While you’re trying to figure out how to get counseling of some type sooner, finding a substitution for the food delivery will help your bank balance. So work out what will work as something to do instead of ordering food. Delete the apps and block the websites (if you let people know what tech you have someone can probably help with how best to do this on your set up) so that it’s harder to order and easier to turn to your alternative.

There’s still will power involved here - you will need to decide to not give in to the urge to order and turn instead to your alternative. that’s why blocking the websites, etc. helps. But you might also find an incentive like having a chart on the wall with how much you spent in the last two months or with how much you save each time you do something different will help. Another tip I’ve heard but haven’t used is to record a message to yourself when you’re feeling good about things, telling yourself how great you are and reminding you that you can do it and that you’ll wish you hadn’t ordered the food tomorrow because you don’t want to spend 6k a year on delivery.

The long term solution is reaching out to the charities mentioned up thread and getting help. But until that’s in place, these steps might help you avoid spending quite so much.

Remove all the food delivery apps from your phone.
Take out cash to do a food shop.

Cut up all cards except one and lock up that other card. Leave that card at work or with a good friend locked up in box. It’s for emergency only.
Use that card to take out cash twice a month max.

Old school

I don't think anyone should be recommending Mounjaro for someone with an eating disorder. We don't know enough about the form of disorder and we certainly don't know that suppressing appetite would be a good idea 8n this case.

I say that as someone who is using Mounjaro and who thinks it's a wonderful medication that has completely changed my life.

I do think that you need to seek proper medical and psychiatric guidance and that if you have the ability to self fund it, then that would be a good use of the money you currently spend on take away.

I know someone with an overeating-eating disorder & the weightloss jabs are a legitimate treatment plan - but I agree they should be undertaken with doctor oversight & in conjunction with therapy.

I’ve just re-read your post and had made an assumption off it you were overweight - I’m sorry, I read “comfort eat” and the amount spent on takeaways and made a big assumption.

obviousky don’t take mounjaro if you aren’t overweight or dealing with “food noise” in your head 24/7.

Would still recommend doing the 14 extremely easy / barely cooking meal list so you have a framework to work from moving forward

Hi! There are loads of great suggestions on this thread like with food swaps, using convenience food or getting kid’s portions as well as having therapy. I’d echo all of those.

I have had BED and was only able to beat it through therapy to realise why I was doing it. I wasn’t even consciously aware of why I was doing it but it was basically because I was using food to fill an emotional void. Once I realised this, I was able to be self aware when I felt like ordering takeaway. I will say it took a couple of years to really recover even after that! Healing takes time. So please be very slow and gentle with yourself. It’s not realistic to change overnight.

Maybe as a baby step, you can go from say, five takeaways a week to three takeaways a week and use the money saved for one therapy session per week. It could take a while to make a breakthrough in therapy but it’s all about perseverance. I wish you the best of luck!

Jesus wept, what is wrong with people recommending a drug to someone with an eating disorder without medical supervision?! Op please ignore these posts.

Are you feeling up to going back to your GP about this and seeing if you can get a private referral to talk to someone? It sounds like a very big hurdle to manage alone - and you sound unhappy. Or is there one thing you could change - for example limit yourself to one takeaway a day, then go every other day and slowly reduce your reliability on it. Look at something like Cook frozen foods if you find it hard to cook for yourself or Gousto/Hello Fresh if you can manage the basics.

OP doesn't say that she has the money to spend. Only that she's spending it.

Seriously, how fucking irresponsible for people to be telling the OP to get Mounjaro. Are you all seriously bloody thick!!!

Not one of you know her, her general health, weight or medical history.

OP please ignore these fools, they could actually be putting your health in danger.

Approach your GP or look at somewhere like the Priory or specialist providers for people with eating disorders and pay for an assessment. If ‘the specialist’ suggest Mounjaro, based on a proper assessment, then great.

I really don’t think people should be recommending Mounjaro, nobody has any idea what type of ED the OP has and therapy of some kind would be way more beneficial long term .

Jesus people, the answer to someone with a binge eating disorder is not bloody weight loss jabs. There’s a lot of people on here clearly not dealing with their own disordered eating.

OP, engage with one of the eating disorder charities above and look into what support you can pay for privately with that money.

Mounjaro won’t cure the eating disorder. It would be better to tackle the ED first otherwise she could end up abusing the jabs.

I would spend the money you would have done on food in the next 2 months on a private psychiatrist who specialises in EDs.

If OP is spending this amount on takeaways perhaps she has bulimia or bpd. If she has bulimia then weight loss drugs are certainly not recommended.
Hope you’re feeling better soon OP. You can overcome ED (I was briefly bulimic many years ago and spent a fortune on binges aswell). I found low calorie snacks like watermelon or the sugar free hot chocolates/jelly helped massively when I had an urge to binge and wouldn’t feel guilty afterwards. Also swapping rice for cauliflower rice.
Wish you all the best OP :)

I don’t have any issues like this but having Uber eats and deliveroo apps on my phone meant I was ordering takeaways regularly and thinking about unhealthy takeaway food far more than I would like. These apps are designed for you to use them in an addictive manner and they don’t care about your health or bank balance. Please if you do nothing else delete the apps from your phone. Best of luck

There's an awful lot of assumptions on here that the OP is vastly overweight. Not helpful.

The book intuitive eating is an excellent place to start in terms of addressing an unhealthy relationship with food.

I don’t know about you OP, but in the past I have meal planned but been unrealistic, I’ve planned to cook healthy meals from scratch every night then ended up ordering takeaway.

having a couple of easy, convenience foods from the supermarket available in your fridge/freezer is a good plan. Might not be super healthy but loads less expensive and less calories than ordering takeaway,

I’m on mounjaro now but I’m sure the only thing stopping me from having takeaway loads before was the fact I live somewhere where you can’t get deliveries other than dominos, and I’m tight with money!