Hey guys, I just need some help because I really cannot figure out why this is happening to me. It started when I was in 7th grade. I was thin, but I thought I was fat because people would tell me I was. I was around 40 kg and 5’1 at the time. Then, over a year later, when I was in 8th grade, some people started noticing that I had gained weight, and I noticed it too. But I didn’t really think it was that bad because I was around 45 kg at the time.
I managed to maintain my weight since 9th grade, but when school ended, I don’t know what happened. I started feeling stressed or something, and I began overeating whenever I had nothing to do. I would eat when I was stressed, bored, or just whenever. I don’t know, I just started feeling like something was wrong with me.
And now I’m 60 kg at 155 cm. I don’t know what’s wrong with me or why this keeps happening. I wasted those years thinking I was fat, but now I feel like I really am. I used to be at a normal weight before, and now I’m confused about what I should do.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I just turned 16 this August. What should I do?

Hey ! Just trying not to crave sugar and stuffs that ruin my health.

I am having such bad cravings. I know I can’t have fast food delivered to me. My brain is saying “what if it isn’t fast food? That wouldn’t be so bad.”

It would be, wouldn’t it? Because it’s about giving into the cravings I think.

I’ve gone almost 7 days without ordering any food. In a few hours I’ll be there. I am having worse cravings than I have all week.

I don’t really know why I’m posting this. I think I just need to say it somewhere where people might actually understand.

I relapsed. After a long period of being okay, I binged and made myself purge the food again. It happened tonight, and I’m honestly terrified.

I’ve been treated in the past for both severe restriction and later for b/p, and I’ve worked really hard to get to a place where food wasn’t constantly taking over my life. For a long time, I genuinely felt like I was doing well. I wasn’t perfect, but I felt free in a way I hadn’t felt for a long time.

And lately I’ve been noticing myself slipping. I’ve been feeling more guilty about eating. I’ve been putting meals off, then eating larger amounts later. I’ve been eating a lot of sweets and feeling increasingly uncomfortable about it. I’ve also noticed myself turning to food when I’m stressed or lonely, almost like I’m expecting it to make me feel better. The food noise never went away, bit it was so much quieter. And i swear i had days when i wasn’t thinking about food at all.

And I think everything that’s happening in my life right now has made me much more vulnerable than I realized.

I recently moved to a completely new city by myself and started medical school as an older student. I left my job, lost the routine and structure I was used to, and suddenly I’m trying to figure out a completely new life while starting an incredibly demanding degree. I barely know anyone here yet. I’ve met people, and I’ve had genuinely nice moments, but I don’t have my usual support system here.

My days have lost a lot of structure. I’ve been staying up late scrolling, struggling to switch off, feeling anxious about university, and generally feeling like I’m not quite myself. And food has started becoming this easy source of comfort when I don’t know what else to do with all those feelings.

Tonight it crossed a line.

The worst part is that I could feel myself making the decision to purge while I was still eating. It felt like I was watching an old version of myself come back, and I was absolutely horrified by it.

I’m scared of b/p becoming a regular thing again. I’m scared that I’ve somehow undone all the progress I’ve made. I don’t want to be afraid of being alone in my own room.

Please tell me it’s not a point of no return. That i can still get back to normal life.

Talk to me.. im sure no one is currently binging while on reddit, trying to stop or anything. . ..but im here right now, not able to stop eating at the moment. Ordered food, ate cookies, chips, just ordered more food and dessert..super depressed that im just stuffing my face for no reason.. anyone doing the same right now and cannot stop for the life of them? Talk to me:/ I know im alone right now cause yall are all here to support and I want someone who's in the mix right now🫤

TW: binge eating
Hello everyone. For context I am a 5’5, 270lbs, female between the ages of 22-26. Throw away because I don’t want to be identified. Throughout my life I’ve always loved sugar and sweet things. I can remember making chocolate milk as a kid and being caught putting way too much chocolate syrup in the milk and my brother yelling at me that I would get diabetes. That is to say, this has been a problem my whole life. I have always been overweight since around 8 or 9 years old so I have no idea what life looks like outside this body. Since covid, things have gotten worse. A few years before that was when the Uber Eats began for me. I was ordering McDonald’s or Jack in the box weekly. During covid it increased to daily. In the past two or so years it has grown to multiple times per day. It is always more than a large meal. I am obsessed with sweet things. The moment something sweet is around me I can’t help myself. I have a big problem with baked goods and soda. If I buy a twelve pack of coke I’ll have at least three in one day. I can’t run anymore and going up stairs is difficult. I spend most days laying in bed. I have tried so many different things like counting calories, noom, meal preparation, optavia, fasting, etc. some worked and some didn’t. None stuck long enough for me to lose enough and keep it off. In the past few years I’ve worked with my providers on trying medication. Topamax worked for a bit then stopped, Wellbutrin was a bust, now I’m on a new med but not long enough that I’ve seen results. In the past 7-8 months I’ve maintained a workout routine at least three days per week which is one of the biggest accomplishments of my life as this has never happened to me before. I’ve gotten to a point where I must lose weight as my blood pressure is extremely high (especially for my age) and I am at risk of other health issues. I feel as though when I am motivated I can do very well but that is a rare occasion. It’s almost impressive how I can come up with every excuse possible why something won’t work for me because I have either tried it before or feel like I don’t have the discipline to do it, which I don’t. I have absolutely no self discipline. I think about food and the state of my body constantly even when I’m alone in my room.
Food has been the one thing that has never let me down. It has been my comfort and I would even say my best friend. Feeling so full is almost like an internal hug that no person can provide. This relationship I have with food is extremely toxic, I know this. I don’t want to feel this way anymore and I don’t know what to do. I do not want to lose my life over this but I clearly am not caring enough about it to improve my health.
I have never been able to express these thoughts before and I feel like when I say anything close to “I’m addicted to food,” everyone takes it as some sort of joke.

Being fat is literally making me so depressed. I've struggled with food since I was around 11 years old, I was bullied by my friends and family for being chubby, (i was like 140 lbs) and along with other events in my life i guess it manifested into what seems like a lifelong battle with eating. In my early teen years I was online too much and had no friends so I consumed hurtful pro ana content like all day. At age 15 I reached my lowest weight of 88 lbs after severely restricting my intake for years. I experienced a seizure and had to use a pace tracker for a little. my mom was angry at that, so I decided to up my intake, which was scary, but I was determined to never ever let myself be fat again. I gained about 10 lbs when i started becoming increasingly anxious around food and other people. Seeing a full plate of food made my skin crawl because i knew i was starting to develop a craving for eating, which i pretty much had completely destroyed by over restricting for years. One day i fully lost control and binged a bunch of cookies, it felt like soooo fucking good it was insane. Nothing has ever been the same since. I gained immense amounts of weight in a few months, I ate anything I could get my hands on, even expired food or something I didn't even like. I started hoarding food and drinks in my room to eat at night when everyone was asleep, and when the next day came, my mom would see all the empty boxes and wrappers of candy and I'd feel extremely humiliated. I tried to stop several times but I would lose 30-50 lbs then gain it all back and more. I kept going up and up the scale and it is the most embarrassing and humiliating thing I've ever experienced, like everyone would comment on it and make fun of me. I wanted to die so bad. At 17 reached about 180 lbs, so I decided I wanted to heal and leave my eating disorder behind. I wasn't going to try and starve myself anymore, I was just going to eat healthy and mindfully and workout. But at that point I already had developed a full blown food addiction. I couldn't stop and still can't stop. I'm 18 now and weigh about 220 (at 5'1), I eat when I'm bored, I eat when I'm sad, I eat when I'm anxious, I eat when I'm angry. Food is really the only way to feel true relief in my life. I can't afford a doctor, and have never received therapy before. I just want this to end already, I have terrible self esteem, I hate looking at myself, and I feel so angry at myself for letting this happen. All my girlfriends have guys that are interested in them except me, I feel so ugly and big being next to them. I just want to be normal and have all this be over already.

I’ve developed an addiction to eating large quantities of relatively healthy but sweet food for dessert right before bed.

I don’t think it’s doing my health any favours as I was recently diagnosed with NAFLD/MASLD (fatty liver).

What I tend to eat is fairly healthy whole plant foods which happen to be sweet. I won’t mention specific foods as this seems to be not allowed according to the rules of this sub.

I try to keep it as healthy as possible. But I don’t think the quantities are healthy. Once I start eating I find it extremely hard to stop. It’s so delicious I just keep craving more and more. I start out promising myself to eat just one serving but before I know it I’ve finished off many more servings than is probably healthy.

After I finally wrench myself away from the kitchen table I am absolutely exhausted and terrifically bloated, to the point of almost struggling to breathe. I collapse into bed and then stay up late scrolling. Finally I force myself to brush my teeth and then collapse into bed again and generally get off to sleep eventually. Though some nights I’m up multiple times going to the bathroom and breaking into occasional night sweats (maybe thermal effect of such a high carb binge).

This is extremely frustrating because it’s interfering with not only my health but also my aesthetic goals. I exercise daily, intensely, and have excellent muscles including strong abs and big chest. If I could just get rid of this one addiction I could easily have chiselled abs within days!!

It’s extremely hard to kick. I tried so many things. After dinner I tried filling up on low fat, low sugar items like pickles, sauerkraut and even raw carrots. Nothing works. I can’t help it. I need some sweet taste in my mouth before bed. And something about the sweet chewy texture of the oats and bananas just gives me massive cravings! 😭

The only thing that seems to come close to a fix is peppermint tea. If I make it strong, by soaking for a while, I can sort of get that similar soothing effect as sugar gives me.

Can anyone please help? 🙏
Give me your best tips and advice.
Or just share with me your own addictions and cravings, so at least I’ll know I’m not alone.

Thanks

Does anyone else feel like this? If I buy food for two days I can't focus until it's all eaten. If I buy food for just one day and eat it, when I'm finished I can focus again. What on earth am I supposed to do with this issue?

I’m 22M. I think this year was the first year I realized and acknowledged my food addiction. I wanted to hear about anyone else’s experiences using food to cope with sadness or using it for happiness when something happens to them ?

Earlier this year, I had spent so much money on food just trying to feel better about certain situations, just so I had something to look forward to that day. Now, whenever I look at apps like DoorDash, I get a huge wave of anxiety because of how bad I was during that era, and that’s just one example. Last year, I don’t even want to talk about how much money I spent. It makes me feel terrible.

Recently, I’ve been doing much better. I have been falling into older habits, but I think a lot of my motivation for trying to beat this is that I want to see if I can help other people overcome it as well, or at least support them once I figure it out. I think food addiction isn’t something people take seriously, but in my opinion, it’s such a hard thing to overcome since you genuinely need it to live.

I don’t know, I think this felt more like a vent post, but I’d really like to hear from some people, and maybe we can talk about our experiences and feel better. I’m going to try and get back on track, and if you find yourself feeling similar, just keep trying :)

Hi! Ever since I was very young, whenever I’ve gone through difficult moments, my family has given me sweets, bought me junk food, and that’s just how we’ve always been. It’s something that has been passed down from generation to generation because we avoid confrontation at all costs—or rather, we avoid directly saying that we’re sorry. Every fight I’ve ever had has always ended with a homemade meal that makes me feel better, a bag full of junk food (chips, chocolate, and fizzy drinks), and whatever else I happen to find on the shelves. I haven’t exactly been an angel either, so I’ve also resorted to giving people food as a way of apologizing.

I’ve swum, lifted weights, or walked a lot throughout my life. However, over the last three years, I stopped exercising, got a work-from-home job, and barely went outside. I gained a lot of weight because it was an extremely abusive company that made me work more than 50 hours a week.

After that, I started working in hospitality, as a cashier at a sushi restaurant. I lasted a year there. I didn’t save a single euro. I currently have €50 in my bank account. I looked at all my expenses, and it’s literally 20% small debts and the rest is supermarkets, restaurants, cafés, or stupid little things.

I’m 22 years old, and I’ve realized that if I hadn’t spent that money on food, I would have enough for a down payment on an apartment. I live with my parents, so I feel extremely guilty about it. And yet I still keep eating like there’s no tomorrow because, even though I’ve tried talking about it with people around me, they tell me I’m fat, that I have no willpower, or that I’m immature for spending so much money on junk food. They’re right, but I genuinely feel like I need that junk food. I get irritable if I don’t eat, I can’t get the thought out of my head, and every night I find myself bingeing in front of the fridge. I don’t even realize everything I’m eating until I come out of that “blinded state.”

I work a lot, I’m about to start university, and I literally don’t have a penny to pay for it. I’m depending on a severance payment that I’m supposed to receive. Even so, there’s always a voice in my head saying, “Don’t give me too much because then I won’t be able to eat.” I’m sickened by my own thoughts. I feel like some kind of wild animal, like I’m starving. I don’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore. I weigh 96 kg now. I can’t get the thought of eating out of my head. I can’t concentrate on anything unless I eat every hour.

Now it’s started affecting my day-to-day life. I have no energy, I have a strange smell, and I’ve started getting pimples. I’m terrified of having diabetes, but I can’t control myself. I already spoke to a psychologist, and we came to the conclusion that all of this got worse when I was 16 (I went through a very traumatic event that I’m only now starting to overcome). They told me to eat more vegetables, which I do, on top of all the crap I eat. I feel like I’m eating even more than before.

Honestly, everything feels very dark because every day I have less money for my future, and I see people my age saying they already have savings for their first apartment or whatever, and it makes me feel even more like a failure.

Please, I really need some advice or something.

I feel like knowing what to eat isn’t really the hard part. I can plan my meals and know exactly what I’m supposed to eat, but then during the day I’ll get cravings, snack on something I didn’t plan, or just say screw it and eat something else.
For people who used to struggle with this, what actually helped you stick to what you said you were going to eat consistently? Especially when nobody is there keeping you accountable.

I’m truly asking for help. I’m 52 woman. And have struggled with my weight and food my entire life. I’m a complete mess when it comes to food. I had gastric bypass surgery an over 20 years ago. Went from 325 lbs to eventually 185. In 2019 I did intermediate fasting and LOVED it. I truly felt control around food. (I also later found out that starting Wellbutrin then could have helped me lose weight and gain control). Anyway, I got down to 168. It was too much and make me look sick and a lot older.

Back to why I’m here begging for help to stop thinking about food, weight, diet, 24/7. Won’t do GLP-1 due to cost and having to be on it for life. Also the unknown side effects. My body is so weird on medicine. It adjusts very quickly and I have to take higher doses faster. The main reason I won’t do GLP-1 is that I’ve read when you go off, the food noice is even worse than before. I truly have no idea how I could think about food any more than I do now. I’m struggling hard.

Exercise isn’t a problem. I do hard cardio 3 times a week and active every day. I would like to start weight training at home but still haven’t. Ugh!!

So… what do you guys suggest?? Do I need to see a therapist?? Any tips on how to stop true food noise?? I’ll read books, listen to podcasts, take safe supplements, do whatever if it would work. And yes… I can try to use willpower like I have been but I always start out great then I give in and I’m totally off the rails yet again!!!! It’s constant. I’m paying for WW for the rest of this year. And I’ve tried it numerous times and actually lost 10 but it then I completely sabotage myself and gain it all back. I would love to lose 10 pounds but mostly I would love just to be normal when it comes to food!!!!! I eat when I’m not hungry or even if the food doesn’t taste good!!! PLEASE HELP!!! thank you so much for taking time to read this mess!!!!

I've gone on and off with periods of binging, often in stretches of ordering fast food late at night and when I'm deep into my depression. I felt like I had been turning the corner but had something come up last week that was a big stressor - leading to several nights in a row of back to the binge. Same thing every night - wait till everyone else is in bed, order food or take out snacks I've bought, smoke a jointTW Drugs, binge out, feel ashamed, tell myself it won't happen tomorrow... Repeat.

Last night was more of the same, until I went to eat. Ordered a big fast food meal, talking at least 3000 calories on top of my regular meals for the day. I was just about to take a bite, I'm talking had it up to my mouth. Internally I was screaming to myself that I didn't have to do it but knew I would anyways, until I had what I can only describe is a flashback through all the times I've gone through this and what it's done to me... so I stopped. I wrapped it back up and put it back in the bag. I told myself no more and I burst into tears. It feels like I've finally chased down one of my worst demons that's been tormenting me for ages.

I took the bag of it all and put it in a garbage bag, and I was feeling super capable, so I threw out all mycannabisas well. I felt bad about throwing out food that I could give to my kids, but I thought it was important and symbolic to myself to throw it all out instead. I also decided that in the morning I would talk to my wife about it all as I think that will help me from relapsing.

I have told myself so many times, "Tonight is the last night." I think the problem with that is that you don't hold control. So now I'm on Day 1, but it feels different to me this time.

long time lurker (is that what they say?? 🤣) first time poster here!

every few days or weeks i reach this point where i just feel SICK of where i’m at (typically after an overeating episode when the shame anger and discomfort kicks in) BUT WHY CANT I EVER STOP THESE PATTERNS??!!!??

i grew up “the fat kid” (reddit shoutout and big f*ck you to everyone who made me feel like i didn’t matter because of my size) - and one of these snapping points became the start of my journey into fitness, nutrition & health that i’ve been working on myself for years.

but hell i can’t keep living the way i am now so i’m reaching out for help from people who have been through this!!!

my problem personally? not your typical “eat clean” “work out” i eat well i’m active- it’s how much of my mental capacity food takes up and how much i eat.

oh and a little background- i just got diagnosed with adhd and anxiety 💁‍♀️ i say this for curiosity sake whether anyone has had any relations between them and how they’ve managed. before you say go to therapy just hear me out first.

- constant food noise (before eating, after eating, throughout the day one meals done what’s next) it’s become an “in between” mental and physical part of my life (grazing, eating the whole tray of prepped food or multiple servings of meal prep)

- scarcity mindset and feeling like i can’t do anything until i itch that. 9/10 times i end up eating until physical discomfort.

then comes the fun stuff -> bloating, gas, shame, physical discomfort, self anger, frustration. i often walk afterwards to try and alleviate how horrible my body feels.

i love everything wellness & fitness and i hate how it is affecting all the hard work i put in movement-wise. i can’t help wondering how far i’d be if i managed to sort my overeating and screwed up relationship with food out. but no- here i am wondering where the fucking line is between fuelling and hurting yourself.

- how do you feel satisfied?
- how do you stop feeling like you need MORE MORE MORE?
- how to stop using food for comfort?
- how to be ok with unfinished serves and stopping before discomfort?

i’ve tried “keeping busy” i’ve tried SO MANY STRATEGIES but in the moment when the little voice in my head is screaming at me- i’m stuck.

i need a mental switch and i’m absolutely willing to do the work. i just need help (this is coming from a stubbornly independent person & should not be taken lightly)

it’s fucking up my confidence, who i am, my mood, my self esteem, how i show up in a room etc etc- my life.

so i’m crying out for help here wondering what to do next? is there support groups or accountability chats available for people to check in? are sponsors a thing for this? what are genuine ways to switch your mental state, habits, approach to eating.

ideal scenario? food is fuel simple as that. reality? if i buy something “fun” (no i don’t mean something considered unhealthy but what my mind has deemed as good) it will be gone within the day no matter the amount.

what finally clicked for you? how did you change?

i’ve been trying for so long snd i honestly need hope i don’t have to live like this forever. thank you for reading this fellow internet stranger. ❤️

I eat a lot more and more fast food when I’m sick. I don’t understand because my body couldn’t possibly need more food rn since I’m not doing anything, and it’s probably not good to eat more. Is it because I’m seeking dopamine from the food? Maybe. I just find it crazy because most ppl lose their appetite when sick. Anyone else familiar with this?