to ask how to stop bingeing

[WaterandSandy]

Just eaten half a Victoria sponge, family bag of maltesers and family bag of peanut M&Ms and that’s by lunchtime. It’s like this every day.
Dont say WLI but any other suggestions would be welcome

Thanks, that’s a good idea

Maybe try eating some green veg every day? Fibre's great for filling you up, as well as for gut health and all kinds of stuff.

Definitely, also need to include some salad and fruit. My diet is appalling atm so any changes will take a while.

Apple and banana this evening. ✅

Yay! So that’s 2 days down. You’re doing so well. Every day you are proving to yourself that you can do this.

Congratulations OP 🎉. You're doing really well and I'm learning a lot from this thread.

I have a similar issue - as an example last night I had a filling tea with plenty of veg and protein, but 10 minutes after finishing it, despite feeling really full, I rushed to the kitchen and scarfed half a loaf of bread with butter and marmalade. No idea what that was about - nothing to do with hunger, clearly. It felt like an overwhelming craving for something sweet and also fatty.

I think alcohol is definitely a trigger for me - I had a big can of Stella as a 'treat' on the train home after a 12 hour day. The evening went downhill after that 🥺

Relationships with food are just really complicated, aren't they? All my life food has been a source of comfort, and I very rarely eat because I'm hungry.

Read the Chimp Paradox, and everything will become clear.

Copied and paste from google: " The Chimp Paradox, developed by Professor Steve Peters, explains binge eating as a, "chimp hijack"—a situation where the emotional, impulsive part of the brain (the limbic system or "Chimp") overrides the logical, rational part (the frontal cortex or "Human"). The Chimp is driven by survival instincts to seek high-calorie foods for pleasure and safety, often resulting in impulsive overeating"

I'll give that a go @Changeusernameagainn. Thank you.

I try and really make meals a nice event for myself, even if its just a boring lunch working from home. Make nice salad dressing. Use the good olive oil. Season your food. Use quality ingredients. Take time to make something that tastes delicious. Lay yourself a place setting at the table and drink your water out of a wine glass. Light a candle - make it a nice experience and the whole things feels more satisfying. Bingeing creeps in when (for me) I skimp on eating proper meals. Like if I just quickly grab a piece of toast for lunch eaten stood up in the kitchen then I'll lose control when evening rolls around.

I mix chocolate into things rather than eating it by itself. Rather than eating a whole bar of chocolate, chop up a couple of squares and mix it into a bowl of yoghurt, nuts and blueberries / strawberries and sprinkle a handful of dry coco pops on top - it makes a really nice bowl of dessert that satisfies all my cravings (crunchy, sweet, rich) but it also has loads of healthy things in and I feel genuinely full and satisfied after it; it takes quite a long time to eat. Whereas if I just ate the chocolate bar on its own I'd just be scratching around for the next thing to eat.

TBH , what you chose to eat isnt unhealthy , the only thing Id change there would be wholemeal or rye bread instead of granary - more fibre ( fillers )

And yay , well done on the added fruit , a great change

As a life long veg dodger. I now add something to every meal. So maybe in the past Id have a couple of rounds of bacon sandwiches - white bread , brown sauce, now I have a BLT on wholemeal - less bread, more fillings and I cant actually do two rounds and I use pickles instead of sauce , I adore pickled pink onions - but its all down to taste

But well done on the changes you have made in such a short time

I’ve done 5 days now without any sweet junk and I’m losing weight without restricting my meals at all.

That’s amazing! Well done you! 😊 It’s not an easy thing to do so you should be so proud of yourself!

Well done. 5 days is amazing.

Are you overweight OP and have you spent years dieting or thinking about it?

I have done both the above- overweight, spend lots of time sad about my weight and doing diets.

Then the last couple of years I’ve noticed this hoepless feeling as I’ve realised dieting doesn’t work, weight loss jabs have me bad side effects. The cycle of failing diets , restrictiveness and also will power only last so long - is torture.

Then I do the same- eat - really quickly without thinking and feel awful after. To me it’s like a dopamine hit and also oh I’m large anyway so sod it .

I can’t stop when I’m doing it? It’s horrible isn’t it

I know you have said you would not consider WLI s but I thought my experience might be useful to know. After 40 years of struggling and I really mean struggling to the point I was afraid to eat at times as I could not control the bingeing. I wasn't just morbidly obese, but had also developed severe acid reflux...and was still unable to stop bingeing. I turned to Mounjaro out of desperation. It was a revelation to me. The urge to binge disappeared right away to the point where I'd walk out of the supermarket with no junk food at all... I'd literally lost the urge for it.

I lost 4 stones in 9 months but more importantly, the break from the urge to binge allowed me to build up healthy eating habits.

I stopped taking Mounjaro five months ago and yes, the "food noise", the urge to binge has come back, but I've totally lost my taste for junk food, it makes me feel ill compared to my healthier food choices, so find it easier to take a step back from the urge to binge and look at the emotions triggering the urges.
I am now at a healthy BMI for the first time in 45 years!

I strongly believe binge eating can't be controlled by willpower or habit building. It's soul destroying trying and failing over and over...I endured it for over 40 years. It's a disease not a choice and these new weight loss drugs are the treatment. I'd go back on Mounjaro again if I found myself going back to binge eating, the way I'd go back to taking blood pressure pills if my blood pressure were to get out of control again. Funnily enough, I don't need blood pressure pills any more now my diet and weight are healthy.

Most of the replies must be from people with no experience or understanding of eating disorders.

https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/

Regular meals to prevent feelings of restorations. Monitor your feelings, address the cause of your unhappiness. Beat website has a list of therapists. It’s not about will power or just not buying the food.

So sorry you are struggling with this awful problem too.

Yes, I’m obese now but I’ve always felt gross even when I was anorexic at 6 stone.

I do feel like something has shifted in me now due to the kind responses to this thread and I have some optimism that I can make a lasting change.

I know that it’s early days but I usually binge every day so I’m doing better than I have before, apart from long periods when totally starving myself. Choosing nice food for my meals is helping as I’m not feeling deprived and I’m getting plenty of energy to keep active.

I hope you can find something that will work for you.

Thanks for sharing that. You have done amazingly well.

I’m not sure why my psychiatrist was so adamant that WLI were not suitable for me but it could be because I have had anorexia so I am likely to stop eating completely if I have no appetite.

Wow, wow, wow!

I can’t believe how well you are doing, you should be very proud.

Please keep posting updates if it helps you. We are all rooting for you!

Thanks, that’s so kind.

If others want to post about their struggle/progress with bingeing, we can support each other as this thread is really helping me.

Listen to the audiobook of 'Ultra-processed People' (or read the book of course, if you prefer!). It helped me a lot. I'm still greedy, and will eat a couple of homemade muffins or whatever at a time, but I don't mindlessly shovel in toxic crap any more. The book was eye-opening - I didn't realise that there are actually scientists whose job it is to work out the exact ratios to make this fake 'food' as addictive as possible. I've cut down ultra processed foods by about 90%. I've lost about 6lbs since doing that, no calorie counting or upping exercise or anything.

Well done for starting to make positive changes. I also suffer from Binge eating disorder. I've managed to overcome it for the first time ever last year and lost 4.5 stone, but in the last couple of months it's come back and I've put half a stone back on. It's like part of my brain is shouting 'what the hell are you doing?!' to the other part while I shovel food into my mouth!

However, I am now back being healthy again. A few things that have helped me:

Realising that our brains are still much as they were when we were cavemen, and if we found a sweet, high calorie food (e.g. a honeycomb) the best thing we could do would be to eat it all. Our bodies would store the food and it would help us get through leaner times. But now, sweet high calorie foods are all around us, and cheap to buy, but our brains still think ' we need to eat all this now, so when there's no food we'll be ok'. Understanding this took some of the shame out of it.

A mantra I say to myself is 'i can have cake any time I like, I'm just choosing not to have any today '. Also 'the shops will always sell xxx, so it's ok not to buy any today'

I find if I completely cut out sugar it's inevitable I will relapse, so I build planned treats into my plans. I can enjoy the food guilt free, because it's not a binge, it's planned, and I don't find that I want more afterwards.

Btw I lost the 4.5 stone without WLIs. Nothing against them, but it is possible to do it without.

I've struggled with restrictive EDs, always with "binge tendancies" tacked onto the end of my diagnosis, and my immediate reaction when I learned about GLP-1s was to sit down and try to work out how many days a human could live on nothing but a cup of bone broth a day before they die. This is why we are not allowed them. It is to protect us from our brains that tell us to do stupid things like that.

I know it feels unfair, but your psychiatrist is correct, and you've already proved you can do it yourself the last few days. You're doing amazing.

That’s amazing @LemonChiffon, you should be really proud of yourself.

I agree that it is more realistic long term to plan some treats into the diet but I’m finding it easier to avoid sweet junk completely for the moment.

Yep, he is an ED specialist so I do trust his judgement. It is bonkers how otherwise sane and intelligent women can want to starve ourselves. 🤷‍♀️