Though most people occasionally get carried away with their eating habits, clinical binge eating disorders can be extremely life affecting. For those living with binge eating disorder, the desire to eat excessively on a regular or constant basis can be entirely overwhelming. What starts out as a few enjoyable bites quickly spirals into an uncontrollable eating binge, accompanied by feelings of guilt, shame and regret.
When it comes to treating binge eating disorders, there are multiple avenues to explore. While the most qualified counsellor Canterbury has to offer can of course offer outstanding advice and support, there are also various self-help tips and strategies to help tackle binge eating problems.
So for those looking to play the most active role possible in their own care and treatment, here’s a quick overview of just a few tips from the experts on controlling binge-eating habits:
1 – Establish a Routine
First and foremost, getting into a healthy routine is of the absolute importance when dealing with this kind of eating disorder. Without a regular routine and meal plan, eating habits have a tendency to go from one extreme to the other. An individual may eat excessively at one time of the day and then starve themselves for the rest of the day, in order to compensate. By creating and sticking withroutine, it becomes much easier to control eating habits day after day.
2 – Put Health First
An unhealthy fixation with weight loss or weight management in general can be one of the biggest triggers of binge eating – not to mention a variety of other eating disorders. As such, it is important to acknowledge the fact that weight management only becomes possible with a generally strong level of overall health. As such, focusing on health above and beyond everything else is of the utmost importance.
3 – Identify Triggers
In the overwhelming majority of instances where an individual struggles with binge eating disorder, there will no doubt be a variety of triggers that kick-start their binges. More often than not, feelings of boredom, depression, isolation and frustration tend to be the most powerful triggers of all – they can also be the most difficult to avoid. Nevertheless, others may find themselves triggered by other influencing factors like alcohol consumption – something that is considerably easier to gain control of.
4 – Remove Temptation
If you do not have access to the kinds of foods you tend to binge on, you will not be able to binge. Or at least, you will be considerably less likely to binge as the foods around you will not be your primary foods of choice. As such, one of the simplest ways of getting the problem with binge eating under control is to remove any and all temptation where possible and to keep yourself away from situations/scenarios where temptation will be around you.
5 – Try Something New
Another effective way of controlling binge-eating tendencies is to try something new – perhaps get into some kind of hobby or activity you haven’t yet tried. The idea in this instance is that you find something that can be used to both ensure you stay occupied and can be turned to when you feel the urge to eat unhealthily. Distraction is often the key to success with a wide variety of problematicbehaviours, so do make the effort to try something new.
6 – Set Smaller Goals
Rather than being unrealistic and expecting yourself to walk away from such a problem in an instant, try instead setting smaller goals you will be able to reach in a relatively short period of time. For example, you could challenge yourself to cut down on the junk food you tend to eat while bingeing, before then moving on to cutting it out entirely. And of course, it’s also helpful to find ways of rewarding yourself when deserved.
7 – Take a Time Out
While it may seem difficult to do, one of the best ways of stopping an eating binge in its tracks is to force yourself to stop eating, walk away, think carefully for 10 minutes about what you’re doing and see if you really want to continue eating. Chances are that in most instances, the answer will be no.
8 – Seek Help
Last but not least, do not fall into the trap of assuming that binge eating disorder is not a serious condition and does not call for professional advice and assistance. If you are even remotely concerned about your eating habits in any way, shape or form, it is imperative that you speak to the professionals immediately for the sake of your own health and wellbeing.