Each time before you binge eat, you feel an urge to do it that makes you feel like you need to eat a lot of food, right now. That urge is the reason why you binge each time you do.
Sometimes that urge may come out of nowhere, or sometimes it may creep in while you’re emotionally eating.
I experienced both throughout my years of being a binge eater. Either I’d just be minding my own business and BAM! I want to binge. Or, I’d be eating because I was bored or nervous or whatever I was feeling and as I’d eat, I’d feel an urge to eat more and more until I felt out of control and that I couldn’t stop.
It all begins with that urging feeling, that compulsion to binge.
But before you actually eat, there’s a moment between feeling that urge and you eating whether you realize it or not.
It’s a moment when you think about what you’re going to do.
It could be as simple as, “I’m going to eat,” and then you go for it.
But more often than not, there is a thought battle. You think about eating, you think about not eating, then you think about eating some more, and then you do it.
This battle going on in your head is between the urge thoughts encouraging you to binge and your true self who doesn’t want to binge.
Too often, the urge wins.
The urge thoughts can be very convincing. They rationalize eating. They make it sound like it’s a good idea.
And you believe them.
Afterward, you realize it was all a lie, that it was not a good idea, and you regret the whole thing.
These realizations afterward are what need to be remembered in the moment when the urge is urging you.
Hindsight is 20/20 and it’s helpful to learn from it, but it’s even more helpful if you can make the foresight 20/20. By discerning what the consequences will be beforehand, you can make an informed decision about what you should do instead of letting the urge blind you with it’s persuasiveness.
Take what you’ve learned about your binges and write it all down. Have that handy for when the next urge strikes. Don’t rely on your memory, have something tangible to look at and read.
When that urge tells you that one binge doesn’t matter or that you will feel better if you binge, you can choose to not believe it and instead believe all that you’ve written.
Believe the truth.
Any thought saying that binge eating is a good idea, is not true.
Disagree with what the urge is saying. Talk with yourself. Talk yourself out of binge eating. You can do it. You have the power to decide what you do and don’t do. Don’t let your urges pressure you to do something you’ll later regret.
What kinds of things do your urges say to you? Comment below or shoot me an email at info@coachkir.com to share yours with me and we can talk about how untrue they really are.
