Stop Binge Eating - Stop Overeating

Trying to stop binge eating or to stop overeating is very tough.  You know you need to stop and get your eating habits under control.  I bet you told yourself I wont binge eat anymore.  This is the last time…

But what happens?  You still have a binge eating episode.  And this sabotages your efforts to stop overeating.  I think you need to go easy on yourself and see why overcoming binge eating disorder is a little tough.

Your body and mind are smarter than you think.  Why do we binge eat if it’s bad for us? Did you realize that there is a payoff or a reward you experience from binge eating?

Let me describe a typical overeating episode for me and see if you can catch the payoff or reward…

“I’m coming home from another stressful day at work.  My job is really boring, I kept trying not to fall asleep at my desk this afternoon.  My boss is annoying and I hate working under him.  I wish I could just quit.  Ahh but then I’ll have to go through the job hunting process and that will be a pain. ” - Automatically without realizing it I just walk over to the fridge and can’t stop eating junk foods.  Now I’m feeling numb, I don’t have to worry about my job, and can just relax and watch some TV maybe.

Did you catch the payoff of my binge eating?  It’s not having to face my real problems in life.  Overeating is the best form of distraction from real problems, and tough action steps that one has to take.  It’s a great avoidance method.

By overeating, I don’t have to start looking for a new job, update my resume, call some recruiters and so on.  I can just avoid the problem all together, or at least postpone dealing with it.

A binge eater who resorts to food for comfort, is just like an alcoholic who stops by the bar at the end of a stressful day.  They are both trying to escape their real life problems.

But Does it work?  NO!  Your problem will be there when you wake up the next morning and have another day.  And you wondered why you cant stop binge eating?  Well now that you see the payoff, I’m sure you can be more understanding and go easy on yourself.

Life is tough, overeating is easy.  To overcome overeating you need to understand why you do it in the first place.  Understanding the payoffs of overeating is very important.  Now that you know some of those payoffs you need to ask yourself some questions.

• Think of the last time you engaged in binge eating, and ask yourself what was the payoff?
• Is it a real payoff or is it just temporary?
• Did overeating really solve my problem?  or did it just postpone me having to take care of it?

The more you ask those questions after a binge eating episode, the more aware you will become of why you binge eat.  This is the first step to recovery from binge eating disorder.

Leave a comment and let me know what you found out from asking those question

It’s very easy to engage in Emotional Eating.  Facing tough issues in your life, and stressful situations is hard. Emotional Eating is the easy way out.

Emotional eating is consuming food for comfort.  Let me share with you my personal experience with it.  For a long time I disliked my job.   After work, I would come home and instead of preparing my resume and looking for another job I would just engage in emotional eating.  I would resort to food for comfort.

The question is How to Stop Emotional Eating? Before I can help you out with that, you need to first understand why we engage in emotional eating in the first place.

The why is easy.  Food is comforting, especially junk food.  It numbed out my emotions, and helped me ignore the stress and dissatisfaction I felt towards my job.

If you are overeating or binge eating often it has to do with emotions.  Are you eating out of boredom?  Or eating to deal with stress?  Do you feel like overeating when you are having a tough day?

The first step to stop emotional eating is to identify your triggers.  These are the events or circumstances in your life that generally lead you to overeating or binge-eating.

Once you identify your emotional eating triggers, you will increase your awareness.  You will be able to predict an emotional eating episode before it even happens.  You will start becoming more aware of the sequence of thoughts and emotions that you have that lead to overeating.

The more aware you become, the easier it will be to stop emotional eating before you even start engaging in it.

You shouldn’t feel guilty and ashamed of your emotional eating.  Rather understand that it’s normal, eveyrone has done it at some point in their life whether or not they realize it, and you can recover.  The key to recovery from emotional eating is learning the roots of it in your personal life.

For me, stress from my job was an emotional eating trigger.  What are your triggers?  What drains your energy, stresses you out, and often leads you to engage in emotional eating?

Once you identify your triggers you need to brain-storm action steps.  These will be action-steps to eliminate or avoid those triggers as much as possible.  For me it meant finding a new job.  That was tough however in the long run it’s much easier and more rewarding than engaging in emotional eating.

What action steps do you need to take?  Try to come up with at least one action step you can take right now or today to get your emotional eating under control.  The first action-step is usually the toughest.

Say you disliked your job like I did, one action step you can take today would be to update your resume.

Additionally if you would like some accountability in getting your emotional eating under control, I would advice you to share your struggles and seek support in the forum.

Can you overcome binge eating disorder? YES you can.  So what’s the bad news…

overcoming binge eating disorder is really tough unless you have the right knowledge.

Let me explain.  Many people who are dealing with binge eating disorder don’t even know it.  Many are resorting to dieting or weight loss advice.

The problem is that dieting or weight loss advice often makes the problem worse.  I’m sure you would agree.  Have you ever dieted for a few days.  And basically your cravings for junk food got out of control one day, and you just started binge eating?  I have to which is why I learned the hard way that dieting doesn’t work.

So back to the main topic, overcoming binge eating.  If you are reading this I’m guessing you are serious about getting this issue handled.  You are ready to take action and that’s good.

But I gotta ask you, are you ready to do whatever it takes to stop binge eating?  And yes you read it right, whatever it takes to overcome binge eating disorder?

Because if you are not then your recovery from binge eating will be a very long, and very tough.  And that’s the bad news.

Now that the bad news is out of the way, let me share the good news.  Once you decide that you are willing to do whatever it takes to stop binge eating, guess what will happen?  You will recover.  And binge eating will eventually become a thing of the past.  You will be able to finally stop overeating and start living.

Check out these tips to stop binge eating starting today.

Wondering if you’ll ever truly stop binge eating?  Well it’s up to you.  If you are serious about overcoming binging then you can get started on your pass to recovery right now

Before I share this tip with you I would like to challenge your thinking a bit.  Do you think binge eating is a disorder?  I mean I’m sure you have heard the phrase Binge Eating Disorder?  Well I gotta be honest with you.  I don’t like that phrase.

Do you hear of smoking disorder?  or watching too much tv disorder?  or being a lazy bum who does nothing with their life disorder?  No, but how come?  None of those is any different from what they call binge eating disorder.

Binge eating isn’t really a disorder.  I know when I binge eat it’s often to deal with stress, or numb out tough emotions.  It’s just a form of emotional eating.  Many who don’t have emotional eating issues, generally have other dirty habits to resort to.

For some it’s watching tv.  For others it’s going for a smoke.  And for some their whole life is just meaningless.  It’s a combination of laziness, and they really aren’t going anywhere.  Now how come none of these things are disorders?

To be fair, I think therapists call it binge eating disorder, because it’s out of control eating that takes over your life.  I mean binge eating is disorderly when compared to normal eating.  But what I wanna point out is that you shouldn’t be ashamed of your binge eating.  It’s not any worse than watching mindless tv regularly, or smoking, or even drinking alcohol.

Now on to the technique that will help you with overcoming binging.  GAPS.  Yes it’s a simple as that create gaps.  A gap is simply a break in your binge eating process or habit.  Let me explain.

If you think back to your last binge eating episodes, or times you overate, you will start noticing similarites.  Often something gets you to start overeating or resorting to food for comfort.  It could be a stressful event, a tough emotion, an annoying person, some tough news or circumstance and so on.

To avoid binging when that trigger event happens all you gotta do is create a gap.  Alright so let me walk you through this.  Next time you are reaching for food ask yourself “Am I Physically Hungry, or Am I just Trying to Comfort Myself with Food?”  Make it a habit to ask this question evertime you are reaching for food.  This creates a gap, and if you are about to binge eat, you will catch yourself in the act, and stop.

Here are the common signs that you are a binge eater according to Wikipedia:

1. Sometimes can’t control how much of a certain food you
   consume.  For instance, planning on eating one cookie and
   eating 5 instead.
2. Eating unusually large amounts of food at one time.
   Eating more than a normal person would eat in the same amount
   of time.
3. Eating more quickly than you normally would.  This
   is what characterizes a binge eating episode.
4. Sometimes eating until your too full, and your stomach
   hurts.
5. Eating large amounts of food when you aren’t really hungry.
   Like when you eat lots of comfort foods at the end of a
   stressful day.
6. At times you eat alone because you are embarrassed about
   the amount of food you consume.
7. Feeling disgusted, guilty, or depressed after a binge
   eating episode.

To stop binge eating you need to be more aware of why you eat.‭  ‬
Whether you want to stop eating junk foods or stop eating‭ ‬fast food,‭ ‬
it’s all about awareness.‭  ‬Before reaching out for food,‭ ‬make it a habit
to pause and question if you are physically hungry.‭  Start
doing  this every time you are about to consume food to make
it a habit.

Here are the questions you should‭ ‬ask yourself before reaching for
food:

• ‬Am I really hungry‭? ‬if Yes then go on and ask the
  following questions,‭ ‬otherwise do another activity until you are
  hungry‭ (‬go for a walk,‭ ‬take a shower,‭ ‬take a nap‭)
• ‬Is the food I’m about to consume healthy for
  me‭?  ‬or Is it junk food‭?
• ‬What are the long-term effects of the food I’m about to
  consume‭?  ‬If I keep eating this food for the next year how
  will it impact my weight,‭ ‬body size,‭ ‬body shape,‭ ‬confidence,‭
  happiness and satisfaction in life‭?

These questions will increase your awareness.‭  ‬They will
help you stop binge eating before you even start.‭  ‬Or if You
are just trying to stop eating junk foods you will also find these
questions useful.

The key is repetition.‭  ‬Start making it a habit to pause and
ask the questions before consuming food.‭  ‬Also take your
time.‭  ‬If you have been binge eating or eating lots of junk
foods and fast foods,‭ ‬don’t expect to stop overnight.‭  ‬It
probably took you years to develop those habits.‭  ‬Aim for
slow gradual‭ ‬consistent progress.‭

Lets say you want to stop eating junk foods,‭ ‬and you eat‭ ‬3‭ ‬junk
foods a day.‭  ‬Try eating‭ ‬2‭ ‬junk foods a day.‭

‬Once you can do that for a week or two then cut out another junk food
etc.

Whether you want to stop binge eating or stop eating fast food it’s not
a good idea to deprive yourself.‭  ‬You shouldn’t avoid all
junk  foods all together.‭  ‬This will sky-rocket
your cravings for them,‭ ‬and one day you’ll crash eating every junk
food in sight.‭  ‬Depriving yourself isn’t a‭ ‬realistic
approach to healthy eating.‭  ‬Rather eat those foods in
controlled moderation.‭

Controlled moderation is simply controlling your potion
size.‭  ‬Lets say you have been craving chocolate chip
cookies.‭  ‬It’s a bad idea to go to the store and buy a whole
box.‭  ‬Because once you start eating the cookies you might
not be able to stop.‭  ‬Rather buy a single big
cookie.‭  ‬This is controlled moderation.‭ ‬Don’t trick
yourself and say you are disciplined and have lots of
self-control.‭  ‬We all like to think we do.‭