Binge-eating disorder is a serious eating disorder. Binge eating is consuming usually large amounts of food. Almost everyone overeats on occasion, such as having seconds or thirds of a holiday meal. But for some people, this isn’t a rare occurrence, a binge eater overeats excessively. After a binge you feel disgruntled with yourself, shame, embarrassed. Your routine turns to something you do in secret. 

If you ruining your quality of life from binge-eating disorder, you may be deeply embarrassed about gorging and promise yourself you will stop, but you feel such a compulsion, a craving, that you can’t resist and continue binge eating. Fortunately treatment can help you if you suffer from BED.

According to the Mayo Clinic, you may have no obvious physical signs or symptoms when you have binge-eating disorder. You may appear normal on the outside. You could be a normal weight or obese. However, you likely have numerous behavioral and emotional signs and symptoms, such as:

  • Eating for you what is a large amount of food
  • Even when you’re full or not hungry you eat. 
  • Eating quickly during an eating binge 
  • Eating until you’re uncomfortably full
  • Often eating alone
  • Feeling powerless about you eating
  • Feeling depressed, disgusted, ashamed, guilty or upset about your eating
  • Depression and anxiety
  • Feeling alone and not able to talk about your feelings 
  • Frequently dieting, possibly without weight loss
  • Losing weight only to gain it right back, so called yo-yo dieting

After a binge, you may try to diet or eat normal meals. But restricting your eating may simply lead to a starvation diet resulting in more binging, manifesting as a pernicious routine.