[alba]

I'm trying to find the best way to quit bingeing, and I know that unfortunately willpower only is not enought; so I'm asking some questions, to
who is suffering from Binge eating disorder:
what kind of therapy are you following?
did your doctor prescribe you any meds?
did you saw any results?
were you able to mantain these results after stopping the therapy and/or the meds?

Thank you for your answers and for your help

[Mrs Snark]

I'm sorry you didn't get any answers to your questions, maybe there are not many of us here who are under a doctor's care for our binge eating.

I am a binge eater but I'm not in therapy and I don't take medication, so I don't have any information for you unfortunately.

Good luck and I hope yo ufind the solutions you are looking for. There is a lot of support in this forum so you can lean on your fellow chicks when you need to!

[alba]

Josephine, thank you for your answer...
I will change my questions:
if you suffer from Binge Eaing Disorder, how do you try to cope?
are you trying to recover just using your will power?
why are not asking for a medical terapy?

Thank you for your answers

[vegani]

I discuss my binge eating with my therapist, but basically I am trying (and failing) to control it using willpower. What kind of medication would one take for binge eating (not that I would)?

[Watercolor]

Hi Alba, I just found this part of 3FC.

I am/was a compulsive overeater. Have been for about 25 years.

For me, I needed to understand the underlying psych issues.
I needed to deal with my baggage and process it.
I knew that it wasn't what I was eating, it was what's eating me.
So after 8 years of therapy, I know my baggage.
However, I still have to do the hard work of losing weight.
Which is where I'm stuck right now.
I no longer have the ability to overeat (my stomach gets full and I stop)
but I will have to do some deliberate dieting
to lose the weight I had gained over all those years.

I needed to deal with my eating disorder in this way and I'm glad I did.

[mesilla]

Hi,
I am in the process of recovering from binge eating. I became bulimic for about 6 months 2 years back and it slowly progressed into binge eating as I began to realize the damage bulimia was doing to me. So I stopped purging and began gaining weight for the past year or so as I ate myself into misery every night. I moved abroad in January for an exchange semester and that is when the real changes started to begin. I really began to realize how much of life I was hiding from when I started to binge while abroad, as I should have been having fun and meeting new friends and instead I was feeling sick from stuffing myself. I really knew I wanted to change and that I was ready to stop binging and to lose weight. The key was for me to stop binging because I knew how to lose weight, I just didnt know how to stop binging. I had to accept the fact that it wasnt going to happen overnight, I wasnt going to be perfect, I would still have to deal with school stress and all that college life brings..so these were challenges to losing weight I had to accept.

The changes I made to help me stop my binging were:
- I became vegan (I ready Eat to Live by Dr. Fuhrman and it completely changed my mindset) and i eat a plant-based diet full of nutritious and high fibre vegetables, fruit, beans, whole grains
-I bought all my own groceries and threw out anything that resembles a trigger food. Just dont buy it!
-I eliminated caffeine, refined flour and sugar from my diet. This has made a huge difference. Sugar makes me feel crazy and makes me want to binge!
-I had to push myself to be a lot more open to life in general. It is very easy just to stay in and eat. Its hard to go out and meet new people when you feel shy and overweight. I remember crying so many days in the beginning of the year when I first started making these changes but now it is so much easier.
-I also stopped weighing myself regularly. I weigh myself maybe once a month and it helps me to stop obsessing about my weight and just focus on doing the best I can for my body each day.
-I started running regularly and with a running partner so now I have someone to be accountable to. I find exercise makes it much easier to avoid a binge.
-I go to bed earlier. Late night eating is my specific weakness and just one "off plan" item often led to a huge binge in the past.
-I now eat a very wholesome breakfast (oats and fruit) and much smaller meals throughout the day (lots of veggies, fruit, beans) so that I never feel over-stuffed as that feeling often makes me want to binge. I try to have lots of healthy snacks/small meals and then eat my dinner later (around 8 pm) so that I am less likely to binge on snack foods at night due to hunger.
-I no longer eat refined carbs such as granola bars, pasta, bread, cereals. I get all of my carbs from fruit, veg, and whole grains.

I have lost about 25 pounds since January and have almost stopped binging completely. I still occasionaly binge when I am super tired or stressed (these are big triggers for me) but now I only have oats and oranges to binge on. I am still working on it but I am much more at peace with myself and generally a lot happier.

I hope this helps and I wish you with the best of luck. Just stop binging now! It may be hard at first and the "food hangover" is horrible but it gets much easier very quickly and you will be amazed at how wonderful you feel when your body doesnt have to recover each day from being stuffed with sugar and fat.

All the best!

[katewillbehappier]

Mesilla that was really informative and what you said reminded me so much of what I was like! It's so much easier to sit back and let life whizz by you then jumping in and experiencing it, but you miss out SO much and you've only extra pounds to show for it.

You really seem to have turned everything around, well done!

[CousinRockingChair]

what kind of therapy are you following? - I have a general psychotherapist, and we talk through whatever's upsetting me in my life, letting off steam helps lower no. of binges.

did your doctor prescribe you any meds? - No. Meds arnt the answer here, it's an addiction

did you saw any results? - n/a

were you able to mantain these results after stopping the therapy and/or the meds? - can't say for meds, but I've had good bingefree stretches without therapy.

I don't believe eating is a result of *underlying baggage*. Its a fashionable theory. I think it's more about sheer addiction. We live in a society where junk food is EVERYWHERE, where eating huge amounts is considered kind of NORMAL...

whilst you might use food as a coping mechanism a few times, it doesn't take long for it to become a habit, an addiction. underlying issues? hmmMMMM.

I have a lot of *issues* myself, but I see bingeing as pure addiction...willpower doesn't work because it feels like deprivation...you have to get to a point whereby you dont WANT to binge, and like and trust yourself enough not to - break out of the addiction via selfrespect, not force of will, in other words.

Hard.