I need serious help with my binge eating addiction. I haven’t gone from drinking to eating, infact drinking I probably binge ate more. I’m realising now how much I do eat in the evenings and it’s wrecking the physical work I do during the day and the gym work I’m doing. My doctor has said my belly measurement is pretty bad. I just can’t stop eating sugar, biscuits, desserts and chocolate in the evenings and often takeaway like KFC or Hungry Jacks for lunch. I get in a good roll with eating right then we don’t do the shopping for a few days and I fall to shit. I work on the road and in the evenings I’m busy wrangling my 2.5 year old.
I think I can manage healthy dinners okay, I just need to plan more. Would something like a meal replacement shake be okay during the day? Or is that just rearranging deck chairs?
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Hey there, welcome to the thread 
I think you’ve got the most basic part of the problem there:
Most ready made / processed food is designed in a way that it will disrupt your natural satiety signals and enhance your cravings. After all that is how you are going to eat more of it, crave more of it, and in the end buy more of it. You will come back for more. A simple and very effective sales tactic.
You can not controll how your body will react to certain foods nor can you control how these foods are made. What you can do, is try to controll your food environment. Having a plan how to have easy access to real food instead to processed / triggering food is key. Depending on your life situation and your environment that may be more or less feasible.
The meal replacement shake sounds like a low hanging fruit. Something you can try out easily. I’d suggest to give it a try and see how it goes.
And tell us how your experiment goes.
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Awesome, thank you! Isn’t it absolutely nuts that it’s legal to make food that is addictive and bad for you. I had 1 Tim tam yesterday, then within 3 minutes id eaten 5 of them… it was like I couldn’t get enough of them. There HAS to be something in there that causes tha immediate craving for the next one. Do you know what the ingredients is?
I’ll pick some meal replacements up and let you know how I go! I think my wife and I will need to work really hard towards planning.
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Day 1278 : No binge today. 
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Day 0 of walking
Day 4 of low-carb breakfast
Actually I don’t think I’ve eaten anything today and it is 7:45 pm. I’m going to go have a healthy dinner now.
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10 days not only no binging but also eating well 
This illness I have helps me a lot to keep my counter on track. In the same time it’s killing me. I’m so exhausted and tired. It’s a week I got fever and cough. I can barely sleep and I feel like I won’t ever get better again or what 
On Monday I got antibiotics which I’ll finish tomorrow but I can’t see any positive progress, it’s the opposite, I feel sometise worse. Like last night I was so dizzy and week that I almost faint when going to the toilet and my heart beat was 118bpm which I get when I exercise! Normally I have about 50bmp during night.
I try not to look at my kalories anymore, but I checked out of curiosity and I burnt yesterday like if I did run or bike ride, even though I was at home and didn’t go out at all! Something is seriously wrong 
My bf says I should go and visit GP again. So I’m going to give them call. They wanted me to finish the antibiotics which is literally tomorrow so maybe I should wait? But I don’t want to, because I don’t think that the remaining 4 pills out of 10 will make such radical difference and I’d get suddenly fine…
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@Misokatsu thank you 
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@Jana1988 thank you 🩵I really hope you will get checked out by a doctor today
@Whereswaldo welcome to this thread it is the evenings when I struggle too. It does sound like you’d struggle less if you could keep up with the grocery shopping, and maybe make your own lunches and snacks for the road. It’s so easy to consume junk food, I hate how accessible it is.
24 days no takeaways.
1 day no crisps, no sugar, no binge-eating.
Checking-in with yesterday’s numbers…
I let myself fall asleep atound 7pm last night, instead of going to buy crisps. I was so relieved when I woke up, at first I felt the twinge of shame but then realised I hadn’t binged.
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Awwwwr, well done @CATMANCAM !
Oh I know the feeling when you wake up and feel bad immediately because you think you binged and the replacing relief and satisfaction when you realise that you didn’t!
I remember when I wasn’t binging for approx. a month I was often waking up with fear and believe that I relapsed. And the same with alcohol.
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Like @CATMANCAM said, I also can relate to binging in the evening. In fact it’s the only time I binge. I discovered that not eating enough and the “right” nutritions leads to the binge later. It’s the unsatisfied body forcing you to give it more energy and the quickest way is sugar.
Also, there’s loads of sugar in alcohol, so when you stop drinking you will crave it.
The best is to make a plan and stick with it, but make sure that you’re eating enough nutritions and enough food. I like what @acromouse wrote, she’s a vise lady.
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Thanks everyone for your advice! I think learning about the physical and physiological aspect to it will help.
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Day 1279 : No binge today.
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205 sugar
69 UPF
76 gluten
55 dairy
17 overeating
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@Jana1988 thank you I have dreams about my former addictions too, the subconscious can be a wild ride!
@acromouse thank you sadly this morning it was real. 
25 days no takeaways.
2 days no sugar.
0 days no crisps, no binge-eating.
When I binged 2 days ago, it was whilst I was bingeing BGT. When I binged crisps last night, it was whilst I was bingeing the episodes I’d missed of another show. So I think I need to limit watching TV shows to just 1 episode at a time. Because I barely recall going to the shop, but before I knew it the whole binge was over. I’m just glad I didn’t buy anything sugary this time. I did have huge sugar cravings afterwards though, but thankfully the shops were closed. I could have ordered online but that thought didn’t even cross my mind.
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Day 1 of walking
Day 6 of low carb breakfast.
Im back on the bandwagon with my walks!
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Day 1280 : No binge today.
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26 days no takeaways.
1 day no crisps.
0 days no sugar, no binge-eating.
TW: disordered eating and related behaviours.
I didn’t fancy any meal replacements for dinner last night, so I bought the ingredients for the sandwiches I was having. Ate a sandwich, 2hrs later had 4 slices of toast with jam, another hour later had another 4 slices, then shortly after that I had another sandwich. So, even though the sandwiches are fine for my blood glucose, I clearly can’t buy bread anymore because I can’t control myself with it. So I binge whether I’m eating meal replacements or real food. I don’t know what to eat. I feel so frustrated and lost. For dinners I was having either jacket potato with no added sugar baked beans or pasta (wholewheat) with chickpeas. Both were fine for my blood glucose, but I use half a bag of mozzarella on the pasta and can’t make myself use any less. So really the only “safe” food for me out of all the groceries I experimented with is jacket potato with reduced sugar baked beans. I don’t like to eat meat, fish, or plant based alternatives. I can’t cook. I could eat salad but I don’t have space in the tiny kitchen for a chopping board at the moment, plus I always use loads of coleslaw which adds a whole load of calories. I could probably find a healthy salad dressing instead though. I could still have a meal replacement for breakfast. Salad for lunch. Jacket potato for dinner. The thought of eating real food makes me feel nauseous right now. I wanted to purge last night because I felt so sick. I took an anti-sickness pill and abused laxatives instead. I am not well in the eating area of my life at all, and I don’t currently know how long I’ll be waiting to start therapy. Even then, it isn’t food or eating focused, it’s aimed at the traumas I’ve experienced and dream analysis. In the hope that addressing/processing past traumas will stop the disordered eating behaviours. It didn’t work last time, but we will be picking up where we left off, so there’ll be the chance to dive deeper into stuff this time.
I’m open to hearing some of the foods you all eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to give me some iddeas to experiment with.
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@Kareness Good job on your walk! 
@CATMANCAM What I eat on a typical day:
Breakfast: onion slices fried in a pan with sunflower oil, egg omelette or scrambled eggs over that, a fresh tomato, salt, pepper, rice as a side, black coffee
Lunch: cooked potatoes or rice as a side, some meat or fish (salmon, pork, beef, lamb, chicken, etc.) fried in a pan in lard with a mix of vegetables (zucchini, onions, ginger, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, etc), salt, pepper
Dinner: soft boiled eggs, rice, mixed vegetables raw or cooked (broccoli, peppers, tomatos, etc), sunflower or sesame oil, salt, pepper
Snack: should I get hungry in the afternoon, I’ll eat some rice waffles with fresh vegetables or some berries; I also usually drink a second black coffee somewhere in the afternoon
206 sugar
70 UPF
77 gluten
56 dairy
18 overeating
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Just an afterthought: If you do not eat the amounts of protein, fats and carbs that your body needs with your ‘normal/healthy’ meals, you will binge. Your body needs certain amounts of basic nutrients - proteins, fats, carbs. If you do not provide those with your daily meals, your body will be in a constant state of deprivation. Meaning it will do whatever it takes to get you to eat the stuff it needs. If it means bingeing on take away, junk food, whatever, then your body will make you binge. It will override all your other needs. For your body it is a matter of survival.
You need to feed yourself properly friend. And you might need to educate yourself on what healthy eating means. You don’t need to eat animal protein, but you need enough protein in your food. They are essential for every cell in your body, for all your brain neurotransmitters, for everything. Same goes for fats.
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Hey @CATMANCAM
So sorry to hear about your evening. Reminds me myself when I used to have bulimia. Bulimia is any kind of purging after food (including laxatives).
The way you fear and restrict food flashes a red light for me. I don’t think it’s the food what makes you binge on it. It’s mainly the way how you think about it. You make yourself believe that there are kinds of food you can’t currently have because you’d binge on them. But the root will be where @acromouse says - in not eating what your body needs.
It seems that your body is in survival mode and will make you binge whenever possible to get what it needs for you to survive. I also recommend highly to self-educate yourself about how this all works, because having an insight and see the trueth helps.
I wish you’d get a proper theraphy for eating disorder Can’t you ask for that?? Because it’s something you need. You need someone who’ll listen to you and explain what’s going on and make a plan with you how to get through this and get better.
So far you’re running on willpower and that doesn’t last as you already learnt.
I wish I could help more.
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I do hope you get well soon. Better check with the GP sooner then later. If you are just about to finish taking the antibiotics, you should be feeling better already. It might be a viral infection though. In that case antibiotics won’t help and you just need plenty of rest, plenty of fluids, good food, some fresh air. Let your immune system do its work. And don’t forget tea by the galon 
My hunger would have driven me insane by noon.