Give the scales to someone else this week, and put the clothes that do not fit out of sight. Those two changes remove the two most frequent triggers for daily body checking, and body checking is usually what produces the rules that produce the binge. Neither one requires you to feel better about your body first.
That order matters. Waiting until you have made peace with how you look before you change anything is a plan with no start date.
What body checking is
More than looking in a mirror. It is the repeated, anxious gathering of evidence about your body, and most people doing it have never thought of it as a behaviour at all.
- Weighing, sometimes several times a day.
- Pinching, grabbing or measuring parts of yourself with your hands.
- Checking how a waistband, a ring or a particular pair of jeans feels.
- Mirrors, shop windows, phone cameras, the same angle every time.
- Comparing yourself against people in a room, or against photographs.
- Asking someone repeatedly whether you look the same.
The problem is not any single check. It is that each one produces a verdict, and every verdict has consequences.
Why it feeds the cycle
Follow one check through to its end.
The number is up, or the waistband is tighter, or the mirror looks wrong. What follows is almost never neutral. It is a rule: eat less tomorrow, skip breakfast, cut something out, be stricter. That rule is restriction, restriction produces hunger and deprivation, and Beat describes what happens next, that food rules "can also lead to them binge eat due to hunger and feelings of deprivation".
So a morning weigh-in is not a measurement. It is the first link of the loop, dressed up as data. [Restriction and the binge that follows](/guides/food/restriction-and-the-binge-that-follows) has the full loop.
The reverse is just as bad. A "good" number produces the other rule, which is to press the advantage and eat less while it is going well. Both outcomes lead to the same place.
Step one: the scales
Get them out of the house. Not into a cupboard, out.
Give them to a friend, a neighbour, a parent, anyone who will not hand them back if you ask nicely in a fortnight. If they are shared with someone else in the house, ask that person to keep them somewhere you do not go.
Two objections worth answering.
**"I need to know."** For what, specifically? If you are in treatment, the people treating you can weigh you, and many do it turned away from the display precisely because the number is not useful to the patient. If you are not in treatment yet, a GP can weigh you at the appointment. What you do not need is a daily number with no clinician attached to it.
**"What if something is wrong?"** Then that is a matter for a GP, and NICE is clear that BMI must not be used on its own to decide whether to offer treatment for an eating disorder anyway. A weight taken at home cannot answer a medical question, and it can start a fortnight of rules.
Step two: the clothes
Dress the body you have this week.
Most people with a binge eating pattern have a wardrobe divided into three: things that fit, things kept for when they are smaller, and one item used as a measuring instrument. Every morning is an assessment.
What to do, in one evening.
- Take out everything that fits comfortably now. That is your wardrobe.
- Put everything else in a bag, out of sight. Loft, back of a cupboard, someone else's house. You do not have to throw it away, and telling yourself you must makes the whole job too big to start.
- Get rid of the measuring item. The jeans you try on to check. Those are scales in the shape of trousers.
- If what is left is too little to dress in, buy two or three plain things that fit. This is worth the money and it is not a surrender.
Clothes that dig in are a physical reminder every hour, and physical reminders produce rules the same way numbers do.
The mirror, and the other checks
You will not stop checking by deciding to stop. Try these instead.
**Change what the mirror is for.** One full-length check to see whether you are dressed properly, then leave. Getting closer, turning sideways and doing an inventory is a different activity that happens to use the same object.
**Move the mirror, or the light.** The one in the bathroom that you use most is usually the one to deal with.
**Notice the hands.** Pinching and grabbing is often automatic, done while watching television. Sit on your hands, hold something, or simply name it out loud when you catch it.
**Clean the feed.** Anything that arrives on your phone showing before-and-afters, body comparisons or diet talk. Unfollow, mute, and use the "not interested" control. You are not being sensitive, you are removing a source of hourly verdicts.
**Do not turn this into another rule.** "No checking, ever" is a prohibition that you will break and then feel worse about. Reduce the automatic ones and let the rest go.
When body image is the main event
For some people this is not one factor among several. It is the engine, and the eating follows it.
Signs worth taking seriously: you avoid seeing people because of how you look, you cannot get dressed without a long distressing episode, you have stopped swimming, dating or leaving the house, or the checking takes up hours.
Say that to a GP in those words. It changes what treatment you are offered, and it is a normal thing for an eating disorder service to hear. The NHS instruction stands: "If you think you may have an eating disorder, see a GP as soon as you can." What the routes are is in [NHS treatment, Beat and the fellowships](/guides/food/nhs-treatment-beat-and-the-fellowships).
Beat's helplines are open 3pm to 8pm, Monday to Friday: England 0808 801 0677, Scotland 0808 801 0432, Wales 0808 801 0433, Northern Ireland 0808 801 0434. No diagnosis needed, calls free from UK landlines and mobiles and not itemised. Beat does "not operate a crisis service" and its staff are "not medically trained". If you are in danger tonight, Samaritans is 116 123, any hour.
Common questions
**How do I stop weighing myself?** Remove the scales from the house and give them to someone who will not return them on request. Willpower against an object in your bathroom is a contest you have already lost several times.
**What if I need to know my weight?** A GP or a clinician can take it, and can do it without telling you the number if you ask. NICE also says BMI must not be used on its own to decide whether to offer treatment, so a home number is not the gatekeeper you think it is.
**Is it normal to check my body constantly?** It is common, and it is a behaviour rather than a personality trait, which means it can be reduced. If it is taking hours or stopping you doing things, say so to a GP.
**Will getting rid of the smaller clothes not just mean giving up?** It means dressing the body you have while you get better, which is a different thing from a decision about the future. Bag them rather than bin them if that makes it possible to start tonight.
**Should I not care what I look like at all?** That is not the ask, and it is not achievable by instruction. The ask is narrower: stop collecting verdicts several times a day, because each verdict tends to produce a rule, and rules are what produce the binges. [The hours when it happens](/guides/food/the-hours-when-it-happens) shows you how often a check precedes an episode in your own week.
Sources
- [Beat, Binge eating disorder](https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/about-eating-disorders/types/binge-eating-disorder/). Food rules and restriction leading to bingeing, and who the condition affects.
- [NICE guideline NG69, Recommendations](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng69/chapter/Recommendations). BMI not to be used alone to decide treatment, weight loss not a therapy target, and no dieting during treatment.
- [NHS, Eating disorders](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/eating-disorders/). The instruction to see a GP as soon as you can, and what a referral involves.
- [Beat, Helplines](https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/get-help-for-myself/i-need-support-now/helplines/). Numbers, hours, and the limits of the service.
