What drives your binge eating?

When it comes to your relationship with food, does it seem as if you are in the passenger seat, and the driver is completely out-of-control?

I am going to help you identify what is “driving” the behavior of binge eating, and give you the two crucial steps to change, that you can implement right away.

For starters, imagine yourself as a car.  If this seems a bit weird, think about this:  we refer to car “bodies” (why is that?) and we take our cars to the “body shop” for repairs.   

As you travel on the proverbial road of life, keep in mind that you are not alone in the vehicle.  There are usually three basic parts to all of us: the Self, the Critic, and the Soother/Supporter.

·      The “Self” is is the part of you that has needs, wants, wishes, emotions and conflicts.  When you say, “I feel mad/sad/glad/afraid” that’s your “Self” talking.   

·      The “Critic” informs you of all your perceived transgressions.  It is relentlessly judgmental, critical and sometimes downright nasty.  (Hint:  if you refer to yourself in the second person, it is usually the critic talking, as when you say to yourself, “You have no willpower!”).  

·      The “Soother/Supporter” is the part that provides understanding, soothing and support. Often, that’s the part that can show up for other people, but not for you. 

Which of these is in the drivers seat?

Chances are, it’s the critic.

We all need a little bit of an inner critic to make sure we make good choices.  Ideally, that critic should stay in the backseat - or better yet, the trunk!

How does this relate to food issues?

When the critic is at the wheel, it isn’t pretty.  And for many people, the critic strikes exactly when they need the most support. 

That leads to using food for comfort or distraction.  And then the critic is there to judge you (“How could you have eaten that?” or “You failed!”), and the cycle continues. 

If you speak to yourself in a critical way, you feel bad.  And if you don’t soothe and support yourself, you’re likely to use food for comfort or distraction.

Where is the supporter in all of this?  Probably mute.

Here’s what to do:

Step One:  Recognize who’s driving

Does your internal critic remind you of anyone you know?  Who spoke to you (or to others) in that manner?  Where did you learn to relate to yourself that way? 

Is that mean voice really “you” or does it belong to someone else?  A parent, sibling, or teacher, perhaps.

Identify the source of that internal critic.  And, tell it to shush.   It no longer has permission to drive you crazy.  Banish it to the backseat.

Step Two:  Be a friend to yourself

How do you express support for others?   Chances are, you are caring, understanding, helpful and friendly. 

What if you spoke that way to yourself?  Try it!  You’ll see a difference.

Talk to yourself as if you were someone you love.  Be nice to yourself.  You will feel better, and when you feel supported by yourself, you are way less likely to eat.

When you are driven by a wish to be supportive and understanding to yourself, as well as to others, you will stop using food to cope.

And that’s how you make peace with food!

All I want for Christmas...

Ever notice how wanting stuff for Christmas is considered acceptable?

Do you want clothes, shoes - even a car?  Fingers crossed!  Hope Santa will deliver a computer, iPhone, tablet, hover board or some other fab gadget?   Put it on the list! 

Wanting a cookie or an extra helping of mashed potatoes at dinner - that's another matter.

Gasp!

Eyebrows rise.  People react as if you've committed an unforgivable sin.  

"Do you really need that?" they often say.

Well, no.  But maybe you want it.  

And guess what?  Wanting more is not a bad thing.  

Oliver Twist endears himself to readers (and viewers) when he asks, "Please sir, I want some more."   

The kid was starving and deserved more food.  This holiday, ask yourself what you're starving for in your life.  

• Hungry for love?
• Yearning for acknowledgment?
• Wishing you had more money?
• More attention from people?
• More friends?
• Fun?

Don't you deserve love, recognition, financial stability, friends and more?  (Yes,  you do!).  Identify what you want and then take steps to get what you want.  

If not, you risk using food to fill up the void.

On the other hand...

Sometimes you just want an extra cookie or more potatoes.  Not because of an inner void, but because... well, you just like the darned cookies!

Deprivation only makes you want something more.  So, enjoy another cookie - minus the guilt!

Remember, you're not alone.  Together, we will make peace with food!  

*          *          *

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

Happy Holidays! 

"I do not need to be thin to feel like I've won..."

If you experience a variety of hopes, fears, setbacks, and triumphs on the road to liberation from eating problems, you're not alone!   One young woman, Kim Edwards, wrote a book about her experiences and today I'm sharing some of her words with you:

Letting you go:
Dear Ed 

As hard as you clasp and refuse to let go

I hope in your version of hearts that you know

That despite towards my body I continue to sin

The Lord is my savior and he won’t let you win

You no longer can have me for I am his child

All of these years I fought with defiance

But this is the moment when I take back the reigns

Push you away and let out all of my pain

The pain kept me sheltered and tangled with you

Under it all I promise I knew

That I am me without your self harm

And I do not need to be thin to feel like I’ve won

I am a me I have not gotten to know

But starting today I am letting you go

Divorce From Ed
On August 21, 2012, I Kim Edwards will begin the divorce filings from what I have thought was my better half for many years. Yes, Ed and I will separate and go our own ways. I have yet to comprehend all the paths that I can follow, dreams I can reach and goals I can accomplish. Ed has not allowed me to see beyond his bitter, angry, and hateful rage towards those who have hurt me and the pain I have tried so hard to escape. Despite the long awaited comprehension that his and my relationship is dangerously unhealthy as well as the fact that son of a bitch cheated on me, I will miss him. I will miss him because while with him I was hypnotized into believing we were one therefore unable to see me, the REAL me.

...For years Ed has told me that I by taking in food I was giving up the control to forget and numb out the traumatic events that even Mr. Clean can’t magically erase; that if I starve, over exercise and purge I can take back some control. But really all that was doing was punishing me further. Intellectually I know that but right now my brain is suffering from lack of nutrition which means rationality is incapable of seeping in for more than a couple of minutes. That’s why this divorce begins on Tuesday, the day I return to Centre Syracuse, a team of people who truly care and want to help me becomesuccessful and healthy using many different tools and skills. 

...Part of moving forward involves confronting your past, understanding it’s a part of you but not all of you. I can stay bound a prisoner of my pain or use is as strength, wisdom and empowerment to move forward. 

My past has shaped me into the being I am today as painful as some of it was. I will indeed look back but only for wisdom and guidance on what I should and shouldn’t do and a reminder of where I came from and the progress that I have made, but I will NOT stay stuck!! I am more than my eating disorder and the events that caused it. That is why Ed and I cannot work. From here on out it’s just me Kimberly Melissa Edwards. Ed find another partner, perhaps someone in prison. They aren’t missing out on much the food in there sucks anyway!

A word from Kim:

"This book is a collection of stories written in the format of journal entries, quotes and poems. I hope to connect with readers through my un-edited and un-filtered experiences on a personal level. My journey has included, but is not limited to, issues concerning trauma, depression, eating disorders and everyday struggles. I challenge each issue with humor in attempt to help lighten such a difficult set of topics that are far more common than many of us are willing to admit. May this benefit readers by helping them understand they are not alone and that the struggles we face are just part of bigger story.

For more from Kim, here's the Amazon link to her book, "Kim Unscripted."

Read Kim's story!

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

How your relationships affect your weight

Originally published on Walden Behavioral Health:

Starving For Love

People who struggle with compulsive eating or bingeing often ask why they eat when they’re upset.  One woman lamented, “Why can’t I just work out or do crossword puzzles when I’m upset?  Why is it always doughnuts that I turn to for comfort?”

An excellent question.  Why food?

Our first experience of love is being fed as a newborn. If you watch a parent feeding a baby, you usually see a safe, warm connection between them. For babies, being held in loving arms, feeling loved, feeling safe, is bound up with the experience of feeding.  For babies, food is love, food is connection, food is comfort and ultimately, food and relationship are felt as one.

Babies grow up to be adults who naturally hope to love and be loved.  If that love is not readily available, or isn’t consistent, it can be humiliating.  It’s painful to want something you can’t have, or something that is not immediately available.

If you’re lonely, you may not have someone immediately available to keep you company. When you lack a fulfilling relationship, you may eat to symbolically fill the internal emptiness and the loneliness.

Even if someone is there, they may not respond the way you want, or may disappoint you, hurt you, or just not be there for you consistently or in the way you’d wish.

The reality is that people can sometimes be unpredictable, unavailable or unreliable.  When relationships become unsafe, it is common to turn to food, which on a deep level represents not just comfort, but the experience of being comforted by another person.

Even if you’re in a relationship, and have a partner, spouse or family, you might find food easier than people.  Lots of people have meals with their husbands, wives, partners or families, and then wait for everyone to go to bed so that they can sneak into the kitchen and eat in secret.

This behavior with food is connected to the ideas, thoughts, fears and perceptions about relationships.   Recognizing your relationship style, or attachment style, can help you better understand what’s going on with food.  And when you understand something, it’s easier to challenge and change your behavior.

There are four basic relationship/attachment styles in adults:

1) Secure attachment: “Relationships feel safe and secure. I know I am loved and lovable.”

2) Anxious-preoccupied attachment: “Stay close, because if I let you go, you’ll leave me” view of connection.

3) Dismissive-avoidant attachment: “I don’t need to be close, I don’t want to be close, so I’ll keep my distance.”

4) Fearful-avoidant attachment, “I desperately want connection, but if I get it, I will lose interest.”

Securely attached people are comfortable with intimacy.  They tend to have positive views of themselves and others, and trust that closeness with another person can be a warm, positive, and mutually satisfying experience.  They are less likely to develop problems with food.
People who feel safe and secure are not “starving for love” because they trust that connections to other people can be loving, positive, and fulfilling.  Because they feel satisfied in this area of their lives, they don’t use food as a substitute for love. In contrast:

Anxious-Preoccupied people find it difficult to trust that those they love or care about will be consistently available.   They don’t like separation and are afraid that “out of sight” leads to “out of mind.”   They often seek reassurance that their partner is still there for them.

If this sounds familiar, you may be “hungry” for love but turn to food instead, because you may be afraid you’ll never get enough, never be satisfied in your relationships, or that if you allow yourself to connect, you’ll eventually lose that love.

Even if you are in a relationship, you might feel as if you can never get enough of your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife or significant other.

You may sometimes worry that you’re “too much” for the other person or worry that they’ll pull away or leave you.  If that’s the case, you might live in a state of constant anxiety about your relationship and use food for comfort.

Dismissive-Avoidant people keep their distance and are uncomfortable with closeness.  They prize independence, telling themselves and others that they don’t need anyone else to be happy.

Underlying this outward disinterest in relationships is the fear that intimacy will lead to rejection, pain or loss of self.  On some level, the belief is that “if you don’t get too close, you won’t get hurt.”

If you turn away from people, you may be left feeling too disconnected or lonely, which leaves you vulnerable to using food to fill the void.

Fearful-avoidant adults are in a bind; they simultaneously wish for closeness, yet fear intimacy.  They often yearn for someone who is unavailable, and pursue that person, think about the person all the time.  If the object of their affection returns their feelings, they often lose interest, finding distance safer – until the pattern repeats.

Do you find yourself falling for someone who’s already in a relationship with someone else?  Someone who lives too far away to see on a regular basis?  Or maybe the person you’re with is a workaholic or has hobbies that take up a lot of time so they don’t have time for you.

If this is familiar, you may be comfortable with the idea of love but terrified of what will happen if you allow yourself to truly bond and connect with another person.  You might be afraid you’ll lose yourself in a relationship.  You might be afraid you’ll be powerless in a relationship.

Bingeing is a symbolic way to fill up on food as a replacement for love, an unconscious substitute for the love and fulfillment that comes from loving and being loved by someone else.

Here are some things to consider:

Are you more comfortable with distance, or closeness?

What are your hopes and fears about intimacy?

Where did you learn to mistrust relationships?

How did your parents and others respond to your needs?

How do you respond to your own needs, wishes, and emotions?

It is important to identify and process the ideas that negatively impact your relationships and leave you hungry for love and connection.

When you can meet your underlying need for love, for attention, for connection, you won’t need food to express those needs and wants, or to distract from them.    You will be less likely to fill up on food when you’re in fulfilling relationships with other people.

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