How I Was Able To Stop Binge Eating

I struggled with binge eating for so many years until I got healthy with food.

I started off my life as an overweight baby – I literally came out of my mom’s birth canal BIG!

I was 10 pounds at birth. Now what I can’t figure out is how I could have overeaten in the womb! 

Very Sad, Overweight and Unhealthy in 7th Grade Yearbook Pic

I ate my way through my childhood.

I lived in a very chaotic home and food was my comfort and the only thing I could count on to be there for me. Plus, my mom was overweight and she loved to cook high fat high calorie meals which I definitely indulged in. My mom liked to have company in her unhealthy eating behaviors (misery loves company) and I was a willing participant.

Being overweight as a kid was very painful. Kids and adults were very cruel. I was called many names and made fun of constantly.

After overeating from birth until 13 years old, I ended up becoming obese and then what did I do?

I went on a crash diet and lost a ton of weight.

I was thrilled to lose the weight and it was a wild new experience to buy clothes in my own age appropriate area of the department store…previously I had to buy older woman’s clothes that were big enough for me…now I could buy more “hip” fashions and that was neat.

However, very quickly I learned that the crash diet had not taught me new behaviors or dealt with the underlying reason that I was using food to cope with the turbulent home I had been born into.

I soon found myself dealing with food in a new and unhealthy way yet again.

I became a binge eater.

I would starve myself for days (crash diet) and then become so ravenous that I would binge and eat everything in sight.

I kept my weight off but I was in an emotional eating nightmare and I kept it a secret from everyone.

I did not want to go back to my former obesity and I did not want people to see how messed up I was with food.

I became anorexic at one point and my periods stopped and I was extremely skinny and sick.

Then after a while I could not handle not eating and obsessed about food constantly because I was literally starving to death.

So then I went back to bingeing and threw in bulimia as a way to get rid of the 1000s of calories I had stuffed into my body during a binge.

Throughout this entire time I kept what I was doing a secret.

I was ashamed of my behavior and I felt totally out of control.

I also knew that I just could not handle going back to being obese because the pain of that period of my life was also excruciating.

So for me I knew that if I binged I would have to get rid of it somehow – either through lots of exercise, or through starving for several days after a binge, or through bulimia – immediately getting rid of what I had just consumed.

These were all terribly unhealthy ways to deal with my eating disordered life.

I finally had a roommate come to me and say that she thought I could really benefit from some counseling. She very kindly suggested that she had observed some behaviors that concerned her and she suggested a very nice lady counselor that I could talk to. Luckily the counselor worked on a sliding fee scale because I could not afford much of anything – let alone counseling!

That first talk with the counselor where I shared the truth of what was going on in private was the beginning of my recovery. Coming out of the deep dark secret place and shedding light on what was happening in my life was such a relief. My counselor was incredibly supportive and kind and gentle with me and got me started on a healing process.

Your journey may be way different from mine.

But I can tell you this.

If you suffer from binge eating or any other eating disordered behavior – you can be free from it.

You can be happy. You can live your life at a slim healthy weight.

You can have a life where food is not the main event and does not control your life.

It took work to be free of binge eating and my other dysfunctional coping methods – but let me tell you – it was so worth it!

I so want you to experience the freedom from emotional eating that I now have. This really helped me.

You can be free! Just like me!

Jana

Hiking with my nephew in Alaska - Free from Binge Eating!!