Moreover, many bulimics lose the ability to recognize when they are full and the ability to say what size of meal is normal for them to eat. They swing between bulimia and anorexia: if they try not to binge - they stop eating altogether and go into anorexic mode, when they start to eat - they go into a binge mode: for many there is no middle ground.

It takes time to re-learn again what a normal meal is and how to eat without binging. To re-learn how to eat normally they need constant remainders about what is normal and what is an abnormal meal.

How to fix this? To start with get some photos of food or paint some drawings of food, do one drawing or photo with heaps of food on it, than another photo with only a very tiny amount of food on it, then one with a normal amount of food on it that you would like to be able to eat and not worry about. Remember what it was like when you were a child before the bulimia and how you ate then. You can talk to someone without an eating disorder to help you with identifying a normal and an abnormal amount of food to eat.

Now get a red pot of paint or big red texta (but it has to be bright red) and on the photo with lots of food paint a big red cross on it (from corner to corner), then write the word BAD in big letters on the bottom. Then get the photo with the tiny amount of food on it and paint a big red cross on it (from corner to corner) and write the word BAD on it.

Now get the painting or photo with the normal correct amount of food on it (healthy food no junk food) and paint a big green tick on it and write the word GOOD in green on the bottom. Then pin them up on the wall, the one with lots of food on the left, the one with the green tick that says GOOD next and then the one with the little amount of food on it on the right.

So you should have X BAD GOOD X BAD, so every time you want to eat too much look at the painting on the left and you will see BAD if you feel like you want to starve yourself look at the painting on the right and you will see BAD so what is left for you to look at, yes the one in the middle that says GOOD.

This is changing your focus by using pictures because the mind works in pictures not words. If I said elephant what do you see in your mind, the written word elephant or a picture of an elephant, you see a picture.

So when you look at the paintings you will see the big red cross over the food that is bad for you and the correct amount of food that is good for you with the big green tick. When you feel good (or at least better then you normally feel) look at the picture with the Green tick a lot, this will start to embed it into your subconscious mind that the green one is where you want to be.

It will take time to reprogram your mind and you have to take baby steps to be able to stop a binge with the power of your mind.

It may sound strange and I know many people are extremely skeptical about it. But in reality the only way to ever stop binging is by the power of your mind and the ability to change your perception and thinking about a normal and an abnormal meal: there is no other way.

To conclude, to stop a binge when you have bulimia it is important to learn what is a normal size meal and what is an abnormal meal. It is necessary to retrain your mind and there are different techniques around to do this.