What to Do When You Feel Like Binge Eating

Feeling the urge to binge eat during your binge eating recovery journey? Does it sneak up on you after work or school when you’re feeling bored, sad, or lonely? Or, does the urge hit you like a tsunami, and you feel flooded like you’re out of control and you can’t stop your actions? Either way, binge eating can cause a lot of distress, disgust, and shame. It is so painful to live in sun-drenched San Diego, California, and elsewhere while struggling with binge eating. While people are at the beach having fun, you feel trapped and filled with despair.

Learning how to manage the urges to binge eat can be your first step into freedom from this all-consuming behavior. In many ways, binge eating is an avoidance strategy. Eating disorder therapists in San Diego, California, and around the world often consider binge eating a maladaptive coping mechanism for distress. That means that when you binge eat, you’re trying to help yourself feel better, but it can end up making your life worse. Here are some tips to help you deal with the urges. These strategies come from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT).

Tip #1: Distraction

Ever feel the urge to binge eat so strongly that it seems like it’ll take an army to keep you from giving in? Distracting yourself can help. It can help your brain switch from that flooded, compulsive track to a calmer, engaged track. Here are some distraction techniques that many people use: watching funny youtube videos (as long as they aren’t about nutrition or fitness), playing with their pets, watching Netflix (or Disney+, or Hulu, etc.), playing a game on their phones, playing games with friends (on phones or in person), talking/texting with friends, listening to music, painting, drawing, coloring in an adult coloring book, writing in a journal, knitting, doing crafts, working on a puzzle, gardening, and even doing chores or cleaning!

Tip #2: Self-Soothing

Using your senses to self-soothe can take the attention in your brain away from the urge to binge eat and onto what you’re experiencing. It grounds you in the here-and-now, activates the relaxation response, and shows self-love. Not feeling self-love when you have the urge to binge eat? Do the self-soothing activity anyway. The “fake it ‘til you make it” strategy can really work in this situation, and you’ll feel better as time passes. Here are some self-soothing techniques that you can use: light a candle and watch the flame flicker, turn on an essential oil diffuser, wash your hands in warm water and put lotion on them, take a shower or a bath in candlelight, wrap yourself up in a soft blanket, drink a cup of fragrant, herbal tea, snuggle with your pet, pray or meditate, and listen to relaxing music,

Tip #3: Opposite Action

Feel like sitting on the couch and binge eating? Want to drive to the store and buy binge foods? Find yourself veering toward the drive-in so you can binge. Doing the opposite action can really help you steer away from the urges. It is hard to do, but changing your behavior to something that is contrary to binge eating not only can keep you from engaging in a behavior that makes your life worse, but it also can change your thinking. With eating disorders, behavioral changes often have to precede cognitive (thought) changes. So when you want to sit and binge while watching t.v., then stand up and do some chores, or grab some knitting needles and keep your hands busy. Driving to buy binge food? Drive to a park instead, call a friend, or look at the stars and meditate or pray.

Tip #4: Radical Acceptance

Feeling flooded with the urge to binge eat is really challenging. Another difficult thing about it is that sometimes people feel ashamed for wanting to binge eat. You might think, “what’s wrong with me that I want to eat right now?” or “I have no willpower or self-control.” The reality is that eating disorders are brain disorders. The urge to binge is incredibly complex. Yes, a big part of this urge functions as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Another part of binge eating is physiological and nutritional. The bottom line is that the fact that you struggle with binge eating IS NOT YOUR FAULT. It is not a moral failing. Yes, it is one of the worst feelings ever. Yes, the shame you feel afterward is often unbearable. It still isn’t your fault. So practicing radical acceptance, in this case, is that yes, you feel like binge eating, and yes, you may actually go ahead and binge. And it is what it is. Radical acceptance doesn’t mean that you don’t want to change things and stop binge eating in the future. Of course, you do! Radical acceptance means that you accept that the urge to binge or the binge behavior is there. It is what it is. Lean into it, without judgment.

Special thanks to Ellen Astrachan-Fletcher, Ph.D., and Michael Maslar, PsyD., who published The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bulimia, published in 2009. Their book inspired this post.

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Hey everyone, I really appreciate you reading my blog!  Have a wonderful day. :)  

Marianne 

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