I had no energy, my self esteem was missing. I just craved all day and night. The thing is it never occurred to me that I had an issue with food. I just thought I had an issue with life. Whenever I went anywhere or did anything the food was my main attraction and even at parties I would eat and eat but try to do it secretly by moving around the room and hiding junky foods under the healthy looking foods. By moving about and talking to lots of people I avoided anyone seeing exactly how much I was eating.

It was only when I came across an article about emotional eating that I realized I had an issue with food and not with life. I learnt about how food is physically addictive and thus can affect your mood that way but also through emotional addiction too. I was trapped and I would never have realized this without being lucky enough to stumble across the info.

I followed the advice on an online book called Combat Your Cravings. I ate properly and found my physical cravings diminished considerably. I felt I was able to function properly and didn’t eat a refined sugar fix as soon as I wok in the morning.

But my biggest properly was my emotional eating. Everyday after work I still found it impossible not to binge and overeat. It was only until I read Shrink Yourself and then enrolled in the online program that I was able to successfully become in charge of my life.

Both the books I mentioned have been my life savers without their information I don’t think I would have overcome my overeating.

If you overeat I highly recommend you read these articles and start working through your issues today!

Stop Overeating

Bingeing in this way is a sign that one’s needs are not fully met, but instead of facing the emotion head on or listening to our inner critic, we instead suppress the feelings and zone out in front of the TV.  For some reason we believe this is easier than to face our feelings head on.

Binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder and it is no wonder why when we live in a society that uses food to celebrate, mourn and for various social gatherings.  Food is very much attached to our emotions and something that is just built into us from an early age.  Unfortunately this leads to many using food as their life crutch, to cope in times of distress.

A person who binges usually will: eat an unusually large amount of food, feel they have no control while eating, consume the food quickly, eat large amounts even when they don’t feel hungry, prefer to eat alone, hide their eating habits, feel guilty, ashamed and disgusted with themselves.

Luckily there are many resources available to people to overcome binge eating.

Roger Gould has created a 12 week intensive emotional eating program online to help people overcome binge eating disorder.  For more information click here or visit ShrinkYourself.com.  He also has a book on the subject of emotional eating that is extremely useful for anyone wanting to educate themselves on how to overcome binge eating (and a great supplement to the 12 week program).

A great starting point though is a book called Combat Your Cravings.  This will help you address whether you are eating properly, whether you know the difference between hunger and true hunger and also will help you determine your emotional eating and help you make an action plan to overcome it with activities and guidance.  You can get this book here: http://www.combatyoucravings.com

For some though binge eating is something that takes over their lives. Binge eating can be a regular, daily occurrence. The number one issue causing binge eating is usually emotional repression. In a society that encourages us to repress, avoid and take our mind off our feelings, it can be hard to allow ourselves to actually feel due to guilt and shame. When you keep avoiding or distracting yourself from feelings it can be even harder to move from this to a life of feeling. Binge eating is just one way people use to repress feelings.

Overcoming binge eating is a task that can seem quite daunting but taking a few steps in the right direction can really help prevent binges for good. I think it is important that before we address the emotional side of bingeing we must make sure that our body is getting all it needs nutritionally and physically. There are many aspects to overcoming binge eating but I feel the first crucial step is to stop dieting.

Although having a healthy diet is a good thing, the word diet has been used to describe deprivation eating. When you think of the word diet I am sure the first thing that comes into your mind is that you have to “give up” foods you like. This mentality around the term dieting is exactly why most diets fail and most people are unsuccessful at losing weight and preventing themselves from bingeing. One needs to reframe their mind around the word diet in order to be successful in eating better and overcoming cravings.

Thinking of a diet as deprivation will also push you into a panic mode, which can lead you into a binge. I know when I tried diets (or specifically the mainstream diets) I would do ok the first day but by evening I would almost go into a blind panic, as though all food was being taken away from me. This would lead me to a massive binge. This mentality is partly due to the way the word diet is used but also because of my emotional eating. I was going to “deprive” myself of my comfort foods.

As a result I found the best way to eat healthier and to keep cravings at bay was to slowly introduce healthier foods and to nourish my body with the right foods to diminish.

Most diets out there do not nourish your body sufficiently, are not healthy or geared towards the optimum diet for us as a species and leave you feeling deprived. They also do not address emotional and physical cravings either. So you are bound to fail by using these programs or getting wrapped in their use of the word diet.

Your Thinking

The biggest reason for failing at diets is the way we think. We think of food as good and bad and if we eat the bad stuff we feel guilty and ashamed. On top of this we see bad food as something we aren’t allowed or that we are missing out on.

What we should be doing instead is viewing those foods we consider bad as something we have CHOSEN not to eat. You have chosen not to eat that food as opposed to not being allowed to have it. You can freely choose again to have it but you are choosing not to for your health and weight loss goals.

We need to also take the food off the pedestal we have firmly placed it on because those junk foods do not love you like you love them do they? They leave you feeling ashamed, guilty, depressed, sluggish and awful.

If you stop seeing foods as good or as bad, start taking power of your choices and saying to others and to yourself that you are CHOOSING to eat this way, you are CHOOSING to not eat certain foods, then you will find you will have much more success in eating healthy and not bingeing.

They are not forbidden foods, they are just foods you are choosing to no longer eat.

Click here for more information on Overcoming Binge Eating

Here are 3 tips to help you stop binge eating once and for all.

1. Start observing yourself – take a few days to just observe your eating patterns. Keep a journal to record how you feel before, during and after bingeing. Write down whether an emotion is attached to your eating e.g. you are bored so you grab a bag of chips. By taking the time to observe you will be able to see when and why you use food other than for nutritional purposes or true hunger. This is the first step in being able to overcome binge eating – by being aware of your triggers and feelings.

2. Feel your feelings – if your binges revolve around emotions then you need to start learning how to feel your feelings. . Both digestion and feeling emotion are two energy-consuming activities, so the body can only do one at a time. Eating therefore is a great way to numb yourself but isn’t good for your health.

When you start to allow yourself to feel, at first you may have a rush of heavy emotion flood out of you. This will not happen every time and the more you practice being in the present moment with your feelings, the easier they become to manage and the less frightening or intense they will be. Letting go can be quite daunting but remember the feeling will pass and it will only last a short period of time. The relief and feelings of satisfaction and calm you get after allowing yourself to feel is amazing. Don’t be afraid of emotion. If you find it too much of a challenge to feeling emotions there is a great 12 week program by ShrinkYourself.com that can help you address your underlying concerns and aid you in overcoming your fear of emotions.

3. Exercise. Exercise has many benefits including:

• A great stress reliever (stress is a major contributor to binge eating – if you don’t exercise you may resort to eating to cope with stress)

• Makes you more productive – you will find exercise will give you more energy and keep you more positive. I always feel really good after exercise, not as hungry and just overall feel healthy.

• Weight loss – of course exercise is helpful in losing weight.

If you implement these 3 tips, you will find that you have more control over your binges and they may happen less often. If you know exactly what causes you to binge, why you do it and how you feel before, during and after – you are well on your way to stop binge eating.

Conclusion: Know Your Enemy!

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