Food Addiction - Sarah Kambou

How to Stop Binging (5 More Tips to Your Reality Check)

So previously, I wrote about 4 necessary tips on how to stop binging. If you haven’t read it, I highly encourage you to start there then come back (or read it after). You’d be surprised how it can help you and give you a necessary, but mostly useful reality check. To those here from reading my first post, I’m glad I intrigued you enough to keep reading. Remember, at the end of the day, once you choose to do something, it’s your choice whether to stop; binging is one of those choices. Everything is easy on paper, but when you really dive into the depths of what I’ve said so far, you’ll be able to fully understand how many layers of trauma and bad habits you need to shed to eventually get rid of the disorder for good! So with that, let’s move on to tip number 5. 5) Understand you are the problem, know your triggers and heal. I wish I could tell you to just make better choices and exert more willpower, but the honest truth is it won’t happen until you learn what caused you to start binge eating in the first place. How can you expect to stop binging, for good, when you aren’t even aware of how it started? Just think about it. Your body does not want you to keep eating, but your brain does. Why is that? You have to question yourself intensely and be very honest with each response in thorough detail. Ask yourself a series of questions like: I could go on and on. (Maybe I’ll have a segment on that. Let me know in the comments) I hope you understand that there are so many causes that contributed towards creating your binging habit which makes it all the harder to stop. Don’t you wish it was easy to contribute it to just one factor and fix it? We all wish the journey to stopping was as easy as 1,2,3 but it simply isn’t. Especially if you’ve been binging for some time. Stop seeking perfection. Because binging is so hard to stop, you need to stop seeking quick fixes or some messed up view of what a perfect body and the perfect diet looks like. You are imperfect in nature my friend. Do not take things so hard on yourself that you feel you need to keep adding pressure with a binge or to punish yourself with a binge or prove to yourself that you’re good for something with a binge. That’s why it’s important to question yourself. It helps you find your triggers and understand how many unhealthy habits, such as seeking perfection, lead you into binging. And with those questions, hopefully come answers that will lead you towards healing. Remember, the journey towards being healthy takes a while sometimes, and that is perfectly okay. Of course, you’ll have weak moments, hell, you may even relapse, but does that mean you are incapable of doing better? No. It just means you are an imperfect human trying to do better. You should take pride in your effort. Take pride in the journey you have chosen to go through and not the fact that you aren’t where you want to be. Take pride in bettering yourself, because although you may have not completely stopped binging, you are better than yourself yesterday. Your milestones should be based on every day. Not where your body isn’t, not where your mentality isn’t, but rather how you chose to do 1% better today than yesterday. That’s how you heal without being excessive and obsessive; without being so hard on yourself. That’s how you eventually get to the point where you’ve stopped binging and can’t even remember when exactly you stopped because it just became a part of your lifestyle. That my friend is healing. Healing takes bettering yourself because you deserve better. Which brings us to point number 6. 6) Quality over quantity I can almost guarantee that your binges consist of unhealthy cheap foods, right? I mean there is no way you are binging salads or fruits and vegetables. Healthily prepared food is never at the forefront of a binge. Most binges consist of fat, some great crunch, excess salt or sugar. That’s why we buy extra-large fries, large pizzas, the big pack of chips, the larger sized candy. Why binge on a chicken salad when you can have fried chicken with some crispy fries? I mean the latter is technically a chicken salad too, right? Salad is made of vegetables; potatoes are vegetables therefore fries are just a different form of potato salad…right? Oh, the logic we go through to justify a binge. Oh, and let’s not forget all the money we spend on those binges. I mean why pay $40 on healthy groceries we can cook that could last a few days when we can spend it on junk food that lasts hours…right? There is a huge lack of concern for the quality of food we consume which is quite frightening. In fact, for most bingers, there is an enormous lack of concern for the quality of most things in our lives. Picture it, the food you binge is cheap and unhealthy, hence the term ‘junk’ food because it is junk. The tv shows you watch are most likely dare I say it trash, but you watch it to simply pass the time or mindlessly entertain yourself (Taste is of course subjective but watching almost everything out there just for the sake of it, or watching reruns several times of your favourite shows is nothing to be proud of). The clothes you wear are potentially of cheap material too. Don’t get me wrong, cheap clothes does not mean cheap material. We all love a good bargain, and it’s not necessary to spend excessive amounts on clothes. But you can get a really good shirt for example, that will last you years by spending an extra say $20 on it, rather than just

4 Tips on How to Stop Binging (Your Necessary Reality Check)

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If you’re here, you’re trying to stop binging, so I think you are no stranger to what binge eating is: The obsessive thoughts, the need to have it now, the urge to shove it all down at once without fail, and of course, the proceeding guilt and shame that drives you into another binge ( Visit – StatPearls – NCBI Bookshelf for deeper dive ). If so, know that I understand you. I was there and only recently, at my big age, finally ended the awful painful cycle that is binging. Now, I know you think binging is only in regards to food, but actually it affects how we consume our media as well. Why do you think Netflix purposely puts out all episodes of a series at once or Tik Tok automatically plays the next clip? They want you hooked; and it has us hooked. We become completely consumed by our environment: food, series, phones, everything surrounding us. And we end up neglecting something more important, ourselves. Which brings us to my first tip: Time for your reality check… 1) Listen to yourself for a change. I think your immediate response to this might be “What do you mean? I always listen to myself”, but the truth is you don’t. If you did listen to yourself, you won’t be so heavily consumed by your surroundings and pay such little attention to the pain you cause your mind and body. You’re here because you are trying to listen to your body more, you are aware that this behaviour is destructive and want, neigh, need it to change. You know you’re in pain. You know that this dysfunctional cycle will only worsen the more you, yes, feed it lol. The beginning of this change starts with listening to yourself both consciously and subconsciously. I mean think about it. Whenever you binge, you eventually reach a point when you’re full, but because you’ve subconsciously decided that you must finish all the food in front of you (be it because of boredom, simply the food being there, or coping mechanisms) you don’t stop binging. You keep mindlessly eating, and eating, and eating until you’ve finished what is in front of you, or until you are so full you consciously can’t eat anymore. Binging, be it food or any media is mindless – not thinking, done without justification and with no concern (for the consequences). Your brain feels dead, your stomach is aching, but who cares right? *See the importance of listening to yourself? Once you listen, you become more mindful of what your body is telling you at any given moment. You’d be surprised how many ‘I’m full’ or ‘it’s enough’ or ‘please stop binging’ signals we choose to ignore. You need to be more considerate towards yourself and more considerate towards you health. Your mental, physical and emotional well-being depends on it. I know, it is so much easier said than done, but the fact that you are here, shows that you’re extremely capable of doing so. You clearly want better. You see the fault in these ways and know there’s more to life than this. There’s more to you than this. When you start to pay attention to the self-inflicted pain and how you genuinely need to be more thoughtful and considerate to yourself, you’ll begin to see a minor shift on how you consume anything that enters your body. You will make a more conscious effort towards treating yourself better and altering your subconscious behaviour. It all takes baby steps. Hopefully this will begin your journey towards real self love, which brings me to point number two… 2) Love yourself Have I struck a nerve? We just need to be brutally honest here. And if you truly want to get better and get rid of this disorder, it takes brutal, sincere honesty with yourself. As much as you think you do, that is just your ego talking to mask the way you really feel, because if you did, you would not be reading this blog post. I am just trying to help. Loving yourself is not doing daily tasks and rewarding yourself with a binge, loving yourself is not excusing your awful behaviour and habits because you can’t control it, loving yourself is not assuming that ‘a binge is fine because you’ll just work it off during the week’. Loving yourself is definitely not eating all the food in front of you like a pig (pigging it out). Because you most certainly are not. Loving yourself, is taking care of yourself like you care for a child, friends, and relatives. There is a reason we binge in private. We do not want anyone to see us. Why? Because we subconsciously know that what we are doing is wrong so we try and avoid the public shame. And for those of you who binge in front of others and have had no one try to tell you lovingly (yes, in a kind manner to help you and not insult you) that you have a problem and need to work on how to stop binging; you may need to reconsider the people you hang around. Loving yourself also consists of surrounding yourself with people who want better for you, to see your grow. You need to ask yourself if people are holding you back, but that’s a story for another day. I get that it sucks reconsidering how much genuine self-love you have, because the more you dive into the subtle ways you don’t, the more it hurts. I mean trust me, I went to the gym consistently, I went to work, I would cook and clean, keep my bedroom tidy, mostly lol, dress quite well etc. But the truth is a I hated so much about myself that all the real, tangible positives could not outweigh the negative emotions… I fear a lot of you are in the same boat. You are so much better than your negative emotions, yet

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