What are the most effective tricks for you keep yourself from binge eating?

[FearlessSwiftie]

I've been struggling through eating disorder for about 6 years and now I feel like I'm almost alright but still sometimes binge eating happens. What do you do to avoid it/what helps you?

Pint of ice cold water when tempted.

It doesn't really help me :(

F

Getting outside for a walk often helps me. It changes my mindset and takes me away from the situation.
The other one that helps is cleaning my teeth.

If I’m upset I tend to resort to sweet, carb rich foods, and the only thing that works for me is not to buy them. My nearest shop in the evenings is 4 miles away and if there is nothing sweet in the house, I retreat to bed instead.

I drink a lot of tea with sweeteners and diet cola. I also printed out some pictures of myself looking much thinner (edited things) and keep them with me to get motivated.

Hollyhocks yeah, that sounds good, gotta try!

Frozen grapes! I can eat an entire tupperware full and do nowhere near the damage of a binge

Mintjulia thats wise but my family always keeps something sweet in the kitchen... I asked them not to or to hide it but they won't

Sweetener, good idea with these pictures. How did you do that?

Rottiemum, I thoght about frozen bananas...

Not sure ‘tricks’ are that effective.
What was going on in your life when the binge eating started?
What are you triggers?
Have you had any kind of help for your eating disorder?

Twilight I was dieting and I was a teenager, really insecure about my body and appearance, etc. Help... Not really, I visited a support group but I didn't feel like it helped a lot.

I think it all starts in the shop - if it’s in the cupboard you will eat it. I think your family really need to get on board with this. We might have a pack of biscuits in the house sometimes, but that’s it really. If I eat crisps or a chocolate bar it will be a single pack bought from the local shop. Some people I know have draws full of crisp and chocolate multipacks which are always topped up to be full - if I had a draw like that I would probably be a lot heavier. A good little trick is to keep the foods in a high cupboard - I find the reaching action makes me think twice sometimes about whether I really want that biscuit. And put things on a plate, don’t eat straight from a packet. Definitely keep it out of sight. Keep low calorie snacks you do like within easy reach.

Pinkblueberry thanks!!
" If I eat crisps or a chocolate bar it will be a single pack bought from the local shop." Same with me!

I’d say try the go for a walk, have endless herbal tea, have a bath etc tacks and when all that falls try damage limitation.

So know what you can eat lots of without too much damage. You can eat a lot of home made salted popcorn for example without too many calories and some offset by being high in fibre. Or make homemade ice lollies that you can lick and feel like you’re eating for ages?

Is it the feeling of being full or the duration of just eating that you seek?

When I’m fasting and struggling I make flasks of herbal tea from my collection of herbs. So long as I’m sipping something warm and flavoured that helps.

Sorry just a mind dump

I haven’t tried this but I have read that brushing your teeth is good trick - you’ll be less likely to grab food when your mouth is clean and minty fresh

Honey, yeah, that's a good idea... I can't stand drinking a lot of water but tea may help...

Fill yourself up with healthy food and basically just don't allow yourself to get hungry .. I'm haven't binged for years but that was always my trigger . Water , black coffee and fruit to fill you up but better to eat proper meals with loads of veg and salad so you don't go into panic mode of being starving and stuff !

oohnicevase thanks! I'm trying to stick to healthy snacks but sometimes I break down on that

Hmm. First, I think it's really important to separate true, ED binge eating from overeating. My binges (and purges, I was bulimic) felt like addictive behaviour, and were extremely hard to get under control. Here's what helped:

• going for a walk when I felt tempted
• telling myself I could binge in 10 minutes' time if I still wanted to, then doing something else in those 10 minutes to try to distract myself
• only eating at the table, not on the sofa etc
• eating every 3 hours. I know 16:8 etc can be great for some people, but fasting is not helpful in early ED recovery
• eating just to the point of satiety. I found that, backwards as it sounds, if I felt uncomfortably full I was more likely to binge

It took a long time, but all of these helped me get there. Good luck!

I used Photoworks, they have a special tool that works on you in the picture as if you had a plastic surgery- photo-works.net/plastic-surgery-picture-editor.php
@FearlessSwiftie

Know your triggers - mine is an evening alone in front of the TV

Plan for this eventually

I like a melon, you can eat the whole thing and feel so full you can't eat more but it's pretty low in calories

Others put together a 'happy tray' of food including good and bad foods do you don't feel deprived. Maybe a small chocolate bar or crisps coupled with carrot sticks, hummus, pickled onions or gherkins, ham slices, baby tomatoes etc

I think that you need to really get to the root of why this is happening, your triggers and the emotions that come with it. I suffered with an eating disorder for 15 years and the only thing that helped me was therapy after a course of antidepressants (I didn't even realise that I was depressed). I didn't think that anything would be able to stop me binging and purging, but I was referred by my doctor to the Maudsley in London and after my therapy had finished I'm happy to say that I haven't fallen into the cycle again (it's been 6 years now).

I would speak to your doctor about a referral, tricks for not binging aren't going to get to the real cause and deal with it properly.

If you can't get to a doctor, or aren't ready yet, there's an app that I used in conjunction with my therapy called 'Rise Up' - it's a form of self-monitoring in CBT and might be worth looking into. Really worth seeing your doctor though.

Good luck - you can beat it!

Thank you ladies!! I can't answer everyone as I'm a bit short of time rn but you are so helpful!