obsession with food.

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How have people managed an obsession with food?
I am severely bulimic due to sensory problems and an obsession with binging and purging. I need to reduce this behaviour. For years it's been treated as an eating disorder but it's become clear that it's basically another ASD trait. It's nothing about being thin and never really has been. How do people manage their obsessions around food? How have people got rid of obsessions around food?
Thankyou.

(I am not a doctor so take all this with a grain of salt please)

I think it counts as an eating disorder, even if it isn't done for the purpose of being thin (since it is a way of eating or dealing with food that is hurting your health). Like how compulsive overeating, or orthorexia nervosa, etc. might not be done for the purpose of thinness, but they are still eating disorders.

I'd say binging and purging is kind of a self-harm issue too.

Maybe identifying more precisely why you binge and purge could be a good first step. Do you find pleasure in eating a lot and then purging? Or is it a compulsive thing you don't really enjoy, but you just keep doing it anyway because it is hard not to?

Also, I developed obsessions about food (such as refusing to eat food that came from certain stores, refusing to eat food that was a certain color, etc) when I was younger, but sort of "grew out of them" with time. It wasn't very easy. Also, I used to eat and eat until I was physically uncomfortable. It was ridiculous!

Thankyou, I've always had food issues due to sensory difficulties and ASD, I've kind of accepted I will always have SED and I'm ok with that. I'm not ok with the bulimia because 1) it's so expensive and 2) it's causing physical problems.
I don't vomit by sticking my fingers down my throat, I just bend over. For me it's very much like stimming, infact it probably is stimming. The process of binging and vomiting just makes me feel better. Eating is a nice thing to do. It's pleasurable and also manages the fact that I hate the sensation of food in my stomach and that it's hard to eat enough to maintain when I am not b/p. It helps me calm down and I find it very hard to calm down, I have very very bad problems with anxiety. My binging is highly ritualistic and it calms me down as long as it's done in the right order in the right way.

I have no idea what would help. I go through phases of exercise bulimia. It makes me feel better to purge via exercise. One thing though, I've been in treatment multiple times for different eating disorders and bulimics are almost never concerned with thinness in my experience and they have a harder time believing they have an eating disorder for this reason. I've no doubt it's linked to your ASD, I think mine is too. But eating disorders are often egosyntonic, so you don't really see it as a problem, either you think of your eating disorder as if it is not the problem or you don't believe you have one in the first place.

Lots of ED people don't have to stick their fingers down their throat. Lots of them do it to cope with anxiety/feel better. It's not about being thin. It's a coping mechanism for other problems.

I don't know though. Mine is still killing me and I'm in an out phase, eating normally despite the weight it puts on, etc. I know with school starting I'm going to want to go back to three hour workouts to feel good, and I don't know how to avoid it.

I am definitely obsessed with food.I'm going to talk with a therapist about it next week.I get hungry all the time,my stomach rumbles,so I have breakfast,snack,lunch,snack,dinner,and sometimes I am STILL hungry. Sometimes I overeat and feel rotten,bloated and gain a few pounds seemingly overnight,like this week.
But yeah,I am definitely obsessed with food.It has to be organic.I have to go to the store.I have torment myself by staring at cookies I can't have as they contain nuts which I am allergic to.I have to come home and eat a lot of raw cacao to compensate and then go through a high and low and then eat more food.I have to make coconut flour pancakes and eat too much and make myself sick and use that as an excuse to skip dinner,like today.
It keeps going.It saddens,stresses and confuses me.It is taking over my life.

I am not bulemic or anorexic but I do experience a terrible obsession with food. I think about food constantly. When I was a kid I daydreamed about food all day. I don't know what to do to keep from obsessing on it. I like to read recipes.

I'm actually proud of the fact that I hate food and eating.