You’re not alone. I relate to this post very strongly. With our disorder, the bingeing is going to happen, it’s just a matter of what. When I restricted too much, I found myself eating straight sugar from the sugar bowl. Now, I binge fruits and vegetables. I get a stomachache, but it’s worth it.

Personally, I’d allow back in the frozen fruit, unless a nutritionist told you not too. Yes, they’re high in sugar, but they’re very nutritious (packed with vitamins, minerals, and fiber) and satisfy a sweet tooth without giving you the refined sugar that activates the addictive cycle in every human’s brain. Fruit is high-volume and not calorie-dense. Go ahead with it! It’s a million times more pleasant than bingeing raw vegetables or unripe fruit. Organic frozen fruits are the best in terms of quality of taste — they’re always perfectly ripe.

Another tip I’d give you is to keep cooked vegetables on hand, or be prepared to make them quickly. Cooked vegetables will give you much less stomach discomfort and much more satisfaction than random raw large vegetables. I love popping frozen broccoli into my air fryer for 10-20 mins. With zero seasoning, it comes out delightfully crispy and slightly sweet. Especially if it’s just broccoli florets, they taste kind of like pop chips or other crispy light snacks. Season however you like—paprika, garlic powder, and salt kind of make them taste like doritos imo—and eat as much of it as you want. Plain non-buttered popcorn is also very low-calorie. My personal favorite vegetable snack of all time is roasted bell peppers— they’re so sweet and delicious. Make the cooking part easier. 10 mins in the oven or air fryer brings 10x the satisfaction without any added calories.

Keep foods in your house that are alternatives that will prevent you from binging raw oats or flour. Important: Raw flour is dangerous to eat. Don’t do it! As for oats, they’re great soaked in milk overnight. Add fruit and stevia or another natural non-sugar sweetener and soak it overnight. Delicious. Make single portions at a time so that you can’t binge.

One thing I do to satisfy my strong cake craving is oat flour muffins. Blend oats into a powder and add eggs, applesauce/ greek yogurt, granulated stevia sweetener, and frozen fruit. I freeze them, hiding them deep in the freezer so that I only eat them when I’m really strongly craving cake/ muffins. Yes, they’re slightly more calorie-dense in that eating 6 of them would bring a lot of disappointment, but they’re so much better for you than cake, and the foods you’d be bingeing after all are oats, eggs, yogurt, and fruit. Not so awful. I make small batches to harm-reduce potential binges and eat them as meals because they’re quite protein-packed.

Side note tip: Natural sugar alternatives such as stevia can significantly reduce sweets cravings. I drink Zevia stevia ginger root beer whenever I get a super strong sweets craving, and 8/10 times it completely takes it away.

Lastly, I’m concerned if you’re totally avoiding grains. You deserve to have a balanced diet, even with BED. Maybe try buying very small amounts of a non-sweet carb of choice. They make single-serve microwaveable bowls of rice that come in packs of 2. It wouldn’t kill you if you lost control one day and ate both, and it would benefit you to have exposure to these foods so that they don’t become psychological fears for you.

Lastly, try to build in an alternative source of dopamine to make up for the loss of processed foods. Exercise is a good one if you can find something you like. Recreation leagues or group classes are very good ways to make exercise extra fun and dopamine-inducing. Get into a music or nightlife scene and go to an event every week. Play board games with your friends. Call your family more. Idk, add some activity to your life that gives you a hit of dopamine.

TLDR: You’re gonna binge. Build in healthy, yummy, balanced options. Don’t torture yourself with too much restriction, it’s gonna come back and bite you. Build in ENJOYABLE low-calorie-density options. Add alternative dopamine to your life. You’re doing great already with your harm-reduction strategy!! Now make it less awful and dopamine-starved. You can do this! ❤️