Binge eating under control for the first time in YEARS!

TW: Eating disorders

I've struggled with binge-eating for most of my adult life. For years, my weight hovered around 80kg (176 pounds), which is not great for someone only 5"2.

In 2019, I worked hard to lose weight. I went on Duromine for a period, and ramped up my exercise. Even after I stopped the Duromine, I still lost weight, getting all the way down to a smidge under 60kg before attempting to keep my weight in check. Even during this time, though, I was CONSTANTLY thinking about food and had to have massive cheat days to survive.

Then lockdowns hit, and I was in a city that had pretty extreme lockdowns. I caught covid at the tail end and it triggered some kind of MCAS-like fatigue and my weight kept going up whilst my ability to work/exercise dropped. I've been struggling and bouncing around 67-70kg. The food cravings are so bad that I couldn't even keep food in my apartment, but would have to take a walk to the supermarket to get food for one meal at a time, which can be insanely expensive due to my dietary restrictions.

I finally took the plunge and started Wegovy as its the "cheapest" of the Semaglutide medications in Australia (half the cost of the two more well-known ones). I'm on day 6 of my first 0.25mg. The food chatter has dropped substantially and I can actually keep food in my fridge WITHOUT going crazy and raiding it all. I'm still thinking about food a lot but it feels like its more out of habit, and out of a practical sense of "okay, I've eaten x amount of calories today, I should really have Y calories by Z time so I don't feel ill" kind of thoughts.

I was worried about maintaining it long-term due to the cost, but I am legitimately finding the cost is being offset by how much less I'm spending on food! I can buy items in bulk and even start meal-prepping. Its not like the cravings have completely gone, but I only need a small bite of something to take most of the edge off instead of devouring everything I have.

I've seen plenty of articles on the dangers of Semaglutides encouraging or causing EDs and I can absolutely understand the concern, however this is the first time I feel that I've actually gotten my binge-eating under control as even when I was losing all that weight the first time, it was absolute TORTURE, and ended up exacerbating the problem the moment I wasn't able to adhere perfectly to it.

There needs to be discussion and research on even lower doses of Semaglutides as treatment for binge-eating disorders, or using disorder-language first (ie. Using wegovy for binge-eating WITH the added benefit of easier weight loss/maintenance) to reduce the social and medical stigma of long-term use.