to ask how to stop bingeing

If you’re binging due to unhappiness/stress you either need to find alternative coping mechanisms or change your circumstances. There are lots of therapists who specialise in helping with overeating/comfort eating.

If however it’s down to something like habit then doing something like the keto diet can really help. I say that as I did it years ago. I was so utterly fed up of my sugar cravings that I did it for 6 months. I lost loads of weight but more then that I reset my taste buds and my tolerance for sweet was and still remains quite low.

Same here the only thing that’s stopped me is wegovy and I was a massive sugar binger
i have done a 300g dairy milk in one go then went on to have some Greggs cakes and sweets and this was not unusual for me.
i can relate to you and the emotions that come afterwards too and it’s absolutely awful as it takes control of you.

as someone upthread said it’s always a cycle- you binge then promise yourself to be better, then sometimes manage for a few days/weeks/months and then it creeps back in

Read the book brain over binge by Kathryn Hansen, it really helped me

Just as a smoker is advised to chuck their ciggies away when they quit, you need to make sure you have no access to bingey foods. Are there other people at home who do want these foods? Then they must buy their own, keep them hidden from you and certainly not eat them in front of you. I think this is a reasonable request if diabetes is on the cards. I would certainly do this for someone I loved.

Don’t buy it or keep it at home. Try to work out what is driving your need to binge, did it develop in childhood , is it learned behaviour or are you ‘eating your feelings’ and using it as a way to cope with your emotions ? And then work on your triggers as well as buying less junk. Are there other things you could do to feel good about yourself and self soothe rather than turning to food, maybe a nice bubble bath, pamper night, watch a movie, go for a walk, talk to someone you trust. Some distraction can be good. I find cutting carbs and eating more protein made me less hungry and cut out some of the food noise. Look up The Binge Eating Therapist on YouTube.

@WaterandSandy Please don't consider WLI. They are not suitable for people who are in recovery from restrictive ED. They will make you ill. You deserve to be healthy.

Sugar is super addictive, it's a git to kick imo. I did it a few years ago for 8 months because of other health issues. No sugar at all, none in premade food and no fruit. It was so hard but tell you what, when I next ate sugary stuff it was vile. I had a can of coke on a hot day while out and it was so treacly I didn't finish it. Something that was once so very nice tasted nasty.

I suppose it's like all things addictive, try one day at a time. Each day you manage to not eat something so sugary, pat on the back. If you fall off the wagon for a day, fine, don't beat yourself up and try and get into a more positive headspace again for tackling the next day.

One thing I will say though is it doesn't take long to get back into sugary things again, so always have to fight a little so don't undo all the good managed to do.

This and the advice from @SlothCat is very good. If you can afford counselling I’d strongly recommend it. Binge eating disorder is hard to tackle on your own but with help it can be overcome. Good luck x

Honestly. I couldn't.

Can you not take WLI for medical reasons? As a prediabetic it's obviously really important you manage this.

Ozempic fixed it for me. Almost 4 years and not a single binge. Been off it 18 months as well.

Best of luck regardless.

my first though get was to recommend you reach out to a counsellor if you can afford it. My second was just to breathe, that feeling of panic and being out of control is so horrible, do everything you can to soothe your nervous system. Restriction breeds bingeing. So work out how many calories you had on a bad binge day and plan a permissive menu that is less but consists of all the foods you crave. Even if you get a Macy’s breakfast have a choc bar thr go for a kfc lunch and a Pizza Hut dinner it won’t get near your binge total. Then once you ahve some semblance of control start keeping a food diary. Don’t restrict what you eat. What time you ate why you wanted to eat and how it made you feel after. That way you can start to rebuild the food wisdom your body innately has, good luck x

Sympathies @WaterandSandy , i can't take WLI due to the side effects. Like @darksideofthetoon I've been having some success by eating different foods. I've been eating much less ultra processed food, because I realised that all the foods I wanted to eat huge quantities of were junk foods.

I also read a book by Gillian Riley which advised to use 'times and plans'. Basically before you put the first bite in your mouth you decide how much you're going to eat. Then as soon as you stop eating, you set a time for the next time you're going to eat, which should be at least 2 hours later. You might have to white knuckle it through those 2 hours for the first few times, but it gets easier.

Having said that, it's early days for me, but this is the most peaceful I've felt around food in all my adult life. I've found some 'treat food' which isn't ultra processed- shortbread biscuits, kettle chips and Tesco dark chocolate- which mean that I can join in for some social events.

I do eat more protein too. Good luck!

I would echo the advice about shopping. I will eat the whole bar of chocolate so don't buy large ones (or multiples). Individual small bag of crisps. Buy biscuits I don't like because I can resist them. I also try to have a glass of water when I'm tempted to snack as that's a double win. I am worse if I have missed a meal too.

Please don’t go back to starving yourself.

Try not to restrict foods or ‘be good’ for a while. That is, if you want to lose weight, try to put that to the side for now until you can just get to a place where you don’t binge.

so eat meals to like, buy snacks that aren’t bingey. I don’t know what those are for you, but for me, I wouldn’t binge on nuts or cheese or whatever, so I’m trying to have those. If I feel my mind wandering into what food I want to binge from the supermarket, I try to satisfy myself with something in the house like toast and jam and hot chocolate. Usually after that I don’t want the food I was thinking about.

When I needed my cat to lose weight the vet told me to soak her dry food in water as it adds volume and we are all mostly water. So trying to drink water.

I also like the idea of the glucose monitor

https://www.thetappingsolution.com/results/weight.php

i Stumbled across this and tried in in desperation. If you can be disciplined about it this really works to reduce the chronic stress that drives binge eating. Well did for me. Ten pounds down

I was a binger, you have my sympathy as it feels so horrible as though it controls you and you can’t resist it however much you want to. I hated it every day but I just couldn’t stop.
I randomly came across the book Bright Line Eating five and a half years ago and it honestly changed things around for me- I’m still keeping off eight and a half stone ever since.
It’s the only thing that’s ever worked as it made so much sense - and I’ve tried them all pretty much. I no longer binge which is a miracle believe me! Have a look at the website or try the book, I do hope that you find something that will help you.

Don’t buy it and and commit to ketosis to shake the sugar addiction. Eat enough so you aren’t hungry.

I hope you are being flippant, as otherwise I do think you need further help, more than you’re getting.

I think it's not uncommon to have had issues around both food restrictions and overeating. It's having an unhealthy relationship with food in general and they use similar strategies for over/under eating.

I think it's much easier to actively decide to do a positive thing rather than to have to spend all day trying continuously stop yourself from doing something not good for you.

Two ways you could do that

1. Actively replacing one habit with a new one. So every time you want to open the junk food, go for a walk round the block instead, for example. Or some other new habit. Create a different association or coping mechanism default for yourself. Something which might actually make you feel better for doing it, but is easy to do and not unpleasant.

1. Reframe healthy habits in your head as little luxuries you are treating yourself to because you want to make yourself feel better not worse. Some kind of self-care, exercise, meditation.

It sounds like you use food to punish yourself. I think you can either try and change the behaviours or the thoughts behind it, ideally both.

I think that's quite a hard thing to do, so you could just try some little habits and easily achieveable targets - e.g drink more water in a day. It's been proven one good habit often leads to more. Psychologically, if we do something like go to the gym, we make a better choice after that because we don't want to undo the good thing we've done. It's like reinforcing a positive circle instead of a negative one.

I once heard it helpfully described as 'do the opposite of what you instinctively want to do' if you have negative habits.

But it's definitely easier to do something positive than not to do something negative.

Good luck.

I used to binge as a comfort mechanism. Then I swapped it for going for a run. The more I ran, the less I craved junk. It is hard to start off with, but the thought of feeling better for a whole day because I am healthier and not binging got me through. Also I found the pain of running strangely therapeutic, like a good stretch.

Now I have a much healthier relationship with food. I want to eat food that nourishes me. The sugar high you get from binging crashes after half an hour and the brief high is just not worth the perpetual low.

Invest in yourself. Get a personal trainer who will hold you to account. I found it helpful to understand that food which is not required for nourishment is wasted whether it’s in the bin or in my body - so it’s better off in the bin.

You can do it!

To add to my long list- on my phone I have a treat list. I'm healthy all week and I'm allowed anything I want between 2 and 4 on a Sunday each week.

During the week when I'm craving everything I write it down in my list to look forward to on Sunday. I can't eat everything I've written down but it helps knowing I can have it later in the week.

Start by giving yourself smaller amounts- i used to leave chocolate at work! And take home a small amount so im still getting the treat but on a smaller scale. Also I find low calorie hot chocolate helpful - options! Its so hard I know xxx

But fair.

• Meal plan so you have a nice evening meal to look forward to. Try one new meal each week.

• Meal prep lunches each day so you have something nice to eat. Before a binge eat that if you must.

• Do not buy anything bad in from shops but have things you can see a treat. Hide any naughty things from view so you dont see it 20 times a day.

• Think of it as a 1 year journey of micro changes rather than a quick fix

• Don't count calories to start with. Let yourself have unlimited savoury foods like like cheese and almost wean yourself off sugar by not restricting food

• Dark 85% choc in the house, lots of fruit, make a fruit salad to keep tucking into, make a healthy cake with no sugar (use dates) - you might eat it all in one go to start with but think long term.

• Medjool dates are a great way of having something naughty, but great health benefits and no refined sugar

• Start journalling. I was sceptical but it really helped me work out triggers. If I eat high protein and no carbs for breakfast, I'm so much more likely to not binge later. Carbs I only eat in the evening if I can

• Do something nice for yourself each morning - one of the following: face massage, paint nails, nice makeup, a bath etc - this makes me want to continue taking care of myself each day

• Read the Chimp Paradox. Helps explain why we binge eat

• Move your body for 10 mins each morning via a walk. Decreases chances of me binging

Starter for 10 - this has been a long long journey for me, and I've now got a relationship with food whereby I see it as a fuel, and I love veg/fruits as an alternative snack. Good luck OP

I have got into similar bad habits for a variety of reasons. My main way of breaking the cycle is by simply not having these things in the house. If I can’t access it, I can’t eat it. I wouldn’t, however, just not eat if I have a craving (mine is always for sweet stuff). I’d have a handful of grapes or an apple instead, because I get that sugar hit that I’m craving. Also, eventually allowing yourself one small treat a week. For example, if I go out for tea I might have a pudding.

The NHS is woefully lacking in help for binge eating disorder. If you can afford private treatment, I’d suggest doing that.

One cause of binge is restriction, either perceived by being on a diet or actual restriction. Intuitive eating can sometimes help if it’s not a full blown disorder. If you google intuitive eating there are some free resources and also low cost books.