Compulsive overeating: signs of an eating disorder, consequences. What is bulimia nervosa and how to eat properly with it? How to treat compulsive overeating medication, psychotherapeutically, independently, is it possible?

Binge eating disorder is an addiction that is difficult to break. It is important not to think about food, eat right and exercise.

Almost everyone can overeat from time to time. A large portion at the holiday table or a few sweets and cookies with tea while watching a movie at night. All this is not critical for the body, but if overeating becomes regular and it turns into an uncontrollable habit, it is dangerous for health. Excessive consumption of food in large quantities is called compulsive overeating.

Signs of compulsive overeating

Binge eating disorder differs from bulimia in that the person becomes upset and feels guilty after overeating. With bulimia, people vomit after eating or take laxatives.

Binge eating disorder causes a feeling of disgust after eating. A person begins to reproach himself for the fact that he overate and could not restrain himself. Depression sets in and a bad mood arises. I would like to eliminate my lack of self-control, but this is impossible to do.

Compulsive overeating occurs when stress appears and you want to eat a bad mood. But such consolation only lasts for a short period of time. Reality returns again along with self-hatred and regret about what is happening.

The more often the signs of compulsive overeating occur, the more you want to eat. This all turns into a vicious circle that is difficult to break on your own.

Drug treatment for compulsive overeating disorder

• After conducting a certain examination, the doctor prescribes medication for compulsive overeating. Drug treatment can also be prescribed at the patient’s request.
• First of all, antidepressants are prescribed. Taking appetite suppressants is considered ineffective. They can only be recommended by dubious sources
• The doctor will prescribe medications to treat concomitant diseases - diabetes, high blood pressure. A specialized specialist recommends medications taking into account the person’s general condition and the presence of pathologies
• If there is obesity, then the doctor prescribes treatment to eliminate this disease. Conversations are held on proper nutrition, the patient’s lifestyle is reviewed, and individual sports activities are selected

As auxiliary methods, liposuction or surgery to reduce the volume of the stomach can be performed. However, without getting rid of psychological problems, the effect will occur only for a short period of time.

Psychotherapy for compulsive overeating

Diseases associated with eating behavior are successfully treated with psychotherapy. Fighting the habit of overeating, replacing bad habits with healthy ones, controlling emotions and mood, acquiring certain skills for managing stressful situations.

Psychotherapy for compulsive overeating can push a person towards all these aspects. Three types of psychotherapeutic treatment are used: behavioral, cognitive psychotherapy, deep hypnosis with suggestion.

How to treat compulsive overeating on your own?

The main emphasis must be placed on your psyche. It is necessary to get rid of daily stress and depression.

Advice: Learn to control your appetite.

It’s difficult to do this on your own and that’s why many people make mistakes. If you don’t have time to go to the doctor or don’t want to do it, then the question arises, how to treat compulsive overeating yourself? You will definitely succeed if you don’t make the following mistakes:

• following a strict diet. This is contraindicated, since the restriction will lead to a breakdown and the symptoms will return again.

Advice: Avoid diets, but watch your diet. Eat more vegetable salads and eat every 2 hours, but in small portions.

• purchasing large quantities of food and storing it at home

Tip: Protect your body with distance from food. It’s better to go to the supermarket one more time than to fill the refrigerator with food. Put a limited amount of money in your wallet so as not to accumulate extra food. If there is such an opportunity, then let one of your relatives go to the store for food.

• achieving a quick effect

Advice: If you want to get rid of compulsive overeating, then tune in to long-term treatment. During this time, your thinking and attitude towards food should change. Realize that a person needs food to maintain health, and not to eat away stress.

Diet for compulsive overeating. Can you diet with an eating disorder?

As mentioned above, any diet with compulsive overeating causes great harm to the body.

Important: Eat right. Three times - breakfast, lunch and dinner - main meals, the rest is a snack (fruit, unsweetened yogurt).

Our body is designed in such a way that the pancreas, liver, stomach and other digestive organs work when we eat. If you go on a diet and starve, then the body will be stressed and it will begin to accumulate fat until better times. Therefore, it is unacceptable to go on a diet, especially with an eating disorder.

What is bulimia nervosa?

Bulimia, or more accurately known as bulimia nervosa, is an eating disorder characterized by cyclical recurrence of compulsive overeating. A person with this diagnosis has an excessive appetite.

The patient can induce vomiting, empty the gastrointestinal tract using laxatives or enemas, use diuretics to stimulate bowel movements, urination and other processes.

People suffering from this disease can wear down their bodies with these processes, adding strenuous exercise to compensate for the constant overeating. Bulimics can subject their bodies to long fasts, which they believe are compensation for gluttony.

Consequences of bulimia nervosa

All manifestations of this disease have their consequences, serious physical problems for the body. These include the following manifestations:

• damage to tooth enamel caused by constant exposure to stomach acids
• damage to the gastric mucosa
• cardiac and vascular pathologies
• bleeding from stomach to throat
• problems with vocal cords
• eye and skin diseases
• hair loss

Often people begin to struggle with the consequences of bulimia nervosa, but it is important to get rid of the underlying disease and the causes that cause it. A bulimic may not consult a doctor on his own, because such a disease is an addiction that stands alongside alcohol or drug addiction. A person may not understand that he is sick, so he needs help.

Important: Prejudices and instructions from relatives will not help. It is necessary to contact a specialist who will correctly diagnose and prescribe treatment that is correctly selected for a particular patient.

Can bulimia lead to anorexia?

For patients with bulimia and anorexia, controlling their weight becomes an important life goal. This is a threatening way to solve your problems. Bulimia can lead to anorexia if the condition is not treated professionally.

A bulimic often goes on debilitating diets and this will ultimately lead to severe anorexia, even fatal. Just as bulimia can lead to anorexia, anorexia can lead to bulimia if the necessary steps for recovery are not taken.

Important: Do not self-medicate! Contact a specialist, because only a professional can find the true cause of the disease and rid the person of it forever.

How to eat with bulimia? Intuitive eating and bulimia

Learning to eat healthy is much more difficult than starving or overeating. Don't get hung up on food and wonder how to eat if you have bulimia. Nutrition should be close to physiologically adequate, that is, how much energy a person spends, so much he should replenish with food.

Advice: First try to slightly reduce the caloric content of your food - 100-200 kcal. Weight correction will occur, but you will not feel hungry, and you will not break into a new dose of gluttony.

It will be important for a person to introduce intuitive eating for bulimia. Back when we were babies, no one taught us how to eat. The child eats when the physiological need arises. He eats as much as he needs.

Later, mothers, fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers instill their food culture in the baby, but this is wrong. This second stage of a person’s acquaintance with food involves the presence of hearty lunches, grandma’s pies and a lot of sweets. But the most correct was the first stage - intuitive, after birth. This is the truest and truest healthy nutrition!

Then a person grows up and realizes that he can afford to buy everything - any food. Gatherings with friends and festive feasts begin. All this leads to digestive problems and eating disorders. Therefore, it is important to eat at the level of intuition. You need to eat if you have a real feeling of hunger.

Important: Eat food in such quantities as to satisfy your hunger a little, and not to fill your stomach to capacity or to the point of pain.

Almost every person enjoys over-indulging in large quantities of food. This harmless habit leads to problems that are then impossible to get rid of. Many people wonder how to treat compulsive overeating?

Someone finds salvation in a psychotherapist or hypnologist who gives the right instructions. Others try to change something in their heads on their own, getting rid of stress and depression, returning to normal life. Everyone finds their own way!

Advice from people who have gone through this and their reviews about this or that type of treatment will help you avoid negative consequences for the body and help yourself.

Advice: Stop dieting and don't think about food. Don't blame yourself after overeating.

Important: In the first six months of treatment, breakdowns are considered normal, then they will disappear completely.

Advice: Get rid of the desire to lose weight, you will want to get better! Take antidepressants prescribed by your doctor to help calm you down. Get enough sleep and less stress.

Advice: Eat healthy, in small portions - no more than a handful. Eliminate sweets, spices, smoked foods and salt. Don't force yourself to drink green tea - drink purified water. Add walking or light jogging in the morning. In a month, start running at the stadium.

There is a well-known statement: “A person must eat to live, and not live to eat.” Remember this and everything will be fine!

Video: Bulimia and compulsive overeating. What to do?

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition, binge eating disorder is a disorder in which a person experiences an uncontrollable and persistent desire to eat. Typically, compulsive overeating is a problem in people who are obese. However, in some cases, people who do not have this problem can also suffer from psychogenic overeating. Frequent episodes of overeating can harm your physical and emotional health. Binge eating can lead to stress. However, there are no hopeless situations. Binge eating disorder can be successfully treated.

Steps

How to overcome desire

Get rid of junk food. There should be no products in your home that can be harmful to your health. Don't pile up unhealthy, ready-to-eat foods on your kitchen shelves. These are usually unbalanced foods that contain large amounts of calories, carbohydrates and sugar. Make a conscious effort to stock only healthy foods in your kitchen.

• Prepare your own food and eat it only fresh. You may be used to your lunch consisting of a pack of cookies or ice cream. You will have to make a conscious effort and make a decision by which you will remove all unhealthy foods from your kitchen.
• Remove unhealthy food from any places you might have it hidden.

1. Stay active and don't give yourself the opportunity to get bored. People suffering from overeating eat even when they are not hungry in order to “eat up” boredom. If you have some free time and don't know what to do, get out of the house, walk the dog, take a walk in a nearby park, or ride a bike. Boredom often leads to unhealthy food cravings.

   • Regular exercise increases stress resistance and helps you manage stress properly.

2. Follow a healthy diet. Don't skip meals. Choose foods with high nutritional value. Start your day with a healthy breakfast and continue with a balanced lunch and dinner. By eating healthy throughout the day, you can control unhealthy food cravings.

   Keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat during the day. Also, keep track of your eating behavior when you overeat. This will help you be more attentive to your eating behavior. Thanks to this, you can change your eating habits.

3. Practice deep breathing. Deep breathing allows you to relax and cope with stress. Many people with eating disorders also suffer from anxiety disorders. Very often the cause of overeating is anxiety. For many people, the main trigger for overeating is stress. By learning to cope with stress, you are less likely to feel the urge to overeat.

   • Do yoga. Yoga requires awareness in every movement. In addition, various breathing techniques are used during classes.

4. Get enough sleep. Sleep disturbances are usually associated with eating disorders. Some chemicals that affect our appetite also play an important role in regulating sleep. Proper sleep patterns promote hormonal balance, which has a positive effect on appetite.

   • Follow certain rituals before bed to establish a proper sleep pattern. Go to bed at the same time every night and follow a bedtime routine. Over time, you will begin to feel sleepy when you first begin your usual activities.
   • Avoid daytime naps. If you sleep during the day, you will have a harder time falling asleep at night. If you feel tired during the day, fight sleepiness until it's a good time to sleep.

   How to treat the disorder

   1. See a psychotherapist. Psychotherapy is one of the most effective ways to treat psychogenic overeating. Psychotherapy may include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which aims to identify and change the thinking patterns that may be causing overeating. Self-awareness is the main goal of this type of therapy; Through CBT, patients can identify risk factors and avoid them. Cognitive therapy also helps promote healthy habits.

      • Interpersonal psychotherapy helps people with compulsive disorder interact better with friends, family, and others. This allows people with binge eating disorder to build healthy relationships with others, which is essential to maintaining good emotional health. Emotional support is extremely important for people who have uncontrollable food cravings.

   2. Join a group of people with binge eating disorder to gain support. Thanks to this, you won't feel lonely. Also, the experiences of others will help you deal with similar problems. You will have the opportunity to communicate with people who are experiencing similar feelings. You will be able to feel the necessary support from them and gain knowledge that will help you cope with problems.

      • Find out if there are similar groups in your city.

   3. In addition to psychotherapy, it is sometimes necessary to take medications. Topamax and similar antidepressants may help you control this disorder; however, any medications work best when combined with psychotherapy and/or a support group. Discuss with your doctor the possible advantages and disadvantages of the drug you choose.

      • To start a course of medication, you will need a prescription from your doctor or psychiatrist.

   4. Read as much as possible. Reading is a good way to understand your experiences and understand the essence of the existing problem. Make it a habit to read stories of people who were able to overcome this disorder. Thanks to this, you will have the right motivation.

      • When reading such examples, remember that each case is individual. Pay attention to similarities, but never compare yourself and your achievements to other people.

   5. Understand that recovery is a long process that does not always go smoothly. You will experience unpleasant symptoms from time to time. It is very important to continue to stick to your chosen course of treatment, despite the difficulties along the way.

      • Don't be too hard on yourself if you fail. Focus on overall success rather than minor failures. If you experience failure, focus on future success.

How to deal with compulsive overeating on your own? This is a common question. Let's look at it in more detail.

Each of us at least once in our entire life got up from the table during a noisy holiday feast with a feeling of a full stomach. If this happens irregularly and there is no loss of control over appetite, and such a situation is just a desire to relax and enjoy the taste of the dishes offered, then such a process cannot be called pathological. A fasting day, a walk in the evening or an extra hour in the gym can quite solve the problem and rid the body of unnecessary calories.

Unconscious and uncontrolled overeating

Another question is if the situation with overeating occurs unconsciously and uncontrollably, especially after suffering stress or emotional stress. This is called compulsive overeating and is defined by nutritionists as an eating disorder, the main cause of which is considered to be a negative emotional background. Such overeating can lead to excess body weight, and if untreated, to extreme obesity.

Description

Binge eating disorder is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. If in a stressful situation a person develops an uncontrollable appetite that he is unable to fight, we can talk about an eating disorder. This is considered a mental pathology and requires treatment. The cause of compulsive overeating can be the loss of a loved one, dismissal from work, or seemingly insignificant troubles that become a reason for negative emotions.

There is also another name for the disease that is used in the medical literature, namely, psychogenic overeating, which more clearly reflects the essence of the phenomenon. The appetite in this case is uncontrolled, due to mental rather than physiological reasons.

Causes

To be able to overcome psychogenic overeating, it is necessary to understand the causes of its occurrence. There are only two main factors - experiences and stress. However, here one should also distinguish between a situation when a person is experiencing the loss of a loved one, or another, when we are talking about girls with a vulnerable nature who, due to minor experiences, begin to eat up negative emotions with a lot of sweets.

In the first case, serious help from a specialist in the field of psychotherapy will be required, and in the second, simply making changes to your own views and worldview. Sometimes a strict diet can also provoke compulsive overeating, when, after strict and long-term food restrictions, a person begins to sweep away everything that is in the refrigerator. Quite often, the cause of this phenomenon is an unsatisfactory result from following a diet.

Some scientists tend to adhere to the idea that the development of compulsive overeating may be influenced by genetic predisposition. Three types of genes have been identified that can lead to obesity and a tendency to overeat.

Symptoms

The main signs of psychogenic overeating can be identified both by the person suffering from this disorder and by the people around him. It can be quite difficult to hide some manifestations of the disease. Symptoms of compulsive overeating include:

1. Eating becomes the only option for relieving stress and a way to get rid of loneliness, melancholy and sadness.

2. Food is consumed alone, because the person does not want to show his problem to others.

3. There is a need to eat up before

4. There is no control over appetite and the process of eating food.

5. Food is accepted even in the absence of hunger.

6. Abnormally large amounts of food are consumed at one time.

7. After eating, it is common for a person to experience a feeling of guilt and self-disgust for another bout of overeating.

8. Gluttony during periods of stress is very pronounced.

A characteristic feature of compulsive overeating is the inability to control appetite. Mental anguish during stress is consumed unconsciously by large amounts of food. It is common for a person not to even notice that he is eating more than usual.

Risk group

The most susceptible to such a disorder are people who are mentally unbalanced and who take what is happening in their lives too close to their hearts. Adolescents and young girls are at high risk. Men who have problems expressing their emotions also tend to eat away at their problems.

A feature of compulsive overeating is a person’s almost complete refusal to eat the right foods and dishes, namely soups, cereals, vegetables and fruits. Most often, the diet consists of food from fast food restaurants, fried, fatty and salty foods, alcohol and soda, etc.

Treatment of compulsive overeating

If a person understands and admits that he has problems with overeating, this is a good sign and a guarantee for successful treatment. In this case, there is a motivation to realize the need to quickly find a solution and get out of the current situation. It is almost impossible, however, to get rid of a psychogenic disorder on your own. You should start by visiting a psychotherapist or nutritionist. The specialist will assess the patient’s condition, clarify the diagnosis and prescribe appropriate treatment on an individual basis.

How to get rid of compulsive overeating is not an idle question.

As a rule, therapy is carried out in two directions, that is, an integrated approach to solving the problem is required. A combination of physiological and psychological therapy is strictly necessary in the treatment of compulsive overeating.

What is the threat?

Over time, it leads to obesity and metabolic syndrome, as well as disruption of metabolic processes in the body. This is followed by overstrain of internal organs, hepatosis and other complications. Therefore, treatment of concomitant diseases is required.

In addition, it is necessary to eliminate the cause of overeating, that is, get rid of depression, avoid stress, learn to control appetite during emotional overstrain.

Psychotherapy

There are several psychotherapeutic methods for eliminating compulsive overeating. The choice of therapy depends on the patient’s condition and his individual characteristics.

1. Group psychotherapy. Sometimes overeating is the result of a lack of socialization, that is, a person depends on the opinions of other people. For the purpose of socialization, special mutual aid groups are created. Their main task is to relieve nervous and emotional tension by increasing the self-esteem of those attending group classes. When communicating with other patients, the patient realizes that he is not alone, that those around him accept him, and everything is not so bad. In every fifth case, such activities are enough to eliminate compulsive overeating.

2. This is the most effective way to treat psychogenic overeating. The course duration is usually 5 months, which is a faster method than others. Therapy is aimed at finding oneself, learning self-control, overcoming stress and changing eating behavior.

3. Interpersonal psychotherapy. It also makes it possible to achieve good results. However, the course duration is longer than in cognitive behavioral therapy. It will take eight months to a year. During therapy, the patient begins to feel like a part of society, learns to communicate adequately with others, and not to be withdrawn and distant. A person needs to learn to perceive himself as a self-sufficient person and not take the words of others to heart. As a result, anxiety is reduced and stress resistance is increased.

4. Hypnosis and suggestion. This technique is considered controversial. It makes it possible to stop the development of the disorder for some time, but does not eliminate the disease as a whole. The main advantage of hypnosis and suggestion is the immediate result. Recovery occurs after just a few sessions. However, there is no awareness by the person of how he got rid of the problem. Accordingly, the old model of responding to a stressful situation remains, which means a relapse is possible.

When visiting a psychotherapist, you need to realize that the recovery process can be very long and require serious work on yourself.

Man has long ceased to use food only to satisfy hunger. Today, many people open the refrigerator door when they are very upset, angry, or simply have nothing to do. Could our distant primitive ancestor imagine that the habit of eating would be treated in the future? So, modern man has turned food into a tool for achieving mental balance. Is this so bad and how to build a healthy relationship with food, we’ll talk in the article.

What does compulsive overeating mean?

Emotional hunger, eating disorders, destructive attitudes towards food, compulsive overeating – there are many concepts, but the meaning is the same. A person ceases to belong to himself when his consciousness replaces the concept of physical hunger with an emotional need to eat something.

We all love to eat delicious food, especially since we don’t need to hunt down prey for days, as primitive man did. All you have to do is walk to the nearest supermarket and fill your cart to the brim with delicious food. Choose whatever your heart desires. Perhaps it is precisely because of such availability and variety of delicious foods that many people fall into a vicious circle of food slavery? The root cause of this, of course, lies in the presence of a psychological problem, but how easy and pleasant it is to cheer yourself up with another portion of sweets or fast food!

So, all variations of emotional hunger are united by one indicative feature. This is an all-consuming desire for high-calorie food against a background of psychological discomfort. Here are the main types of destructive eating behavior.

Anorexia nervosa

The disorder primarily enslaves its teenage audience. During this period of life, everything, in the opinion of a growing person, does not work out as we would like: the waist is annoying with extra centimeters, and the passion does not pay any attention. A distorted perception of one’s body and reality in general leads to internal protest, which is expressed by refusal to eat. The teenager asserts himself in his own eyes through rapid weight loss. The more kilograms you lose, the more terrible the thought of gaining weight seems.

Bulimia nervosa

This disorder is manifested by the uncontrolled absorption of huge amounts of food and subsequent disposal of what was eaten. To cleanse the stomach and intestines, everything is used: deliberately provoking attacks of vomiting, taking laxatives and diuretics, and following strict diets. The pathological circle is firmly closed: as soon as the last piece of food is swallowed, the patient has an irresistible need to cleanse himself.

Compulsive overeating

We all sometimes lose control of our appetite, eating too much while watching an exciting movie or during a noisy feast. But in episodic cases of overeating, doctors do not see anything pathological from a psychiatric point of view. Things are completely different when a person systematically surrenders to the power of food. Compulsive addiction forces you to pounce on food and in a short period of time (1.5 - 2 hours) greedily absorb large amounts of food indiscriminately.

With this eating disorder, a person is unable to control the amount he eats. It also doesn’t matter to him what exactly he eats – all that matters is filling his stomach as quickly as possible. Insight comes only during periods of calm between eating breakdowns. People suffering from this disorder may have varying degrees of obesity, although there are also “eaters” with body weight within the normal range. Compulsive overeating is more common than bulimia and anorexia, however, unlike the latter, the habit of absorbing mountains of food without noticing it can, in most cases, be overcome on your own, without the help of a doctor.

Causes of compulsive overeating

Compulsive hunger is a problem of a psycho-emotional nature, so doctors have identified a group of emotions that, to one degree or another, force a person to slam the refrigerator door every now and then. Let's list them:

1. Stress. Any stressful situation makes us worry, and when we have to deal with such situations day after day, persistent overstrain is formed. This condition stimulates the active synthesis of cortisol, the so-called stress hormone. Due to the high content of cortisol in the blood, a person is drawn to fatty foods that are difficult for the stomach, which gives short-term joy from a feeling of fullness. To prolong the pleasure, you need to eat a single portion of fast food.
2. Negative emotions. Overfilling the stomach with food temporarily dulls the depressing feelings that a person experiences when he is angry, afraid, sad, anxious, abandoned, hurt or ashamed.
3. Idleness, boredom. Chewing in front of the TV is the most common and easiest way to occupy yourself when there is nothing to do. Spending time eating food is more pleasant than admitting the purposelessness of your life at the moment.
4. A habit from childhood. In most cases, we inherit the pattern of eating behavior that our parents imposed on us in childhood. Remember how your family treated food when you were a child. Were you rewarded with sweets for good grades on your report card, or were they given a tasty morsel when you were upset about something? Many people grow up believing that food can be comforting and a delicious reward for personal achievement. In some cases, through emotional eating, we express nostalgia for long-gone times in the warm nest of our parents.
5. Social influence. With an abundance of food, you can briefly distract yourself from problems at work, or drown out nervousness after communicating with an unpleasant colleague or boss. This also includes going to a cafe with friends. Everyone is eating - how can you keep up!

In truth, the reasons that force one to rush headlong into the pool of emotional overeating lie in wait for a modern person at every turn.

The dangers of compulsive overeating

Trying to figure out the key to solving problems with an extra portion of junk food is pointless - it's like tilting at windmills. But the real complications of destructive eating behavior - atherosclerosis and obesity - will not take long to appear. Psychogenic overeating only widens the gap between an emotionally dissatisfied person and society, putting his psychological and physical health at serious risk. Here's what happens if you don't overcome compulsive overeating in time:

1. A person addicted to emotional overeating moves away from family and friends and refuses to share meals with them. He fears that he will not be able to restrain himself and will make his secret and shameful addiction public. A person enslaved by food is forced to give preference to a secluded lifestyle.
2. After an attack of gluttony, a person repents of what he has done and suffers from feelings of shame and guilt. Over time, he begins to experience depression more and more often. Dissatisfaction with one's own life and self-loathing often push the unfortunate person into the arms of another harmful addiction - alcohol or drugs.
3. Compulsive overeating leaves an indelible mark on the health of its victim. A person becomes overweight, a large load on the joints provokes the development of arthritis, and high cholesterol levels in the blood cause hypertension. Moreover, the heart, intestines, kidneys, and gall bladder suffer from regular bouts of gluttony. A person’s character also changes: he becomes irritated, hot-tempered, embittered and even more insecure.

Do you suffer from emotional hunger?

The basis of compulsive overeating is moral satisfaction. At the bottom of the plate, a person seeks to find a solution to all his problems, as well as comfort in moments of stress, anger, disappointment or loneliness. The real problem is that food provides only fleeting pleasure and cannot satisfy emotional hunger. After emptying the refrigerator, a person feels even worse: he is tormented by a feeling of guilt for the lack of willpower. Compulsive overeating is a quagmire, from whose tenacious embrace it is sometimes very difficult to get out. You can find out how susceptible you are to this weakness right now. To do this, try to honestly answer the following questions:

1. Do your portions increase when you're stressed?
2. Do you eat when you are not hungry?
3. Do you eat to cheer yourself up?
4. Do you use food as a reward for personal achievements?
5. Do you feel protected when your refrigerator is full of food?
6. Do you feel irritated and powerless when you have once again eaten your fill?

Even half of the answers to the test questions in the affirmative means that you tend to satisfy your emotional hunger through heavy snacks. Even if cases of uncontrollable overeating occur to you only sporadically, this is not the time to sit idly by. To take control of your appetite once and for all, you need to act decisively. First, let's figure out how physiological hunger differs from the emotional need to be distracted by food.

How to deal with compulsive overeating: burning bridges

Once you understand the difference between an imaginary and a real appetite, you will never again be hooked on the habit of eating your fill. At first it will be difficult to do this, especially if you have had to “eat up” a bad mood quite often. However, there are several nuances, based on which you will understand whether you should open the refrigerator right now or you can wait a little longer.

The main differences between fake hunger and real hunger:

1. The feeling of false hunger takes you by surprise and grows quickly. It drives all thoughts out of your head. You can only think about food. Real hunger develops gradually and does not require immediate gratification.
2. When experiencing false hunger, you want to eat a specific product: a bun, a sausage sandwich, something fatty, spicy or sweet. In case of real hunger, an apple will satisfy you. Even the most bland and unloved foods like oatmeal will seem appealing to you if you are really hungry. At the same time, emotional hunger requires food that will provide an instant burst of energy - fruits and vegetables are not enough here.
3. False hunger does not subside even with a full stomach, but real hunger goes away as soon as you eat. That is why emotional hunger forces a person to chew senselessly: chips, ice cream - it doesn’t matter, because the taste of food is practically not felt. When satisfying your physical hunger, it is much easier to focus on the taste and quantity of food.
4. After satisfying emotional hunger, a bitter aftertaste remains: the realization comes that the appetite has again gotten out of control, and there is a gnawing feeling of guilt about this. Satiety during real hunger brings good health and a great mood: a person is full of strength again and can switch to some productive activity.
5. The most important distinguishing feature of emotional eating is that hunger occupies the person's thoughts, not his stomach. Physiological hunger forces us to focus on the taste, smell, texture of food, as well as the sensations that this dish brings us. By satisfying psychological hunger, a person fences himself off from mental problems, but does not solve them in any way, so he reproaches himself for the amount of food he eats.

Treatment of compulsive overeating

We invite you to overcome this dangerous disorder on your own.

Mood Diary

Bouts of compulsive overeating are caused by reasons that relate to the emotional plane. The irritating factors that control our appetite are different for everyone. To understand what circumstances, feelings or thoughts make you seek comfort in food, keep a special mood diary.

After each emotional attack of overeating, open a notebook and write down in detail everything that concerns your problem. What situation preceded the desire to eat? In what mood did you sit down at the table? What were you thinking? What did you experience when you were full? There may be many more questions and answers. Even the most frivolous, at first glance, details matter. Can you imagine that not only negative emotions, but also joyful events in your life can cause compulsive overeating? Thus, the habit of celebrating significant dates and holidays with a rich feast can quickly transform into emotional hunger. This is why it is so important to know your enemy by sight, because he can be waiting for you anywhere. And only by exposing and eliminating him can we move on. With the help of a mood diary, you can establish the pattern of your attacks and understand what and when prompts you to eat a lot. Only after eliminating the true cause of compulsive overeating can you think about how to “feed” your emotions, other than food.

Conscious management of feelings

It is very important to learn to fill the emotional gap in your consciousness not with real products, but with other methods of spiritual self-realization. As soon as you find something to replace your food with, learn to control your willpower and breathe easy - overeating no longer has power over you.

How to crowd out emotional hunger from your life:

1. When you feel bad and lonely, turn your attention not to the refrigerator, but to what is significant to you: caress your pet (cats and dogs are the best healers of mental wounds), re-read your favorite book, call a friend you haven’t talked to for a long time, or Look through an album with family photos.
2. Anger can be dispelled by going for a long walk. Alternatively, turn on the music at full volume at home and dance until you drop.
3. Relieve fatigue with a mug of warm herbal tea or a relaxing bath by candlelight. A cozy blanket and an exciting book complete the picture of a perfect evening.
4. A hobby will help you overcome boredom, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t have one yet. Remember what you loved to do as a child? A modern person has access to everything they want: drawing, modeling, dancing, modeling from polymer clay, playing the guitar...

As you can see, the tips are very simple and straightforward. But just like this - leisurely leafing through the pages of a book, embroidering, caring for a four-legged friend or enjoying hot tea - you can resist the temptation to stretch your stomach with a huge amount of food, and then regret it. Very soon you will begin to enjoy the knowledge that you are spending time calmly and productively without overeating. Take all your negative emotions as a challenge to yourself - there is a problem and it needs to be solved immediately. Listen to yourself, work on yourself, love yourself, and then no food will be able to interest you as much as you do.

Ignoring temptations

People suffering from compulsive overeating are accustomed to indulging their false appetite, which wakes up at the most inopportune moment and demands satiety here and now. Victims of eating disorders feel powerless over this pathological habit, but in reality they are much stronger than they realize.

Try to curb your hunger and not give in to temptations. To do this, apply the “5 minute rule” in practice. As soon as you feel an irresistible urge to put something in your mouth, promise yourself to do it in 5 minutes. During this time, focus on your feelings, and you will understand that nothing hurts you, you are not in mortal danger, nothing will happen to you if you do not satisfy your hunger instantly. Such training will gradually dispel in your eyes the significance of total gluttony, which holds you in a vice. Very soon you will begin to think constructively and understand how to resist pathological addiction.

Emotional eating is a pointless process. To get rid of it, do the opposite: fill your life with priorities.

1. Exercise every day. The energy born in sports is creative, and therefore will not allow you to get bogged down in the quagmire of uncontrolled eating. Over time, your body's mental memory will demand the next portion of training, and not emptying the refrigerator.
2. Every day, give yourself 30-40 minutes to rest. How you spend this time is up to you. Walk, read, sleep, learn foreign words - do what you enjoy. This will give you a good dose of energy.
3. Communicate with people - it's so easy today! Find old friends on social networks, join interest groups, share your hobbies or experiences on forums, arrange real meetings, visit your parents, and then you won’t worry about being alone. Live communication is a powerful antidepressant.

In conclusion, let's look at the statistics: today 4 times more people suffer from compulsive overeating than from cancer. An impressive figure, isn't it? However, modern society does not attach much importance to eating disorders, so people who are faced with such a problem are at a loss, not knowing how to overcome their addiction.

To end food slavery once and for all, you need to believe in your worth. A person who feels like an individual will never harm himself, will not waste his time on such trifles as emptying the refrigerator under the yoke of a contrived feeling of hunger. Solve your emotional problems with the help of other people and serious work on yourself, then food will cease to be your lifesaver for all occasions.

How to cope with bulimia and compulsive overeating. Video

Who will understand a person with an eating disorder better than someone who has experienced it all and left it behind? Hear from a girl who overcame food addiction.

Good afternoon, food lovers! What can I say, everyone loves to eat, well, almost all the inhabitants of the planet. But with the development of technological progress, the world has turned into an abode of various temptations, and junk food is one of the most powerful of them. Most chemicals added to store-bought products are designed specifically to make them addictive.

A person becomes a regular consumer of the company's products. Manufacturers don’t even hide it, but for some reason it has ceased to be important for society and the value of one’s health is clearly lost. Fortunately, awareness for some sooner or later “turns on” and they begin to frantically look for a way out of this food trap.

I'm glad that recently there has been a tendency to increase the number of people who want and do something in order to. It is for you, my dedicated readers, that I have prepared this material on how to get rid of overeating, and I hope that for many it will become a starting point on the path to changing the culture of eating.

Techniques for breaking the habit of overeating

1. Eat on time

Too many or too few breaks between meals contribute to fat storage and overeating. In the case of the former, after a long period of fasting, a person simply attacks food and is unable to stop, since the brain thinks that such stress can happen again and stores up for future use.

In the second, the stomach has not yet completed processing previous intakes into energy, but it is already being loaded again, so it urgently switches to digesting new food, storing its fats in reserve reservoirs, which quickly affects the figure.

2. Focus on a hearty lunch.

The working conditions of modern society often do not allow for lunch, and if they do, then, as a rule, this does not happen at all. As a result, the stomach is filled with unhealthy food at the wrong time and in the wrong place, which means that the benefit from this is minimal, satiety passes very quickly and there is a high probability that in the evening at home a person will “have a blast”, eating a double portion of dinner, replenishing wrong lunch.

To prevent this from happening, make sure that your lunch is complete, varied and takes place in a quiet place. In the summer, for example, you can dine in a nearby park with home-cooked food, rather than in a noisy bistro.

3. Diversify your diet as much as possible.

It is believed that the brain sends a signal of satiety when taste buds are sufficiently satisfied. This means that what is important to the body is not the amount of food as such, but the number of tastes tasted. In this regard, the Indians set a worthy example, whose traditional dishes consist of at least 12 shades of taste, so saturation “covers” quickly and for a long time.

Thanks to this, many Indian families eat only one meal a day, as this is enough to maintain energy. You can add recipes for Indian dishes to your arsenal (follow the link you will find some of them -), or you can diversify your diet with your favorite dishes. The main thing is to add a little bit of everything, but in different ways.

4. Distinguish between hunger and appetite.

Many people do not see the difference between these two sensations, but there is a whole abyss between them. A healthy appetite is, of course, good, but when a person is really hungry, he can understand this by the following signs: weakness, a feeling of emptiness in the stomach, sometimes mild nausea and headache.

Appetite is manifested in a selective approach to food, the desire to eat something specific, often fatty or sweet. A truly hungry person agrees to eat any food, even the most bland and ascetic.

5. During the meal, focus your attention on it.

In most cases, overeating occurs unconsciously and the body’s usual movements are performed on autopilot. Some people are watching TV at this time, some are talking, and some even manage to eat on the go.

Hence the problem of excess weight: the brain simply does not control the digestion process, as it is busy with completely different thoughts. So my advice is simple: eat mindfully, chew thoroughly and watch what goes into your precious body. With this approach, it is simply impossible to overeat, since satiety comes very, very quickly.

6. Use water as a stomach filler.

The next time you want to snack between meals, try drinking a glass of water. If after 10 minutes the harmful desire does not leave you, drink another glass.

Water will fill the space of the stomach, and will also swell what was already in it. This will save you from hunger, since there simply won’t be room in your stomach for anything else. Don’t be afraid to use this technique, because water is very beneficial for our body and will definitely not make things worse.

7. Overeat harmless natural foods.

Yes, not everyone is able to take a tight rein on themselves and simply refuse food. But it is entirely within your power to make your diet less caloric. That is, when you have an acute, difficult to control craving to eat in excess of the norm, eat something light: fruit, low-fat yogurt, salad greens, etc. By eating such foods, even in large quantities, there is no or minimal danger of unpleasant consequences.

8. Keep a supply of useful items in your home.

It is difficult to resist a harmful product if all the kitchen and not only cabinets and shelves are filled with it, because everything is within your reach and, in fact, no one except you can forbid you to eat them. This is why it is so important to eliminate the presence of fatty, sweet and generally harmful prepared foods in your home and work that you are used to using as a snack.

Replace them with diet bread, dried fruits, nuts, muesli, fruits and vegetables. With such a strategic reserve, even an uncontrolled snack will be beneficial.

9. Make every meal a little holiday.

The ordinary nature of eating gradually creates a perception of boredom and monotony of this process, and a person begins to look for the “zest” in chemical flavor enhancers or simply in more food.

This can be completely avoided by perceiving food as another small holiday and the favor of the Universe towards you. Learn how to set a table beautifully and decorate dishes like works of art. Before your meal, dress nicely, comb your hair and remember that not everyone in this world is lucky enough to eat such tasty and varied food.

10. Fill your life with movement.

Very often people start eating out of boredom and inactivity. When the whole day is scheduled according to the clock, time to eat is very limited, and this is exactly what we need. If you find yourself with unoccupied gaps in your day, take a dance class, a yoga studio, or somewhere else where you can keep your body toned without overworking yourself to the point of exhaustion.

The loads should be moderate, then after training you won’t be so hungry. By the way, this is also relevant during pregnancy, so get permission from your gynecologist for physical examination. load and you can sign up for courses.

11. Protect your psyche from disorders.

Unfortunately, the state of stress clouds our sense of proportion and makes us reach for an extra piece of cake, as if eating it. If this is the problem in your case, then try to eradicate its source. You need to work on your perception of the world, learn to control your excessive sensitivity and emotionality, learn not to take the actions and words of other people seriously.

To make it clearer, I suggest you read the articles on this topic: and. In exceptional cases, only extreme measures such as divorce, dismissal or change of residence help.

It remains to add that all of these methods can work individually, but they work faster and more efficiently in combination with each other. So feel free to use them in your life, but the main thing to remember is that food is not a goal, but only a means to maintain the strength and activity of the body.

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