As five years of bulimia tore through my life like an obnoxious tornado the sheer brutality has left my brain in bits, littered with shrapnel and revealing a stronger penchant for binge eating along with some swamp-yellow teeth.
Nowadays, I notice that my emotional state directly correlates to how I eat and what I eat: When I’m happy, I eat, when I’m angry, I eat and when I’m sad, I eat. But, the difference is that when these emotions are particularly heightened, my crippling urges to binge kick in and I frequently find myself waking from a food coma covered in crumbs and empty McDonalds packaging.
Bingeing is detrimental to my health and acts as a constant reminder that I’m not where I’d like to be in my “ED recovery” – not to mention it being totally embarrassing. I spoke to dietitian Ursula Philpot to get some advice on how to kick the bloated beast once and for all.
(You may want to read our post HOW TO EAT ACCORDING TO A DIETITIAN before delving into this – it’s bloody good!)
Getting started…
According to B-eat, self-help is often the first suggestion for the treatment of binge eating disorder.
Your GP might be able to recommend books or self-help courses (or a quick google search if you’re reluctant to go to a doctor). B-eat itself provides self help support too, their Helpline, online support groups, message boards, emotional overeating support groups (online) and reviewed books are all there on their website.
Understanding the disorder…
When I ask Ursula, quite bluntly, how a binge eater can stop binge eating, she says: “We wouldn’t ask someone to stop. What we normally would ask them to do is to notice what the patterns were. What are the common triggers?”
Here are some really common triggers that Ursula points out…and the first is simply: Hunger! You might’ve skipped a meal, might not have eaten enough or might’ve exercised and not eaten enough to match. Perhaps your diet is too boring and your body and mind are craving something else.
She says: “Obviously if you’re just choosing one type of food you’re going to become bored of that pretty quickly. It is better if you can to choose some sort of balance of food but you shouldn’t say ‘oh I can’t have this’ or ‘I can’t have that’. If you want lasagne for breakfast, have it.”
Here’s a handy acronym to help you work out why you have an urge to binge…
A – Anger or negative unexpressed emotion. You might feel angry or feel that something’s unfair…or maybe you’re feeling really sad.
L – Loneliness and boredom.
T – Tiredness. This one is the opposite to the L (above). You have too much to do and may be over committing yourself. You are looking after everybody else but not yourself.
Ursula says that you should start by recording your triggers and noticing what they are. Then you are more able to reduce your vulnerability, in terms of triggers, and eventually you can start to ride out the binge urges.
Tips to practice…
Ursula says that if you get an overwhelming urge to binge, try these tips:
1. Remove yourself from a vulnerable situation around food. Take yourself out of the kitchen or anywhere where there is food.
2. Munch on low-risk foods, e.g. foods you don’t crave when you have an urge to binge.
3. Brush your teeth.
4. Crunch on sour sweets.
5. Squirt lemon juice in your mouth.
6. Speak to someone. Tell them how you feel and that you want to binge and ask them to help you ‘surf the urge’.
7. Play music.
8. Play games on your phone.
“Anything that will distract for the moment”, Ursula says.
“Ride out the urge. Notice when it peaks, notice it plateau and notice it come down.”
Ursula says it is important to have “a range of strategies to have a go at and seeing if anything works”.
Professional help…
If you’ve attempted self-help and haven’t had any luck, your next step might be to seek out some professional help.
B-eat say that if your binge eating disorder is persistent, psychological treatment might be recommended, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) and modified dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT). It’s a good idea to do some research and discuss these with your doctor.
In some cases, medication is also recommended as either an alternative or accompaniment to self-help or talking therapies. Similar drugs used to treat depression might be suggested by your doctor. Sometimes this alone can help to reduce the behaviour patterns associated with binge eating disorder.
B-eat add that it is unusual for someone with binge eating disorder to be admitted as an inpatient – but you might be asked by your doctor to attend day services which advise about planning meals and further understanding of diet and nutrition.