Hydroxycut, a very popular weight loss pill, has been recalled. Seriously folks, this should not be a surprise. After all, every time doctors and people look for a quick fix they end up finding out that it’s just not going to work. I actually took hydroxycut a long long time ago (only one bottle if my recollection is correct). Back then I was looking, hoping, and praying for quick fixes as well. Unfortunately the benefits you get from taking an action are usually proportional to the effort put in. Taking a pill takes no effort at all, and therefore the benefits are probably not going to be that great.

Do yourself a favor. Put in real effort to solve your real problems yourself. It may take you longer, but you’ll develop and grow and benefit to a much larger extent than if a solution is just handed to you easily.

Not Everyone With Binge Eating Disorder is necessarily overweight, but I think a large number of people probably are. I was overweight as a young child (”husky” if you want to be specific), and later in life my weight cycled dramatically as I fought to lose weight only to regain it later.

It took me a long time to realize that my binge eating was actually a different problem than simply overeating. Once I was able to identify the problem and realize that I wasn’t alone I could starting working to attack the problem.

The other thing I found disconcerting was that, as a man, very little help and guidance was available to me specifically. Looking back on it I don’t think that the solutions to the problem aren’t necessarily different for men versus women, but from my limited perspective I felt even more “odd” because I was a man with an eating disorder.

I do think the media fill our brains of what the ideal woman should look like much more than what the ideal man should look like. This must contribute to the large number of women with eating disorders. Nonetheless some experts estimate the there are as many men with BED as women, but women are much more likely to see professional help. Therefore a lot of statistics show that more women have BED than men, which may not be the case.

According to Wikipedia.com, Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is a psychiatric disorder with the following symptoms:

• Periodically does not exercise control over consumption of food.
• Eats an unusually large amount of food at one time — more than a normal person would eat in the same amount of time.
• Eats much more quickly during binge episodes than during normal eating episodes.
• Eats until physically uncomfortable and physically feels like they’re on the verge of throwing up due to the outrageous amount of food just consumed.
• Eats when depressed, sad, or bored.
• Eats large amounts of food even when not really hungry.
• Usually eats alone during binge eating episodes, in order to avoid discovery of the disorder.
• Often eats alone during periods of normal eating, owing to feelings of embarrassment about food.
• Feels disgusted, depressed, or guilty after binge eating.

Do any or all of these symptoms describe you? If not, the ideas and techniques I plan to share will still be of value to you if you’re trying to change your habits, lose weight, improve your health, and/or learn to cope with difficult situations.

As for me all of the above bullets used to be accurate. And it is not fun, trust me.

It’s estimated that 8 million Americans have some kind of eating disorder (not just binge eating disorder), and that half of all Americans know someone with an eating disorder.

I find this startling. I need to research it a bit further but my understanding is that it’s taken quite some time for Binge Eating Disorder to be identified and recognized as a condition separate from anorexia and bulimia. Perhaps this is because in many cases the BED criteria are much more general. For example, purging is pretty easy to identify, but “Periodically does not exercise control over consumption of food” is much more vague.

I’ll try to find some better stats on BED versus the other eating disorder shortly and will post an update as soon as I find them.

Why start a blog about binge eating? Well, there are several reasons. The first is that I struggled with binge eating disorder (BED) for years before I even knew my problem had a name! Like many with BED I felt alone and hopeless. Although I am a pretty disciplined person I couldn’t break the cycle of binging and depression. I also had low self esteem, and I was in an endless cycle of:

binge -> depression -> weight gain -> low self esteem -> binge

I searched high and low for solutions. I sought out professionals, read every book I could get my hands on, and tried and failed dozens and dozens of times. I’m not completely done yet, but I have found things that work and I am on the road to recovery. Do you want to walk with me while I want to share what I’ve learned with you and others who are suffering.

I’ll warn you that there is no quick-fix. I’m not peddling some kind of diet pill or any other product. What I do know it’s nearly impossible to win under this kind of problem on your own. But I’m doing it, and I wouldn’t want to do it on my own again!

Everyone needs help at some point, and if you can learn just one or two things from all of the mistakes I made then this blog will be worth the effort.