9 ways to avoid binge eating
It’s about four-ish, three hours after lunch and probably three hours before dinner. The umpteenth cup of tea is poured, but you need more. Something substantial. Anything with chocolate. Or nuts. Or French cheese. Or whatever. Your need is for food. And now. In the vain hope to ease my tummy of it’s rumblings I jumped online and and the web angel delivered me this article from guffingtonpost.com just in time. An on coming candy attack? Read this and be healed.
1. Breakfast
Yes, yes, yes of course we already know that Breakfast is good for the entirety of mankind and prevents us from uncontrollably scoffing down 3 mini Twix’s before 11:00 am without giving it a second thought.
2. Know your needs
A little hankering for some chocolate or something else a bit sweet? Then make yourself a large bowl of fresh, sweet fruit salad. Same experience (well, kind of) and guilt free, which in turn reduces the chances of a subsequent snack attack. Avoid the well known I-don’t-care-the-damage-is-done effect. Fancy chips, take a handful of cashew nuts. Much healthier and it reduces the devil-may-care eating attitude.
3. Small serves
A university study in the USA concluded that people who ate smaller portions were left with feeling more satisfied that those who ate portions that were three times larger. Serve up something delicious in a small amount on a small plate. You’ll feel more satisfied, you’ll eat less (we still carry with us the words of our mothers: finish your plate, think of the children in Africa) and you have less risk of a binging relapse.
4. Understand your wants
Keep a little food diary. You don’t need to go into great depths, simply jot down a couple of sentences about when you were hungry and what it was you were craving. You might find a pattern in your urges (at 16:00 I always want…..) or maybe it happens when you’re tired, sad, whatever. Understanding helps you to curb the cravings.
5. Give in, just a little
Do you really really want to eat those fries? Then order them… On the side side of your healthy salad. Eat controlled, consciously and not too fast.
6. Lose the guilty feelings
If you have something sweet, like chocolate and associate it with negative thoughts (This must never ever be eaten) the mythical proportions of the experience will take over and make the yearning for that chocolate even stronger.
7. Fight the crave
A craving usually only lasts ten minutes. Be strong. Go for a walk or some shop online. Cleaning up your desk is a good one. You manage to not snack and everything is neat and tidy.
8. No diets
When you hold everything back from yourself, it only makes the want grow stronger until it build and build and finally explodes to the point where you end up eating everything in sight. And that was precisely what you didn’t want, right?
9. Ban all foodporn
Jamie Oliver’s Instagram feed, full of literally delicious photos of well executed lemon meringue pies or Ossobuco alla Milanese is perhaps not the best way to curb your hunger.
Go for it girls. Battle the binge,you can do it. And if your struggling, you can always send our Jet an email for a bit of happy and healthy advice.
