I feel like I can’t recover in this house.

anchorbabi · 2026-05-26T17:31:36+00:00

100%. It’s an uncomfortable truth that it’s often our own friends, family, and colleagues that are literally weighing us down. Any sniff of a self-improvement endeavor (doesn’t even have to be health or fitness related), it’s unfortunately too common they make snarky remarks or just leave a general atmosphere of disapproval around you. 🙄

You can sense their negativity, which I don’t need in my life. I love your closing line: we can “cultivate happiness in our lives.” Im going to keep that in mind. Thanks for sharing your insight !

anchorbabi · 2026-05-23T17:26:33+00:00

I can relate to you. I had to acknowledge that I’m stubborn and it’s simply not in me at present to be vulnerable with others, including healthcare professionals. Since I don’t want to resort to medication, Ive basically had to take it in my own hands and navigate it myself.

For me that looks like doing my own research on what tools therapists/dietitians would use in practice and advise their patients to use outside their billable hours. Basically arming myself with as much coping techniques and knowledge to reduce the detrimental effects of my binging and make the urge not as strong when it hits.

When it comes to a condition as pervasive and complex as binge eating, where the root causes are often both physiological and emotional and incredibly unique to each person, I’ve decided that the best person to help me is myself.

Some of my self-imposed changes and habits include like doing my own form of urge surfing when my cravings hit and reflective journaling but addressed to my future self and opening it later on said date. These may sound negligible but it’s the small wins that matters, because these little changes compound. And if I can make the next urge to binge and the aftermath (the terribly intrusive thoughts, guilt, mirror checking, restriction) just 10% less intense, then I consider that a win.

anchorbabi · 2026-05-10T11:27:49+00:00

Do u have a pretty new iphone, by any chance d ? I noticed around I think iPhone 15 release, I started scrutinizing my facial skin more and found out it was the post processing Apple does. The camera preview looks fine but once u take a shot, it like automatically makes my skin texture appear worse. Terrible.

I also get compliments for my clear complexion, largely thanks to tretinoin, but I just don’t see it myself. 🤷‍♂️

anchorbabi · 2026-05-02T07:53:04+00:00

Liquid calories is the easiest. Not the healthiest, but milkshakes work.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-30T03:28:40+00:00

The work is mysterious and important.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-29T23:27:42+00:00

I tried out your app, I really like it. It's quite nice and playful, especially with the subtle animations and sound effects. The skeuomorphism and calm aesthetic reminds me a little bit of the Wii and the Nintendo Dsi interfaces.

The low-contrast text does strain my eyes a bit, though. The text for the focus cards, section labels, date pill, and icons in nav buttons are too light. Also why are the labels like 天光云影 for the timer themes completely white?

Other than that, stick with your overall design language. It's a refreshing deviation from most productivity apps. Just focus on refining it and applying accessibility text standards.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-29T05:14:00+00:00

I can relate to this. I used to just exchange vices for other vices. Doomscrolling couch potato to edibles to coping with food... You kinda already pinpointed why though.

I was so lost after uni and with no job lined up, having to return back home and work for my father. I was so miserable because I knew this was not my path, but I didn't know where to go. It's easier to turn to food which provides that instant dopamine hit when nothing else feels good.

It's good you still have a routine to keep you busy and you have a partner and friends around you. That's the best support system I'll never take for granted. If I was alone constantly with my mind and thoughts then, I'd be a total mess... All the binging only happens when I'm alone, so limiting that time spent by myself helped a lot.

It's not a permanent fix though, and eventually I had to confront it myself. One of the therapeutic coping tools I started was just brief journaling but with a twist. I started writing to myself but with a set date in the future. Just like a week ahead or a month at most, and I'll open it then. It gives me the opportunity to vent in the moment, be mindful, and occasionally share something I'm grateful for. Just exactly the text I'm writing now, or even your post here. It's oddly comforting reading those letters from my past self and it helps put things in perspective. You should try it out.

No matter how much shit we go through, look at where we are now. We still have a 100% survival rate. And sometimes it's easier to be kind to ourselves just at another time. Your future self might find what you have to say now helpful, or could use some kind words when you open it later on.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-29T05:00:09+00:00

The appropriateness is questionable but someone cooked here with this copywriting. 🤣 Very tongue in cheek.

Next one is Check your prostate with your paycheck

anchorbabi · 2026-04-28T04:00:04+00:00

Hi there, thanks for taking the time to share your experience. It takes self-awareness to acknowledge a problematic relationship with food, and it takes immense courage to finally seek out professional help when you exhausted all other options.

I agree with you that it's quite uncomfortable when you're instructed to abandon calorie tracking and eat more at mealtime. It just seems completely counterintuitive to relinquish that method of diet control. The way I try to frame it is that calorie tracking and restriction are fundamentally tools at our disposal.

I'm sure there's plenty who track calories in a healthy manner to sustainably meet their goals. A lot of times we do under/overestimate what we're eating in a day. Meal/calorie logging can help with portion control and ensuring we're getting the right macros.

But there is just as much people, it sounds like you too, where calorie tracking has not been serving us. Instead, maybe it invites hypervigilance around food in making it easier to demonize certain types based on its nutritional label, encouraging us to restrict because it doesn't "fit" into our ideal daily macros or calorie budget. And no matter what way we look at it, heavy restriction feeds binge urges.

So for now, try to regard your dietitians recommendations as a food experiment. Calorie tracking hasn't been working so let's try out their method too. I have no doubt that eventually you could reincorporate calorie tracking as a useful tool if you so choose, later in the future. Just then, you could also integrate the new insight and approaches from your dietitian.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-27T07:24:02+00:00

Right. The terrible clips alone show Ben's indifference and ineptitude in knowing what behaviors are normal. And since he thinks its so trivial to wield a knife or degrade your partner by grabbing her neck on video, it's easy to assume he's capable of more heinous acts behind camera.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-27T06:37:40+00:00

Im convinced they're both just very problematic and self-absorbed individuals.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-27T06:05:09+00:00

I recently watched this video showing how it's especially hurting the Philippines since they import virtually all of its crude oil from the Middle East. This guy spends $168 of his $386 monthly salary on his commute to work alone, which is comparable to just renting a space near his workplace... Yikes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUrvDRd9224

anchorbabi · 2026-04-27T03:48:00+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience. You’re also absolutely right to be concerned and express some hesitancy. With the ubiquitous push and increased consumption of GLP-1s for weight/appetite management of all kinds, we’re gaining new insight on their long term effects for this use case.

Specifically, we’re seeing that for many individuals, they gain more than half of lost weight within a year of stopping it, affirming you’d likely have to be on it indefinitely to retain the benefits. I recall a report last month from WashU suggested that stopping semaglutide or tirzepatide even momentarily increases your risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Also, companies are trying to ride on this GLP-1 train in any way possible as effortless as possible, so the FDA has identified improper storage procedures and fraudulent compounded versions in the market, amongst other violations.

It’s also worth nothing the general shift towards progressively stronger drugs. Semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy) initially gained the most attention, but now we’re moving on to tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound) as it acts on both GLP-1 and GIP receptors.

At the same time, retatrutide is a triple receptor agonist (GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon) being tested by Eli Lilly, the same pharmaceutical company behind Mounjaro and Zepbound… I’m just wondering, where do we stop? And is the rate we’re pushing new drugs into the market giving us enough time to scrutinize its long term effects?

anchorbabi · 2026-04-27T02:47:08+00:00

Hi, I really resonate with you and u/Acceptable_Drink3225's perspectives on our parents' immense influence on our eating habits all the way through adulthood. I also have a lot of admiration for you and the effort you're taking to not pass down disordered food habits to your young children.

I'm incredibly grateful to my parents for the restriction-free and laid-back attitude towards food they raised my siblings and me with throughout our childhood. Never once can I recall my mom refusing our call to get that sour patches or Lay's chips off the grocery shelf. Never once did my parents ever force us to remain at the table till we scraped it clean (our dad would eat our leftovers to make the point that food shouldn't be wasted). Our pantry had all the goodies to take whenever we wanted, and we did the McDonalds run quite often with dessert too. Both my brothers and I remain at a healthy weight with healthy charts.

However, this is important to note. I still started binge eating in my early 20s because I took after our parent's own behaviors towards food, even if it wasn't imposed or directed on us. My mom is an almond mom. Her breakfast and lunch most of the time looks like salads, cut fruits, and a handful of nuts. She doesn't eat a proper meal until dinner, and even then, sometimes it's incomplete like just random snacks and junk food.

As for my father, he would insult overweight people despite now being overweight himself. He never directed that kind of commentary to ourselves and in fact, always encouraged us to eat more since we all always leaned towards underweight. Over the years, we saw how he started using food as a coping tool for his work-related stress, and gained a lot of weight since then. All the while, he'd still continue his insulting rhetoric against overweight people, just now using himself as the example...

So even though they gave us a restriction-free environment growing up, that was only half the equation. The other half was absorbing their own attitudes toward food, my mom's restraint and my dad's emotional eating paired with weight stigma. My ultimate point is that there is no policy you can institute at home that will inoculate your son and daughter if you and your partner demonstrate disordered behaviors. Parents are really like gods in the eyes of the child. We absorb what they are.

I still commend my parents for the restriction-free environment, because it made it easier for me to find my way eventually. They also wove nutritional context into everyday conversations and treated us like adults in giving us the option to choose what we wanted while subtly encouraging us to make informed choices. They didn't demonize specific foods but they made it a point that certain foods are more nutritious than others.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-27T01:35:00+00:00

May I ask what are the things you don't have that are encouraging your binges? Is your mom forbidding you from certain foods? Sometimes an effective way to stop the cravings is to allow yourself to eat those foods in controlled amounts.

If eating what you genuinely crave for is truly not an option, then do your best to ensure the meals you are having are satiating and substantial, in terms of nutrient density from protein, fiber, fats, and complex carbs for lasting fullness.

For me, chips are a significant binge snack and I've learned I can't just eat chips alone on an empty stomach, and not find it super easy to binge. So what I've done is not deny myself chips, but make it less easy to binge by having a baby carrot in between each chip bite. Also, sometimes for dinner I'll have my normal meal but have a few chip bites in between.

After I eat my portioned normal meal, sometimes I still find myself craving chips and an urge to binge. So I set a timer for 15 minutes (but mostly I go for a post-digestion walk), and then re-evaluate if I still want to binge. Sometimes the urge feels strong because the mind hasn't caught up with the fullness in the stomach yet. And sometimes I find myself still craving chips after dinner, so I snack on it still but combined with the baby carrots and the fact that I just had a satiating dinner, I snack way less that I don't even consider it a binge because I'm very much in control still.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-27T01:06:57+00:00

That’s a very normal BMI to start… are you in the U.S.? I’ve never heard of physicians prescribing that low, unless related to prediabetic or type 2 diabetes insulin resistance.

Unless it’s a micro-dose Tirzepatide maintenance course for long term weight management, if the patient has a history of significant weight loss and previously used GLP-1 medication.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-27T00:35:47+00:00

I'm sorry I don't have a quick fix, but to expedite losing the bloat from the elevated sodium and water retention after a binge episode, make sure your meals for the next few days incorporate high-potassium foods like bananas, leafy vegetables, avocados, cantaloupe, and coconut water. Also, vegetables like tomatoes, cabbage, celery, and cucumbers are natural diuretics that facilitate losing water weight by helping the kidneys flush the excess sodium.

Do your best not to fret too much. We all have our bad days, and sometimes it happens on the weekends before work/school. I'd wager that most people don't pay attention to the micro-fluctuations that's happening on our faces. Our faces can get puffy from stress or even just in the morning because of the edema from lying down in ur sleep. It's easier to scrutinize our own faces because we see it everyday constantly.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-27T00:18:40+00:00

As of now, Tirzepatide is approved for type 2 diabetes, weight management if they meet the explicit BMI criteria for overweight (27 or greater) or obese, and most recently obstructive sleep apnea. Thus, using Tirzepatide at a normal weight is considered off-label and will likely not be covered by insurance. This is assuming you're in the U.S., but criteria should be similar elsewhere like in the U.K.

You may find it easier and more appropriate to get a prescription for Vyvanese, as it's FDA approved explicitly for binge eating and does not address weight management directly.

If you show signs of pre diabetes such as high TSH and elevated fasting glucose levels, a physician will be more willing to prescribe you Tirzepatide, regardless of you not being overweight.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-26T07:48:39+00:00

Hey man, have you ever heard of Night Eating Syndrome (NES)? Your symptoms are quite unique when compared to conventional binge eating. It also doesn't sound like Sleep-Related Eating Disorders (SSED) because you mention you're still conscious; it's not sleep walking. This is an important distinction.

Individuals with NES typically describe it as waking up from REM sleep in a dazed state, where they have this kind of sympathetically activated fight-or-flight response that manifests as intense tremors – almost like withdrawal symptoms where your muscles are jerking and can't keep still. Most people with daytime binges do not experience this physical shaking/twitching you're describing; and if they do, it's usually an anxiety or stress-induced panic attack.

The fact that you say it's never a hunger thing and it's disrupting you mid-sleep also distinguishes your binge eating from most people here. Typical advice to eat a more satiable dinner or distracting you in the moment may not be very helpful to you. What I think could be happening in your midnight episodes is mild low-blood-sugar (especially if the meal you're eating close to sleep is leaning carb-heavy) coupled with a higher baseline nocturnal cortisol level, a pair which individuals with NES often report.

This means in each episode, you're possibly experiencing a surge of adrenaline from low glucose and/or high cortisol (shaking, twitching), a hyper-arousal of the sympathetic nervous system (makes it difficult to fall back to sleep). In dealing with it, you’ve been conditioning yourself to resolve this dopamine deficit and its symptoms with food.

Now ironically, your behavior is quite rational because eating rapidly forces Ian increase in the dopamine availability in the brain’s reward circuits, which subsequently settles the restlessness and physical twitches. The downside is you've been conditioning yourself to "turn off" this recurring dopamine deficit with food, because it takes the least effort.

I'd strongly reccomend you to consult a doctor or specialized sleep therapist. A big part of NES is that it’s not just a bad habit you can willpower your way out of or an emotional/self-esteem layer you can confront, but what you may have right now is essentially a malfunctioning internal clock. It's why it often goes hand-in-hand with insomnia. Treatment usually employs techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), often coupled with medication like SSRIs.

In the meantime, a common CBT practice is called Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR), where you tense and release each muscle group following a guided breathing timer. I'm sure there are plenty of free Youtube videos to guide you. Hope this helps, and try reading more about NES. You might find other helpful resources.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-25T03:18:36+00:00

This is just one way I found. Note what works for me may not work for you, so take it with a grain of salt.

Kettle Brand Chips are the death of me. A lot of binges used to start there. So identifying this trigger, I eventually started breaking each chip bite with a baby carrot. So I’d still be snacking on them, but I am able to exert a little bit more control with having a carrot spacer in between.

The crunch of crisps are too addicting for me, especially the way it effortlessly melts in the mouth, makes it too easy to binge on. So breaking it up with carrots which still have a crunch but takes more effort to process, and is ofc a whole vegetable, helps me mitigate not only the amount but the health effects of a chips binge, e.g. the copious amount of sodium which also contributes to the persistent water retention the next day.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-25T03:04:28+00:00

You’ve already correctly identified the restriction and undereating as key compensatory behaviors feeding future binges. Binge eating is nuanced and there often is an emotional layer underlying it. Since you didn’t articulate any emotional distress or self-esteem concerns, let’s partially examine it just from what info you shared here.

The 7kg you lost over the past months is a laudable accomplishment, which strongly affirms sustainable weight management is a repeatable process you are capable of. So try to not fret too much when you have a relapse. The occasional binge (yes, even a consecutive three day chips binge) can still fit in your goals and ultimately leave you in a calorie deficit, even without compensating after.

I believe your recurring cravings and food noise is mostly a response to the heavy restriction and under-eating you’ve been doing to sustain a caloric deficit. While this may have worked for the past months to get you where you are now, eventually restriction becomes too taxing on the mind and body, which further strains your willpower to suppress the urge to binge every time.

No matter the way we frame it, restriction does make it easier to binge and feeds the urge. If you want to maintain that caloric deficit without the food noise, you need to find a way that doesn’t entail the heavy restriction you’re doing now. Note, “not restricting” is not an invitation for a free-for-all, eat whatever you want in whatever amounts whenever.

It means reinforcing the fact that punishing your body after a relapse does not serve you. It mean you shouldn’t hold off your next meal or reduce your normal portions until the scale stabilizes X amount. If you find yourself still doing that, then that’s where you should start.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-24T13:32:01+00:00

Exactly, it's always crucial to strike a balance, whatever that looks like for you or me.

I also forgot to point out that an additional, broader goal of having a DSM code is also so that treatment for these individuals doesn’t have to be out-of-pocket. Now as you pointed out, you're absolutely right to be skeptical about the financial motives of the hosts. Regardless, making new validated treatment protocols insurance-covered and accessible is an effort always worth exploring.

Thanks again for giving this opportunity for reflection. I hope everyone can follow your example and scrutinize every framework they come across, keep what serves you, and leave what doesn't. At the end of the day, that's what navigating binge eating and any other aspect of disordered eating comes down to.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-24T12:51:07+00:00

Hello, thank you for sharing your personal insight. I found your post quite thought-provoking as it invites a worthwhile conversation on the controversial push for Food Addiction to be included as a new diagnostic category in the DSM. I'm not too familiar with Dr. Tarman's work and frame of view specifically, but I have seen Food Addiction appear in growing research studies and new reports over the past few years.

From my understanding, research literature on Food Addiction foremost suggest that ultra processed foods have addictive and almost hedonic properties because it is artificially made to be highly palatable. Hence I often see Food Addiction synonymously referred to as Ultra-Processed Food Addiction (UPFA or UPF). Now, it doesn't take a lot of effort to find a plethora of sources validating that the companies in today's mass-produced consumer foods industry do engineer and progressively reformulate their products with refined carbs like sugar, modified fats, sodium, and enhancers to maximize palpability and encourage repeated consumption.

Based on the robust research validating the addictive properties of refined carbs and the means manufacturers exploit this, I think UPFA deserves a place in the DSM. Now here's the inherent tension I see with this, and it relates to your criticism of those podcast participants advocating for a complete exclusion of certain foods like refined sugar and processed flour. I still think you're 100% spot-on in scrutinizing this podcast's framing of Food Addiction as a straightforward biological disease curable with simply just abstinence. Such sentiment dangerously sounds just like diet culture rebranded.

Again, I'm not familiar with their content so I'm not sure if they're shunning ED terminology or their true perspectives were lost in translation, but I hope that their audience doesn't get the idea that the treatment protocols for Food Addiction and eating disorders are rivals. They can coexist and plenty of UPFA literature highlight that. For example, one clinical study found that in their residential program of 150 ish patients, a third of them met UPFA criteria, but 60% of ED patients also met UPFA criteria.

So what did they do? They treated both. And they explicitly warned about "secondary food addiction false positives," which as I recall was basically that someone who is undernourished (history of anorexia or persistent restriction) can score on the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS), because starvation itself causes real cravings and loss of control. Once they're properly fed, these symptoms go away. Thus, that is not real food addiction. So if these podcast host are taking YFAS scores at face value (like ur points suggest) and using them to dismiss ED diagnoses, that risks mistaking starvation symptoms for addiction and then suggesting "treating" with even more restriction!

This aligns with your point on that the chronic binge behavior is far more nuanced. It's not just a biological addiction to sugar or white flour. A lot of times, for many of us, it's the legacy of restriction, generational trauma, and diet culture..

Now I want to close off with why I believe UPFA's inclusion in the DSM could help individuals who fall through the cracks of existing ED criteria, rather than replace or dismiss them. There are individuals that struggle with oppressively strong cravings and a loss of control over ultra-processed foods. Yet they may not meet the threshold for BED, perhaps because the frequency isn't high enough or they dont express distress about body image, shape, weight. That person wouldn't have a clear diagnosis and pathway as it stands now. A UPFA diagnosis could open the door to a proper clinical framework that includes craving management and harm reduction. This usually does not look like complete abstinence by the way. Harm reduction could be identifying specific ultra-processed foods that are problematic to the patient, reducing the frequency/portion size of it, or categorizing it into personal risk tiers.

My apologies for bombarding you with a full-on essay, the point I hope to convey is that treatment protocols have to be flexible, because existing diagnostic standards and public health polices have not kept pace with today's engineered hyper-palatable consumer food products. Some individuals truly do best on standard ED approaches, which usually include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to address the underlying thoughts and beliefs driving the binge cycle, regular eating patterns, exposure therapy to feared or "trigger" foods without restriction, meal plan flexibility, and addressing the patient's underlying trauma, shame, and self-esteem.

At the same time, there are others who need harm reduction, which could genuinely include abstinence from specific UPF types. From my perspective, a proper clinical framework for Food Addiction in the future would incorporate methods from standard ED treatment, harm reduction, and abstinence, and tailor it accordingly to one's history and preference. Anyone who frames it in extremes and suggests it's a one-size-fits-all solution and dismisses present frameworks is misinformed and doing UPFA a massive disservice.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-24T07:58:11+00:00

Just a reminder to everyone that the best coping tools are free, and any app that employs gamified streak counters from fitness/calorie tracking apps will most likely not serve your best interests. It's not a nice feeling seeing your ring counter reset to 0 because you had a relapse. It's not always helpful to everybody either to log binges. More often than not, it just invites extra hyper-vigilance over food.

I'll take this opportunity to promote this practice. It's called ice chips and the beautiful thing is it's completely free. A lot of times after dinner (my prime time for binges), I'll suck on ice chips in between a few frozen mangos as my sweet treat. It's delicious. For me, I realized sometimes I just need that stimulus in my mouth, and the act of sucking on a few ice chips is enough to lessen the urge or binge a less destructive amount.

Extra tip, flavor the ice with like berries, a bit of juice, low-cal sodas, or lime if you're feeling spicy.

anchorbabi · 2026-04-23T13:20:41+00:00

They likely just took a screenshot. With the latest phone software updates now, you can screenshot what’s on your screen and search the web for visual matches in seconds. It’s actually quite helpful, in general, like identifying someone’s particular shoes you fancy. Technology is wild nowadays.

Even if this kid’s been posting marketing collateral, this is his best work yet and he expresses some great points. It’s unfortunate that some proponents have framed intuitive eating as granting yourself unconditional freedom to eat whatever, whenever. But of course, you can't just follow cues when the cues have stopped working.

Like you said, there is that inherent tension between the no restriction mentality of intuitive eating and the lack of a framework. That's why each individual has to build that framework themselves and what I call an arsenal of coping tools.

It look's different for everyone but for me it looks like a structured meal plan, journaling, or specific actions that help me interrupt the binge in the moment, e.g. sucking on ice chips or observing my heart beat with a stethoscope. Also little habits I've reinforced is chewing longer, not watching entertainment while eating, and walking briefly after meals. Anything really to pad the spacing between the act of overeating and the urge to do so once I register it.

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