Binge Eating Disorder BED: 12 Self-Help Strategies

A Quick Guide

To reduce cravings and prevent overeating, drink enough water throughout the day and add more fiber to your diet, which helps increase feelings of fullness. Having a balanced breakfast, organizing your kitchen with healthy options, and planning meals ahead of time can also help prevent binge eating. Talking to someone, exercising regularly, keeping a journal of eating habits and emotions, maintaining good sleep hygiene, and practicing mindfulness are additional strategies to overcome binge eating disorder. Seeking professional help is important for severe cases.

Understanding Binge Eating Disorder

Binge eating disorder is an eating disorder characterized by episodes of consuming a large amount of food in a relatively short period of time. A person may encounter a complete loss of control during these episodes and feel ashamed of it. BED can lead to a lot of severe physical health issues. It is one of the most common feeding and eating disorders in the US. BED is a serious disorder that needs to be treated accordingly lest it leads to health complications. Though there are some self-help strategies for Binge Eating Disorder you can use along with the professional treatment that can prove to be quite beneficial.

Self-Help Strategies for BED 

1. Avoid Fad Diets

Studies have shown that extreme dietary restrictions can lead to binge episodes and that fad diets are frequently quite dangerous. Concentrate on making healthy modifications rather than following diets that emphasize excluding entire food groups or drastically reducing daily caloric intake to drop weight quickly. Increase your intake of complete, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and reduce your treat consumption rather than cutting them out entirely. This could lessen binge eating and improve health.

2. Don’t Skip any meals

One of the best strategies to stop binge eating is to establish and adhere to a regular meal plan. Missing meals can boost cravings and raise the possibility of overeating. Consider creating and following a regular eating plan. Maintaining a regular meal schedule can lessen the chance of overeating and is linked to lower ghrelin and fasting blood glucose levels.

3. Keep yourself hydrated

A simple yet useful technique to reduce cravings and prevent overeating is to drink enough water during the day. In fact, consuming more water is associated with consuming fewer calories and feeling less hungry. Each person needs to drink a certain amount of water every day, depending on a number of factors. To ensure you’re staying adequately hydrated, it’s therefore ideal to pay attention to your body and drink whenever you feel thirsty.

4. Add more fiber to your diet

According to several studies, consuming more fiber may help decrease cravings, appetite, and food consumption. Because fiber passes through your digestive system slowly, it also prolongs your sense of fullness. Several fiber-rich foods can help you feel full including fruits, vegetables, lentils, and whole grains.

5. Always have breakfast

A good breakfast each morning may lessen the likelihood of binge eating afterward in the day.  Keeping a regular meal schedule is linked to fewer binge eating episodes and decreased rates of ghrelin, the hormone that increases feelings of hunger.  Additionally, loading up on the correct foods helps keep you satisfied, reducing hunger and cravings during the day.  To prevent overeating, try mixing a few fiber-rich items with a good source of protein, such as fruits, vegetables, or whole grains.

6. Organize your kitchen

It can be much simpler to binge eat when there is an abundance of unhealthy or trigger foods in the kitchen. Keeping nutritious items on hand, on the other hand, can lessen your risk of emotional eating by reducing the availability of harmful options. Start by replacing processed snack items like chips, sweets, and convenience foods with healthier options. Improving your nutrition and lowering your risk of binge eating unhealthy foods can both be accomplished by storing your kitchen with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds as well as meals high in protein.

7. Plan your meals ahead of time

Making a meal plan will help you make sure you have the right ingredients on hand to make healthy meals. Additionally, portion control and storing leftover food may help you prevent a binge eating episode. Furthermore, meal planning makes it simpler to maintain a regular eating schedule, which has been associated with a reduction in the recurrence of binge eating. Plan a weekly course of your meals by setting up an hour or two each week.

8. Talk to someone

When you feel like bingeing, talking to a friend may help lower your risk of overeating. A strong social support network is believed to lessen the effects of stress, which may aid in lowering your likelihood of developing additional coping mechanisms like emotional eating. The next time you want to binge, pick up the phone and speak with a reliable friend or relative. 

9. Start working out

Studies have shown that including exercise in your routine may help you avoid bingeing since it can improve your mood and reduce stress, which both help you avoid emotional eating. Exercise including walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, and playing sports can prove to be quite beneficial.

10. Start writing a journal

A useful technique is keeping a journal that records your eating habits and emotional state. It can aid in identifying potential food and mental triggers and encourage better eating practices. Keeping track of your intake may promote weight loss and help with long-term weight management. Simply begin by keeping a daily notebook or utilizing an app to track what you eat as well as how you feel to get started.

11. Maintain a good sleep hygiene 

Your hunger and appetite are influenced by sleep, and poor sleep has been associated with binge eating. Shorter sleep duration is linked to greater levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin and relatively low levels of leptin, the hormone that encourages fullness. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that lower sleep duration and higher body weight are related. To control your hunger and lessen your risk of binge eating, try to get at least 8 hours of sleep each night.

12. Practice mindfulness

It’s important to listen to your body and focus on how you’re feeling right now if you want to practice mindfulness. This strategy can assist people to avoid overeating by teaching them to detect when they are no longer hungry. According to a short study, mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy can help with self-awareness and eating habits. To determine when hunger diminishes, try paying attention to your body. To encourage healthy eating habits, make an effort to eat your meal thoroughly and slowly.

Final Thoughts

It is essential that you recognize that Binge Eating Disorder is a serious condition and while there are several self-help strategies you can try if the case is too dire, you might need professional help. Getting the right treatment for BED and making some major lifestyle changes can definitely help you in overcoming this disorder. 

We hope you found this article useful in learning about 12 self-help strategies for Binge Eating Disorder.