This vicious circle of binging and purging carries a toll for the body, and it’s even harder on mental well-being. All the same the cycle may be broken. Effective bulimia treatment and support may help you develop a healthier relationship with food and defeat feelings of tension, guilt, and shame.

Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder qualified by commonplace episodes of binge eating, followed by frenzied efforts to avoid putting on weight. If you’re fighting with bulimia, life is a ceaseless battle between the want to slim down or remain thin and the overpowering obsession to binge eat. You don’t prefer to binge—you understand you’ll feel guilty and ashamed subsequently—but again and again you buckle under. During an average binge, you might devour from 3,000 to 5,000 calories in a single short hour. After it stops, terror sets in and you turn to drastic measures to “undo” the binge, like taking ex-lax, inducing vomiting, or going on a ten-mile run. And all the time, you feel more and more out of control.