If you binge eat, overeat and can't help yourself you are not alone. Lots of people binge, overeat, put on weight and feel endlessly guilty about it. They can't understand why they don't have control, so hopefully this article will give you some insight.

Compulsive overeating is food addiction. Compulsive overeaters rely on food to comfort them in times of stress, depression and helplessness. It is often rooted in low self esteem and feelings can be so overwhelming that the compulsion to overeat is unstoppable.

The issue lies in the compulsive overeater's inability to deal with emotion. When you have learnt to cope with life by eating, it can be very hard to break out of that habit.

Our society is all about repression of feelings. We hide behind masks because we don't want others to know we are upset. Wee use food in celebration and mourning. It is just what we know. It seems harmless but when it consumes us on a daily basis then we need to take drastic action.

Most compulsive overeaters are overweight and are only aware they have an issue with food because of the extremity in which food is part of their everyday life. The only problem is, they do not know how to change this issue and do not know how to cope with emotions in a more beneficial way.

What makes compulsive overeating harder to manage is that it usually comes with a lot of shame and guilt. People who suffer from this usually have low self esteem and do not feel good enough, which makes the eating worse (it is a vicious circle). Food is how compulsive overeaters deal with their need for acceptance and love.

When we overeat to such a large extent it is because our emotional needs are not being met. In order to overcome compulsive overeating we need to take a good hard look ourselves and learn how to face our emotions.

The first step to any recovery plan is to nourish the body properly to eradicate physical cravings. This can allow us to focus on the emotional issues surrounding food. Usually with compulsive overeaters, journaling and support from friends may not be enough and professional help may be necessary. There is a great 12 week intensive online program for emotional eating that can be beneficial if direct one on one counselling isn't possible and relying on journaling and friends isn't enough for you to be able to overcome your eating issues.

It is hard; you should not beat yourself up over this. Emotional eating is something that you have to learn how to deal with by allowing yourself to feel. Once you begin feeling, you will find that feeling isn't as scary as you thought. The initial process may be overwhelming (because your body has old bottled up feelings to release on top of the new present ones) but will make you feel great afterwards - satisfied and calm. This is something food will never be able to do for you.

Love yourself and stop loving the comfort food because comfort food will never love you the way you love it.



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