How To Halt A Binge In Its Tracks

When that urge to binge strikes, it can feel as impossible to stop as an avalanche.   Here’s what to do to bring that binge to a skidding halt:

Delay: Postpone eating for 5-10 minutes when you feel an urge. You’re not saying “no” to yourself and you’re not using willpower. Instead, you’re just giving yourself a little space between wanting to binge and doing so.

Distract: When you’re busy, you might find the desire to snack or eat or binge disappears. Try an activity that helps you express your feelings, such as writing in a journal or venting to a friend.

Distance: Keep out of the kitchen. It’s also a good idea to keep food out of sight. Have nothing edible on your countertops. Put food in a cabinet or pantry. If you don’t see it in front of you, it’s less tempting.

Determine:  After 5-10 minutes, determine whether you are physically hungry or emotionally hungry. If you’re physically hungry, just about anything sounds good. If you’re emotionally hungry, you hope to feel better after eating.

Decide: The decision is yours, whether you want to binge. If you absolutely must eat something for emotional reasons, use a pre-packaged single serving. That lets you eat what you want but can stop you from bingeing on a family-sized portion.

Remember, wanting to binge does NOT mean that you will binge.   You can put the brakes on!!  

Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts and experiences with this five-step strategy to stop bingeing.

The Truth About Comfort Food

The TRUTH About Comfort Food

Comfort food is actually about the need or the wish to be comforted by another person.  If nobody is available to provide comfort, or if the people in your life are not able to respond in a way that feels good, that’s painful.  The good news is that you can learn to give yourself what you need to feel better.

If you’re turning to food for comfort, the primary challenge is learning to respond to yourself with language instead of action (eating).

If you turn away from food as a way of feeling better, you’ve learned to respond to your needs by ignoring, denying or judging them.  It’s humiliating to have unmet needs, and you may have turned against your need for comfort as a way to feel powerful, turning passive to active. 

You cannot stuff down your feelings, nor can you starve them away or purge them.  Cultivating an ability to recognize, value and respond to yourself without bingeing, restricting or purging will help you overcome eating disorder behavior, no matter what your struggle with food.

Keep in mind the acronym VARY as a guide to providing comfort:

Validate:  Recognize that your feelings and thoughts are reactions to a particular situation, and you have an absolute right to feel the way you feel. 

For example:  I got passed over for a promotion at work and my co-worker got it instead. I feel hurt, unappreciated and upset.  Of course I feel that way.  How else could I feel given, this situation? 

Acknowledge:  Accept the existence and truth of what you’re feeling.

This is a painful, upsetting, and humiliation situation. I also realize that some of my sibling issues might have gotten stirred up, since my brother was always getting special treatment.

Reassure:  Encourage and inspire yourself by remembering that this situation will pass, and you will feel better.  Keep in mind past situations in which you were able to overcome difficulty.  You will this time, too!

I’ve overcome a lot of challenges in my life (recall them specifically) and I’m going to get past this, too.  I feel awful now, but I’m not going to be stuck in this horrible feeling.  I will feel better

Yourself!

When you are consistently respond to yourself in a supportive way, you feel better.  You may even feel good.  When that happens, you don’t use food to comfort, numb or distract yourself.  That’s how you make peace with food for good!   

Is food your best friend and your worst enemy?

Get your FREE guide:  25 Ways To Stop Stress Eating

Click here to get started on a path to making peace with food for good!

Is it ALWAYS emotional eating?

Ever wonder something like THIS:

“If I’m overeating or bingeing, is it always about something emotional?  Can’t it just be about the food?”

First, it’s important to distinguish between and overeating and bingeing.

Overeating means, “eating to excess” and that’s different from bingeing.     There are reasons you may overeat that has nothing to do with feelings:

Many Americans overeat on Thanksgiving, which has to do with food, not feelings. 

If you don’t eat enough and you get to the point where you’re starving, you may not be able to stop once you start eating, and end up overeating.

Binge eating is different. 

Binge eating is a way of coping with something psychological through the physical action of eating.

Whatever that psychological piece is, is the root of the behavior.  It may be emotional, or it could be something else. 

I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of emotional eating – which means you turn to food to avoid uncomfortable emotions.   But that’s only part of the story.

But it can also be…

A way of translating emotional pain to physical.

When emotional pain is too much to bear, painful feelings can be unconsciously converted into physical sensations.   

Linda’s Story

Shortly after Linda broke up with her boyfriend, she ordered a large pizza because that’s all she could think about.  Over the course of the next few hours she ate the entire pizza by herself. 

“I ate so much it hurt,” she reported.  “I was in so much pain I literally couldn’t move.”

Linda was more focused on her painfully full stomach than on the heartache she felt about the breakup.  By eating until she was in physical pain, she converted emotional hurt to physical hurt.

Also, she made herself very full, which symbolically filled the void she felt at the loss of the relationship.

Makes sense.  Now what?

If you find yourself in physical pain from eating, ask yourself what is hurting your feelings.

That needs to be your focus (tough to process, but practice makes progress).

When you heal your heart, you won’t feel the need to use food to cope.  When Linda grieved the end of her relationships, she no longer expressed the ache of loss of the wish for fulfillment through food.

And that's how she made peace with food (and you can, too!).

Food For Thought:

• What is hurting your feelings right now?
• How are you deprived?
• What are you conflicted about in your life?
• If you weren't thinking about food, weight and body image, what thoughts would occupy your mind?

When you identify and process what's weighing "on" you, you won't be as focused on what you weigh.  And that's how you make peace with food!

How To Get Through The Summer Without Food Issues

Summer is coming.  That means barbecues, pool parties, beach parties, and more. Just thinking about it might make you nervous. Here's how to get through the summer without focusing on food, weight or diet:

How to deal with food

The anticipation of deprivation only makes you want something more.  If you're trying to be "good" and NOT eat hamburgers, chips, ice cream or whatever, then you're constantly thinking about food while you're at parties, instead of connecting with people and having fun!

When you think you can't have something, you'll just want it more.

What to do?  Give yourself permission to have whatever you think is forbidden.

Yes.  Have what you want!

You may be afraid that you'll start eating and never stop.  That won't happen if you consistently allow yourself to eat what you want.  If you "can" have it, sometimes you'll have it and sometimes you can decide not to have it.

How has dieting and restricting yourself from having certain foods worked so far?  I'm guessing, not too much.  Give this new way a try!

How to deal with people
Do you get mixed messages from your friends and family?   Someone might say, "Oh, one bite won't hurt you.

And someone else may say, disapprovingly, "Do you think you should eat that?"

If you think everyone's watching what you eat, it's enough to make you hide from people and turn to food.  
Also, people often talk about food at parties.  Again, this puts the focus on food instead of on... well, other things in life.

What to do?  Say you're on a diet.  A word diet.  Announce that you're not talking about food or dieting or losing weight (yours or anyone else's).   There are lots of other topics of conversation - suggest one! 

How to enjoy yourself
Focus on your senses:  sight, smell, touch, listen, taste.  Look around the party and notice what you see.  Is it a beautiful day?  Does it make you happy to see friends and loved ones? Do you see the sand, the sea, a pool, a grassy yard?
What are you hearing?  Laughter?  Music?  Conversation.

What does the water feel like?  Feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. 

Keep in mind that the sun and water won't feel better if you are thinner.
When you find new ways of relating to yourself and your world, you stop using food for comfort or distraction. And that's how you make peace with food!

Want even more support on your journey?  I can help!  Imagine feeling FREE of food cravings and being at peace, all without dieting (yes, it is possible)!

Learn how to stop binge eating!  FREE TRAINING!  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP:  http://drnina.info/video-series-optin

www.winthedietwar.com

New Year, New YOU?

Are you making New Years resolutions this year? Something along the lines of:


 - Exercising more 

 - Eating more veggies 

 - Eating less sugar and junk food 

-       Stop bingeing

-        


Chances are, you’ve tried this before. You start off strong and disciplined, but your resolve fizzles. And then it's another hope-to-heartbreak year all over again. 

Here are some tips to make this year different: 


Stop Trying So Hard 


Resolutions are phrased in terms of “trying” to make changes. Do these sound familiar? 


 - I’m going to try to lose weight. 

 - I’m going to try to be healthier. 

-     I'll try to go to the gym every day. 

      


If you're a Star Wars fan, you know there is no trying; there is either doing or not doing (thank you, Yoda). 


If you’re trying (and failing) at your attempts to change, there is a reason, usually one of the following: 


Fear of Expectations: You hope that by changing your body, you’ll change your life. But what if everything in your life stays exactly the same? Maybe that’s too much to risk, so you unconsciously stop yourself from going all-in, because you're afraid of what WON'T happen when you lose weight. 


Fear of Impulsivity: Afraid you’ll act in an impulsive manner if you are happy with yourself – leave your husband, cheat on your wife, take risks at work, that kind of thing. If so, dealing with the wish to do those things – and most importantly, why - is a crucial step towards change. 


Fear of Objectification: What are your associations to intimacy? What do you fear will happen if you’re perceived as more attractive to others? 

Make A Different Kind of Resolution

New Years Resolutions are usually about behavior. What if they were about changing the way you relate to yourself? Resolve to be:


 - Kinder to yourself 

 - Listen to your needs 

 - Pay attention to your wants 

-       Be curious, not critical 

     


Make a list of the ways you wish other people would act towards you, such as responsive, open, supportive, and kind. Then, resolve to be that way towards yourself. 


Why? Because the way you treat yourself directly impacts what you eat. If you're critical and judgmental, you feel bad. If your main source of comfort is food, you're likely to eat just to get away from your own mean internal voice. 


Conversely, the nicer you are to yourself, the better you feel, and the less likely you are to eat for comfort or distraction! And that's how you make peace with food - for good!!

Dr. Nina

https://winthedietwar.com/kick-the-diet-habit-now/