How to Stop Binge Eating or Compulsive Overeating

Binge eating and compulsive overeating are symptoms of a deeper issue.

Many people struggle with the eating disorders of binge eating and compulsive overeating. They feel very strong urges to eat large quantities of food, even when they are not hungry, in order to manage painful emotions. Binge eating and compulsive overeating are symptoms of a deeper issue, and the disorders are taxing on your body. You do not have to stay enslaved to these eating disorders. Here is how you can stop binge eating or compulsive overeating.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Strong desire to heal
• Patience

1. Give yourself permission to eat what you want. If you struggle with binge eating or compulsive overeating, you are already eating those foods, but you are heaping guilt on top of the calories. This fuels your negative feelings which, in turn, triggers the next cycle of binge eating or compulsive overeating. By giving yourself permission to eat whatever you want, you stop this cycle of overeating to repress the negative feelings triggered by overeating.

2. Develop positive coping tools to use for managing your emotions. Try exercising, talking with a friend, doing yoga, playing a musical instrument or anything else that helps you manage your emotions in a more positive way.

3. Process your emotions instead of stuffing them down with food. People who binge eat or compulsively overeat often do so to "stuff down" painful emotions that they do not want to face. Eating disorders are symptoms of deeper issues, not the issue itself. Heal the pain that is driving the behavior, and you will no longer feel the urges to binge eat or compulsively overeat.

4. Focus your thoughts on topics other than food. We give power to the things we think about, so even if you are thinking about eating healthier foods, you are still fueling thoughts about food. Instead, think about things that make you happy or make you feel good about yourself.

5. Give yourself a cooling off period. When you get the urge to binge eat or compulsively overeat, tell yourself that you are going to wait 15 minutes. During that 15-minute period, use the other coping tools you have developed to manage your emotions. At the end of the 15-minute period, if you still feel the overwhelming urge to binge eat or compulsively overeat, then eat with no guilt.

6. Phase down the severity of the binge. If you do binge or compulsively overeat, take another cooling off period between courses. Instead of binge eating on 4 rounds of food, see if only 3 rounds will suffice.

7. Repeat these steps until you have mastered the eating disorder.

Tips & Warnings

• Healing from an eating disorder takes time, so be very patient with yourself.

• Do not judge your progress with a pass/fail standard. Instead, celebrate any progress, such as binge eating 2 courses instead of 3.

• Finding a qualified therapist with experience in counseling people with the issues fueling the eating disorder is an important part of healing from an eating disorder. Your therapist can provide you with additional tools to stop binge eating or compulsive overeating.

• People who have struggled with an eating disorder will always be vulnerable to slipping back into old patterns. Even after you conquer binge eating or compulsive overeating, stay mindful of situations that could trigger a relapse.

• Never go on a diet. Depriving yourself of food often triggers the urge to binge or compulsively overeat. Instead, manage your weight through making healthier food choices and exercising. For some people, just stopping the overeating is enough to go back to a steady weight.