Review of Before I Eat App

I’ve just been introduced to a new app that is designed to help people stop binge eating. It’s really pretty amazing. I’m quite impressed- and only a little bit jealous that I didn’t design it. It’s called Before I Eat. It was designed by Alen Standish who runs QuitBingeEating.com. I really love this app because it’s just so full of amazing tools. It’s obvious to me that it was designed with a great deal of integrity and with amazing intention behind it. I think it can really help a lot of people.

Basically, what it is, is a toolkit in your pocket to prevent you from acting out with food. Because it’s on your phone, it’s always with you. There are so many different interventions that can help when you are about to act out inappropriately with food.  You can do deep breathing, you can journal, you can try to understand what is underneath your desire to binge, you can talk to someone who’s been there… but sometimes you’re out, you’re in a grocery food store and there is your binge food and you might just feel powerless. This app is meant to give you something in your pocket that you can take out in that very moment that you are about to binge and help you to stop and regain yourself so that you can make a more balanced choice.  One of the great things that having this does is to help you to interrupt the compulsion to binge. Once you interrupt the compulsion– that crazy force that makes the binge feel as though it’s bigger than you are, then you are not stuck underneath it.  That can then lead you to feel bigger than the urge to binge eat, which is ultimately going to lead you away from the binge.

My one caveat would be that this app is not appropriate for those  who suffer from undereating, anorexia, or a restriction cycles.

Follow