I Know Why I Binge Eat… Now What?
One of the most important things you can first do when you realize that you have binge eating disorder is to figure out the root. The “why”. Figuring out this bit of information will be of great use to you as you try to recover from binge eating disorder. It will help you stay away (when possible) from the circumstances or emotions that cause you to have a binge.
So often figuring out why we turn to food isn’t the hard part. In fact, for most of us, it’s pretty obvious for the most part. We are stressed, we binge. We feel overwhelmed, we binge eat. We feel lonely, bored, anxious, mad, or sad, and we binge eat.
OK so now that you know the “why”, what do you do to stop bingeing?
I’m going to give you a list of some things that helped myself and others. Just remember to try each idea out with an open-mind because it might take a few times to figure out what will truly work to end your food addiction.
As much as I wish that there was a simple solution to stop bingeing, there isn’t… But don’t lose hope yet! What worked for one person might not work for you, so try each idea out and see if it is helpful or not.
First: Try dealing with your emotions.
Write down how you feel - good or bad. Capture every feeling and emotion that you have so that all tension is released with each stroke of your pen. When we hide our emotions we are not being true to ourselves. We are only pretending that whatever happened didn’t bother us, when in fact it did. Pretending leads to binge eating, so don’t do that. Let your true self (and emotions) come out! You might be surprised at how uninterested in bingeing you become.
Second: Try being accountable to someone or to a website.
Accountability really helped me a lot. When I binged only my husband (boyfriend at the time) and therapist knew of my secret. Even though only 2 people knew, you better believe that I didn’t want to have to “report” back to them that I gave in and binged. I wanted to feel good coming home from work and telling my boyfriend that I got through the day without succumbing to binge eating. I wanted to go to my weekly appointment with my therapist and tell her about my successful week. I really learned to try everything that I could to not binge solely because of accountability.
Third: Try nurturing yourself in ways other than food.
I used to celebrate anything with a huge binge. It was my reward. It was hard to learn how to reward myself without using food in the beginning. Bingeing had definitely become a habit and, as you know, habits are hard to break. I had to figure out other ways to reward myself, and it became fun. I love massages, getting pedicures, buying clothes, accessories, picture frames, etc. I love getting together with my friends or having a date night with my husband. I love going to the movies. I love reading a good book, or even a health magazine. All of these things (and more) make me feel good about myself and give me an instant boost for my self-esteem. Figure out what you like to do, reward yourself with that instead of food, and you’ll notice a new respect for yourself. Obviously, when you respect yourself, you won’t be as likely to binge eat.
Fourth: Try talking yourself out of bingeing.
This might sound a bit silly, but it works. When you make the “voice” that urges you to binge eat into something larger, like another person, it’s amazing what talking to it will do for you. It becomes something that you will not let control you any longer. It allows for you to say no (out loud) to the binge temptation. After all, if a stranger told you that you were going to do something RIGHT now, what would you do? You would probably laugh out loud and tell the person that you are not going to do that. Make the urge just a little bit bigger than it is and you’ll find that it becomes easier to shut it off.