Binge eating survivors

[justmortified]

Hi all,

My sister is a binge eater.

She goes on a mad calorie counting diet and walks a crazy amount for a few days then has a down day and eats takeaways and junk for every meal and puts on all the weight she has lost. Then the cycle starts again.

She needs help but nothing seems to work.

Please help. We'll try anything at this point

It's an eating disorder and she might need specialised help if she can't overcome it alone. Have you suggested she speaks to her gp or pays for private therapy? I'm not really sure what you can do other than support her. I have suffered on and off throughout my life with anorexia. The only thing outside people can really do to help me is be supportive. What definitely hasn't helped me is when people have told me negative things like I look terrible when I lose weight etc, it makes me feel more down and so I eat less. I can imagine it being the same with binge eating. Hard in the lockdown but in normal times it helps to be included in things and just spending time with people that I care about and taking my mind off it. It might not be the same for her but my eating is closely tied to my mood.

www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/supporting-someone-with-an-eating-disorder/

There's a link at the top of that page for more information on binge eating disorder and it mentions the charity beat. Maybe she could call them for them some support.

Thank you for sharing.

We have been supportive to the best of our ability. She's had different kinds of therapy, tried living with different members of the family, she's paid for every kind of fad diet, and other things.

Since lockdown we've tried to support as best we can but it's hard when we can't see her and she goes totally off grid and won't reply to messages or answer phone calls.

'Brain over Binge'. Buy the book for her, or suggest she downloads the audio version.

It has changed my life. thanks to it I am now 4 months binge free and I genuinely feel like I'll never binge again.

However this comes with the caveat that she actually wants to sort it out for herself. If she doesn't really want to change then nothing will be of any use.