HOW TO REDUCE BINGE EATING

By Catherine Symons

When delving into many peoples’ diets one thing that is most common is binge eating.  Whether that’s binging at the weekends or in the evenings; consuming a vast amount of calories in one hit, and the food type tending to be high in the not-so-good stuff.

Here’s a few tips on how you can keep the binges under control:

1. Eat more during the week.
   It could be that your calories during the week are a little too low to be sustainable, so you end up craving more and of course then giving in. By simply upping your calories daily a little bit more (with the good stuff of course) you shouldn’t feel as hungry and therefore binges shouldn’t happen as much.
2. Keep any temptations out of the house – if it’s there then you’re going to eat it! If it’s harder to get hold of, you’re less likely to reach for those types of foods. Simple.
3. Be mindful when eating. It’s too easy to sit there with a packet of biscuits – before you know it you’ve eaten the whole pack!  Why not try really thinking about what you’re eating and how you’re eating it.  Take your time chewing and assess how hungry you actually are, rather than quickly stuffing in as much as you can.
4. Distract yourself. Keeping busy is a great way to stay away from binge eating.  Boredom is often when we find ourselves eating; not because we are hungry but because we feel we have nothing else to do.

Remember we don’t want to be too strict with ourselves; we need things to be sustainable and fun too.  It’s just about being mindful that it isn’t healthy to binge with ‘bad’ foods all in one hit, racking up the calories and undoing all your hard work.