1. Challenge yourself to find something that makes you happy and do it. 

What makes you feel the happiest? 
Writing, reading, being with friends, talking on the phone, putting on an outfit that makes you feel fabulous, exercising, listening to music, singing, buying new makeup, getting your nails and toes done, scrapbooking, cleaning, organizing, sending a card to someone, looking at old pictures, playing with your pet, etc.

2. Challenge yourself to learn or do something new. 

Is there a class that you’ve always wanted to take?
What about something that you’ve always wanted to know more about?
Do you want to make more friends in your area?  Why not set up a bunco group?
Do you want a new hobby?

3. Challenge yourself to focus on your future instead of your past.

This is one of my favorites because when I struggled to first stop bingeing, it was so hard for me.  I constantly thought of the past and my struggles and the fact that I was scared since I had binged for so long.  I found that focusing on the good I would gain from overcoming binge eating disorder really helped me.

After a couple of successes of overcoming a binge, I slipped and found myself turning to food.  I binged.  After the binge, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much of a failure I was.  How was I ever going to beat a whole disorder when I couldn’t even resist one temptation? 

This is the hardest part because you will feel like you let yourself down.  You’ve worked so hard and beat a handful of binges and then you fall down.  Yes, it sucks, but you have to look to the future, pick yourself back up, and stop dwelling on the binge… I promise that dwelling won’t get you anywhere, except maybe to another binge.

4. Challenge yourself to make a list of everything you want to do in your life. 

It’s really fun to create this wish list and very rewarding when you get to cross off items.  Write down everything you want to do and accomplish throughout your life.  Try to do these things when you beat a binge, as a reward if that will help.  If not, try to cross items off monthly, annually, or just whenever you can complete the activity on your list.  

5. Challenge yourself to vent out any stress, frustration, or anxiety.

While this is not true for everyone, the majority of binge eaters binge due to negative emotions.  Bingeing is comforting to us so that we don’t have to think about our stressful jobs and frustration with friends, family, and even ourselves.  Turning to food was my way to deal with all those things I didn’t want to even think about. 

This challenge gets more difficult because it’s hard to do.  It’s hard to change your habits of bingeing to something else.  BUT, I challenge you to do so by having a plan.  Having a plan in place is the key because you already know that you are going to do xyz when you are tempted to binge. 

The next time you feel a binge coming on, pull out your plan and do it!  If you need to go into your bathroom and take a bubble bath, do it!  If your plan is to write in your journal about your feelings, do it! 

Writing in my journal really worked well for me.  I remember driving through McDonald’s one day without getting anything and I was so mad.  I struggled with not bingeing and buying food to binge on.  In the end, I did go home empty-handed, but I was so angry.  I pulled out my journal and wrote about my anger.  This was so therapeutic for me to do because it allowed my emotions to escape in a healthy and non-destructive way.

She says that body image is all about how you feel, not about what numbers the scale show you.  She says that she feels so strong so there is no room for any doubts.  How wonderful is this?  If only there were more stories out there that promoted positive body image…

I love that she has embraced her whole body, bubble butt and all (her words, not mine!)  I think articles like this are so powerful for people, even those that don’t binge eat.  It just goes to show that binge eaters and non binge eaters struggle with body image.

How would you rate your body image? 

Do you find you sabotage yourself with your thinking? 

Do you compare parts of your body to other women’s? 

What are your biggest obstacles in trying to gain a healthy body image?

It’s true:  To let go of binge eating is a very scary thought.  It’s been comfortable for you for so long now and believe me, I was the exact same way years ago.  After I told R. that I thought I had a weird relationship with food, I almost immediately wished that I could take it back.  Now that my “secret” was out, I felt so screwed.

While there are tons of reasons why people are nervous about letting go of binge eating, I just want to talk about one right now. 

Binge Eating = (Usually) Junk Food = Living Just A Little

It’s like when you are on vacation and you think “Just this week I will indulge instead of sticking to my diet”.  It is freeing to undo all the food restrictions you might have every other time of the year. 

Do people equate not bingeing to a boring and very bland life?  (You have to admit, there is something exciting about planning a binge…)

But, let’s talk about really “living just a little” without binge eating.

Think of all the newfound confidence you will have, and think about how it will show to others.

Think about how much better you will feel.

Think about how much more energy you will have.

Think about all the extra money and time you will have.

Think about how much more you will enjoy your life!

Even though making the decision to stop binge eating seems hard to do right now, there’s no doubt in my mind that once you stop you will realize it was the best decision you could have made for yourself!

Other related Binge Eating Disorder Information on blogs and websites:

• What You Should Know About Binge Eating

- Binge eating disorder is a very serious condition that is affecting many people and will continue to do so until we are all more educated on the risks involved from such behavior. This is a psychiatric condition, an actual disorder that …

• Fibromyalgia & Binge-Eating Disorder

- Add binge-eating disorder (BED) to the list of conditions that frequently come along with fibromyalgia (FMS). A study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found several conditions that are likely…

I used to use this day as an excuse to binge on all my favorite Mexican goodies.  Do you find that you do the same with any holiday:  Cinco de Mayo, Christmas, your birthday, etc?

Here’s a trick that helped me stop overloading on the binge food, while not making me feel deprived either…

Instead of going out to eat at a Mexican restaurant and allowing myself to eat tons of chips, queso, guacamole, rice, beans, and an entree, I cook a “healthier” version at home.

1.  I buy baked chips instead of the really greasy ones.

2.  I make queso, but not a large quantity.  This is because no matter how good it is, I don’t want to overindulge.  When it is gone, it is gone.

3.  I make fat free vegetarian refried beans.  At least I know what ingredients go into my beans…  and I can’t say the same for a restaurant.

4.  Since guacamole goes brown easily, I make a small amount of this just like the queso.  Avocados provide the healthy fat, but that’s not a reason to binge on it.

5.  Ah, the entree.  Tonight I’m making a taco pie.  I found the recipe online and for 1 serving of this tiny pie (4 servings all together), there is over 600 calories and a ton of fat.  I am making the same thing with a couple of moderations: 

I will be using soy meat (fake meat) instead of real ground beef.  (This knocks off so many calories and fat grams.) 
I will be using reduced fat or fat free sour cream and cheese. 

Just by using those 2 changes, I will be shaving off at least half of the calories and fat grams!  Yay. 

Making healthier versions of my favorite binge foods really helped me.  If you have tried doing this, please let me know if you found it as helpful as I did.  As always, I’m not promoting you count calories or fat grams…  I just wanted to share another tip to prevent a possible binge from happening. 

If you don’t have specific hobbies, then think about what makes you happy….  and use this as a distraction the next time you are tempted to binge.

For example, let’s say you like to paint.  The next time you think about bingeing, pull out everything you need to paint and do it.  Get into your painting zone and focus on this activity so that it works as a distraction.

At one of my bridal showers, one of my friends gave me a scrapbook she made for me.  I was completely touched and absolutely loved it!  I got a brilliant idea that I would try to make one for Rob of the past 4.5 years we dated.  I pulled out pictures (and there were tons) and anything else that I wanted to put in his scrapbook.  My friend brought over all her scrapbooking material (think:  3 suitcases full of this stuff) and I just imagined how easy it would be to put a scrapbook together. 

Of course, if you’ve ever tried to scrapbook, you know this is the furthest from the truth.  Scrapbooking takes a lot of time and a lot of patience!  As I was pulling out different shaped cutters and figuring out what paper would be best, I found myself thinking how perfect this new hobby would have been when I was binge eating.  It involves thinking because you have to put pages together, you have to pick out the right pictures, and you have to have the right words on the page.  It would have been the best distraction from a binge.

If only I knew then what I know now…

If you have a hobby that provides a great distraction from your bingeing, please share with us.  And for any of you scrapbookers, props to you because it’s definitely not as easy as I thought it would be.  ;)

For more information (and videos on
how to scrapbook), Click Here!

1.  Become a vegan. 
I’ve heard this from a handful of people.  Although it’s not the norm to binge on meat, there are people that do this, so cutting out meat has worked wonders for them.  (Believe me, I realize that this tip is extreme, but hey, if it’s helped others, it’s my duty to pass it on!)

2.  Drinking a cup of coffee to kill a binge.
Many people feel like when 3pm rolls around, they are ready for a binge.  It’s called a “time trigger”.  Again, a handful of you have said that coffee has really helped with preventing a binge.

3.  Finding a distraction.
Whatever the distraction may be - going outside for a walk, talking to a friend on the phone, playing with your dog - these help.  Distractions disrupt the binge eating habit.

4.  Put together a photo album.
Pick a few pictures out of when you felt the best about yourself.  Make a rule that each time you want to binge, you have to look through the whole album, picture-by-picture.  Surely looking at yourself at your best might help prevent food from going into your mouth.

5.  Brush your teeth.
Have you ever noticed that nothing (food or drink) tastes as good right after you brush your teeth?  Next time you have the desire to binge eat, brush your teeth.  At the very least, you’ll have the cleanest and brightest smile out there!

I thought it would be a good idea to say something like “A fast food binge used to include x amount of calories”…  So I set out to figure out how much I used to eat.  Of course, I thought I would share it with you, you know, so you don’t think you are alone in this.

Here goes:

Taco Bell:
Bean Burrito, sans onions      350 calories, 9g of fat
Nachos                                      330 calories, 21g of fat
Soft Taco                                  200 calories, 9g of fat

Sonic:
Cheddar Peppers                    290 calories, 17g of fat
Ranch Dressing                       260 calories, 28g of fat
Tator Tots w/ Cheese            290 calories, 19g of fat
Coney Dog                                600 calories, 33g of fat

McDonald’s:
Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese 510 calories, 26g of fat
Fries                                          380 calories, 20g of fat

TOTALS:
3210 calories and 182 grams of fat

And just for the fun of it, I’m going to throw in a few pictures of me while I was knee-high deep in binge eating.

See, I was right there where you might be…  Don’t lose hope because you can get out of the bingeing cycle.  You have to have patience and work at it.  You have to know that you might fall down (and that is ok), but that’s it more important to pick yourself right back up.  You have to keep trying.  I did and I know you can too.

Since it was in Dallas, I decided to drive there.  It’s only about 3 hours from where I live, so I made some fun CDs to prepare for my road trip.  I think I was so excited on the way that I couldn’t think about anything else.  I was singing and dancing at the top of my lungs =) 

On the way back, I was so tired from only getting 4 hours of sleep the night before so my mind started to drift.  I needed to eat lunch, so I stopped somewhere and then I remembered that this road trip was the first one that I’ve taken by myself since college… which is when I would binge eat.  Of course I started thinking about that…

I would drive from Lubbock to Houston (which varies from 8-10 hours of being in the car) and it would be my excuse to just binge and binge.  I guess it was probably from boredom, but it was also just because I could.  I was alone and there were tons of fast food places on the side of the road.  I clearly had my pick of whatever I wanted.

This is back when I ate meat and I one of my favorite binge places was McDonald’s.  I would order a Quarter Pounder with cheese, fries, and a Dr. Pepper.  I felt a rush immediately.

Hopefully I would see a Sonic because I loved cheddar peppers with ranch, a coney dog, and tator tots with cheese. 

A binge for me wouldn’t be complete without Taco Bell…  a bean burrito, nachos supreme, and a soft taco.  Of course since I was on the road, I would have to be careful so that no one would see me eat.  I was (and still am) weird about this when I was driving.  It felt like I was exposing myself too much and that some random driver would know my secret.

Do any of you do this?  

It was such a rush to have all of these food choices in front of me and I just couldn’t eat it fast enough…  Of course this was hard since I was driving, so sometimes I would pull over to a place that seemed deserted to binge. 

I would love to hear from any of you that do this, so please share if you can.

I found a couple of videos on binge eating that I wanted to share with you today.  Click the play button on the video for it to play.

Binge Eating Video Part I.

Binge Eating Video Part II.

This survey came from 4,023 women and proved that all age limits and even ethnic backgrounds are affected.  There is not one specific group that has more disordered eating tendencies.  This may be interesting to you because before I started studying binge eating, I figured that it was mostly white women between the ages of teenage years to upper 20’s.  I wasn’t discriminating against anyone, but it seems like my friends that are not white are so much happier with their bodies.  They love their curves, or their slightest bigger butt. 

This survey was done so that women can begin to love their bodies and not be so obsessive about themselves.  You can find a report in the May 2008 issue of SELF that provides tips to help women find a balance in their approach to eating.  Some of the tips include:  separating mood from food, eliminating extreme thinking, eating breakfast, and finding realistic body role models. 

I really am excited that SELF is putting these tips out - I haven’t gotten the magazine yet, but I really hope they are good.  The topics sound great and I believe in them all!  I really think that this will help out everyone, whether they have binge eating or not.  So many people go on random diets that are so unhealthy just to lose a couple of pounds…  they probably end up doing more damage than anything.

Some other interesting facts that would found in this study include:

• 75% of women report disordered eating behaviors or symptoms consistent with eating disorders; so three out of four have an unhealthy relationship with food or their bodies
• 67% of women (excluding those with actual eating disorders) are trying to lose weight
• 53% of dieters are already at a healthy weight and are still trying to lose weight
• 39% of women say concerns about what they eat or weigh interfere with their happiness
• 37% regularly skip meals to try to lose weight
• 27% would be “extremely upset” if they gained just five pounds
• 26% cut out entire food groups
• 16% have dieted on 1,000 calories a day or fewer
• 13% smoke to lose weight
• 12% often eat when they’re not hungry; 49% sometimes do

Women can take a version of the survey at http://www.self.com to see how they compare with other readers’ answers and share their thoughts in the Hot Topics section of the magazine’s Web site.

Thanks to http://psychcentral.com/ for the information.