I just wanted to take a minute to recommend a book I recently read called Brain Over Binge. In a few words, this book was just absolutely life-changing for me, and I cannot recommend it highly enough in the hopes that it'll help someone else as much as it did me!

If you're like me, and you feel trapped in the habit of binge eating, especially if it's been continuing for years and years, feel overwhelmed with how many "triggers" there are for you to feel the urge to binge, and if you've felt like the bingeing is completely at odds with your true self and yet you can't figure out why you still can't stop, I think you'll find a lot of answers in this book!

The author basically presents an alternative method to recovery than some of the more traditional ones, one that treats binge eating as more of a physical habit issue rather than an emotional one, and it just happens to be one that is a perfect fit for me. Since reading the book and internalizing the concepts, I have not binged, have had virtually no struggle with it, and best of all, I feel I can truly say with confidence that I will never again binge eat when "I" don't want to. After several years, I finally feel like I fully understand why I started bingeing, why I continued to for so long, why my past efforts to avoid it failed, and now, why I'll never go back and do it any more.

So, I just would recommend that anyone pick up this book if you're interested. I practically sound like an advertisement, haha, but honestly, it was very amazing for me. There are a lot of reviews you can read which similarly have really changed people's lives. At the least, I can't imagine it would be a waste of time to read for anyone! (: If you want, you can also go here: http://brainoverbinge.blogspot.ca/20...beginners.html and get a good overview of the book's ideas, as well, before going out to get the whole book!

Hello! Thanks a lot for the recommendation!

I'm currently reading a book called 'Overcoming Overeating' by Jane Hirschmann & Carol Munter and although I'm only halfway through it it's already having an effect on me.

In that book the authors write about accepting yourself for who you are and not criticising yourself all the time. They say that the way to do it is to catch yourself in a criticism. So, earlier, when I caught sight of myself in a bathroom mirror at work, my instant thought was 'god, I look awful', then realised what I'd thought and told myself that I accept myself the way I am and that I love me. About five other times today I've had self-depreciating thoughts and have told myself the same thing. It's already making me feel happier and less self-conscious.

It also says that you need to stop dieting to stop binging, because the binge is a direct result of constricting yourself to a very limited number of foods. For me, it's always been about a weekend of freedom (eating everythng and anything I want) before I have to go back on the diet wagon on Monday, so I buy in excess and then eat in excess because I think I need to get it all out of the way before the diet returns. They actually use that exact same mentality in the book.

I'd always been a bit cautious about self-help books of any kind, but it's just so good to be reading something that makes complete and utter sense!

I am going to try to pick this book up at Barnes and Noble tonight, and hopefully get through some of it this weekend.

I've heard good things about it.

Funny, I was just writing a post to someone on another thread who mentioned this very book. I have been reviewing the author's website and it makes sense to me. I mean, I've been to therapy. I've learned WHY I binge, I've learned that I COPE by bingeing. I repeat the cycle of trigger-urge-binge-repent at least twice a day like a freaking robot.

I have recently begun to understand that my fragile emotional state (eye roll) may not be responsible for my urges. I think I'm over my past and the power it has over me, I realize that I'm not perfect but that I don't have to keep punishing myself with bingeing. I'm just over all of it. I'm starting to understand that food has a physiological impact on my hormones and that by changing some of that food I can think more clearly. But even all that knowledge does not CURE my bingeing.

It definitely makes sense to me and I'll be buying the book come next paycheck. But pleeeeeease keep us updated on how you're doing with this as I'd really like to do it too. My worst fear of this is how to disengage from the urge, and how to not act on the urge. It seems impossible, tell me how you do it.

Mottaini-
ive been wanting to tell you to read this book for a VERY long time... after reading alot of your posts, and even your more recent ones.. but i didnt want to be rude.... i really feel like you were just giving TOO MUCH ATTENTION to your binging (and she addresses that in the book)

The book helped me, for a bit...... my binging is definitely more under control...its 60% better.. but for a while it was completely better. that only lasted a couple weeks though.
the problem, and she adresses this too, is that this technique wont work (prob) if youre trying to lose weight still.
If youre STILL in a caloric deficit, than your animal brain is STILL going to take over, eventually.. the same physiological response that oriniginally started the behavior will kick in again, if someone continues to try and diet diet down.. its a survival instinct, first and foremost, but after that, it IS habit, and you CAN control it..
Im still trying to lose, but my binging is a LOT better, like i said. but im also, in general, eating more moderately now, as well

I found they have it on the Nook for $10! Also, if any of you ladies have a tablet, I'm not sure if you know, but you can download the Nook app and read the Nook books that way. Sometimes the books are cheaper, or at least easier to get to since my bookstore is often missing things like this.

I'm going to buy it tonight, after my haircut, and start reading.

I don't have any fantasies that I'll cure my binging overnight or that it will go away forever. I do have a lot of weight to lose and I know that during that time it's going to be difficult to always be fighting binging.

I just can't lose anything as long as these frequent binges continue. I fear it will kill me one day too! I overate yesterday to a point I hadn't reached in a while, where I felt ill laying down because all the food was pushing up at the top of my stomach. And I also became sweaty and just felt ill in general.

I know that I will certainly beat this, and that I will lose weight and become healthy, because it's what I want for my future. I do know that it won't be as easy as simply cutting back on calories and adding in exercise, because I do have this silly disorder that plagues me. BUT, I know that I will find a way and I know that all of you will too.

Wannabeskinny- It was HARD to completely seperate my higher brain self from the binge urge at first, still is a bit sometimes. One thing I found helpful was just to put an automatic label "JUNK" on ANY thought that popped into my mind related to binging. I may go back and reevaluate it later trying to see if it really was "my" thought or not, but regardless, I made it a new habit that it was instantaneous to think a big "JUNK!!!" on all of them. I also actually had to spend some self-reflection time convincing myself of reasons why those thoughts are not me. A big one is thinking, "OK, if I did not already have THIS SPECIFIC habit to binge eat, would I be considering it now?" And the answer is basically always NO, of course. Anyway, I hope some of the strategies and the mindset in BOB are helpful for you!!

Mkroyer- Yep, I can definitely see now that I was giving my binge urges WAY WAY too much significance. Honestly, I'd felt many times like it was just a simple dumb habit, but since that I'd never read kind of any authoritative resource saying that could be the case, I found myself trying to discover what else it might mean, etc. I 100% agree that it is vital not to stay in a big deficit. I kinda kept track and just observed my urges and connection with what I ate, and it's simply that the "animal brain" thoughts are soooo much louder and distracting and hard to ignore when I didn't eat enough. That became obvious very quickly to me!

Psyence- I've read OO too, and heard from people who got a lot out of it! For me, though, the main strategy simply didn't apply. My bingeing was not due to restricting certain foods (in fact, I don't even LIKE the foods I binge on to eat regularly, lol); i binged just to deal with the binge urges and how distracting and awful they felt, and those urges were just the result of a hard-etched habit in my brain. /: So that to say, I would recommend anyone struggling read OO too, but at the same time, if there's anyone for whom that recovery mindset doesn't work, don't be discouraged, because there are other ways, like in BOB, to deal with it!

Thewalrus- that's great you bought it. Let us know how it is! I bought an e-book edition for my iPod too and read it in like half a day, I couldn't put it down, haha. For one, just reading the intro, the authors story was INCREDIBLY similar to my own, almost eerily so, so I think that's one reason that the book was so effective for me. Obviously you're right to not expect a miracle recovery (I sure didn't!) but I hope you at least learn something! You might also read the rest of that blog, and also the BOB forum. You can hear from tons of people both who experienced dramatic changes right away and who still struggled for a bit.

I understand that stopping my bingeing and losing weight are 2 very different things. I'd be happy right not to just stop gaining weight to be truthful. I'll be ecstatic if I can stop bingeing, bingeing makes me miserable and feel completely out of control. If I can reduce or eliminate that then I can be my true self all the time... and my true self loooooooooves salad. My bingeing self likes going through a drive-thru and ordering everything on the menu. If I can get away from entering into that zombie state then I think my caloric intake will reduce naturally, possibly by the thousands! Are you saying that stopping bingeing will automatically cause my body to go into survival mode?

It's depressing. It's like I can never win, ever. Like my body is always going to betray me no matter what. Why can't I be like Giada di Laurentis, all she does is cook pasta all day long and is as skinny as a stick.

How long has this been working for you? I haven't gotten the book yet but I've read her entire site and the words that reach out to me is "I don't want to be in recovery for the rest of my life." It's not something I want to struggle with day in and day out. I want to have control over my own self. I've tried since yesterday to feed my higher brain. Any thought that comes to mind of food or bingeing I just push it off like "that's just a thought, nothing more." Is that good? I can see though that my animal brain is going to play some tricks on me, I was sitting on the couch watching tv late at night and the vision of a donut popped into my mind. Sneaky little thought! I pushed it away easily but will it always be so easy? I haven't binged in 24hrs though I have no idea if it will last. I'm scared, but the idea that this is neurological habit that my healthy brain can fix makes sense to me. It also helps me realize that I am not a victim - therapy makes me feel like I am a victim of my emotions and the thought of being able to train my brain like a muscle makes me feel powerful.

I don't know if what I just wrote makes sense, it's just all my thoughts spewing out.

Wanna-

It sounds like you're doing great! It's important, I think, to really not put much attention on the binge urge thoughts, because like the book says, the place they're coming from can't be argued or reasoned with anyway. It's normal to be scared, thats actually exactly the way I felt! It's been exactly two weeks since I read the book, and I had one binge in that time actually the day I finished reading it the first time, almost like I was testing myself or something, but other than that, it had TRULY been the EASIEST few weeks of my life not bingeing. At first it was scary, but then it became very freeing.

The animal brain is tricky for sure (not like on purpose trying to be tricky, but you know what I mean). That last binge I had, a major reason was that I listened to the thought that "well, now that I know I can easily stop bingeing any time, might as well do it once more!" lol.

One thing I will tell you: really truly internalizing the fact that the urges are purely "junk" is a major factor. Once I had truly understood and believed that, after re-reading the book a few times and thinking about it, I found myself much less even wanting to try and engage with the urge. It became like boring, actually. My "higher brain" really realized, yeah I'm thinking it'll be a good fun idea to binge, but I can't forget that I believe it's actually junk, and I really don't want to do something that's simply following a nonsense urge! It became just unappealing, in a way I could never have imagined in the past. It used to hold some strange appeal when I thought things like, I binge because I'm special, because it has some significance and some real benefit for me, and it's something I can't resist! But once I believed it was purely just a HABIT that meant nothing, and that it is possible to ignore and live without, the feeling of wanting to continue doing it just *went away somehow.

On the subject of not dieting, one thought you can maybe find safety in is, once you understand and believe that you'll never need to give in to the urge to binge again, you have so much more freedom to eat! There's no longer any need to restrict as a countermeasure against future binges, because you know there doesn't have to e any! I was amazed at that idea, haha, it really helped me. (:

Your enthusiasm is contagious. I admit I'm skeptical so I'll be tracking your progress (not a stalky creepy kind of way though haha!) I mean I'll just try to stay connected to this thread for support is what I mean.

I was thinking that same thing, sometimes I meet people and they're just crazy. You can't argue or reason with them and I always say "you can't reason with crazy." And now I'm treating that binge voice like one of those annoying people that I don't bother with.

Not that I believe this will be easy but it gives me hope that it has been easy for you not to binge.

Some other things I've been saying to myself when I'm having an urge are:

- that's just my animal brain saying that; I'm not an animal
- that's nothing more than a thought, let it pass.
- Junk thought
- I'm not going to think with that brain.

What do you tell yourself besides junk? Let's come up with a list of things we can say to ourselves when the urges come.

One thing I'm trying NOT to do is to engage with my urges like the author says. I'm trying not to argue with my thoughts or say stuff like "I WONT eat that" because it makes me want it more lol. So simple, I had no idea it could be effective.

I just read your post to me in the other thread (the one started by walrus). I completely agree that this book was life-changing. Like I said in my other post, I was in therapy with an ED specialist and did CBT for quite a while. It "kind of" worked while I was devoting a LOT of time/energy to it, but I also felt that during that time it was a freakin' DAILY struggle (along with every other method I've tried). After reading this book (2-3 weeks ago I read it) I haven't felt that way at all and I have not binged or even really wanted to. A few observations from my own experience:

1) I am not that far into it. 2.5 weeks or so. So, things could change; however, I've never gone more than a few days without a STRONG compulsion to binge. So, in the past, even if I stretch together a week or two of no bingeing, it was also extremely draining to be fighting the urges every day.

2. Since I'm still trying to get my footing I haven't worried too much about dieting, per se. I do need to lose weight, so that might be the test when I start cutting down more on caloric intake (though I will do so very modestly) it still may have an effect. Will keep you posted.

3. Fighting of the urges: If you start looking at this in the context the author suggests, it's not the kind of struggle you're used to with fighting off binges. It's the difference between a light push and a knock-down drag-out fight (what it used to be with me). I *really* started to look at my urges/compulsion to binge as a primal beast; It may sound ridiculous but I picture Animal (remember that guy from The Muppets, LOL?) banging a drum, screaming for food. It's laughable how ridiculous it would be to listen to him when I'm not hungry. It's almost more like an "outer body"/objective experience to look at Animal and say "Shhh, stop being so crazy. I don't need to binge to survive."

4. What a breath of fresh air to know that I don't have to come to terms with every dang issue I've ever had in my life/deal with issues from childhood/learn to cope effectively/learn to positive self-talk/become spirtually enlightened/be personally fulfilled to STOP bingeing. I've been a binge eater for nearly 25 years and if I had just known this, that information in itself would have helped with the actual behavior.

Disclaimer -- This is *very* new to me, but it FEELS SO different than anything I've done in the past. I really am not fighting with myself every day. I honestly feel more free than I have in years and years.

I hope you have success with this too.

One other thing I did that may sound silly, but it kind of helped. I looked at a few youtube videos where people had taped their binges (they were in FF). If you look at someone else bingeing (as an outsider) it looks crazy... because it IS. I really don't feel like myself when I am bingeing and I know many other people report that too. So, now, I think of those videos and how I felt to be watching someone to that to themselves and I can seperate more easily that "animal" part of myself -- the part that is wanting to binge.

Haha, yes, please track my progress. I'm really interested to see how this plays out as well....I'm feeling enthusiastic right now, but I simply cannot know if it really keeps up like this!

To be honest, I really try to stick to as short and simple things as possible, like my first reactions: usually it's "junk," "shut up," or "go away." Haha. I also have been trying to so some like mindfulness and check my body, like if my breathing is heavy or my heart is quick or I'm feeling pressure in my chest, things that come from the anxiety I've always associated with getting urges. And when I feel those, I think things like, "It can't hurt me. Urges can't make me do anything. It's just a habit," just to work on calming down.

Keep posting, I'm eager to track your progress as well!!