Can't stop eating

I've had bulimia for about eleven years, and one thing that has consistently been really hard for me is bingeing on food that I have at home. I'm now in a place where I won't go out and buy food to binge on, but I can't say no to food that is at home.

I've had some success by not keeping "junk food" in the house (no chips, cookies, candy, ice cream, etc.) but have started to struggle with eating large amounts of things like cereal, granola bars, peanut butter, etc. I'm really at a loss with what to do about this. I know I need food from a variety of food groups, so to cut out entire categories of food from my home doesn't seem realistic. It's really frustrating because keeping binge food out of my home has been the only truly successful strategy for me.

I wish that things like takeout were healthier and less expensive, because I like the idea of buying one meal at a time, and not having boxes of leftover food. But, it's obviously not so that's not a good solution. And I live alone, so no one can lock up the food for me, which I really wish was an option at this point honestly.

Any advice?

Hi, I also struggle with bulimia and can relate. I also have a lot of trouble not bingeing on food at the house. What has helped in the past was to keep myself busy during times when I knew I was most likely to binge. I was most likely to binge during free time at home, like Friday after work or Saturday. The only thing I felt I could do was eliminate free time- I did this by working overtime or hanging out with a friend.

I've also read online that joining a gym and going every day reduces bingeing (and I found that it helped me). Even if you don't work out and just walk on the treadmill, going to the gym gets you out of the house away from food. Plus, you are surrounded by people who want to improve their health, and this can really motivate you to not want to binge.

If you can't leave your house and you feel the urge to binge, you should call or text a friend to focus your thoughts away from food. The urge to binge is usually gone by the time I'm done chatting.

Hope that helps!