How to Navigate Food Delivery Services When You Struggle With Binge & Stress Eating

One HUGE change in the past few years in how people binge eat is the use of food delivery service apps like DoorDash, GrubHub, Postmates, and Uber Eats. You feel the urge to start stress eating and binge, you whip out your phone, and 30 minutes later you can get pretty much any type of food on which to binge. Gone are the 11p runs to the convenience store. Now there are 7 ways you can eat Sag Paneer and Korean BBQ. You can literally have Taco Tuesday on the other 6 days of the week, without having to cook, and without leaving the house. This type of access was unheard of prior to the pandemic. Yes, it existed, and it wasn’t widely used (except perhaps pizza, and in big cities like NYC & Chicago). Now you can get delivery nearly anywhere. Here are 5 quick tips to navigate food services when disordered eating is part of your life.

BIG CAVEAT ( This is not a judgement )

I’m not here to judge you AT ALL for using these apps. My husband and I get food delivered all the time. It has been a lifesaver for us, as well as for many others who have demanding careers and kids and just don’t have time to cook every night. If you’re single, it’s an easy way to get food for one person that may not be much more expensive than if you cook it yourself (and less tiring, too!). So yes, these apps are fabulous, and I’m so thankful for them. If you struggle with disordered eating, however, they can add a rather big log on the brain fire you have when you want to binge.

Tip #1: Take a Beat before Stress Eating

When you’re feeling the urge to binge eat, go ahead and take 15-20 minutes before even opening the food delivery app. Check-in with yourself and see what type of hunger you’re experiencing. If it’s physical hunger, great! Go ahead and order the food. If it’s emotional hunger, use alternate coping skills such as talking with a loved one, getting a physical touch from your partner or even your pet, and journaling, praying, and meditating. If it’s difficult to determine what kind of hunger you’re experiencing, or whether you’re even feeling hunger, lean heavily on mechanical eating.

Consider this…

Ask yourself, “Did I eat regularly throughout the day?” or “Is it time to eat?” In the beginning and middle phases of recovery, it’s common not to know whether you’re feeling hungry because the area of the brain that regulates hunger and fullness cues isn’t working as efficiently and effectively when compared to the brains of people who don’t struggle with binge eating. So if it’s time to eat, according to your mechanical eating schedule, go ahead and order the food.

Tip #2: Have options

It’s helpful to have a variety of food at home so that you have options at mealtime. According to eating disorder dietitians, increasing food variety is the #1 thing you can do to prevent relapse. In order to increase variety, you need to have a lot of different food and meal options available to you. These options can range from microwavable meals to something you spend 10-15 minutes prepping and cooking.

Make it as simple as possible. In San Diego, California where I live, we have a lot of Trader Joe’s grocery stores. They have excellent, affordable frozen meals that you can combine with frozen veggies and some fruit to create a satisfying meal. If you don’t have Trader Joe’s in your area, any grocery store will have some frozen meals that you can combine with frozen veggies.

Get ready to make frozen foods!

Having frozen food on hand is KEY. It’s actually fresher than raw fruits and vegetables because it’s frozen at the peak of freshness. I think it’s also important to have some fun foods or, as binge-eating dietitian Toni Rudd says, “Food that brings you joy.” That might be food that you ate as a child or food that you absolutely love the taste. Eating such foods throughout the day instead of waiting until the evening prevents a sense of deprivation.

Tip #3: Set a Schedule to Avoid Stress Eating

Whether you’re in Florida, Colorado, or elsewhere, what really helps impulse food delivery is planning when you are going to use food delivery services. That’s what my husband and I do 95% of the time. Sure, there are the occasional, “aaah what are we going to eat tonight?!” moments where we order something, which is fine. Throughout most weeks, we plan when (and often where) we are going to order food.

It actually brings us peace of mind because we know what we are going to eat and when, and we can easily plan around it. That said, there are sometimes I ordered a meal that I planned ahead to eat, and I just wasn’t feeling it. In those circumstances, I rely on my backup frozen meals and just save the ordered food for the next day. Having options makes all the difference.

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*The INEVITABLE BINGE EATING RECOVERY COURSE is online binge eating education and private virtual group support via a Facebook Group. The aim of this course is to help people reduce and eliminate any type of distressed eating, such as binge eating or binge/purge behaviors via education, behavioral changes, and mindset shifts. The INEVITABLE BINGE EATING RECOVERY COURSE is not a clinical eating disorder therapy or eating disorder treatment programs and is not intended to serve as such. In them, Dr. Marianne Miller works from her role as a binge-eating coach, not as a binge-eating therapist.

**The ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD is virtual binge eating education and LIVE virtual coaching support. The goal of this program is to help people stop any type of distressed eating, such as binge eating or binge/purge behaviors via education, behavioral changes, and mindset shifts. The ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD is not a clinical eating disorder therapy or eating disorder treatment programs and is not intended to serve as such. In them, Dr. Marianne Miller works from her role as a binge-eating coach, not as a binge-eating therapist.