How to beat binge eating: yoga, plant-based diet helped depressed junk food obsessive become a beacon of health
- Nicole* struggled with binge eating for 10 years and lived on junk food until yoga and a wholesome plant-based diet transformed her life
- She also credits podcasts including The Life Coach School and The Done Binging Podcast in helping deal with her emotional scars
For 10 years Nicole* struggled with binge eating, where she would consume large quantities of food in a short amount of time. Her memories from that period are bleak and she recalls one extreme episode in 2006 when aged 15.
“I needed to feed myself and feel full so I wouldn’t feel the emptiness in my heart and body. But I felt so bad afterwards that I could hardly breathe,” she says.
Her condition did not stop Nicole exercising excessively and she would run 10km (6 miles) a day, resulting in injuries to her knees and hip. Her junk food diet, which included large quantities of chocolate, made matters worse, and she was plagued with digestive issues such as diarrhoea and constipation.
Sometimes known as compulsive overeating, binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder. Binge eaters eat more rapidly than normal, eating until uncomfortably full and when not physically hungry, which is followed by feelings of disgust with oneself or depression, according to US magazine Psychology Today.
Nicole is now free of these struggles and is a vision of health.
In 2019, she quit her corporate job and took a training course in India to become a certified yogi. She also earned plant-based nutrition certificates from the US-based T. Colin Campbell Centre for Nutrition Studies and online educator eCornell.
