Has anyone had counselling for over eating / binge eating and have any advice?

[Mull]

Hi, I really think I need some counselling around my eating as the ‘feast / famine’ mentality I have had my entire adult life is getting ridiculous. I had cancer treatment 18mths ago, and was diagnosed as Type 2 diabetes at the same time, and yet STILL I cannot sort my eating. I lost a lot of weight as part of my treatment but then continued to implement healthier choices etc. I was feeling in a good place and thought I’d ‘cracked it’. However these have slowly gone backwards as ‘normal’ life has resumed and I feel so shit about it. I need to delve deeper into why I’m doing this to myself, why my health is not more important to me, what more needs to happen to me before I sort myself out, the guilt / shame around it all.

Has anyone had any counselling / therapy around this subject and could recommend how to find a counsellor / what questions to ask? I’m willing to put some money into this as I was also considering WLI which are expensive but I really don’t think they will help with my longer term understanding / health and maintaining a healthy weight.

I didn't assume – I did indeed say you have the support of a medical team. And by virtue of the fact online/high street providers won't prescribe to people with ED, it could only be via the NHS.

Believe it or not, I'm genuinely glad the WLI have helped you with your ED and that you are going to have long-term support with the NHS to make sure you stay in recovery. I know how debilitating having one is. So I do get why you want to help people by sharing how much it's helped you.

My point is that most people reading this thread and thinking maybe WLI could cure their ED too won't have the option of getting them via the NHS. They will have to lie to a high street provider to get them and then they won't have the medical back-up you do – and that's what's dangerous.

@PuzzledObserver
"Over the last couple of years, I feel that I have turned the corner which has made recovery possible for me.

It started when I joined an online community for fasting as a method of treating obesity and type 2 diabetes. As well as advice on the practicalities of fasting, they included a clinical psychologist on the team."

I'd love to know which online fasting community you joined as I may benefit from this. Would you be willing to PM me if you don't want to post publicly?

No problem posting publicly - it’s called The Fasting Method (thefastingmethod.com). It has a paid membership, but there is also a Facebook group, and a podcast, which are free. Based on the work of Dr Jason Fung, a Canadian nephrologist who has had huge success with fasting his obese diabetic patients.

He has written several books, including The Obesity Code, the Diabetes Code, and the most recent (which I haven’t got yet) called The Hunger Code. He also has a YouTube channel, loads of info there.

I've just finished 20 weeks on the NHS with a specialist psychiatrist. It was Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).

Gp dietian referred me to the eating disorder service.

Eat every 3 hours, don't go longer then it's time period do not fast, does the matter what you eat just eat.

Start doing food we're calling diary record anything like purges or binges and what compensatory behaviors you're doing, helping aware of your emotional state.

Really good book called overcoming binge eating