I'm already out of the binge closet, I did a post on it http://huntgatherlove.com/content/binge-eating

I think it's really really common. Many members of my family have had issues with it. Our society encourages it with hyper-palatable cheap food.

I think the only solution is to remove binge foods from your house completely. I never did any weighing or food plans. Let your family know that you are the equivalent of an alcoholic and it's not acceptable to have binge foods in the house. If they care about your physical and mental health, they will understand. The consequences of binge eating can be just as bad as alcoholism.

I don't keep candy, chips, or other binge foods in my house. I just was able to start having ice cream in my house this year, but only full-fat real food ice cream.

Binge foods are almost always neolithic foods. When was the last time someone binged on steak? Oreos, bags of candy, ice cream, cheese sticks, and cake were my binge foods. Those foods should be out the door.

A therapist or a support group might also help.

I would like to chime in with my experience since I am a former binge eater. I had a huge problem with binge eating for years, which has pretty much gone away since I went primal/paleo at the beginning of 2010. What really helped me was to not have any rules or restrictions about eating, other than avoiding the non-paleo foods which were causing my bingeing. I told myself that the nost important thing was to focus on ending the bingeing, and not to focus on weight loss or trying to be perfect. If I could get through the day without a binge, I was proud of myself. I decided to be kind to myself and not beat myself up for eating waffles or something. It's just food, it's not something to feel guilt or shame over. I would focus on how good healthy food made me feel, rather than focusing on all the things I couldn't eat, such as bread and pasta, etc. I also noticed that when I would eat grain products, I would never feel full no matter how much I ate. It's especially important at breakfast to stick to paleo foods I find. I hope you can find releif from your binge eating problem. I know how awful it feels to be out of control with food, and not being able to stop eating until you are literally sick. Good luck!

Hey your not alone. I have binged many times. I have horrible memories of me lying in a room with cheesecake, biscuit and chip packets thrown about the place. It looked like a bomb had hit. Since I have been on paleo I can honestly say I hardly ever binge anymore, if ever. The one thing that struck me was that you are either eating non-paleo foods or you are restricting calories. So by restricting calories your body might be craving food (even if your restricting on paleo foods), and it will crave anything it can get you to eat - usually forbidden food. My advice to you is stop counting calories (for now), dont worry about your weight (for now), and just try to make sure that you only eat paleo foods, but with no restrictions. Once you do this, and you stop bingeing, THEN worry about your weight. Email me at info@darwinstable.com if you need to ask any other questions. I have been through this!!!!

None of the answers really resonated for me. I can eat two bars of 90% dark chocolate no problem. I can binge on unsalted nuts. I can eat 2lb of grass-fed meat no problem, and when I'm binging, I do. Removing "binge foods" is pointless for me because I can binge on anything at all. For me, it's all about will-power and affirmations like "I'm not the kind of person who eats between meals" and "I'm not the kind of person who overeats" and "if I can make it through 24 hours of not binging then I'll stop being hungry" which luckily for me is true. I hate affirmations on principal, but they do to be helpful. :-) Also, I eat very low carb but I absolutely will gain weight binging on meat. Calories may not matter to some people but, sorry to be heretical, for me they do matter, and if I can limit my calories to the 2000-2500 range, then my weight is nice and stable and I feel great. If I overeat, even the most paleo foods possible, then I feel crappy. Pardon my contrary view ... and suggestions beyond will-power are appreciated. The good news, at least for me, is that it's a habit, and once I'm in the groove of not binging, I can stay that way. It's a matter of not falling of the wagon. Yes, I do get addicted, not to carbs but just to eating.

As Melissa said getting rid of easy access to the binge foods is really important.

The other thing that really helped me is to disregard any concerns about how much I eat - no calorie counting! If I get the urge to binge, I let myself do it, I just do it with paleo foods as that's all that I have around.

The most important thing is to limit the consumption of high-glycemic non-paleo food. This is going to greatly regulate your blood sugar and overall hunger levels. You still will probably binge on foods, but they will be the right kinds of food and this will help you self-regulate without a lot of conscious effort.

Allowing yourself a cheat meal once a week can also really help. Some advice that worked well for me was to restrict it to a dinner though as this will decrease the chance of a cheat breakfast turning into a cheat day.

Stick with it and don't beat yourself up - this will get easier!

Shannon

I still have issues with "knowing the difference between my mouth and a vacuum". lol. My main solution is to find foods that I can eat while dealing with the urge to binge that won't totally wreck me. My go-to foods have become pickles and very very dark chocolate. Both of those tend to end up sating me fairly quickly. So yeah, if I'm craving something salty, say chips, I'll start chomping on pickles. They may not be exactly what I want, but after a few I feel the binge urge go away. If I'm craving something sweet... well first I'll force myself to drink a glass of water, because often times when I get a sweet tooth I find that I'm actually dehydrated. I'll generally try to eat some pickles too at that point, but if I find myself rummaging for dried fruit I'll force myself to stop and go eat a piece of extra dark (I'm talking like 85% or darker) chocolate.

Blueberries and raspberries also seem to work okay to curb my cravings if I'm not being too vacuum-like. I've found that nuts are a BAD idea, I have seriously gone through an entire bag and then gone looking for more. I'll sometimes throw some bacon on the foreman grill, if I think I can manage to wait long enough for it to cook!

I think the most important thing is to not beat yourself up if you do binge, instead analyze what happened and come up with how you could do it differently next time.

you know--though it is counterintuitive (restricting = binging)--16 hour IF helped me enormously. I eat from 11 to 7pm--and my desire to snack or binge has been very nicely contained by the IF. It feels biochemical to me, although I am sure the idea of a window is helpful--all I know is that previously, any limitation would create oppositionality and a need to binge. 16-8 not so much!

I had great success controlling bingeing with a zero-carb diet. About a month on nothing but meat and water, and when I felt in control of my eating habits I started adding back in other foods. Whenever I feel myself craving those foods now, or having bouts of uncontrolled eating (usually with vegetables... nonetheless uncomfortable), I'll spend a few days back on meat and water. Personally, I feel like it's the tightly controlled simplicity that helps the most; you know what you're going to eat no matter what and you never have to think about it. It also helps to not control calories during this phase, that way if you get that bingey-feeling (for me it's about wanting to eat more and more food despite feeling physical fullness) just load up on meat until the obsession wanes, and it wanes quickest with meat in my experience.

It's also good to identify what triggers binges for you. Fitday can be good for that actually, they have a notes section that I used everyday along with tracking food intake and weight to determine if there were any patterns. For me, it seems to be a bunch of things: lack of exercise, coffee, lack of water, snacking, monthly cycle, a change in eating patterns or even calorie allotment (seems like a few days of low carb veggie/meat followed by a day with a few servings of fruit trigger a binge, but I don't have the same reaction if I have an equal portion of fruit everyday).

I truly feel your pain. My wife and kids eat totally SAD and are very resistant to change. So my house is full of temptation. I used to be a fast food and junk food junkie as well. I am not totally over my own food demons, but here is what helps me:

1> I make sure to eat a decent amount of protein daily and keep my fat intake high. This is so I am never really hungry.

2> Glutamine - 1000mg 2x day (morning and night) really helps cut sugar/sweet cravings and (as a bonus) helps me sleep better.

3> Every time I fail, I vow to do better and remember how crappy it made me feel. Plus, being T2 diabetic - failing will kill me sooner! I'm now up to a month or two between binges and never go off for multiple days like I did last year.

Don't give up! It gets better/easier with time. Addictions are hard to break, but it can be done.

I literally came to this website to search this topic and it was on the recent feed. What a sign! Currently in the guilt, bloated, want to cry phase. Thank you everyone for your input.

from my experience, the worst part about binging is the bloated guilty feeling after. When I realized this, i shifted my binges to foods that are mostly water and fiber.. like fruit and vegetables. I would literally eat 5 packages of baby carrots or a huge coscto bag of frozen blueberries.

As much as I felt bloated right after, about 2-3 hours later, after a trip to the bathroom, I felt surprisingly fine. Particlarly knowing I took in a ton of antioxidants and vitamins in the case of berries, I didn't feel as guilty. Much better than binging on chips or ice cream.

I feel your pain too. Binge eating was the Number One Problem in my life for many many years and it was so debilitating both emotionally and physically. It came and went whether I was low-fat, paleo or low-carb, running marathons or body building, overweight or not, etc. and I often binged on borderline "safe" paleo foods like raw nuts, raw dairy, dried fruit, etc. A few things that have helped me most and led to the current blissful remission period I am in right now are:

1. A program called "Normal Eating". The woman who wrote the book and runs the online program is very paleo-friendly but recommends a legalization period where you allow yourself to eat anything and everything you are craving. If you tend towards orthorexia this can be extremely challenging, but I feel it was essential for my brain and body to recover from the constant restrictions I was subjecting it to.

2. Allowing myself one free day a week to eat ANYTHING. This seems to have magically eliminated my urge to binge. Knowing once a week I can allow myself to have the ice cream, cookies, and sugary-whatever I drool over while eating so carefully every day alleviates those feelings of deprivation that triggers binges in the first place. And I often end up not wanting any of that when the day comes.

3. Reading Matt Stone's blog and its comments. I know he rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but his open-mindedness and determination to find dogma-free answers is refreshing and inspiring.

Good for you for posting this. I think you should stop dieting. You said you had hypoglycemic issues -- a sign that you're not getting enough calories/carbs. If you're restricting your diet in some way that your body doesn't like, it will respond appropriately, and you will binge. You can't outsmart your body. Try not being restrictive in any way, just eat whenever, however much, and whatever you want, but still try to favor paleo foods.

I used to have HUGE emotional eating/bingeing problems. I kept trying to go low in calories/carbs to maintain my weight, and what do you know, eventually I would binge. I responded by enforcing 'diet rules' (no nuts, fruit, or more than two meals a day) and religiously following them. I literally went to bed every night with my head hurting from lack of carbs/calories. I recall running to the store for ice cream because I was so hypoglycemic. Fast forward a few months, I have huge reactionary hypoglycemic issues. I can't eat fruit or sweet potatoes at all, or too many carbs in one sitting. I have all sorts of weird health issues now, when before I was a healthy, skinny, 23 year old. As Matt Stone states, the real problems arise when you DO have willpower and successfully resist your cravings. They are there for a reason.

I don't binge anymore because I don't restrict my diet in anyway. If I feel like snacking, I do. If I'm craving carbs, I eat them. My weight setpoint seems to have risen to 160lbs (at 5'10), where before it was around 155 -- all that work for a measly 5 pounds. As Gazelle says, read Matt Stone's blog, he's a great antidote to the whole dieting mindset. Check out his posts on Jon Gabriel, a guy who lost massive amounts of weight. His whole philosophy is centered around keeping your body happy and avoiding stress -- absolutely not doing any sort of restrictive dieting, but still favoring real, whole foods.

I think it would be good to see a food counselor or therapist as well.

I used to binge on ice cream, bread, popcorn, chips, pizza, peanut butter cups, etc. Since going paleo I don't crave these things very often. I find eating plenty of fat (animal, butter, coconut oil) helps. If a craving comes up, I fry a few slices of bacon. I can't seem to keep out of the nuts or almond butter, so I am learning not to keep these in the house much. I'm lucky to be able to eat only 2 squares of 90% dark chocolate a day instead of the whole bar.

And finally, not paleo, but nutrition related, look into Julia Ross' The Mood Cure http://www.moodcure.com/Questionnaire.htmlhttp://www.moodcure.com/Questionnaire.html Her dietary recommendations are very compatible with paleo (yes to protein, fat and veggies, no to processed carbs and wheat--just skip the "healthy whole grains") and she also suggests using amino acid supplementation. I supplement with aminos to boost my serotonin, as well as using light therapy in the winter and getting plenty of exercise (I bike and walk mostly). For me the carb cravings/bingeing seem to be closely related to serotonin levels.

Excerpts from the book can also be found on Google Books, but I recommend buying it or checking it out from the library. My layman's take on her theory, which makes sense to me, is that the Standard American Diet (SAD) has us so depleted in amino acids (which in turn run our brain chemistry) that even if we stop eating junk and start eating right, it would take us a long time to recover, so she recommends amino acid supplementation for one to several months until your body and brain are back on track.

Do let us know how you're doing.

I think nuts and seeds can be a HUGE binging problem for many people including myself. The worst one for me is cashews. I used to get a big can of cashews and devour them all right then and there. And I would feel horrible and guilty.

It's true that if you have to shell the nuts yourself, then you'll be less likely to binge.

It may also be the salt concealing the relatively bland flavor of unsalted nuts. People would probably eat less if they weren't salted.

I'm in the same boat and have been going to Overeaters Anonymous for 4 years now. compulsive overeating is not a willpower issue, despite what some of the more ignorant may say. It is effective and if I stay away from sugar/flour, I do pretty well. there are times when I get a strong sugar craving I'll allow myself to eat a little extra meat to get the satiation and I find it pretty hard to gulp down too much meat. FWIW

What works for me is to walk the grocery store aisles while giving myself permission to eat anything I choose and NOT feel guilty about it. Once the guilt is alleviated I always end up walking out of the store empty-handed.

I suspect there are two potential aspects to binge eating. One is going to biological. Sugars can trigger strong cravings in me. It may also effect brain function and that sugar rush probably has addictive properties in the brain chemistry. At first, it takes a while to get past that and let your body readjust to a new way. Psychologically, your brain may want to get that rush back, even at the expense of feeling bad later. It's the same reason why people like to smoke. They cultivate an addiction and then enjoy the pleasure of satiating that addiction. You would think it would not be worth it, but it must be, because a lot of people still smoke!

There may also be psychological issues to binge eating. That one may well take a lot of soul searching and/or professional help to deal with. If it is only certain foods, especially carbs, that trigger the binge, my guess is biology is a big factor. Not many people can really binge on only protein and fat. You just get full at a certain point and do not want any more. If you are able to binge on protein and fat only (no carb), then I think the prob may go beyond biology.

I've found that when I occasionally eat a rice cracker or something I tend to become rapidly addicted and want to eat the whole package. There's something about the crisp, salty, oily nature of these foods that creates a supernormal stimulus. The best thing is to not have them around at all and just binge on meat if you need to. There aren't really any negative consequences to doing so and you'll probably lose weight as a result. Humans have a long history of binging on meat, so don't feel guilty about it.

My experience has been that I need to remove any binge triggers from my diet completely. I also highly recommend amino acid therapy to help balance neurotransmitters...Julia Ross's book The Diet Cure is fabulous(though her views on diet are not in alignment with mine, but are in alignment with WAPF), and she has a clinic for those who need extra support...she has helped thousands of people recover from eating disorders, and addictions of all kinds.

Like some others here, I can binge on anything. It used to be ice cream (half gallons, not pints), carrot cake, bags of candy (I'd swear to myself I'd stop after just two York peppermint patties. Never happened). So when I started a Whole 49 back in January, I replaced these binges with Larabars and nuts. The challenge as is, to eat the right foods to satiety, simply was not working for me because I didn't (and still don't) have an "off" switch.

I begged my Crossfit coach for help, and she put me on a modified version of Zone and it WORKED for me (she wrote the full story of how she dealt with me, here http://crossfitcapitolhillgoespaleo.blogspot.com/2011/03/paleo-success-story.html )

For me, her recommendation was perfect. The rest of the challenge went wonderfully. After the challenge ended, I decided to stay with the Whole 30 rules because I celebrated with cheesecake, felt miserable and binged again for a week afterwards. I'm one of those all-or-none people. I also decided to stop counting Zone blocks and start eating to satiety just like the way everybody here seems to do. Guess what that meant? Whole double-stick-size packages of Kerrygold. Two cans of full-fat coconut milk a day, in addition to that butter, at least one avocado, and the fat in my meat. Fitday showed my calorie counts soaring upwards, from an average of 2,500-3,000 when I was Zoning, to upwards of 4,000 regularly, sometimes hitting 5,000 or even 6,000.

I'm back keeping mental track of my Zone blocks. I don't go crazy if I'm off by a few blocks and I try to go lower than my coach's Rx for carbs because it seems to work for me (and I kicked the apple-a-day habit). I probably could stick to eyeballing portion sizes, but I find it more effective to actually weigh the food and know I'm sticking to the plan. That prevents me from thinking to myself "maybe I ended up eating a smaller portion this morning because I didn't weigh it, so now I'm going to make up for it by eating something else." If I go over by a few - or even ten - blocks of anything, it's best for me when it's in the form of fat.

I don't know how my story can help you other than to add to all the indicators here that different approaches work for different people. If tracking in whatever format (calories, Zone blocks, etc.) helps you stop the binges when you reach the limit, great. If not, you need to find ways to stay busier in your life. For me, binges are more likely to happen when I have time to be sitting down, even if I'm sitting at a computer doing work.

I've never binged and can't begin to advise you. But maybe a tip to try and help. When I went fully paleo primal after about a month to six weeks of eating clean I was actually repulsed by crap foods after that. They didn't taste good at all anymore. Bread tasted like soggy newspaper.
Maybe you could set a short term goal to eat completely clean for one or two full months. You may completely lose the taste for high carb junk food. I eat about 60% fat, 35% prot and the rest leafy veg. Good fats like tallow from grass fed beef.
Anyway just something to consider. I know you'll succeed eventually!

I used to binge on sugary things. I went paleo, so I started binging on almond butter and 85% dark chocolate. I did cut back on those, but now I binge on grass-fed beef. It's taken a year or so to make the transition to binging on more healthful stuff. Binging is still an issue for me, but it's less than it used to be because my weight is more stable, I sleep better, etc. Hopefully next I'll get myself to binge on carrots and tea, but I'm not there yet. :-)

So I say just keep working on it, never say die, constant improvement, two steps forward one step back, etc. For some of us it's harder than for others, but we forge ahead as best we can and we'll get there.

Can't binge on 85% chocolate? Wanna bet. :-)

I'm not sure that I'd really qualify as a binge eater, but back in the day I'd occasionally eat a whole pint of ice cream at a sitting, or a couple of chocolate bars, or multiple slices of bread and honey or jam, or an entire leftover cake or pie, etc.

I don't really do this anymore. In fact, a while back I decided to see what eating a pint of Haagen Daz would do to my glucose levels in the name of science. I didn't enjoy the experience and haven't looked back. Some observations on how I did this follow:

Getting diagnosed with diabetes helped motivate me. Then I went Paleo.

Getting rid of bingeable foods made a huge difference; Melissa's alcoholism comparison was very apt. If it's not there you can't eat it.

I find that getting a big dose of fat early in the day keeps my appetite down the rest of the day.

Staying away from sugar in all forms helps; I've scaled back my fruit consumption and try to limit myself to small pieces of less-sweet fruit, e.g. a small Macintosh apple versus a ginormous Red Delicious. I was eating a fair bit of dried fruit when I went Paleo; I've cut way back on this too.

Constant self-control: it does take some willpower. Sugar cravings are awful stuff. And you just have to fight them hard. Diabetes is a good motivator though; I'm attached to my feet and enjoy being able to see. And I enjoy being fifty pounds lighter and a lot fitter than I was at my worst. Focusing on the fact that sugar will slow my progress helps me not eat it. Happily, you can cultivate willpower. If you can't go cold turkey, reduce frequency and serving size. Build on your successes. Keep on cutting back.

The good news is that this Paleo/Primal thing really does work. And it does not require plans. Just give your entire Neolithic food supply to the local food bank, do a Paleo grocery run, black out your bedroom and get more sleep, and start Mark Sisson's or Robb Wolf's exercise plan, or even just make sure to walk half an hour ever other day. Get some sun. Eat Paleo food, with plenty of fat, when hungry, stop eating when full. That's about 90% of it in a single paragraph.

Like Robb Wolff says, give it a month's good try; you'll be amazed at your progress. I've lost approximately 20 pounds (much of it without exercise as I was bedridden with a back injury for the first few months), got my high-for-decades blood pressure under control, normalized my blood glucose levels (which went from 12.6 mmol/L to 4.x-6.x), and made some major improvements in my lipid panel, all without meds. Shocking your doctor is a blast :).

I also binge and I also do not keep those foods in my house. I find because I binge going cold turkey on my binge foods does not work.

I am doing the following.

1) Addressing the emotional issues behind my binge eating. 2) Since I do not keep the stuff in my house, I practice leaving my house with no form of payment. 3) Don't tell your family that the foods cannot be in the house. Either a) ask them to support you with it by not bringing the foods in the house (they can eat it outside of the house. If you ask them from a supportive place it is different than telling them in a restrictive, demanding place. 4) Look at Panu's 12 step program and modify it for you http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/ I modified so it is a 15 step program.
5) It will take a while to stop binging, but try to find something healthier to binge on while you make the transition to a binge-free lifestyle.
6) Meditate. Chopra has some great guided meditations on his website for free. You can download them and put them on your ipod/mp3 music device. 7) Journal.

And most importantly, keep trying. Know that it will improve and know that you will lead a binge-free lifestyle. "Fall down seven times, get up eight."

My neighbor is an overeater and compulsive eater. She has been this way for over 40 years. Yet, she is a perfect weight. How does she do this? She has been in Overeater's Anonymous for 40 years too. I think she may go to more than one meeting a week.

Her eating pattern: she will pile on the biggest salad or veggies, but she weighs out her meats. She is not paleo, but it seems to work for her. She has foods in her house that she cannot eat available for her family. She won't even take a nibble of a dessert. She once told me that the sheet birthday cake was one serving for her in her mind.

Personally, I think she would do better w/ her other conditions if she was paleo, but she is happy with status quo.

She was an overweight child living in Beverly Hills. I think this is part of her where her depression stems from. She takes meds for this. Also, at around 45 became epileptic.

I am assuming the meetings helps her deal with the reason's why she wants to binge or overeat.

I was a binge and purger (aka bulemic) as a teenager, went vegan (which IMHO is just an eating disorder with an ethical agenda,) and then a SAD binger which is how I find myself at 60 pounds over my ideal weight. I was actually heavier before I got pregnant and switched to the WAPF plan in my third trimester and then went paleo a month after giving birth.

I think the most important thing I did was throw out every single NAD food in my house and completely ban my husband from bringing it in the house either. He eats paleo at home and I mostly stay off his back if we go out to eat. It sounds extreme but much like an alcoholic, I just can't keep any of those foods in my house or in a weak moment I'll go overboard. Some people can have just one piece/slice/handful. I am not one of those people and the sooner you free yourself of the sugar monster the sooner you'll find yourself no cravings those foods

I have to admit, my first month of paleo I went overboard on big hunks of butter, coconut oil, and beef marrow but it think that was my body's way of helping me mentally deal with no longer eating cereal grains and crappy oils. The next month I didn't crave the giant hunks of fat anymore and while I still use them liberally, I don't find them as compelling as I ever did refined carbs. Also, it should be noted that i still lost 10 pounds that first month. It might have been post partum water weight but I felt good and my milk supply didn't drop.

Kudos for trying this out. Good luck to you.