My main things are ~

• My big bowl of salad that I make up that I snack from
• Not having anything too bingy in the house
• smoke (yeh I know :( )
• think about how unhappy I get when I put weight on instead of lose it
• Tell my husband and he talks me out of it

Going for a walk!
It's my TOM so cravings are hard, but possible, to keep at bay and sometimes it feels like it's too much. After class around 430-5 I had a small apple and then some mango slices from Trader Joes to feed my craving, but it didn't work. Around 530 I was going to give in and eat dinner early (even though I knew it wouldn't cut it and good chance I'd want to eat again later), but instead I decided I NO and put on my shoes. I walked 10 minutes to 7-11 to get a VitWaterZERO and since it was nice out I ended up going on a 40 minute walk. Not only did my craving of 'just wanting to eat' go away, I got in some additional exercise! (already had a good workout this morning)

This has worked in the past before too! Get out, separate yourself from temptation, and reconnect with feeling good - and normal at least. ;)

I taped a bikini to my Fridge! It helps you turn away from all the treats for a while, but ater a while I find I'm not noticing it so much anymore... think I'll replace the bikini with a really cute top that doesn't look so good on me anymore :)

Making eating the focal point saves me from binging. Eating at the table, without reading and without television and savoring every bite makes it about the meal and me, and not about the demons!

Why do we think, "I WILL EAT THEM ALL"??
 

Originally Posted by Emme:
I literally have to talk myself out of it. Last night we had the 3 boxes of Girl Scout cookies that we had ordered delivered to the house and it was painful. My favorites are the Caramel Delites and I grabbed a calculator to see how many calories it would be if I ate the entire box. 940 calories. "Not too bad," I thought to myself because I had all intentions of opening up the box and eating them all...not because I wanted to, but because I knew that once I had one cookie I would need to eat them all. "Not too bad"?!?!?!? Are you effing kidding me?!?! So, it took me about 20 minutes of walking around the house and distracting myself with other things and literally saying to myself, "It's not worth it." It was tough, but a lot of self-talk and distraction really helps me.

This is a really good topic, enjoyed reading all of them. I use and will use many of these!

Question though...why is it that we think this way (in the above quote)? Once we have just one cookie, you know you will eat them all before the fact.

I go through this alot, and think this way...once i eat just one, i will eat them ALL. I mean, really, whyy??? Why do i think this way? I know some of you do as well, since many of you mentioned to not keep binge foods in the house, and also not to eat one bite.

Sorry, but i'm not understanding the mentality of BED, although I am suffering from BED and trying to regain control of my eating. To be honest, I'm not sure why i go extreme myself.

Thanks all!

So here is my contribution to the list of ideas on how to stop a binge:

Ask yourself...WHYY???

If you cannot answer the question with a legitamate answer, then don't do it.

Feeling bad does not constitute a legit answer.

Thanks for reading! Hope this works for some of you!

I find that sometimes, allowing myself to have a small binge on a "safe" food (like pickles or celery or something else VERY low calorie, usually raw spinach and vinegar is a good thing). That way it lets me feel like I've gotten the binge out, but in reality I've only eaten maybe 200 calories at the most.

Instead of going into my bedroom with chips, I do it with a bag of salad greens. Later on, I dont even want the chips.

I find that the BEST solution is to not keep unsafe food in the house. I live with my mother and father and sisters, and wile my mother is very food-conscious and only buys healthy organic stuff for my sisters and I, my dad loves his junk food, and so there is constantly an unmonitored cabinet filled with sugar cereals, junk food, and candy that often tempts me when I was home alone.

To combat this, I have gone vegan, and cut out processed foods. That way, if I slip up and binge, I havnt eaten cookies and cakes and candies and fries and pizza. I've eaten cabbage and an apple and a few handfuls of grapes, which makes binging NEXT TIME look less appealing.

Originally Posted by bellaella:
this sounds bad because i know there are a lot of people who dont have food to eat.. but when times get desperate, i ruin my food.
ie. i pour water on it, i mix whatever i can see into it, i throw it out.. anything to make it not-edible.
but this has to happen before it starts. but everytime i do it, i feel terrible for wasting the food.. but i know that if i ate it, i would feel even MORE terrible

I've given it to my dog before... which is absolutely horrible for the dog, no doubt, but I've done it.

How to keep binges at bay
 

The ONLY thing that works for me is to NOT EAT IT. Not even a bite.

To keep binges from attacking the only thing that has worked is to eat only healthy foods. It takes about 2-3 weeks, but the urges for sugar and junk stop. They just STOP - completely and without a thought.

So, just hang in there a few short weeks - eat NO junk - and you'll be amazed that one day you wake up with absolutely no cravings... and therefore no binges. (Note: junk is anything with sugar, deep fried anything, white rice/pasta/bread etc...)

You'll still need to learn how to control your appetite by carefully watching portions to keep losing weight. Remember that all calories count - no matter where they come from.:D

AND - you may want to refrain from junk altogether, until you have lost a considerable amount of weight... just to be certain those binges stay away!;)

A trigger for binging for me is isolating myself. When I isolate I get lonely which makes me want to binge. So I try to get out and do stuff even when I don't want to.

Wow, all of these are really good things to do. I have done probably all of them all of this week alone!!

Beila, I would looooooove to know the answer too!!! I am the same way, I already would plan waaaay ahead of time to eat an entire box/bag of whatever the food was. Because I kneeeew that I couldn't eat only one. I know it's part of the disease, but I'd like to know why too.
I am figuring out why I'm BINGING, like what triggers it, but heck if I know why I had to keep on going and going.....

Oh, I will also sometimes take a quick picture of myself in the mirror, look at it, and then it really stops me from going in the kitchen.

It helps if I plan my meals out and post what I ate on Three Fat Chicks on a Diet. I've been much more in control since I started using this website. Somehow writing it out helps to organize my thoughts.

Dont take the first bite!!!!! and if ive gone past that point i tend to ruin my food too, like pour water on it and throw it away - sounds a bit odd now im writing it down!!

Hi everyone! I'm new here.

I realized that I really craved and binged on things when my body was deprived of some mineral or nutrient. This usually happens the week before my period (loss of iron) and when I skip my vitamins or eat really terribly,

What really helps me is eating nutrient rich foods. After that, the craving usually goes away. In the rare case that it doesn't, I write it down in my journal.

Because the most important thing my music professor taught me was that...

"We write things down to forget about them."