Ep #319: How to Eat to Support Stopping Binge Eating

Hi! Let’s jump right in and talk about how to eat to support you in stopping binge eating.

When you’re working on stopping binge eating, most of what you need to work on is going to be in your mind.

If you want to truly change your behavioral habits, you have to change your thinking, so, your thought habits and patterns and what you believe.

Everything you do begins with a thought, your thoughts create your feelings and your feelings drive your actions, so working on your thoughts is the most important thing you’ll do.

Thoughts about yourself, food, your urges, your emotions, your body, any thoughts that are contributing to your binge eating.

And, along with your thoughts, what you are choosing to eat day to day matters too.

How you’re eating day to day can either support you in stopping binge eating or can make it more challenging for you to stop.

So I want to talk in this episode about some basic guidelines for eating that you can follow that can make it easier for you to stop binge eating and be more supportive for stopping binge eating and also, what eating choices will most likely make stopping binge eating more challenging.

Starting with under eating.

When you’re denying your body of food when you’re hungry, when you’re trying to hold out on eating even though you’re hungry, and it’s because you’re trying to lose weight, or maybe just trying to not gain weight if you’re just trying to balance yourself out after a binge or overeating, you’re not fueling your body properly and likely aren’t giving it enough fuel, especially when your body needs it.

And this can make it harder to stop binge eating because the more you do it, the more urges to eat, overeat, or binge, and possibly even more strong urges, you’ll feel.

If you’re not eating enough food, after a period of time of doing it, your brain is going to urge you to eat more. And the longer you’re under eating and not fueling your body the way it’s asking you to, the more your brain will urge you to eat.

Now, for most of us, some of the time, we’re going to be busy and just don’t have time to eat. And that’s okay, it happens. But please make sure you’re eating as soon as you can. And if your body is hungry for more than it usually is because you didn’t eat anything or you ate very little earlier in the day, or if you get hungry again sooner than usual after you do eat because your body is still wanting fuel since it hasn’t gotten enough for the day, please give your body the fuel it’s asking for. Don’t argue with your body, and tell it it shouldn’t be hungry. It really does know what it needs and is going to ask you for it.

Now, busyness can be a factor but, for a lot of you, it’s likely that if you’re under eating, you’re doing it not because you’re busy but because you’re trying to control your weight.

But your brain doesn’t know that. Your brain doesn’t know that you’re purposefully not eating more. It’s just sensing that it’s not getting enough fuel so it’s going to start fearing for it’s survival. That’s what your brain wants the most – to keep it and you alive. So if its survival is as risk, it’s going to urge you to do something about it, and that’s where the urging for food comes in.

It’s not just going to sit back and let you under fuel it, it’s going to do what it can get you to eat more.

So when you under eat after a binge the next day, or for several days, or if you’re under eating because you’re trying to lose weight, your brain is going to sense this lack of fueling and urge you to stop it. It’s going to urge you to give it the fuel. It’s going to send urges to eat more and the less you eat, the more it will urge.

Now, something I think is important for me to say, for those of you who do want to lose weight that I hope will encourage you to stop under eating, is that you don’t need to deny your body of fuel when it’s hungry, and under eat, and make yourself feel too hungry in order to lose weight. I know it’s what a lot of us have been believing for a long time but it’s just not true. It’s not how it has to be. But because we have believed this, we do it, and then our weight loss gets sabotaged when we can’t sustain it long enough. You feel those urges, eventually you overeat or binge, and your weight loss is not sustained.

Now, I’m not going to go into details about how to lose weight sustainably here on this podcast because this is a stop binge eating podcast and weight loss is a whole other topic that I choose to not discuss here since I believe it’s extremely important that weight loss isn’t the focus until the binge eating has stopped or has at least greatly decreased.

So I really only talk about the specifics of it toward the end of my Stop Binge Eating Programs for anyone who is ready to make that shift and I also offer a membership for people who have gone through my program and in there I’m working with people on losing weight after stopping binge eating. And if you’re someone who has gone through my Stop Binge Eating Program and you want to work on weight loss, email me if you want to join the membership.

But, if you’re not or haven’t gone through my program, I just want to tell you right now that under eating is not required, and it’s not really doing you any favors both with stopping binge eating and losing weight. So please, when you’re hungry, eat.

Honor your hunger so you can help yourself to not feel those urges to fuel your body more.

Now another way of eating that can make it challenging to stop binge eating is when you’re trying to eat quote “perfectly.” What I mean by that is that you’re only eating nutrient dense foods that most people would consider to be “healthy.”

So you’re not allowing yourself to eat any joy foods, so nothing that has a lot of sugar, maybe even nothing with flour so no bread or pasta or pizza, and maybe nothing that’s high fat or high carb.

Basically, you’re trying to eat only what is considered to be a whole foods, clean-eating diet.

Now, this all sounds really great and when you do eat this way, I bet you feel really good.

But for most people, it’s just not sustainable.

And I want to repeat, for most people.

I have a friend who eats this way and she loves it. She doesn’t binge, she has no issue with it, it’s 100% exactly how she wants to be eating and from what she tells me and from what I observe, it’s great for her.

But for me, and for most people I know, that is not what we want.

I want to be able to enjoy the joy foods in this world, the sugary, carby, high fat foods that taste really good.

And most people I know want the same.

We don’t necessarily want to eat them all day every day but, when they’re available, when we’re at a party, a gathering, an event, when someone offers them to us, we want to eat them if we want to.

So if this is the life you want too, and you’re not allowing yourself to live that life, you’re most likely going to feel deprived and restricted.

And when you feel that way, you’re likely going to obsess about what you want that you’re not allowing and feeling restricted and resentful and deprived.

One of my group members was telling me that she has recently been thinking a lot about cakes and ice cream and brownies and I told her it’s happening because she’s being overly restrictive with them. She didn’t even realize she was but, she was, and that was the reason why she kept thinking about them. So then once she started talking to herself differently about those foods and was giving herself true, unconditional permission to eat them, her thoughts about them calmed down.

She didn’t even need to eat them to think about them less. She just needed to allow them instead of denying herself of them when she truly wanted them.

If you’re not allowing yourself to eat the foods you want to eat, and you’re forcing yourself to eat only healthy, nutrient dense foods, it could be what’s causing you to obsess about those foods, think about them a lot, and feel strong urges to eat them.

When you want something but tell yourself you can’t have it, you’re going to want it more. And the longer you tell yourself that you can’t, the more you’ll want it, the want will get stronger and will become an urgent want, an urge.

So allowing yourself to eat foods that aren’t considered healthy or that aren’t nutrient dense will make it easier for you to stop binge eating because when you allow them in your mind, and when you allow yourself to eat then when you genuinely want them, you won’t feel such a strong urging for them.

Giving yourself unconditional permission to eat the foods you want to eat can prevent you from obsessing about them and feeling strong urges to binge on them.

Now, another way of eating that can impede on your efforts to stop binge eating, which is kind of similar to what I just talked about, is not allowing yourself the “real thing.” What I mean by that is that instead of having the full calorie, full fat, or full carb option of something, you’re eating the lower versions that don’t taste as good to you, or that you don’t even really like that much.

You might think that choosing the “lower” versions will help you to control your weight and you might think that you will satisfy your craving when you eat them.

But that’s not always the case.

Now, sometimes it is. Maybe it will help you to control your weight, and maybe it will be satisfying to you.

People sometimes tell me they like the low calorie or low fat version or lower whatever version and they don’t notice a difference and maybe they even like it better.

And if that’s the case for you, then eat away!

Making that choice isn’t always bad.

But when it’s not as good as the real thing, and it’s not what you’re really wanting, and you don’t like it that much, you probably won’t feel satisfied mentally and emotionally when you eat it. So two things can happen. Either you keep eating more of that food or you eat more of something else to try and get the satisfaction you’re not getting or, you might just be left craving the real thing that you actually wanted and start obsessively thinking about that and then maybe bingeing on it if you’re urging for it after obsessing and denying for awhile.

So you might end up eating more than you would have had you just eaten the real thing.

So just eat the real thing.

Give yourself what you’re really wanting.

And when you eat it, know that you’re not doing anything wrong, and this can actually be better for you in the long-run than trying to substitute with something else. That way you can eat it without guilt and you can just enjoy the crap out of it and get all the pleasure from it and when you’re done, feel satisfied because you got what you were wanting.

And also, don’t force yourself to eat serving sizes that you don’t think are enough.

We often look to food packages to decide how much we should eat.

We might think that the serving size listed is the amount we should eat.

But what if you want more than that?

If you truly don’t think it’s enough, then give yourself more.

Give yourself an amount that you truly believe is enough.

Have you ever looked at a serving size and thought, “well that’s not enough?”

If that’s what you’re thinking, then give yourself more. Give yourself what you think will be enough.

That serving size is just a suggestion, not the right amount.

You decide what size a serving is to you. Choose your own personal serving size.

Make your own decision for how much you want to eat instead of having the smaller amount that’s listed on the package, then going back for more, and maybe more, and possibly eating more than you would have had you just had your own personal serving size to begin with.

So, under eating, trying to eat perfectly, not allowing yourself to eat what you really want to eat, and not allowing yourself to eat more than the serving size on the package can make it more challenging for you to stop binge eating because they can lead you to feeling unsatisfied, feeling more urges to binge and causing obsessive thinking.

So instead, eat if you are hungry, allow yourself to eat joy foods and foods that you want to eat that you might consider to be unhealthy and that aren’t nutrient dense, eat the foods you actually want to eat, and eat the amount that you want to eat.

That is how you can eat to support yourself in stopping binge eating.

Take away restrictions that aren’t helping you, that are causing you to feel unsatisfied, and restrictions that you genuinely don’t want to have.

Only have restrictions for yourself that are useful and that you want to have.

Restrictions like, not eating past full.

Or when you decide how much is enough joy food for you and not eating past that amount.

Or not eating something because of how it will make you feel physically if you eat it.

Restricting what or how much you eat because it’s what’s best for you physically is not a bad thing and that’s also something that can help with stopping binge eating.

A lot of the time people hear “eat what you want” and think that if they do that they’re just going to binge all the time.

But that’s not what “eat what you want” means. It means that you eat the food you want but it doesn’t mean that you have no regard for your body and just stuff it full.

Eat the foods you want to eat but restrict the amount because you want to because you want to feel good physically and overeating or bingeing on food isn’t going to feel good in your body.

Restricting the amount you eat so you don’t overeat or binge isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually useful, a useful restriction.

So you can also support yourself in stopping binge eating by eating what you want but restricting it to an amount that feels good in your body. Think about and care about how your body will feel.

Alright? So, make sure that how you’re choosing to eat day to day is supporting you in stopping binge eating rather than making it more challenging to stop binge eating and, I will talk to you next time. Bye bye!