How to Avoid Binge Eating Or Compulsive Overeating

I recently read about someone who was having problems with binge eating and wanted advice. They were doing great with the weight loss and actually hit their first major milestone successfully. And the very next day they found themselves buying cookies and a candies and eating them all in one sitting. Has this ever happened to you? It certainly has happened to me.

Having been on the weight loss journey for a while, this is one of the most common experiences I have seen others talk about and even experienced them myself. So, how what causes binge eating or compulsive eating and how can you prevent it from happening?

a) When you lose weight and feel successful, you feel inclined to celebrate. And we are brought up to celebrate mostly with food. I have noticed that if I am not losing weight like I am supposed to I become even more watchful and strict with the diet but if I am losing weight like I am supposed to, I subconsciously switch gears and tend to coast or even take a few liberties with my nutrition. This could also be due to the fact that we get over-confident due to success.

b) If you went from bad nutrition all the time to ONLY good nutrition all the time in a short amount of time, your mind and body will try to retaliate and go back to "things as they were". This is why having at least 1 or 2 cheat meals a week, is a way for our mind and body to balance out from one extreme to the other.

So if you are constantly depriving yourself of foods that tempt you then you are likely to lose control on impulse and overeat. If you do, then consider your binge as your cheat meal, lose the guilt, and go for an extra long walk tonight to burn those extra calories. Guilt can lead to further binging because guilt is essentially hating yourself for your actions ( or non-actions ).

c) Making a "lifestyle" change as opposed to a 30/60/90 "program". If you change your frame of mind to view yourself as a healthy person ( as opposed to your old self ), you can start living like one. So as a healthy person, you would enjoy the treats like above once in a while, wouldn't you? As a healthy person you wouldn't feel guilty or bad because its' a minor transgression to your daily healthy lifestyle and would be treated as such. And as a healthy person you would also know that such splurges can also be counter-balanced with daily exercise.

In a nutshell, be careful how you label your overeating experiences ("failure", "sabotage") and how you see yourself (healthy vs. unhealthy). These two things will determine your long-term success (or lack of it). I have a couple of friends who are very lean and very fit. And I model their habits as much as I can since they are already successful in that area. What I have noticed with them is that

1. They exercise regularly and are very active.
2. They watch little TV and are always doing something ( even if its fixing a broken door handle or planting a new tree or even going for a movie ).
3. They are never stationery for too long.
4. They don't count calories or obsess over certain food.
5. They eat whatever they want but are also conscious of their overall food choices. ( For e.g. One friend wont drink too much beer...the other friend usually has salads for lunch and then eat whatever he wants for dinner. )
6. They are very in tune with their body. This is the MOST common trait I have noticed in people who are lean. If they don't feel hungry, they won't eat. Earlier, I would have lunch whether I was hungry or not, completely out of habit ( and possibly unreasonable fear that I might go hungry if I don't eat ). If they have a huge lunch, then they will balance it out by having a salad for dinner. Or if they have had a week of going to too many parties, they will cut down on eating out for the rest of the week or workout longer to burn those extra splurges off. So without having to think about it they are always maintaining an overall caloric balance.

Doing so, allows them to eat whatever they want. This leads to no binge eating because they are not deprived. They also exercise regularly so they are conscious about portion sizes. So the takeaway here is that deprivation most certainly leads to binge eating. Guilt also leads to further compulsive eating. So if you crave a cookie, have one. And then make sure you burn it off with exercise. You do not want to be a prisoner of your "diet", cause you will be thinking about the "escape" all the time.

Autor: Harsh Desai

Hi this is Harsh Desai and I invite you to visit my website http://www.harshathlete.com for weight loss information as well as fitness advice. I invite you to follow my quest, to get six-pack abs as well as my current 50 day weight loss challenge that ends by the first week of January 2010.

Added: December 28, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/