Platinum Author
That title can be very unsettling for many people. Unless you have been around someone who is obese, there is a reasonable chance that you have never seen anyone binge eating. Binge eating and obesity is not necessarily causative, meaning that not everyone who binge eats is obese; however, many overweight and morbidly obese people do binge eat - even if they don't meet all of the criterion for the disorder.
Watching someone on a binge can be very, very disturbing to watch - almost as frightening to be the one binging. The manic, driven actions of someone determined to eat, eat and eat - with utter disregard for the consequences, are incredulous to witness. It seems impossible that someone can be that hungry - yet frequently, the person binging insists hunger is driving them.
One way of determining the difference is a simple test; throw the food out. We all know it won't be a piece of fruit or vegetable that you are binging with. It is commonly a high fat / high starch food - throw it out. If you can't throw the food out, it isn't hunger. If you are on a binge - you won't be able to throw the food away...not a half-finished cake or donut or pizza or bowl of ice cream. There is no "full", because it was never about hunger to begin with. And if your waist measures over 35 inches - other than a bit of low blood sugar - you are not in danger of starving. Your body will literally have days of energy (stored in body fat) for you to live off of. The drive to eat that you are experiencing is emotional / mentally driven and the statement, "but I'm hungry" is actually very false. If low blood sugar is an issue for you - a piece of fruit, or hard candy - will suffice, not three pieces of pizza or an extra large grab bag of chips (some 800 calories later).
After years of being fat - I realize I really didn't know what hunger meant. I ate so often, to numb myself, just like nearly all overweight and obese people do. There was no time to get hungry. In fact, the idea of being without food... either access to my stockpile, or the ability to go out and get some, was anxiety producing in and off itself.
So how did I stop binging? How did I get it under control enough to lose more than 100 pounds? I wish I could give you a clever answer...something that could be bottled and sold. I had certainly bought those clever answers time and time again from a magazine or an infomercial. In the end, I had to learn to cope with feelings...yes, feelings. Nothing exciting and not at all clever - feelings; and I had to learn to have them without eating to numb them.
Erin Carraway is the founder of Obesity Free for Life.com - a website dedicated to enhancing the lives of the overweight and the obese. While she was obese for nearly her entire adult life, she learned some simple, and safe tricks to change her eating and her life forever. As a certified personal trainer and health specialist, she coaches others about safe, permanent weight loss using everything she learned. She will teach you how to safely lose massive amounts of weight for the rest of your life. Learn more at http://www.obesityfreeforlife.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Erin_Carraway
