Strange food mixtures, also referred to as food concocting, may be an indication of being a binge eater. That’s according to a new study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

How do you define strange food mixtures? How about:

• Mashed potatoes and Oreo cookies
• Frozen vegetables mixed with mayonnaise
• Chips with lemon, pork rinds, Italian dressing and salt

The excitement comes in the preparation. In fact, they reported having the same emotions as drug users during the act, which was countered by shame and disgust after the fact.

“While they are food concocting and binge eating they report being excited, in a frenzy, and high, but afterwards they feel awful about themselves,” says Mary Boggiano, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Psychology and primary investigator of the study.
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Although Khloé Kardashian has tried her share of lose-weight-quick dieting strategies in the past, she revealed that her diet before her first appearance as co-host of The X-Factor consisted only of making healthier eating choices the old-fashioned way.

The 28-year-old told People magazine after the show that she trimmed down ten pounds by reducing her intake of sweets as well as cheese, a personal favorite indulgence, and working hard not to binge eat. She tries to keep up with a consistent exercise program and is changing her diet slowly to make sure she can realistically keep it up.

Kardashian said she’s learned that crash diets do not work long term. “When I used to do things like crash diets or things too fast, it never stuck because it wasn’t a lifestyle change,” she told reporters.

The star posed for the cover of Life & Style magazine in May 2012 for an article about how she lost 20 pounds in 20 days. Although that’s over the recommended amount of weight loss in such a short period of time, Kardashian said she did it through healthy meals prepared by her chef and extended daily workout sessions with her husband and a personal trainer. 
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The September 19 episode of Dr. Oz will feature discussion about a dangerous eating pattern that more and more Americans are becoming prone to: binge eating.

Binge eating is a disorder in which you consume large amounts of food in one sitting as a regular occurrence. It is sometimes done in secret, and is different from overeating in that behavioral and emotional symptoms such as guilt and depression often create a vicious cycle of continual eating when you’re already full or not hungry.

Women featured on the show confess that they’re disgusted with themselves for binge eating, have taught the pattern to their children, and desperately want to stop.

One guest is 7 months pregnant but no one in her life has known about her regular binge eating that is potentially harming her unborn child as well as putting herself at risk.
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As someone who’s struggled with body image myself, this story hits close to home.

Shannon Bradley-Colleary, a 46-year-old blogger at The Woman Formerly Known as Beautiful, hasn’t always loved her body. In fact, 20 years ago, she hated it. 

In addition to her own negative thoughts of herself, she had a boyfriend at the time who was always pointing out her cellulite telling her that it was unattractive. Glad she dumped that guy.

But unlike most women who would otherwise hide those feelings away and let negative thoughts fester, Shannon decided to take a look at her body from a new perspective. She had artistic nude photos taken of herself and when she saw the results, the negative thoughts she had of herself disappeared.

Where she expected to see a pudgy woman with cellulite and heavy thighs, she saw a beautiful, healthy young woman who had no reason to doubt herself or hate her body. No problem areas, no cellulite, just a beautiful body.
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Many who have struggled with their weight for a lifetime look to weight loss surgery methods like gastric bypass or the lap-band procedure to solve their weight problems. While these types of surgeries are successful for some people, many others still struggle after their operation.

For those with underlying psychological food issues, weight loss surgery can trigger other eating disorders. According to a 2007 Harvard study, 60 percent of all individuals seeking surgical treatment for obesity suffer from an eating disorder, usually binge eating.  Those that have a previously unhealthy relationship with food and their body are at a higher risk of succumbing to other eating disorders after their operation.

Lap band and gastric bypass surgeries don’t typically create an eating disorder if there wasn’t previously one there. The major problem is that some who have these unhealthy food relationships have either left them untreated, or been unsuccessful in treatment prior to surgery. For binge eaters, the body cannot physically handle binge eating after surgery.

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