How stop binge eating?
I had issues with eating too much for years, but since quarentine it seems to have only gotten worse. I've gained 20-25 pounds in the last few months. I just cant seem to pull myself into any kind of mindset to stop it. It's ruining my health and I feel like crap constantly.
How can I break out of this cycle?
Answers ( 1 )
For you, who it appears from your question details has difficulty with discipline around foods and eating triggers, it will not likely be enough to simply say, "Cut this much food each day!" or "Count calories!" or "Try Keto!". You'll just fail at any of those because for you, food is substituting for something else, situational or psychological.
You tell us you think it is linked to quarantine for CoVID-19, so we know in your own mind, your eating cues and behaviors are linked- however tenuously- to the virus, and to quarantine. Given those clues, I would say you are eating out of anxiety and boredom- and those two issues are ubiquitous in weight gain.
It won't matter what "diet" you try to follow, you will probably fail because you aren't addressing your two eating-issues, anxiety and boredom. You have to do that, whether it is yoga to learn how to focus and be mindful, or a food diary to help you understand and accept exactly what is triggering you to eat or a new hobby to keep yourself from boredom- if you do not address those two issues, you will fail at corralling your eating habits.
A positive move you can make while you grapple with how to control anxiety and boredom- those are up to you as your situation is uniquely yours, so you have to figure it out for yourself- is to proactively insure your to-hand available food supply is... I don't like the word healthy when discussing food because it is wishy-washy descriptor with no real metrics, so I will use "lower in available calories". Load up on celery, cucumbers, bell peppers; get some Triscuts or RyVita crackers and some good cheese and low-sugar peanut butter; get grapes, tangerines, blueberries; get low-fat yogurts which do not have added sugar- Siggie's is one. And get a bunch of snack bags- not sandwich, but snack bags.
So one new activity for you is apportioning your snacks into the snack baggies. You need between a half cup and a cup of your snack in a baggie- excluding peanut butter and yogurt which will only make a mess that way. You can even get a bag of potato chips and apportion them- Cheetos if you wish- Doritos- just make sure you use a snack-sized baggie and don't cheat about it. Use the Portion-size information on the nutrition panel of each food so you bag up only one portion. These are yours to eat darned near freely- you get bored or anxious and go looking for something to munch on, grab one of these bags and have at it. But, here's the deal: Your pre-prepared snacks have to last until the next grocery trip. So, while your snacks are there for the taking, you're going to have to exhibit some discipline about the whole thing every single day.
Which is what is going to help you become more disciplined about and around food. You will learn to spot your eating cues for what they are- anxiety or boredom- especially if you keep a food diary and force yourself to notate, every day, every time, time, what and why. And this is for you, so you don't have to impress anyone with your why- writing, "I just wanted chips" is fine- sometimes, it's about wanting a certain taste. No right, no wrong, just date, time, what and why.
Another tip is that, before eating anything- including a scheduled meal- you have to drink a six to eight ounce glass of water. This is a three-pronged approach in your food discipline: Sometimes, munchies are actually thirst- so quench it just in case; a stomach with some water in it can take the edge off hunger leading to decreased eating; it is very difficult to take in too much water in an eight hour day- you have to drink litres of the stuff in a set time, say, an hour- very hard to do "by accident" and your body LOVES water.
These strategies will help you discover your eating cues for what they are, and provide you with ways to snack without all the guilt associated with eating a Party-Sized bag of Lays in one afternoon. The food diary will help you change focus from snacking to ideas to combat boredom and anxiety- such as hiking, or baking or chores you haven't gotten done yet, putting the yard to bed for winter, detailing your car interior- there's all kinds of stuff you can do other than eat. And each one of those things you do provides you with a small surge of self-satisfaction which is anathema to eating from boredom and anxiety.
Commit yourself to this for a month- a whole, full month- and see if you do not get better control of your eating habits through- not simple discipline- but knowledge.