For context, I want to share what binge eating looked like for me. It started back in college when I lived away from home for the first time and worked a job with shifts that ended at 2-3am. No longer under the constant pressure of parents always commenting on what or how much I eat, I took full advantage of my college's dining halls. I always ordered food after work which was either wings or pizza, enough food for 3-4 people but I ate it all myself. I was already fat since high school, but it wasn't the weight that signaled I had a problem. It was when I found myself forcing myself to keep eating even if my stomach was hurting. That scared me immediately and I tried to change things, but I found myself in this endless cycle of eating in a deficit/not binge eating for a few days then once it was the weekend, undoing everything. Many times, I wouldn't be able to get through the whole week and would end up caving in the middle of the week instead.

I also held this (now very weird to me) idea that if I messed up by eating too much one day, then I'd give up for the rest of the day instead of minimizing the damage. I'd think to myself, well I mean today's a loss so might as well go all out and start fresh tomorrow. But tomorrow would turn into another bad day. It felt very much like one step forward and two steps back. I was also incredibly strict with myself. If I ate too much, I would be so hard on myself and get discouraged with myself instead of practicing self-compassion. I forced myself to do too much too quickly and it backfired on me multiple times, but it never occurred to me to start off slow/take baby steps. It was either all or nothing, otherwise that made me a failure.

Fast forward to a few years out of college when I was 25. I was experiencing panic attacks daily and they were wearing me out. I had no idea where this was coming from and started group therapy for a year. This was the first time I started to connect how my anxiety/stress was tied to my binge eating. I had moved out of my parents' home and was living with my roommates. While my binge eating wasn't as bad as it was in college, it still happened way too often and I still had a hard time fending off the cravings. During this time, I lost around 30 lbs but would gain it all back since I still hadn't quite learned about slowly incorporating new habits and still tried to force myself to make drastic changes. Which, of course, backfired on me as it wasn't sustainable over the long term.

Now to the present, I've noticed that for the past month that beating down the binge eating cravings is so much easier. Even if I don't lose weight or eat too much, I don't beat myself over it and let it go. If I ate too much during the day, I eat less at night instead of throwing up my hands and giving it up completely. When I get the craving to eat a lot of food, I'm able to take a step back and make different choices. I've also become a lot more accustomed to stop eating when I'm full, and not when I'm painfully full. It's now automatic for me to save half my meal for later instead of forcing myself to eat the whole thing. I've been seeing a therapist individually for the past year now and I believe it's because of that, I have a healthier mindset with food. Group therapy was still very helpful for me, but with one on one sessions, my therapist can focus all her attention on me pointing out things I may not have been comfortable with in a group setting.

I know therapy and taking care of your mental health is brought up often for weightloss, but holy shit does it really make a difference. As a first generation college student and oldest child of immigrant parents, there was so much pressure and high expectations that I felt I had to fulfill. Eating/food was the only thing I felt like I had some control over. And as far as Asian parents go, my parents are actually a lot more relaxed than most and not at all like the stereotypes, but my weight was always my biggest flaw in my extended Asian family as well. (Now my parents don't comment on my weight at all as I've finally gotten it through to them that it's not helpful.) The last few pieces were dealing with traumatic events that happened to me that never got fully resolved or dealt with emotionally so binge eating became another way for me to cope. As I started with my therapist to work through it all, I lost interest in binge eating. It was so odd how my automatic response used to be to eat and just mentally check out while eating, but now I'm able to catch these moments of emotional stress and break it down.

Food doesn't give me the false comfort it did before because now, I know better and that there are different ways for me to handle things. This is the most confident I've felt about my weightloss journey (even though I'm at my heaviest) because I no longer have to worry about self-sabotaging myself with binge eating. So I want to just say that if you're on the fence with therapy, give it a try (with the right therapist of course).

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