Ep #204: Choosing to Feel the Urge

Hi! How are you doing today? I’m great, I just got back from Chicago, it was my first time there and I LOVED it!! I’m obsessed with Lake Michigan. It’s gorgeous. I love that they have all those walking paths along the water, I definitely took advantage of those. There were just so many beautiful views of the water and the city and the two together I wish I could have stayed longer but, it was time to come back.

Just a quickie over the weekend as part of my 40 nights away I’m doing this year which in case you missed it when I talked about it on a previous episode, that’s how I’m celebrating having turned 40 in January, by doing 40 nights away throughout this year.

So far I’ve done Denver CO and Copper Mountain, Austin TX, Charleston SC, and now Chicago IL. They were all places I had never been to before and it’s been such a fun adventure! And a great way to celebrate my 40^th. 17 nights complete with 23 to go!

Alright, enough about me, let’s talk about your urges to binge and choosing to feel them.

I think we can all agree that we would rather just not feel urges to binge, ever.

We’re not going to choose to be a person who feels urges to binge, obviously.

So I’m not talking about choosing to feel them like you want them to happen, like you choose to keep them as a part of your life.

I mean choosing to feel them once they’re there.

Because once they’re there you do have a choice to make, every single time.

And you do make a choice every single time.

If you eat and you binge, you chose to do that.

Eating didn’t just happen, there was a moment when you decided to grab a piece of food and put it into your mouth.

You felt that urge and then you thought something like, “Screw it, I’m gonna eat,” or “I can’t feel this any longer, I’m gonna eat,” or “Just this one time, let’s get the food.”

A decision is made, always.

But know that eating when you feel an urge isn’t your only option.

Feeling your urge until it passes is also an option.

Is it the more challenging option that is going to take more effort? Yes.

And that’s why you choose eating when you do choose eating.

It’s easier. It takes less effort. And sometimes you don’t even stop to consider that you have any options. You just react to your urge immediately without taking into consideration that you don’t have to binge and can choose something else.

It’s so important to know that you have options and once you’re feeing an urge you basically have two.

Eat or feel.

Now, I say basically because you do have two others.

One is that you can fight and argue with your urge. You can get mad at it for being there, you can wish it wasn’t there, you can try to will it away.

But that’s probably not going to make it go away, it will more likely intensify it or at least keep it there longer.

And the second one is distracting yourself. You do something to try and take your mind off the urge. You watch tv, clean, play a game or scroll on your phone, listen to a podcast or music, something. And if your urge isn’t too intense, that might work sometimes. But, it’s not reliable. Because sometimes, you’re going to do those things and keep thinking about eating food. The urge doesn’t go away, it just stays with you as you’re doing those things.

So yes fighting and arguing with the urge and trying to distract yourself from the urge are things you can do but, they aren’t reliable ways of making it go away.

But what are, are giving the urge what it’s urging for and allowing the urge to run its course.

So if you want that urge to go away, feel it or eat food.

Which do you choose?

Now, be honest with your answer.

I know some of you are going to say feel it but, it’s not really what you want to choose.

You don’t want to feel it because it’s uncomfortable. You may think it’s too uncomfortable, it’s unbearable, it’s too much to handle.

And I totally get that. It can be really intense. It’s not pleasant. It’s not an enjoyable experience.

But the same could be said for how you’ll feel if you choose eating and then binge.

After the binge would probably be worse actually, I know that was always my experience.

And not only was it worse, but feeling extremely full, weighed down, and having zero mental or physical energy lasted for a really long time for me. Maybe hours depending on how much I ate. And it would seep into the next day with a food hangover if I binged later in the day.

So once you’re feeling that urge, whether you feel it or eat food, you’re going to feel unpleasant, unenjoyable, intense discomfort.

You’re either going to feel it with the urge or after eating.

Which do you want?

You can’t say neither, you gotta choose.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that you have to choose feeling the urge.

I just want to make sure you’re thinking through your decision, all the way through until the end.

It’s either eating, feeling relief, getting pleasure, but then feeling feelings like out of control, guilty, panicked, ashamed and then feeling all the physical feelings for however long you usually do.

Or, don’t eat, feel the urge, feel discomfort, do things you’ve learned in episodes of this podcast to help you get through it, a few episodes you could revisit that might help you are, and I’ll put these in the show notes at coachkir.com/204 for you as well, #151 Resisting vs Allowing urges, #154 Why Your Urges Last So Long, #160 In the Moment of Feeling an Urge to Binge, and #184 Self-Talk When Feeling an Urge. And once the urge goes away, you feel proud, accomplished, more confident, and overall okay since you didn’t just overstuff your body. You can move on with the rest of your day or night doing what you want to be doing.

Those are your options.

Choose your option and like I said, I’m not going to tell you to choose the urge, you don’t have to if you don’t want to but, I’m going to recommend you do…especially if you want to stop binge eating which I’m guessing you do since you’re listening to a podcast titled The Stop Binge Eating Podcast.

So if you aren’t choosing the urge, take a good look at why you’re not. What are you reasons for not choosing it? Are you afraid and if you are, what are you afraid of? Are you unwilling? And why?

In my opinion, feeling the urge is the better option so why not choose it?

Get clear with yourself about why you wouldn’t choose the better option.

Because choosing the urge means you’re not choosing to binge and I think that’s a choice you’re going to want to make.

So know that you have options, you get to choose, and know exactly what you’re choosing, not just what happens right after the choice is made but, the consequences of the choice, what happens 15 minutes, an hour, or hours after.

Knowing that will make it easier for you to choose the better, more challenging, more effortful option.

Choose that one.

Bye bye.