May 27

A recovery story

Categories:

addiction, binge eating, bulimia, college student, diets don't work, drugs and alcohol, eating disorder, emotions, recovery, self esteem, therapy

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I’ve been seeing *Emily in therapy for four years. She has written her recovery story and agreed to have it posted.

I actually remember the first time I binged and purged. I was in eighth grade and we were at Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents’ house. My grandma used to make these huge elaborate meals, with like 5 or 6 different pies and all sorts of mashed potatoes and stuffing. My cousin Jenny, who is a year older than me, was there. She was like, everyone’s princess.  Everyone was soooo excited because Jenny had  made the cheerleading squad at her high school and she was in the homecoming court. Up until that year, me and Jenny had always sat there during Thanksgiving and giggle and eat all the pies together. But this year, she barely paid attention to me.  She wore these tight  jeans and kept her portions small. She was like a real teenager.  My mother looked at her admirably and said she was so proud of how beautiful Jenny had become. She also said that it was smart to watch her figure now that she was no longer a little girl. My mom then looked at me and said nothing as I scarfed down my third piece of pie. I had never really thought about it before. I mean that’s what we did on Thanksgiving. We ate my Grandma’s pies. Even my Grandma turned against me. “Eat less pie Emily! Be more like Jenny. Look how thin and gorgeous she is now!”  I felt horrible. My own (not name brand) jeans were unbuttoned to make room for my swollen belly and I felt how greasy my hair and skin had become.  After dinner, I excused myself to the bathroom and I don’t know how or why, but I began searching through the medicine cabinet. That’s when I saw the chocolate ex-lax. I knew what they did and I knew that I could use them to get rid of the pie. I don’t know how I knew to use them. I guess I’d heard of it somewhere… and so I took three pills. I remember thinking that I should take more than it said on the back, but I didn’t want anyone to notice that they were gone.  The laxatives kicked in that night. I sat up all night running to the bathroom. And although my stomach felt ravaged and I was in terrible pain, after my bathroom  trips, I would step on the scale and see how much weight I’d lost. It was amazing to me that the pounds were just dropping off. And that’s how it started.  Later that week, I made myself throw up after eating a milkshake and onion rings from Burger King.

And that was my descent into the dark years of bingeing, purging, taking laxatives, and starving myself. I kept trying to be more like my cousin Jenny who showed up at Thanksgiving every year more and more beautiful, with perfect grades, the captain of cheerleading, with a football player boyfriend. And me, I became more and more isolated. I had put on a lot of weight and I wore all black, smoked cigarettes and had kept my hair dyed black and pierced everything I could. I didn’t really have a boyfriend, though I did sleep with a lot of boys, but no one wanted to get serious with me. I kidded myself into thinking that I didn’t care. But I was depressed. Really depressed. I used to cut myself on the arms and legs sometimes, just so that I could emote because I felt, I believed that I was completely alone. My grandparents seemed to tolerate me, but didn’t have a lot of interest or pride in me. And my mother sort of seemed disgusted by me. She knew about my activities with boys and told me that I had no self-respect.  Food was a lot of what comforted me. I would eat full pizzas on my own after school and wash them down with diet cokes. I’d go days eating nothing, just drinking coffee and diet coke and eating pixie sticks to keep me going. Then I’d collapse, cut school and go to the donut store and eat a dozen donuts in the parking lot, wash them down with diet coke and laxatives, then throw up in the bathroom of the gas station, and then drive around town buying food to binge on and find gas station bathrooms to purge in.  I just wanted to be normal. I wanted to be like my cousin Jenny. I wanted people to love me and I wanted to be beautiful and cared for. I thought that if I could get thin enough, I’d be okay. But my bingeing and purging  continued all through high school, and shockingly, I still was able to get good enough grades to get into college.

I stopped purging in college, but became addicted to diet pills, marijuana, and sometimes even cocaine to keep me from eating. I finally lost all the weight I wanted to, but my body was breaking down. I suffered three fractures by the second semester of my sophomore year. I realized then that I had to stop with my eating disorder. But I couldn’t. I had no idea how to eat normally. I tried to eat three meals a day, but it always ended with me bingeing. I managed to stop purging, but I was still bingeing and then restricting. I did manage to graduate from college, but my grades really weren’t very good. I barely went to class and when I did, I didn’t pay attention or get much out of my classes. I really wasted my mother’s money.

After college, I tried a variety of things to help me lose weight. I tried different diets, I tried nutritionists, I tried a 12 step group with a food plan. But all of those things made me just binge when I fell off my food plans or diets.  Eventually, I decided to start seeing a therapist. I knew I had an eating disorder and was ready for help. It was really hard at first because I felt like my therapist just couldn’t help me with the thing I most needed help with– I wanted to lose weight, I wanted to stop bingeing. I told her to just tell me what to do and fix me. She gave me lots of assignments, many of them were about eating 3 meals a day, whatever I wanted, but I had to eat mindfully. She sent me to a nutritionist who specialized in treating eating disorders, and she also recommended that I see a psychiatrist to help me get some meds that might help with my depression.  I spent a lot of money. A serious amount of money between all those specialists. But I was desperate. 

Talking to my therapist really felt like a relief. We talked through a lot of the pain, depression, and through a lot of my childhood.  I realized that a lot of my eating disorder wasn’t about the food and it wasn’t about me getting thin. It was about me feeling really badly about myself. My Dad left my Mom and I when I was 5 years old, and I always thought it was my fault. The more I began to understand how I felt completely flawed my whole life, the more I understand that it was a myth– a story that I told myself. And that through that myth that I had conceptualized in my 5 year old mind, I began to act the way I believed I was. I tried desperately to get love and attention from men, but ultimately, I felt so worthless, that I let them treat me like crap– letting them have sex with me then ignore me the next day. My mother said I had no self respect, and she was right. But she never taught me how to respect myself. She never quite let me think I was worthy of love and admiration. I wasn’t any less smart or less beautiful than Jenny, I just believed I was. She had a mother and a father at home. I had no Dad and a Mom who was angry and felt rejected and resentful. She came into therapy with me several times as we discussed her own feelings of being worthless after my Dad left her for a much younger woman.   As I began to understand my own sense of worth, I started to try and take better care of myself. I learned to sit with my feelings, I learned to HOLD myself with respect. That was huge. I didn’t have to be super witty, nor did I have to do everything for everybody to make them like me. I didn’t have to be anything. I just had to respect myself. And so as I did, my eating disorder began to have less of a hold on me. As I talked through all those things, I realized that the drive to be thin was really just a drive to be accepted. So I learned to accept myself. It has been really hard for me to accept all those lost years, it’s like my whole teen years and most of my 20s were stolen by my eating disorder. But in learning to accept, I’m just trying to respectfully mourn those lost years.

I’ve been 100% free from any eating disorder behaviors since September 18th, 2010. That was the day before my 28th birthday. I am not afraid of Ed any longer. I know that I have the tools to work through whatever life should hand me. And if I do relapse, I know that I can’t lose the recovery that I have. 

*Name has been changed.

If you have a recovery story that you would like to be published, please send it to bingeeatingtherapy (at) gmail.com

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May 18

Sleep, Food, & Mood.

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night eating, night eating syndrome

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Do you ever do that thing, where it’s the night, but you’re somehow afraid to go to sleep? You’re kind of dreading it? You get up and go to the refrigerator, sit on the couch with your computer in your lap, looking at facebook, watching television, half-heartedly reading blogs, half-heartedly watching television, and eventually,  you’ve gotten up and eaten a bunch of food that you weren’t hungry for and your body didn’t need, and it’s past 2am, and you’re so exhausted that you just kind of stumble into bed with a full, uncomfortable belly, feeling like crap. Do you do some kind of variation on it?

Sleep, food, and mood go together. When your sleep is off, your food is off, when your sleep and food are off, your mood is off. When your mood is off, your sleep and food are usually off.

One of the ways to begin to bring your life back to healthy is to start with your sleep.    Go out and buy a nice, comfortable set of sheets and a new comforter and lots of fluffy pillows. Make your bed someplace that is inviting and luxurious. If you can’t afford new sheets right now, wash your current sheets and bedding and fluff it up, spray it with some lavender and try to give it a little bit of new life. At night, an hour before you think you should go to sleep, get into bed. Let’s say you want to be asleep at 11, get into bed at 10. Don’t turn your TV on, don’t bring your computer into bed with you. Bring a book, or a magazine, or your iPod. Listen to some relaxing music with your eyes closed or listen to a guided visualization, and just begin to let yourself relax. This isn’t about sleep, this is about relaxing your body. Sleep is a natural biological process that your body can do once you begin to relax your body and your mind. You might also want to get into the bath about 90 minutes before you want to be asleep. A hot bath with Epson Salts is a great way to relax your muscles and calm your mind and warm your body up for sleep. Try to think of a nice bedtime routine that you can do every night that will help you fall into a restful sleep. You might draw for 1/2 hour before you get into bed, you might bathe, you might write in your journal, but find something that works for you and do it nightly.

If you find that sleep is impossible, there are lots of natural sleep solutions like herbal sleep aids out there such as valerian, chamomile and skullcap as well as amino acids like 5-HTP and L-Tryptophan or a synthetic hormone of melatonin that you can ask your doctor or Naturopath about for help with sleep. There are also over the counter solutions as well as prescription solutions that your doctor can help you sort through. There’s no shame in finding something to help you sleep. Being sleep deprived leads to poor decision making, especially around food choices. It also leaves you looking for more energy and many people use caffeine and sugar to achieve this.

Think about the Gestalt of it, you need a healthy body, mind, and spirit. You can’t have one without the other. Even if you find that you’re just not able to get your food on track, just start with your sleep. You will find, that once your sleep is better, that it will be much easier to deal with food.

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May 17

Go Vogue!

Categories:

body image, eating disorder, fashion industry

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Did you hear? Did you hear? Vogue Magazine has decided to become ” ambassadors for the message of healthy body image.” And in that, according to the NY Times they have decided not to have any models in their magazine who are under the age of 16, nor any models who “appear to have an eating disorder.” I’m not sure what that means, but I’m assuming it means painfully thin models.  The new policy which has been enacted as of May 3 and thus, beginning their June issue, the following doctrine will be upheld:

“1. We will not knowingly work with models under the age of 16 or who appear to have an eating disorder. We will work with models who, in our view, are healthy and help to promote a healthy body image.

“2. We will ask agents not to knowingly send us underage girls and casting directors to check IDs when casting shoots, shows and campaigns.

“3. We will help to structure mentoring programs where more mature models are able to give advice and guidance to younger girls, and we will help to raise industry-wide awareness through education, as has been integral to the Council of Fashion Designers of America Health Initiative.

“4. We will encourage producers to create healthy backstage working conditions, including healthy food options and a respect for privacy. We will encourage casting agents not to keep models unreasonably late.

“5. We encourage designers to consider the consequences of unrealistically small sample sizes of their clothing, which limits the range of women who can be photographed in their clothes, and encourages the use of extremely thin models.

“6. We will be ambassadors for the message of healthy body image.”

 

The fashion industry is still not perfect, or even close to it, but I’m very happy to see that they are trying to take care of their own models by offering healthy food, emotional support, and by acknowledging the eating disorder issue. Now, obviously we cannot SEE if someone has an eating disorder. Most people with eating disorders don’t APPEAR to have eating disorders– they are secret, not obvious to most people. However, this is a good first step and I’m proud of Vogue for taking a stand on health. In 2006, the runways in Spain and Italy banned models with very low BMI’s from being on the catwalk and also banned ridiculously thin mannequins from being put in shop windows in order to disempower the perception that a very skinny physique is fashionable.  Hopefully this trend continues.

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May 04

Don’t do a lot. Do a little.

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addiction, binge eating, eating disorder

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I have this client. This smart, beautiful, funny, compassionate, wonderful client who has been suffering with food issues for a very, very long time. Once every few months, she has a plan. She’s going to cut out sugar, she’s going to do yoga 3 times a week, she’s going to meditate daily, she’s going to go to the gym after work each day.  But in the next session, the one after she comes in and tells me these things, she admits that she’s not done anything different.

She’s not uncommon. Not even a little bit.  Do you ever do this? Do you decide that you’re going to do a total 180? That you’re going to stop eating sugar, that you’re going to exercise every day, that you’re going to keep your house spotless, that you’re never going to drink alcohol again, that you’ll never smoke another cigarette, that you’ll take your vitamins daily, that you’re going to take your eye makeup off every night and start a perfect skin care regimen, that you’re going to stop biting your nails, and you’ll never snap at your mother/father/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/children, that you’re going to read the Sunday Times cover to cover every week,  that you’re going to stop overspending, that you’re never ever going to binge again, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Fill in the blank.

It’s too much. You set yourself up for failure this way. Choose one small thing and do it for one month. Then, add something else. For instance, if you want to get into yoga, decide that you’re going to do one yoga class a week for 30 days. Then, after the 30 days, move onto 2 yoga classes a week. Then, after those 30 days are over, try for one sugar free day per week, then try for two sugar free days per week.  Decide to floss your teeth every other night for a month, then move to every night, then add in a skincare regimen every other night, then every night.  Just let yourself transform slowly. It’s easier and more sustainable.

Doing a little will set you up for success rather than failure. And you can become what you want to become. Slow is what makes things stick. When you do everything at once, chances are, things will return to the way they were.

What is one little thing that you can do for the next 30 days? I guarantee that doing one little thing will help you feel a lot different.

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May 02

How To Lose 5 pounds In 2 Days

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binge eating, eating disorder

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ahhh I wish I could stop this damn dietStop dieting. It’s that simple. You might not lose the five pounds off your body, but you’ll definitely get it off your mind. And if you really stop dieting, and that in turn helps you to stop bingeing, your body might just settle into it’s normal weight, which might or might not be five pounds less.  I call it the 5 pound paradox.

One of my clients and I were discussing the other day how everything she’s done to her body over the past 25 years, all the diets, all the exercise, the thousands of miles she’s run, the millions of crunches she’s done, the bags of cookies she’s eaten, the loaves of bread and boxes of candy she’s binged on, the carbs she’s rejected, the low-fat diets she’s been on, the shakes she’s drank, the detox diets she’s done, the diet books she’s read, the leg lifts, the pilates classes, the workout videos, the coconut oil she’s eaten, the kombucha she’s drank, the South Beach, the Weight Watchers, the Atkins, the Dukan, the Ex-Lax, the stress, the anxiety, the not leaving the house on “fat days”,  the depression, all of it… it’s all basically been for something like five pounds either up or down.  Let’s say she teeters between 130-140 pounds but hovers around 135. She hates herself at 140, likes herself better at 130 and struggles at 135, where she probably most naturally falls. And she has been at this weight since she was about 16 years old.  And for all these years, she’s been trying to get down to around 125 pounds. Can you imagine how many pounds she’s lost and gained in the past 25 years? And the thing is, she really keeps coming back to the equilibrium of 135 pounds. Sometimes she’s 5 pounds up. Sometimes she’s 5 pounds down. But she’s never happy. And she’s been fighting with those pounds for 25 years. Can you imagine? And for many people it’s their whole lives. They strive to be a weight that their body just doesn’t want to be. They struggle with diets, they struggle with food and with exercise.

People spend so, so, so much time trying to lose weight, and all that work, all those years, for many it’s just for a few pounds.  They’ve run 100 marathons, gone on a million diets, eaten 10 billion oreo cookies, and yet… their bodies aren’t all that different.  Wouldn’t… acceptance be easier? Maybe, but maybe not. If you didn’t have your weight to obsess on all the time, what else would you be thinking about and doing?

What if you took the next two days and made a decision. No diets. No bingeing. Just for two days:  “I’m going to eat three solid meals per day. Whatever looks good. Whatever I want. No over the top thinking about it.  Just giving my body what it wants three times both days.”  After those two days, reassess. What is it like not to diet? What is it like not to obsess? Can you handle it for another day? Are you ready to let go of control? If not, that’s okay. But just give yourself two days. No weighing yourself, no measuring. This isn’t a free-for-all binge. This is, “pretend I’m a normal eater.” Think of the most normal eater you know. Your friend who eats three meals a day, orders what she or he wants without remorse, regret or overthinking it,  Eats till she or he’s not hungry any longer, then stops.  Try to embody that attitude for a two day experiment and just see how it goes for you. You might be surprised and you might feel liberated.

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Apr 26

Play in the Dirt for Good Mental Health

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binge eating, Stress Eating

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I grew up in New York City and still live in a big city, so I start this post with a disclaimer that this is not something that I have personal experience with. However, I have heard many of my clients discuss how much they enjoy gardening and how meditative and wonderful it is.  Today I came across this article which explains how a certain bacteria called Mycobacterium, which occurs naturally in soil, has the same effect on your brain as anti-depressant medications.

It makes sense!  A lot of city dwellers tend to find peace and refuge out in nature. Gardening is something that can also help you to bond with food in a healthy way, watching it grow in its purest state in small batches rather than buying or consuming it in large batches.

If you have the ability to garden, I say go for it, if not, why not get out and play in the dirt? Might be something to do  to pass the time and help you to find some peace instead of binge eating.

 

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Apr 23

Wedding Weight Loss, Eating Disorders, Self Harm, and Those Who Encourage It

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eating disorder

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A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times posted an article about brides going to extremes to lose weight before their weddings. One doctor charges healthy women $1500 to insert a  feeding tubes in their noses for ten days so that they can   receive nutrition while they starve themselves to knock off a few pounds in time for the big day. How is it that it has become socially acceptable for a doctor to support self mutilation and eating disorder?

Of course we want to look pretty on our wedding days. But at the expense of our health? Are we willing to pay someone to monitor and encourage our eating disorder? Sadly  I can’t say that I’m particularly surprised by this.  People have been profiting off of other people’s desperation since the beginning of time.  But a doctor? This is what’s so outrageous here. What has happened to our ethical standards?  As a medical professional, how is it that this person not only supports, but encourages these self harming behaviors?  Is this doctor blatantly ignoring the Hippocratic Oath because doing so is lucrative?

There’s a lesson here about being discriminating and understanding that just because a doctor (or any professional) is willing to support the disordered part of you, doesn’t mean that it’s okay.   There will always be someone who exists who will exploit the parts of you that will exploit you, which is why you need to engage (often) with your wise mind, the part of you that knows right from wrong, the part of you that knows the best way to care for yourself.

So, that’s the bad news. But not everyone is trying to profit off of your dark side.  Instagram, Tumblr, and Pinterest have all banned self harm sites.  Way to go.

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Apr 14

How an apple a day can help you let go of binge eating

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binge eating

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The Huffington Post recently had an interesting article by Kathy Freston author of  The Lean about how eating apples can help people lose weight.  I wrote a post similar to this  a few years ago adding something rather than subtracting foods.  According to Ms. Freston, because apples have a fiber called pectin, which is used to bulk up jams and gelatinous foods, once it gets into your stomach,  you will begin to feel more satisfied due to that same filling mechanism, and in a study published in Nutrition, scientists found that  participants who ate  an apple or a pear before meals lost a significant amount of weight.

It’s an interesting study because it goes back to how giving yourself more, more healthy food, more self love, more self care, more good stuff, you will naturally become more healthy. Depriving and restricting leads to deprivation and lots of emotional pain and turmoil. Because it’s so challenging, and because your body wants to be fed, you will be working against yourself. When you work against resistance, you are bound to get slammed.

So, try, just for one day, rather than giving yourself less, to give yourself more good stuff. More kind words, more fresh air, more apples, and more kindness.

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Apr 12

Friday Q & A – I’m out of control with food and I feel helpless

Categories:

binge eating, intuitve eating, mindful eating, Q & A Fridays, scientific study

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Why can't i just get back on my diet?

This question comes to us from Aubrey in Missouri.

Question:

On July 19th this last year (two years after my brother’s car accident that left him with a traumatic brain injury) I decided that I was going to change my life. I was 206 pounds, a *tight* size 15, and completely unhappy with my body. My goal weight was 140 pounds and I couldn’t wait to get started. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I have a rare condition called Exercise Induced Anaphylaxis. The condition makes it nearly impossible for me to exercise since I have it so badly. Whenever I get too hot or exercise enough to get hot I begin to go into anaphylactic shock (my throat and face swell, my skin gets red, and I struggle to breathe). Obviously, I knew that working out probably wasn’t the best choice for me, but I continued to stay on my 1500 calories a day diet. 

Eating healthy wasn’t always easy, but I stuck with it. Finally, I got down to 158 and a comfortable size 11. I was extremely proud of myself and my confidence levels were higher than ever! It was then that things started to get tough for me in my personal life, so I decided that I would take 5 days off of my diet. I continued to eat fairly healthy (outside of my one meal from Mcdonald’s). Although, I have to admit that I was eating an excessive amount of food, even if it was healthier food. Once I got back onto my diet things were so much harder. Suddenly I found myself going back into my old binging habits. I would eat only 1000 calories a day for a week, then I would fall off the wagon and eat 10,000 calories in a day. Now, I’m trying to control it, but it feels like the monster is out of it’s cage. I haven’t lost weight for months, and I’m back up to 170 pounds. 
I feel helpless. The worse I feel, the worse I feel the need to binge. The cycle has started again and I don’t know how to stop it. I want to get back on track and lose more weight, but it feels like I can’t. It was so difficult for me to get this far, and now I feel like I’m just going backwards. I don’t want to struggle with my disorder like I used to. I just want to be beautiful and healthy.

Answer:
Hi Aubrey. First off, I want to say that I’m very, very sorry to hear about your brother’s accident. What a horribly tragedy. I’m sure that watching him go through this has been incredibly difficult for you and for your family on many different levels.  I do hope that you’re getting support for this.
First off, try to take a breath and calm down a bit. You lost almost 50 pounds, and you’ve only put 12 back on. This is salvageable and you don’t have to go back to where you were.
Sometimes, in an effort to “catch up,” or compensate for a binge, people will do things like reduce calories dramatically. Like you say that some weeks you only eat 1000 calories per day. That’s not sustainable. It’s not healthy and it will lead to one of two things– anorexia and loss of menstruation and eventual organ failure, or binge eating. Binge eating is usually the more common of the two because bodies will do what they can to survive.
In 1944, the University of Minnesota conducted a study  called the Minnesota Starvation Experiment which was done to learn about the effects of starvation and how to rehab those who were victims. For that they created a controlled famine.
Here’s the gist of it:
For 3 months, each participant was give 3,200 calories per day — which helped them to achieve or maintain their ideal weight.
For the next 6 months, each participant was given on average 1560 calories per day– which was considered semi-starvation. This amount of calories caused severe weight loss in people who were at their ideal weights. The idea was to induce people at their ideal weight lose 25% of their weight. So a 175 pound man would go down to 130 pounds. Pretty extreme.
For the next 3 months, each participant was given a controlled amount of calories to help them heal from their 6 months of starvation.
For the next 2 months, each participant was given the ability to eat whatever they wanted in unrestricted and uncontrolled amounts. Which resulted in bingeing and a preoccupation with food.
The results of the experiment showed that the participants experienced food obsession, binge eating,  severe depression, and there was even self-harm when one of the participants  amputated three fingers of his hand with an axe.  Sexual interest was drastically reduced, and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation They also  reported a decline in concentration, comprehension and judgment capabilities.
So, why do I share this? Because I think that this mirrors your process in some ways. You went on a strict 1500 calorie per day diet and lost approximately 25% of your weight on it. You then went off of it and when you tried to go back, you became preoccupied with food.
So, that doesn’t mean that this is hopeless. Your ability to eat healthy is definitely intact.
Right now, in this very moment, make a decision to stop looking back right now and begin to look forward. Don’t try to make up for the weight that you’ve put back on, this will put you on a horrible roller coaster (like the 1000 calories per day some days and 10,000 calories per day on others.)
1.Stop counting calories.  When you do, you put unrealistic constraints on yourself. If you decide to eat 1500 calories per day, and then you accidentally eat 1800 that day, you might find that your mind decides that you “ruined” it and that you wind up eating another 3000-5000 calories.
2.Decide that you are going to begin to love and respect your body and give it what it needs. Give yourself a variety of fruits, vegetable, grains, meats, dairy, whatever it is that your individual body needs.
3.Practice Intuitive eating- give your body the foods that it needs to run efficiently.
4.If you find that you would prefer to continue counting, I say to use a hunger and satiety scale.
        -Decide that you will eat 3 meals per day and snacks if you need them.
        -Rate your hunger on a scale from 1-10-. 1 being so hungry you could pass out,  5 being totally neutral and 10 being so full you    could throw up.
        -Don’t ever let yourself get so hungry that you’re under a 3- try to eat at a 3-4.
        -Before you eat, check in with yourself and see how hungry you are. Write that number down in a journal.
        -Try to eat slowly. Very slowly. In the middle of the meal, stop, put your fork down and see what number you are at. If you are at a 5 or below, continue to eat slowly, checking in with yourself at every few bites. Once you get to 6 (satisfied) put your fork down and be done with your meal. Write down what number you ended at for that meal.
         -Check in with yourself several times during the day to see where your hunger is.
         -Rather than counting calories, your goal is to eat at a 3-4 and stop at 6-7.  You want to eat slowly and give your body what it needs.
         -A guided meditation for mindful eating might be helpful as well.

5. As for exercise, you need to discuss appropriate ways to exercise with an exercise physiologist, an allergist, or sports medicine doctor. You might be able to do gentle things such as long, slow walks, or isometric exercises to help you tone up. Hard core cardio is obviously dangerous for you.
6.Get support. Don’t do this alone. Food issues and eating disorders thrive in isolation. Find a group of women who are learning how to let go of pejorative eating rituals (such as extreme calorie counting) and who want to learn to eat mindfully, intuitively and healthily together.
I hope that this answers your question and you’ve found this helpful.
Warmly,
Leora
Do you have a question about binge eating, bulimia, anorexia, or anything associated with eating disorders? Send an email to bingeeatingtherapy  at gmail dot com. All questions will be kept confidential. Include your first name or the name you want to be referred to as and your location.

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Mar 29

Friday Q & A – I binge at night – Help!

Categories:

night eating, night eating syndrome, Q & A Fridays

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This question, from Alex was submitted through the comments section in response to a question about binge eating at night. 

Question:

I do have this same problem. I actually use to weigh 280 pounds with a size 48 waist. Then I started taking MMA (mixed martial arts) and got my diet and weight lifting down to a science with one of my great friends who is also a nutritionist. I dieted and worked out perfectly for about 2 years. I ended up getting down to 178 pounds and had a 32 size waist, abs and all. I loved it and i was so happy. Then I tried to take a break from the dieting part but still continued to exercise. I didn’t even diet that poorly and about 3 months or so later I weighed 212 pounds! So i hit the dieting again hard and got back down to where I am at now, about 180 pounds and 32 waist again. But now, its way harder for me to stick to my diet at night. I eat literally only turkey and vegetables all day every 3 hours and keep my calories under control, low carbs, and very high protein. I feel great all day and not lacking any energy even though my workouts take about 4 hours out of my day and they are high intense (lifting plus still taking MMA) But I CANT SLEEP UNLESS I EAT SOMETHING. not just anything, it has to be sweet and completely bad for me. Also anytime through the night I am up and eating or I will literally just lay there and toss and turn. I wake up in the morning feeling like crap. This is EVERY night and easily at least 1000 calories worth of junk throughout the night. I still do have calorie difference though. But working out 4 or 5 hours a day for such small losses of weight is killing me and I know its because of my night eating. It is definitely holding me back and I could really use some help on my problem. PLEASE!

Answer:

Alex, do see the post below this, I can’t stop eating carbs.  Your situation is so similar to this one. You once lost a whole lot of weight using a very low carbohydrate diet, and now you keep trying to get back on it.  There was an experiment some years ago, with rats. I don’t have a link to the study, but the gist of it was: They gave the rats a shock along with a piece of cheese. Then, after a few days, they gave the rats a shock without the cheese. The rats continued to go back for the cheese, but only got the shock. They never received the cheese again, but continued to risk the shock because of the memory of something they once had.   Now this behavior is incredibly human. People get something once or inconsistently and then spend the rest of their lives trying to get it back. This is where addiction models begin, and not just to a substance, but to a feeling, a process, an outcome, a person… It happens a lot with people. Someone treats someone horribly most of the time, but really wonderfully once in a while. The person clings to the once in a while and continues to go back for the possibility of being treated well.  An extremely low carb or restrictive diet is like an abusive relationship with an inconsistent person. There’s a honeymoon period with it. It works incredibly well at first, then you find that you’re never able to recreate those first results. Yet, you keep going back to it because you remember that time when you were able to lose all that weight. You think, “I am at fault here, if only I were able to eat just turkey and spinach and nothing else, I’d be where I wanted to be, I’m going to do it. I’m going to start tomorrow…”

But if you are exercising 4-5 hours a day, your body needs complex carbohydrates. It will be so hard to sleep at night unless you give yourself those carbs, but because your body is starving for them, you wind up bingeing on them. Your body is otherwise eating itself. You say that you are working out more to compensate for more food. But if you worked out less, you would need less food. This cycle seems so hard. Is it challenging to find time outside of your workouts or space inside of your mind that aren’t thoughts about food or resisting food?

You don’t need to binge on carbs every night, and you don’t certainly don’t need to start eating a high carbohydrate low protein diet. It’s not an either or prospect. However, you could be integrating lots more whole carbohydrates into your day. Turkey and vegetables won’t swing it in the long term, and you’ll probably continue to binge. I know that you did it for two years, but your body probably doesn’t want to go back there which is why you find yourself up at night eating.  You might find that you’re able to go back for a week or even a month, but your body will keep on coming back to bingeing as a way to compensate for the lack of calories and carbohydrates. A way to integrate good for your foods is to be having things like sweet potatoes, yams, fruit (lots of fruit), and starchy vegetables during the day. You need to balance your diet out. More carbohydrates during the day means less carbohydrates at night. And, as I said below, no one ever got fat by eating a yam. Or even a baked potato.

1.)Integrate whole carbohydrates during the day. If you are worried about processed foods, shop in the produce aisle. You can have plenty of foods that will help rebuild your body. Think yams, potatoes, mangoes, apples, bananas, peaches, apricots, nuts, beans.

2.)Try to wind down at night. There are things that you can do, such as meditate or take a bath that will calm your body down enough to help you get to sleep. You might want to try a guided visualization to keep you on your game with food.  You might also do something like soak in Epson Salt bath to relax both body and mind.

3.)Stop weighing and measuring yourself and use your milestones with MMA to monitor your progress.

4.)Try to work out less. Unless you are training professionally and have a staff to help take care of your body (physical therapist, sports med doctor, etc.) you might be overdoing it and your body will be begging for more fuel.

5.)Be kind to yourself. It sounds like you’re really harsh with yourself, and at night, when you’re tired and your defenses are down, that part of you that is like a Drill Sergeant, so disciplined and constantly self flagellating, is not on his game, so the part of you that needs to be taken care of and to be treated kindly sneaks out and binges. Try to create some moderation and evenness. Bring more levity and fun into your life. Do things that are fun but meaningless in the long term (like reading a mindless book or magazine). Integrate some kindness and some breaks for yourself into your day. I understand that you love MMA and have been really enjoying your new lifestyle, but I’d encourage you to do other fun things and allow yourself to enjoy your life! Bringing a bit of joy can really reduce stress and just make you overall happier and lighter.

I do hope that this has answered your question a bit and you’ve found this helpful.

 

Do you have a question about binge eating, bulimia, anorexia, or anything associated with eating disorders? Send an email to bingeeatingtherapy  at gmail dot com. All questions will be kept confidential. Include your first name or the name you want to be referred to as and your location.

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