Every now and then I just can't stop myself from binging. It's gotten worse since my job has been very stressful. Without going into too much detail, it's pretty much hit rock bottom. I'm not all that over weight but when I was younger I was bullied about it quite a bit and I still carry all of it with me.
Is there any good way to distract myself from eating?
Or any way to control my appetite? I hear smoking works, but I don't really feel like that's a better alternative... Though I haven't ruled it out yet... (and I don't need anyone's opinion on this particular solution. So you don't like smoking, keep it to yourself.)
The trick is to binge on healthy foods. You literally cannot get fat off of fruits or vegetables (quite the opposite, in fact). If you don't like healthy foods, it's because your taste buds are desensitized to subtleties of flavor by the hyper-sweet/salty/fatty foods we consume today. That wears off in a few weeks of eating healthy.
Also, if you're looking to lose weight, I'd advise looking into modern nutritional science; diet turns out to be significantly more important to your health than exercise. Start by reading up on "The China Study" to get your feet wet in the research. From there, you'd do well to read Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat to Live".
And smoking won't help you one bit.
maybe you could try planning your meals for the day, and really make sure you dont go over what you planned. keep watch on a calendar how badly you went over and try to do better than last week.
it's a good idea to eat more smaller meals than one big one, have snacks like a cup of carrots or a few celery sticks.
the fact you recognized the problem and want to fix it means you can do it and have already made a good start!
>it's a good idea to eat more smaller meals than one big one
This is untrue. It's actually healthier to eat large meals but sparsely, than snacking little bits throughout the day. The body repairs itself while in the catabolic (digesting) state, not the anabolic (eating) stage. Constantly eating food takes too much time and energy for our body to be able to do necessary maintenance.
Interestingly, what we think to be hunger, is actually the sensation of your body's self-maintenance; and the unhealthier you are, the worse it feels. When you become truly healthy, you don't feel this at all anymore (I can confirm this from personal experience). True hunger is actually a sensation in the mouth/throat, like thirst.