by 16 people |
Normal Eating is the answer
Do you suffer from binge eating, also called compulsive overeating? You are not alone. Binge eating is now considered by the experts to be a disorder, even if you do not purge afterward.
Stan is a compulsive binge eater. He's been that way for as long as he can remember. He's pretty sure it's not connected to emotions or stress. Rather, he grew up in a home in which food was revered and overeating was encouraged. Food was at the heart of his family's culture and was associated with happiness and togetherness. There's nothing deep here. He just can't stop.
Sometimes Stan's overeating is accompanied by a sense of euphoria which seems to become more important than the self-control he had earnestly set out to achieve just the day before. He even plans binges, although not consciously.
Stan fails to realize the extent of his binge disorder. He thinks that his slow metabolism puts him at an unfair disadvantage, and he wishes he could do something about his physiology. He also doesn't realize how much food he consumes at night before going to bed, and in the middle of the night, when he finds himself compulsively raiding the refrigerator in a state of half sleep.
Stan has turned his denial into a science. During those night raids of overeating, he hides the evidence perfectly. The spoon and bowl get washed, and the empty ice cream carton gets stuffed down into the bottom of the kitchen garbage can. That way, in the morning he won't be reminded, and he'll be able to compartmentalize the episode in his mind. The night eating seems even worse whenever he's "on" a diet. Stan just can't stop overeating.
Stan has tried many kinds of diets, and has attended meetings in earnest. He has also tried ignoring the whole matter, thinking that the food-focus of dieting is making matters worse. But he doesn't lose the weight that way either. He is considering gastric bypass surgery.
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Check out the Normal Eating web site.
What is binge eating?
According to the DSM-IV, (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) published and copyrighted by the American Psychiatric Association, these binge eating episodes are associated with some of the following:
1. rapid eating
2. eating past a sense of fullness to a point of pain
3. eating large portions even when not hungry
4. eating alone to hide the episode
5. experiencing embarrassment or shame over the episode
6. feeling depressed, guilty, or disgusted with oneself after overeating
Some over-eaters, however, do not hide anything. They are so used to large portions that they believe it's normal to eat two dozen chocolate donuts in one sitting.
How do diets make overeating worse?
But a dieting mentality causes or aggravates black-and-white thinking. The black and white thinker believes himself to either be "on" his diet, or "off" his diet at any one time. When he is "on" his diet, he is faithfully following all the rules.
Examples of rules might be: weighing his food, eating on a rigid schedule, avoiding certain "bad" foods, attending meetings, counting
calories, counting fat grams, counting carbohydrate grams, measuring portion sizes, following a menu, and eating packaged diet foods.
Stan is not working at developing his own internal cues for what he needs, and rather than apply reason and judgment from within, he is deferring to whatever self-imposed plan he's on.
If Stan makes a mistake, or even wavers a little bit, he believes himself to then be "off" the diet. When this happens, he does not have the "food wisdom" he needs. At this time, all reason and judgment go out the window. Guilt over the mistake can push him over the edge into an episode of overeating. Since he has no internal cues, he has no idea when to stop eating.
His memories of past euphoric episodes return, and what started out as a tiny transgression turns into a full-blown binge.
What can I do to stop overeating?
to do with beliefs and self-talk.
Turning for a moment to the field of psychiatry called "cognitive therapy," we will take a look at how Stan's beliefs and self-talk can be controlled and altered so that he can free himself from his chains.
Cognitive therapy assumes that irrational behavior such as Stan's is the result of distorted thinking patterns, called automatic thoughts.
Instead of addressing the behavior itself, and instead of delving into his past to "discover" why he's behaving this way, Stan will begin a process of identifying his distorted beliefs and replacing them with truth.
All Stan needs is a desire to become a little self-aware of what he is thinking and believing. If he would like, he can read a book or two about cognitive therapy or cognitive-behavior therapy, or REBT (rational-emotive behavior therapy.) But most important is what he does next.
Stan will have the greatest success if he is willing to write down some of his irrational beliefs each day, and to continue to do so for a few months. Since he's been believing these lies for years, he should expect it to take some time to uncover them.
At the same time, he will write new, more rational beliefs and meditate on those a bit.
What beliefs and self-talk contribute to overeating disorder?
1. I must learn better control over my behavior.
2. I must lose this weight quickly.
3. I am defective and will always have to follow some kind of plan.
4. Avoiding certain foods religiously will lead me to permanent weight loss.
5. If I ever do lose this weight, I'll be trading away my happiness.
6. I don't have enough willpower. I have to find more somehow.
7. I must alter the content of my food so I can keep eating a lot.
8. I'm not willing to change my relationship with food. I just want to lose the weight.
Stan can then replace these beliefs with more rational beliefs and self-talk. He will be helped most if he is willing to write down his new beliefs and spend a few minutes each day reading them. In this way, the new self-talk will eventually become part of his thinking.
Web sites with help for binge eating
- Diet Survivors Meditations
- Free Diet Survivors Meditations, written by Linda Moran, author of the book "How to Survive Your Diet." View or Subscribe now.
- Eat Normal Now
- Author and clinician Karen R. Koenig's lens about normal eating.
- The Normal Eating web site
- This is Karen R. Koenig's Normal Eating site. Karen R. Koenig is the author of three books and has a teletherapy practice.
- Nemours Foundation
- Teens with binge eating disorder
- Attentive eating
- Recovery from binge eating disorder requires attentive eating. Read about how to eat mindfully.
Books that will help you recover from binge eating
How to Survive Your Diet and Conquer Your Food Issues Forever
Overcoming binge eating requires adaptive (internal) change. Let Linda Moran explain how to use the basics of cognitive therapy to help you stop bingeing and find your food wisdom.
Amazon Price: $14.95 (as of 12/02/2009) 
Binge No More: Your Guide to Overcoming Disordered Eating
Amazon Price: $11.53 (as of 12/02/2009)
The Rules of "Normal" Eating: A Commonsense Approach for Dieters, Overeaters, Undereaters, Emotional Eaters, and Everyone in Between!
Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 12/02/2009)
The Food and Feelings Workbook: A Full Course Meal on Emotional Health
Amazon Price: $12.89 (as of 12/02/2009)
What Every Therapist Needs to Know about Treating Eating and Weight Issues
Amazon Price: $21.37 (as of 12/02/2009)
Diet Survivors(TM) resources
Diet Survivors creator Linda Moran offers free resources
1. Tired of your dieting life
2. Have been yo-yo dieting for years
3. Have binge eating disorder
4. Have other eating disorders
5. Have never dieted but would like to lose weight
6. Feel insane from your dieting
- The Diet Survivors newsletter
- Free monthly subscribable web-based newsletter. View the current issue and find out how to subscribe.
- The Diet Survivors message board
- Free Yahoo! Diet Survivors group where you can share with others and with Linda Moran, published writer and author on subjects of non-dieting and normal eating.
- The Diet Survivors Meditations
- Meditations. Subscribe, and receive a meditation in your email every time one becomes available. It's free.
Diet Survivors Meditations
Linda Moran's blog for folks who binge and other food problems
Some meditations to view right here. This is what you'll get in our mailbox when you subscribe to the Diet Survivors Meditations. Subscribe to the Intuitive Eating Weblog now. It's free.
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Linda Moran is the author of "How to Survive Your Diet." Moran uses the web to teach diet addicts to become normal eaters, and it's free.
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