How I got rid of compulsive binge eating and came to a healthy diet

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A step-by-step guide to freeing.

Background

It all started when I was 21 years old. Before that, I had succeeded in almost everything in my life. I got solid A's and was one of the best in my sport. Now I longed to move on and challenge myself more difficult. On the same day, I founded a company and started studying at the university (in Sweden it is common to wait a year or two before entering the university).

After a few months, it was already clear that I had taken on too much. Attempts to grow my business and study at the same time led to the fact that I worked until 10 pm or 11 pm almost every evening. Night was the only time I could devote to myself. I was so lacking in rest that soon I began to sit up until one o'clock, then until two in the morning, then even longer. Over time, I discovered the intoxicating sense of relief that comes from the combination of sweet and fat. So I started eating at night.

And don't just eat. I think only those who also suffered from compulsive overeating will truly understand me. The amount of ice cream, cookies, and anything else that came to hand was overwhelming.

It helped to forget for a while about my worries, gave respite and immersed me in the present moment.

The worse my daily life got, the more I became addicted to this feeling. After some time, I began to refuse invitations and meetings with friends, just to stay at home and get my "dose." It took me more than two years to admit the abnormality of this behavior.

Once I was on the phone with a close friend. We planned to meet in the evening. When I hung up, I realized that I had lied to him just to stay at home and eat. At this point, I hit the bottom. Then I swore to myself that I would be healthy again.

Today I have practically gotten rid of compulsive overeating. My body looks great. And I can finally focus on the important things that improve my existence, and not vice versa. Through reading, experimenting with myself, trial and error, I was able to improve my life - and you can too! I wrote this article so that your process will go faster and not as painful as mine.

How to get rid of overeating

Step 1: admit you have a problem

Unsurprisingly, this is the starting point for programs to get rid of dependencies. If you don’t acknowledge the problem, you won’t solve it.

If you are reading this text, then, most likely, you have already realized the difficulties. If not, don't judge yourself too harshly. Just know: until you are ready, you will not be able to change your life for the better.

Recognizing the problem was my first big break. But it really started when I started telling other people about it. You don't have to tell everyone. I started with my closest friends and then told my family, and the latter was more difficult for me. It all depends on your relationship. It's best to share first with those you feel most comfortable with. But keep in mind that this kind of conversation will always be a little unpleasant. It's even good: discomfort means that you are working on yourself.

Later, I started talking about overeating even to people I just met. This is necessary in order to separate yourself from the problem and look at it more objectively.

Overeating is not part of your identity. This is a problem that you can solve.

Conclusions:

1. Admit that you have a problem. Don't judge yourself. You can even write it down on paper, describing everything as truthfully as possible.
2. Make an appointment with close friends. Warn in advance that you want to talk about your problem and that it is important to you.
3. Start telling other people. Do this to the extent that you feel comfortable.

If you have no one to share with, or if you feel that your eating habits are already harmful to your health, see a therapist. Feel free to do this.

Step 2. Identify the needs behind overeating

In my experience, there are two main factors that lead to binge eating disorder. The first is unmet physiological needs (more on them in the next step), the second is unmet emotional needs.

When I first started to overeat, I felt that I did not have enough time for communication. Also, I could not cope with the volume of tasks that arose from studying and doing business. There was too much stress in my life.

Overeating became an opportunity to escape from the severity of the lifestyle that I led.

I had high standards, and I suffered from not living up to them. This affected my relationships with people. I was ashamed. I became more and more distant from the world, and this led to an even greater feeling of loneliness. Of course, I felt that something was wrong. The diary entries helped me. I recorded my thoughts and emotions, and also reflected on why I think and feel that way.

The difficulty is that the negative consequences of overeating (metabolic disorders, excess weight, health problems) appear only after a long time, and the positive ones (calming, a pleasant taste of food, the release of dopamine) are felt immediately.

In the end, journaling and meditating helped to roughly understand what I am missing and what I want from life. This set the direction and ultimately led to the creation of my business today. I also turned to a psychotherapist. This allowed me to see the situation more clearly and begin to make up for what I was trying to compensate by overeating.

You need to identify and deal with your own emotional needs.

As behavioral scientist Jason Hreha says, habits are simply reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment. Therefore, you need to replace the benefits of overeating with something else that is no less valuable.

Conclusions:

1. Write down your emotions associated with overeating. Record whatever comes to mind. Ask yourself: what led to this? What do I usually feel right before binge eating? Is there something to help control this behavior?
2. Start working with a psychotherapist. This will help you understand the psychological causes of overeating. And discussing the situation with another person will reinforce the first step (acknowledging the problem).
3. Create an emergency plan. Knowing what triggers overeating can help reduce your risk of another attack and lessen the negative consequences if it does happen. Here are the points in my plan:

• Don't keep food that I abuse during my attacks at home. For me, these are sweet fatty foods, you may have something else.
• Eat healthy foods. Feeling hungry is the last thing you need in such a situation.
• During an attack, listen to your hunger. Pay close attention to the sensations. The sooner you notice the discomfort of overeating, the sooner you stop. This is an important step to train your body to recognize when you are full.
• Focus on long-term goals and the consequences of overeating. Stop before picking up a tidbit. Think about how what you eat will affect you in the short and long term?

Step 3. Stop dieting and start eating high nutrient density foods

So, another factor contributing to overeating is unmet physiological needs. Most people with binge eating disorder have had some kind of diet. As a result, they found themselves in a state where the body is constantly striving for calories.

I have been playing sports for a long time and experimenting with nutrition. My appearance and fitness have always been important to me. I have tried almost every known diet. By the time the problem of overeating became more acute, I had been a lacto-ovo-vegetarian for about a year.

For various reasons (mainly environmental, which, as it turned out later, were completely wrong), nine months after that, I switched to a vegan diet. I tried to keep my diet low in carbohydrates. But due to the fact that the food was plant-based, and due to frequent bouts of overeating, I still got a lot of this nutrient. So the body lived on sugar for the most part, and stored all the fat. In addition, I experimented with fasting: often I did not eat for 24 hours, and sometimes for 72. Fasting became for me a kind of repentance after bouts of overeating.

I was constantly thinking about food and the delicious feeling of relief I got from eating something fatty and sweet. At the same time, I suffered from guilt and shame for my behavior and could not understand why I was doing this.

Now it no longer seems like a mystery to me. The typical binge cycle is influenced by physiological and evolutionary factors. First, if you are on some kind of diet or simply limit yourself, as I did, your body will not receive enough nutrients and will begin to require certain foods - much more than under normal conditions.

Secondly, if you regularly starve or somehow repent for the sins of overeating, the body will start to panic. Especially with a diet high in carbohydrates, from which blood sugar fluctuates greatly. And if you have binge eating disorder, your diet is very likely to be high in carbohydrates and fat.

To control fluctuations in blood sugar, the body will require more high-calorie foods, such as ice cream. And when you eat, he will begin to store fat, because he is used to relying on a regular intake of calories. Moreover, this process is not realized. You will notice an obsession with food and obsessive thoughts about unhealthy high-calorie foods, but you will not understand what is the matter.

This creates shame and guilt, and they only increase the need for food. When unmet emotional needs are mixed in, the situation is completely out of control.

I will not teach you how to eat. I'll just tell you what happened to me when I tried eating animal products for a month:

• I soon stopped dreaming of yogurt and similar unloading products in large quantities.
• I started to think less about food, and between meals I felt full.
• It became easier to control yourself and not give in to the desire to swallow everything that comes to hand.
• The depression that I developed against the backdrop of all this, soon became less severe.

For the past two and a half years, I've been trying to figure out why this happened. Here are the conclusions I came to. Religious teachings and corporate benefits aside, it is clear that animal foods have the highest nutrient density (meaning they are high in nutrients but not high in calories). Plus, the nutrients it contains are important for our mental health. It is essential to deal with the hurricane of emotions and negative thoughts that accompanies (and causes) compulsive overeating.

Whichever diet you choose, the fact remains: to get rid of overeating, you have to give the body what it needs.

You have every right to refuse meat for ethical reasons. Just remember that now is not the time to hold on to old beliefs and ideas about yourself. You need to be pragmatic and take care of the body, and you can find a way to defend your position later.

Conclusions:

1. Stop dieting and starving. I didn’t give up fasting for a long time, and it was very stupid. Once you have recovered and established a relationship with food, you can experiment as much as you want. But for now, forget about it.
2. Try to eat three to four dense meals a day. Skip meals only if you feel completely full. Understand that this will eventually give you the body you want, but your current nutrition will not.
3. Eat foods that are high in protein and high in nutrient density. I advise you to build your diet on animal products. Hunger is your worst enemy, especially at the beginning of the journey, and such a diet will help you stay full for a long time.

What to do after a binge eating disorder

Let's be honest, you will have a seizure again someday. And there is nothing wrong with that. After this I lost my common sense for several days and began to think: "Well, since I am already at the bottom, I can stay here a little longer."

Fight this thought with all your might. Get started today. Do not try to fix what happened by fasting: it will only increase the desire to eat too much again.

After another attack, focus on one aspiration: to be better than yesterday.

Even if you succumbed to your weakness for the second day in a row. Try to hurt yourself a little less than before, and don't punish yourself for the breakdown.

Finally

Not so long ago, I didn't dare to believe that someday I would be completely free of compulsive overeating. Now I can finally say that I have a stable, healthy relationship with food that will only get better in the future.

You, too, have come to this if you can sometimes indulge yourself with something tasty and at the same time not blame yourself. And not imagine how to eat it in kilograms until you feel bad.

Binge eating is not worth wasting even a minute of your time or a fraction of your potential. It won't take a day or two to free yourself, but you can do it if you don't give up.