r/bingeeating

For people with binge eating disorder, what medication helped you the most that wasn’t Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, or another GLP-1?

I’m curious about real experiences with medications like Vyvanse, Topamax, Wellbutrin, SSRIs, or anything else doctors prescribe for BED. Which one helped most with binge urges, food noise, impulse control, and weight issues?

Also wondering about side effects and whether the medication kept working long term.

Hey everybody, it’s my first post on here and to be honest I don’t even know where to begin. I guess I’m just hoping to find a positive community during this really dark and challenging time.

Over a year ago was when I first began resorting to food for comfort. At the time I was being bullied at school for my weight (looking back I was not fat at all, but you know how callous teen boys can be) which in turn lead me to have serious body image issues. I then began resorting to food for comfort. It was my vice, the only thing that gave me dopamine throughout my days. It became a really unhealthy coping mechanism for me to not only hide my emotions but to detach from reality. I stopped seeing friends, stopped going to school and at its peak I stopped going outside entirely.

I had developed agoraphobia whilst simultaneously fighting a battle with depression & episodes of depersonalisation. This cycle lasted for over 10 months, with multiple zoom therapy calls (because I was too paranoid to go outside), multiple attempts on my life, a heck load of emotional baggage and the pièce de résistance….. 25kg gained

At my heaviest I was 90kg (I’m 5’8).

Something then flipped after I had one of the scariest binges of my life which resulted in me being incredibly sick, I decided I needed to change something (that something being my whole entire mindset, body and soul lol) FULL REBRAND STYLE.

I busted my ass for 8 months, began going outside (even if it was to a tiny post office down the street), doing basic hygiene again, walking on the treadmill consistently. In the beginning, I was so socially anxious I struggled to talk to anyone without my mum present, couldn’t hold eye contact for longer than a millisecond and still had a major fear of being observed by others.

8 months later and life has dramatically changed since then. I’ve lost 24kg all up, I’m confident, have built a new identity for myself and can actually hold a conversation now (by myself 😅). Well that was until 3 weeks ago.. it was three weeks ago to this day that I decided I was at a place emotionally to see my abusive dad (who I went no contact with for those 8 months) for the first time again. I felt ready, what could go wrong right? WELL APPARENTLY A SHITTTTT TON.

To cut a long story short a lot of things re surfaced for me emotionally, not only did one interaction with him make me feel like those 8 months of work meant nothing but worst of all I felt like the old me. Who’d hide in the school bathrooms to escape dickhead school bullies. And just like that I was triggered and now since 3 weeks ago Ive been resorting to the same old coping mechanism younger me did to escape emotional trauma.

I’ve binged consistently for 3 weeks now and have gained 10kg, I’m petrified and I feel myself beginning to become more socially reclusive. I feel so stuck and scared, I have so many dreams I can’t loose all the progress I’ve made. I’ve work too damn hard. I’m so so lost.

How do I break these patterns ? How do I work through the deeper issues to stop falling back on food ?

If you happened to read this post I want to say thank you, it means the absolute world to me and I’d really appreciate to hear your journey. If you have any advice please feel free to share. Let’s break this toxic cycle together !!! 💛💛💛

I think the root of my binge eating started in October. I started a new job in June and started to weigh less from under eating and stress. Before this whole cycle began I weighed in the range of 143-150 at 5’9 (female). Since June I was walking and exercising more and I think the loss was somewhat accidental. I weighed like 126 pounds at my doctors appointment in October. around that time is when I developed these episodes of feeling out of control around food. At work events if there was a table of cupcakes or brownies, I would feel absolutely uncontrollable around it and just keep taking more. My brain became/is hyper fixated on sweet palatable items. These episodes got worse with the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I started really stressing out when I knew I would be around social events that had access to lots of desserts. These binge episodes could be 4000 till like 8000 cal. Initially, I would try to limit calories the next day and this would just perpetuate the cycle.

I think intuitive eating would be absolutely useless because my brain will just use it as an excuse to binge. So right now I am calorie tracking to make sure that I’m eating a healthy amount, and I’ve actually found some temporary success by increasing my daily calories and planning out three set meals a day. I find that I specifically binge on sweet items—protein bars, Kit Kats, cookies etc. I never binge on savory. I’ve tried cutting them out (end up bingeing at work events, accessing vending machine) and tried incorporating them into daily planned intake (which works for 3 days and then I binge the rest of the box in one sitting). Is it time to cut out protein bars and packaged sweet stuff entirely??

Most recently I was able to go five days eating 1800 and feeling great, but was on a string of night shifts. one of the last nights I barely got any sleep and at work ended up having a binge that lasted until the morning. This threw me completely off track, which was especially hard for me since I had just had almost a whole week of what I thought was freedom from the cycle. Overtime, I realized that my biggest triggers are of course restriction, but also sleep deprivation, boredom, loneliness. I also have black-and-white thinking where if I have one snack that is unplanned or something that I deem unhealthy get spirals and I end up binging because I feel like I already ruined the day.

I’m at the point now where I eat normally 4-5 days of the week and the rest are absolute binges of 4-6k calories. I’m at like 150 lbs right now but I’m sure a lot of it is water weight that would drop fairly quickly if this horrible cycle ends…This is affecting my quality of life at this point and I’m thinking of setting up with a dietician through nourish. Does anyone have any advice for me?

19M, i’m not passing a good time recently and i’m having some episodes of extreme binging , the strange part is that i’m also really sporty, have ana and always try to eat clean.
(my huge amount of workout also causes me an extreme hunger as i walk 30-40k steps a day, workout an hour and also do cardio)
The result is that i overeat foods like vegs or low cal foods etc..
it’s been some weeks that my sugar craving takes over and i binge on fruits, tonight i ate a small slice of watermelon, 2 oranges, 2 kiwis and 2 peaches.
i feel so guilty for all the calories and sugars, can someone help me??🙏🙏

I was looking up binge eating (especially while working on a laptop) and came across a post about how binge eating can sometimes be connected to ADHD.

Does anyone here have experience with this?

I’ve struggled with binge eating on and off since college. I noticed I binge the most while working on a laptop, especially when doing tedious, stressful, or mentally complicated tasks. It almost feels like I can’t focus or get through the work without constantly eating something crunchy.

At one point I started tracking calories and lost about 75 pounds by replacing binge foods with lower calorie foods like carrots, frozen fruit, etc. People around me actually became concerned because the weight loss was pretty extreme. Eventually I switched back to binging on things like nuts, dried fruit, granola, dates, etc. and gained a lot of the weight back.

My weight has fluctuated a lot over the years. I’ve also lost several jobs because I struggled to concentrate and get work done.

At a previous job, I was allowed to go to the gym during work hours, and weirdly I felt much healthier overall. Even when I binged, it was more on frozen fruit or healthier foods, and I looked/felt pretty healthy. But I later switched into a stressful consulting job and the binge eating ramped up again.

I’ve also noticed I do a lot better working from cafes than at home. Getting out of the house seems to help. But whenever I’m alone on my laptop at home, I end up constantly eating nuts, dates, or something crunchy just to get through work.

Curious if anyone else experiences this or has found strategies that help. Trying to figure out how this could be related to ADHD or if it's something else.

I am 28F, 4 months postpartum. I lost quite a bit of weight early post partum, I was at 149lbs. Currently I am at 155lbs. If I never gave into the binge cycle again I would probably still be losing weight! Ugh. I still weigh less than I did before I got pregnant so I want to take advantage of that and get the best body I’ve ever had. I want to be fit and healthy and feel good in whatever I want to wear. I just wanna be my best self. My best self has discipline so I guess that’s part of the answer here. But if anyone has ANY suggestions that would be amazing.

Prior to starting Foundayo I had a huge, huge problem with night time binging. I would wake up multiple times a night ravenous and eat large and/or multiple snacks. Usually at least 1 savory and 1 sweet per time I woke up.

I’m not sure if the actual reoccurring wake ups are caused by other medicines, having to use the restroom, or from hunger but I do know that my stomach physically hurt when I would wake up making me think I was hungry. I tried over and over and over and could never get it under control. When I started Foundayo I was hoping it would fix or at least help the night time hunger but it hasn’t yet. It’s almost made the hunger pains at night worse.

What can I do to help stop the hunger pains at night and stop the night time eating?

I really appreciate any advice. I’m cross posting to get more help.

I think maybe talking to my doctor about antidepressants is a good idea idk tho .. basically I have ADHD, binge eating disorder and depression .. I’m exhausted 24/7 like all the time , I can sleep for days on end .. I am like maybe it’s the depression that’s making me exhausted, but I’m worried that antidepressants will make the exhaustion worse.. does anyone struggle with similar things? What med combo worked for you ? I’m so done with feeling like this 😭

TLDR: I don’t know what resources to reach out to for help. Please tell me what worked for you.

I have no idea what to do. I struggled with binging as a teen and stopped when I lost weight by accident when I developed a vape addiction. I haven’t even thought of binging or p****** or restricting in like 6 years. But now, I’ve quit vaping two years, and the weight I gained from quitting has become so noticeable to me over the past 8 months that it has caused me to relapse.

I realize I have actually never solved the disorder before, and I have no idea what to do now that I’m being triggered by my current weight. What do I do? Would a nutritionist help? Everything I find online is telling me to go to freaking food rehab or an outpatient program with other people but like what the heck, I have a job. I’m a big advocate for therapy, but what the heck can my therapist do to help? I’m big again like I was as a kid, and I’m stress eating and I can’t stop. Therapist, nutritionist, neither really sound like treatment for this type of impulsion- what has actually worked for you all in getting help??