Hello Amber Rose,

You say you are bingeing around exams, and that you classify yourself as a perfectionist and can be negative.  One way to change your habit is to be aware that you are, in fact, eating due to stress.  Do you recognize when you eat simply because you are hungry?  Or when you are bored?  Or when something just really looks good to eat?  When you recognize you are feeling anxious, try substituting another habit (better habit) instead of reaching for food.  This could be something like making a cup of tea, and sipping it while you work through difficult material, get up to stretch, or spend 60 seconds coloring – I have an adult coloring page-a-day calendar I will go to sometimes when I am trying to work through something stressful.  As Anita suggested, if you need to binge, binge on low calorie foods.

Lastly, I would recommend that you be forgiving of yourself if you do binge.  As a perfectionist, I imagine you place inordinate stress on yourself as it is, which increases exponentially when you have exams and other results-oriented tasks.

Airene