Stop Binge Eating

A few days ago, I suffered another night of binge eating as some of you may of saw on my twitter page. I was doing so well with my diet this week also, I was up about a 1300 calorie deficit on my 35,000 calorie challenge. Now I’m hardly above zero again.

I don’t want to live like this, I want to over come this problem. So here’s the first step. I don’t have any doubt in my mind that I do have an eating problem anymore. Before I always talked it down saying it’s not really a true problem, but it’s time to face the facts. People always say that the first step in overcoming a problem is realizing it’s there.

Second step, understand the disorder and what causes it. I read a lot of things on the internet blaming it on depression and loneliness, and most of my research suggests that binge eating is tied to emotions. I don’t think I agree. I definitely don’t feel depressed or alone. If anything the strongest emotion I have going into a binge is boredom.

I need to examine myself better during a binge. From the other night’s episode, I think I let myself become to hungry then at dinner I accidentally ate above my diet restrictions due to the hunger, and then after dinner I continued to binge out of feeling like a failure. Out of feeling like a failure! Well there’s my emotion. I’ve been blaming it on boredom, but i think I’m finding the deeper emotion driving my binge eating.

So I found the problems. How do I fix them?

Here are some things I want to try.

• Be more forgiving! This is my golden ticket out of binge eating. Almost all of my research suggests this as a good tip for overcoming binge eating, and for me I think it is especially important seeing as I tend to binge because I feel like a failure. If I forgive myself after eating 500 hundred calories over my diet, I wont feel bad and continue to go 2000 more calories over.
• Don’t let yourself get too hungry. I’ve been working on putting this tip into effect all week. I actually do pretty good with this, but the other night when I binged I wasn’t able to prevent the hunger because I was out and about most of the day. Moral to the story, take some snacks with you when you’re out and about?
• Fight boredom. Since boredom does seem to be a contributing factor in my binges, I need to avoid boredom at all costs. This could mean playing more piano even when I don’t want too or going for an unscheduled walk. Often I fall into boredom because I simply don’t feel like doing anything. To solve this I will need to force myself to do activities even when I feel like doing nothing.

I will give these ideas my best efforts, and hopefully I wont binge this week.

Do suffer binge eating? If so what helps you?

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