A man with binge eating disorder tells his story

A few days ago, I received a very honest email from Andrew, a man who has suffered from binge eating disorder (BED) for many years.

Because we hear from so few males, I asked if it would be all right to share his info with you.  He agreed and even noted that he’s set up a website/blog devoted to helping others with the same eating disorder.  His site can be found at:  www.howtostopeating.com.

Here is an excerpt from his email to me.  I hope you find it as eye-opening as I do. 

From a young age I was overweight. I heard all the fat jokes. I had
the toughest time in my school’s locker room, when I’d be changing,
and guys would accuse me of having breasts =(

The first fat joke I heard was from my grade school teacher. She
asked me a question in the middle of class, caught me off guard, and I
answered “I don’t know”. And her response was something along the
lines of how I have so much fat in my brain that it’s not working
anymore.

Anyways once I started college I decided that I want to get my weight
handled. Up to this point I didn’t really have any eating disorders
or issues. The reason I was overweight is because I ate lots of junk
food and wasn’t active at all.

So I was able to drop a bunch of pounds in a very healthy manner. I
improved my eating habits very slowly and gradually. I started
walking more and more. And it took several months but I did lose lots
of weight. It was a great feeling. For the first time I remember a
cute girl I was attracted to calling me “hot” which I never had gotten
before.

At this point I decided I really wanna get ripped, and be in an even
more amazing physical shape and do it as quickly as possible. This is
when all the trouble began. I basically restricted my diet way too
much. As a result my cravings of junk food and fast food would get
out of control. I would diet extremely for a few days. Then one day
wouldn’t be able to keep up with it and binge on all the junk food and
fast food I can get my hands on. I would basically keep repeating
this cycle of dieting and binge eating.

At first I thought I just haven’t found the right diet. So I would
try different diets. Many of the fitness magazines and tv ads made
weight loss look so easy so I was really tough on myself. My binge
eating started getting worse and I found myself binging more
frequently.

I started reading all the advice I could find online. I started going
to support groups like OA and Weight Watchers. And I even did therapy
for a while. And I didn’t think any of those was the perfect
solution, but each one did guide me a bit. My individual therapy
sessions probably helped me the most.

The beginning of my recovery consisted mostly of two things. Number
one was eating normal amounts of food, and eating a variety of food.
I slowly started eating more and more food instead of trying to
restrict my diet and deprive myself. I also started slowly eating
controlled amounts of junk foods and fast foods. By controlled I
mean, I would only buy as much as I was planning to eat before even
going to the store. Number two aspect of my recovery was finding out
why I binge ate in the first place. I realized that I binged mostly
to deal with tough emotions.

This Emotional Eating was a biggie for me. Once I realized this I
started working on increasing my awareness around food. I would carry
little reminders with me in my pocket that I would review anytime
before putting any food in my mouth. I also would journal throughout
the day, writing down my different emotional states, any events or
thoughts that lead to them and so on. This helped me to slowly pause
as I’m reaching for comfort foods. And I noticed that I gradually
started binge eating less and less. It’s a very gradual slow process
but I’m making lots of progress and it’s amazing

One of my recent efforts has been trying to help others who are binge
eating. This is why I started writing articles on my site at
http://howtostopeating.com

Congratulations to Andrew and all other sufferers of BED who tackle their ED one step at a time.

If you have an ED story you’d like to share (anonymously or not) with Breaking the Mirror, please email it to me at lemonpepr(at)aol(dot)com.  And if you’re the sister, friend, mother, daughter, lover, relative, coworker or spouse of someone who’s had an eating disorder, you’re welcome to submit, too.  By giving voice to our stories, we’ll make defeating EDs like anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder a little easier.