Ep #51: Fearing Your Life Without Binge Eating

Hi! How are you today? I hope you’re good and ready to listen to me talk about what your life is going to be like after you stop binge eating. Sounds exciting doesn’t it? Maybe, maybe not.

I find this to be such an interesting topic.

This podcast is all about stopping binge eating, obviously, and you’re listening to it because that’s what you want – to stop.

You think about how negatively binge eating affects your life and you want all that negativity gone.

But when the binge eating is gone, what will happen?

When you struggle with something like this, it becomes such a prominent part of your life. It’s something you do, something you think about, it can feel like it’s a part of you and your identity.

It can be hard to imagine your life without it and it can even be a bit scary to imagine your life without it.

When that fear creeps in, that’s when the resistance creeps in too.

You resist stopping because you’re afraid of what will be on the other side.

Binge eating is familiar. It’s in your comfort zone. You know what to expect. You know it as a way to cope with your feelings, even if it’s not the best solution. You know it as a way to make urges go away. You know it as something to do with your time that’s easy and supposedly fun.

You know all about your life with binge eating, but nothing about what your life will really be like without it.

What will happen?

How will you cope with your feelings?

What will happen when you feel urges?

What will you do with your time?

What will you think about if you’re not thinking about food?

Who will you be?

What will you have to deal with that you’re not dealing with now?

So many questions about what will happen. So much that is unknown. So much that you think is going to be out of your control when in fact it’s not.

I want you to hear that again.

You think all of the answers to these questions are going to be things that are out of your control or that are going to be awful experiences or that will never live up to binge eating or that you will never know the answers to.

In your mind, bingeing is your only option. You don’t know how else to deal with life, to deal with your emotions, to deal with your issues. You don’t know where else to get pleasure from.

As soon as you start saying you don’t know, you’re going to feel confused or stuck and so you’ll just keep doing what you’ve been doing.

“I don’t know” will stop you every time. It stops you from seeing what else is possible. You say you don’t know so then you’re done trying to figure it out.

But I gotta tell you, binge eating isn’t the only option.

It isn’t the only way to make urges go away, to cope with feelings, to fill your time, or to occupy your mind.

It’s not. It’s just what you’re used to. It’s what you know but what you know, isn’t the best way.

It’s negatively affecting your life and I promise you there are better ways to do all of these things that aren’t so destructive.

Binge eating really is like a bad boyfriend that you know isn’t good for you. But you’re afraid of what life will be like without him. You can’t imagine your life without him. You can’t imagine there is anyone better for you. What if he’s as good as it gets for you?

So you keep going back to him, hoping that this time will be different, that you will actually get what you’re wanting from him, that life will be okay when you spend time with him.

And then you feel totally crappy after you do.

You have to have more belief in yourself, realize your self-worth, and know that you can be fine without him, you can find other ways to spend your time and create whatever it is in your life that you think he’s giving to you, and know that you deserve the better way. You deserve to have the better life without him.

It is going to require work and effort for you to create your binge-free life. It takes work to get over ex boyfriends. But going back to what I talked about in the previous episode, episode 50 which is a must listen if you skipped over it, you have to believe that your life without binge eating will be better than your life with it.

You have to believe it now and see the possibilities that you want and believe you can have it all and believe that the effort will be worth it.

The effort upfront isn’t going to be a walk in the park. But as you go through it, you begin to see how much better life is without binge eating and how worth it it is to not go for the quick and easy pseudo solution.

I had someone on a mini session say that to me recently that nothing will ever be as good, as pleasurable, as binge eating.

And ya know what, that might be true. There might be nothing else you do in your life that will ever give you the extreme pleasure that binge eating does or the escape that it does.

But what could your life be like if you didn’t get extreme pleasure and didn’t escape? Could it be okay?

Your immediate reaction might be that it would be awful! But isn’t it kind of awful to have those in your life?

What comes along with the extreme pleasure? Which we could also say is kind of a high. What comes along with it is lows of course. Sure you get the high from binge eating, from the processed, factory created, foods that are designed to cause cravings for them and extreme pleasure, that you’re most likely eating. But afterward, you get the opposite. That’s why you’re here listening to me right now. You don’t like what’s on the other side of that extreme pleasure. It sucks. You want that extreme pleasure without consequences, but I’m here to tell you that you’re not going to get that. You’re going to feel crappy afterward, or if you don’t, you’re going to feel crappy tomorrow, or you’re going to feel crappy as you continue living in a body that isn’t comfortable. Something negative is going to be on the other side of what you’re thinking is a positive thing – that extreme pleasure you get from starting and maybe even being in the midst of a binge. It’s not going to end well.

And what happens when you escape with bingeing? You get a temporary distraction. No solutions, no true resolution, just a period of numbing or ignoring and then you’re back to whatever you were escaping once the eating is over. And you’ve probably also accumulated some other escape worthy feelings and thoughts in the process.

So when I talk about the possibility of you not getting the high and not getting the escape, and I’m asking if it could be okay, what I’m really asking you to consider is what your life would be like if you found less pleasurable, but still pleasurable activities in your life that won’t give you as high of a high and will also not give you the extreme lows? Also, if you found solutions for the problems in your life that are true solutions that aren’t as quick and easy but also will truly resolve the problem?

What you think is good about binge eating, when you really think about it, might not be so good when you put it all into perspective. Sure you get a high of pleasure, but it goes hand in hand with the emotional and possibly physical low. Sure you get to escape, but not really. You, and your life are not escapable. It’s all going to be there once the food is gone.

So ask yourself, how would your life be better if you stopped binge eating? I want you to think of every little thing that you want, big and small, all the things that would be better after binge eating is gone from your life.

What would be better than shame, guilt, embarrassment, low energy, isolation, and food obsession?

Get excited about the possibilities of bringing these things into your life. Answer the questions I asked earlier but not from a place of fear, but from a place of optimism and excitement.

How will you cope with your feelings? You will properly process through them.

What will happen when you feel urges? You will manage them and allow yourself to feel them.

What will you do with your time? Stuff you genuinely want to do. What did you used to do that you stopped doing? What have you always thought about doing but haven’t? What things might you want to try out and see if you like?

What will you think about if you’re not thinking about food? Well, what do you want to think about? You have more authority over what you think about than you think. You really can think on purpose about stuff you want to think about. Don’t forget that and think that you are a victim to your brain. Sure it throws thoughts at you from time to time but you also get to talk back to yourself and focus on what you what to focus on.

But I know there’s some concern that your brain is going to throw some thoughts at you that you think are thoughts about worse things that food. And honestly, that might be exactly what you need to let happen. You’ve spent so much time avoiding your thoughts because you think they’re too painful, but the truth is, they’re not going to go away unless you address them. So whatever thoughts come up when you stop thinking about food so much are thoughts that you need to take responsibility for and work on them.

Next question, who will you be without binge eating? You will be whoever you want to be. Seriously. You decide what your ideal version of yourself is, how that version of you thinks, feels, and acts, and you get to create it. You’re always creating every version of yourself whether you’re doing it on purpose or not, by thinking the thoughts you think moment to moment. So if you’re deciding what you want to do and what you what to be thinking, then you will get to create the you that you want to be.

And the last one – what will you have to deal with that you’re not dealing with now? Now listen, there’s always going to be something. Life is a roller coaster, there’s always going to be ups and downs, times when it’s exciting and awesome and times when it’s scary and uncomfortable, times when life is easy and times when it’s hard. This is happening whether you’re binge eating or not, but when you’re binge eating you have those tough times piled on top of your binge eating, giving you double trouble, and you’re extending your problems by never properly dealing with them. So without binge eating, you’re going to have the same problems, and other problems that life will bring you because it does, but you’re going to then work through them in a truly effective way.

Here’s what you need to know. Stopping binge eating isn’t just as simple as stopping the eating. There are driving factors behind it and in order to stop binge eating, you have to work on those driving factors.

During the process of stopping binge eating, you will learn everything you need to know that will truly allow you to live your life in a healthy way, not just healthy eating, but having a healthy mind. Having tools that allow you to cope in an effective way, learning to experience life without numbing with food, enjoying the simple, natural, moderate pleasures in life. Taking control over your life instead of just falling victim to your circumstances.

Stopping binge eating isn’t just about the eating. When you truly stop, you become a person who doesn’t use food as a solution. You become a different person in the process of doing it.

You’re not just all the sudden faced with the conundrum of how to deal with the difficulties of life, dealing with the difficulties of life is what gets you to being binge-free.

Life is full of positive and negative. The true experience of living life includes experiencing all the things, all the feelings, all the circumstances.

When you go through the process of learning how to not binge, experiencing the full spectrum of life becomes what’s familiar. Binge eating becomes a thing of the past and because of what you’ve become accustomed to doing differently, you don’t need binge eating anymore.

I don’t need binge eating anymore because I’m willing to feel. I’m willing to get out there and risk negative emotions and I’m willing to fill my life with other pleasures that don’t cause me to feel badly after, I’m willing to put in effort to think about what I want to think about.

Bingeing doesn’t make my life easier, it makes it way harder. The suffering it causes me isn’t worth the pleasure at all and it doesn’t make my problems go away.

I face my problems and work through them and come out the other side.

It’s not always fun, doing work and putting in effort and managing my mind and allowing myself to feel isn’t always enjoyable or easy, but I do it because doing the easy, supposedly enjoyable thing of using food to soothe myself doesn’t cause my life to be as good as my life without it.

When you stop binge eating, you’re going to have to feel feelings, do other things, think about other things, and deal with problems. These are things you don’t know how to do yet and that’s okay. You’re going to learn as you go.

I imagine you thinking you’re going to be picked up today and dropped off on binge-free island with zero tools, zero skills, surrounded by food, and be expected to not binge. That’s not how it works.

You make the trek to that island acquiring those tools and skills along the way so when you get there you’re good to go. Then you get to live the binge-free island life and enjoy the crap out of it!

You get to enjoy your binge-free life because you know what to do. You’re equipped and ready to tackle whatever it was you were avoiding with your bingeing.

Right now, you need to believe in how much better your life will be when you stop binge eating. You need to think about how the negative stuff binge eating causes will be eliminated from your life and what amazingness will be brought in.

Let go of your fears of the unknown and get excited about who you’re going to become.

Get excited about what life is going to be like for you.

You won’t be left without options besides bingeing, the process will give you everything you need.

Plenty of people live their lives fully without binge eating, myself included. It’s possible for you too.

Know what you want and go for it. Don’t let your fears hold you back. You can create the exact life you want if you believe it’s possible and if you are willing to put in effort. Start there and you will learn all you need to learn along the way.

Imagine your binge-free life and get excited about it! Get excited about it everyday! Get excited about the person you’re going to become. She’s going to be amazing because you’re going to create her. I’m so excited for you right now. Go do it, go do it now! I’ll talk to you next time, when you’re just a little bit closer to making your binge-free life a reality. Bye bye!