Continue reading »]]> Question: I’m 34 years old and have been suffering with bulimia on and off  since I was 18 years old.  I’ve been married for the past 7 years and we have two kids, my husband doesn’t know that I binge and purge. I am really good at hiding the evidence. I can go weeks sometimes months, and in one case over a year without bingeing and purging. I’m afraid that if my husband knew he would look at me differently, and I don’t want him watching over me or monitoring me. At the same time, I feel like I’m living a double life and I hate it. I’m miserable and I feel like a liar. What should I do?     -D

Answer: Hi D, I’m sorry that you’re struggling so much.  I understand what a challenging position you are in. There’s a lot at stake here, by telling your husband you might potentially:

1.)Change the image that he has of you.

2.)Leave him to feel betrayed and depressed.

3.)Have to give up your eating disorder because he will know.

These are all valid points, but, in my opinion, not enough to warrant keeping this secret. First off, if you are in a loving, sharing relationship, you are there to support each other. Ideally your husband will to help you through your recovery process. We all enter marriages in sickness and in health and allowing him to support you is important not just for your recovery but for the long term health of your relationship. Many people want to try to recover by themselves without telling their partners, however, eating disorders thrive in isolation. By keeping them secret, you keep the fire going that continues to ignite the eating disorder. Think about some of the reasons that you don’t want to tell him. Perhaps you are afraid that by telling him, you will no longer be able to hold onto your eating disorder any longer. Perhaps you are afraid of the way he will act around you or that he will monitor your food intake.  You might want to bring him into couples counseling with an eating disorder specialist to help you explain to him what’s going on. He might have the instinct to fix it.  It’s your responsibility to let him know that it’s not his issue to fix, but to tell him what you do need.  Getting this secret out will help you to feel less anxious and stressed out about it. Often, partners do know that something is going on and the longer it goes on, the more it can drive a wedge between the two of you.

If you don’t have faith that your relationship is loving and supportive and you don’t believe that it would survive this disclosure, I would definitely recommend couples counseling.

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.

Continue reading »]]> What even is patience? We spend so much time quoting the virtues of patience, yet most of us find ourselves extremely impatient.

According to wikipedia, patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, and is studied as a decision making problem, involving the choice of either a small reward in the short term, or a more valuable reward in the long term. When given a choice, all animals, humans included, are inclined to favour short term rewards over long term rewards. This is despite the often greater benefits associated with long term rewards.

No wonder it’s so difficult to avoid compulsive behaviors when we are evolutionarily inclined to choose instant gratification over long term happiness.

But how much better would our lives be if we were all patient? Compulsivity is mixed with this primal fear of “I’ll never have this opportunity again. It’s now or never…”  Which is why so many people fall prey to compulsive spending, compulsive eating, compulsive sexual behavior, get rick quick schemes and all sorts of compulsivity. This is a very  animal behavior.  Patience is a learned, newer, evolved behavior that is not instinctual.

Of course patience (or lack of) and eating disorders go hand in hand. For compulsive dieters who alternately restrict and binge,  there is the inherent fear that we only have that one single opportunity to have that ice cream sundae, because come Monday, we can never have anything like that again. And on the flip side of it, comes dieting. The belief is that we need to be thin immediately, so if we do something drastic, like cut out all carbohydrates for 2 weeks, we will lose a dramatic amount of weight in a very short period of time. This is rather than taking time to get to know your body, understand what it needs and cultivate mindful eating and intuitive eating and healthy exercise.  This takes patience.

So as animals, if patience is not instinctual,  how do we cultivate patience?

1.) Patience is a learned trait, so first off, tell yourself that you are going to be patient with this learning process. It’s not going to come instantly. So every time you lose your patience, forgive yourself and accept that you are working against human instinct.

2.)Decide what patience means to you. How are you choosing to be patient? What does that pertain to? What kind of patience do you want more of in your life?

3.)Try some patience exercises. My favorite is washing dishes. Rather than loading up your dishwasher (if you have one) make a plan to wash your dishes slowly and mindfully. As you do, allow yourself to actually savor the experience of washing the dishes. Feel the warm water on your hands, enjoy the satisfying feeling of completion as each dish is cleaned, try to enjoy the time as it passes. Listen to music, breath, let yourself relax into the chore rather than waiting for it to be done. When you begin to allow yourself to melt into your world in the present and enjoy your time moment-by-moment, you are learning patience. The opposite of patience is trying to quickly reach the end.

4.)REMEMBER TO BREATHE! When you are feeling impatient (either standing online or waiting in traffic, or running late or wanting to exercise or eat compulsively) take a break and turn inward and just breathe. Bring yourself into the present and get away from the future.

5.)When it comes to food and weight, remind yourself of all the diets you have tried and where it’s brought you and all the time that you’ve wasted. Take it day-by-day  and even moment-by-moment (rather than  saying something like “i’m cutting out all fat, sugar, and wheat for the next 30 days”) and each day make an intention about finding health and well-being. And if for some reason you find that you’ve had a slip, forgive yourself and move on to the next moment. Each moment in your life gives you an opportunity  to choose the behavior that you want.

6.)Keep the big picture in mind. Remember that the opposite of patience is impatience and compulsive behavior. When you find yourself ready to act out compulsively, slow down and think about what is really important to you. For instance, if you all of a sudden find yourself wanting to return a text message but you’re driving, either pull over to do it, or wait. The safety of yourself and others around you is more important than reading or returning a text.

7.)Figure out what people and what situations trigger your impatience or compulsive behavior. Try to make it a game. Practice patience around these people or situations.

8.)Visualize the future the way you want it to look and then just let it go. Know that you can have the life that you want but not instantly, that the journey is important as well.

9.)Laugh a lot. Especially when things aren’t going as planned. Having a sense of humor about yourself, life, the world around you can help you to relax into it. Life is too serious to be taken too seriously.

10.)Let go of the impatience and anxiety in your body. When you are feeling tense and impatient, notice where you hold it in your body. Breath into those tight spots and try to let them loosen up.

11.)Eat something delicious very, very, very slowly. Take a half hour to sit and eat this thing that you love. Don’t scarf it down, let yourself savor it, taste it, feel it. Engage all your senses. When you are finished, don’t immediately grab more. Know that you can have more at a later time or another day.

Continue reading »]]> Download Hypnosis  for Binge Eating

As a therapist who also utilizes hypnotherapy in my practice, I often receive phone calls for people wanting hypnotherapy to help cure their binge eating.

Many people want long term Psychotherapy to understand and heal the family dynamics and past wounds that contributed to self esteem issues, binge eating issues, or eating disorder issues. I find this kind of work to be very valuable and I do encourage anyone who is grappling with an eating disorder to try and do weekly depth psychotherapy.

Hypnosis and meditation can be a wonderful complement to any recovery program. It is relaxing, peaceful, calming and effective in helping you reach your recovery goals.  Many people find a single hypnotherapy session to be incredibly helpful. They often leave a session feeling  refreshed, relaxed, and feeling more in control of their behaviors.  Even though I’ve been doing hypnotherapy since 1999, I’m still always impressed by how much better people feel when they leave my office after a hypnotherapy session.

Because I’ve seen it help so many people, I want to make it more accessible. I’ve decided to run through what a hypnotherapy session would look like and offer an MP3 of hypnosis for binge eating on this blog.

Okay, so if you were to come into my office for a hypnotherapy session, the first thing I would ask you is to tell me what your binge eating looks like. So, for instance, answer these questions:

1.)When do your binges occur? What time of day?

2.)How often do you binge?

3.)What do you binge on? (List your binge foods)

4.)Are there certain situations that cause you to binge? (You might figure this out as you go along)

These questions are used to help you bring awareness to your binge eating. So, as we establish patterns, you can begin to think about how to break those patterns. For instance, if you notice that you binge each night after work, create a list of alternatives that you can do each night instead of binge eating. Some people like to go to a cafe and work on their computer, catch up with their emails, or talk to friends, some people take walks, or go to the gym, some people opt to go home, but choose not to have binge food in the house and instead use the time for just relaxing in a hot bath. This post gives some alternatives.  Binge eating often occurs as an unconscious response, almost a Pavlovian response. So if you can bring some awareness to it (knowing that the end of the work day = binge eating) you will have the foresight to create some consciousness. This way you have more of a choice as to whether or not you want to binge. Often it feels as though you don’t have a choice. It’s just an unconscious response. Bringing awareness will create a choice for you.

Knowing what foods you binge on is helpful as well. I’ve had many, many people come in and say, “I’ve thought about just getting rid of all the peanut butter and cereal in my house because I binge on it, but I realized that it’s unhealthy to do that, lots of people have those things in their house and don’t binge on them, I can learn to do that. “  To that I respond, “No. Don’t keep binge foods in your house right now. Don’t compare yourself to others. It’s about keeping you safe.”  If you were a recovering alcoholic would you keep vodka in your house because other people can drink vodka? If you were a recovering cocaine addict would you keep cocaine in the house?  Of course not.  Don’t compare yourself to others. If there are foods that you binge on, don’t keep them in the house. It’s not fair to you. If there are other people in the house who want them in there, negotiate with them to either keep the food out of the house or put it in a place like high up in a cabinet that you cannot reach, so you’d have to think about it (bring consciousness) to it  before eating it, or you can get a lock for the cabinet that your binge foods are in. This is all okay. It’s important to keep yourself safe. This isn’t for always, this is just for now as you decrease and heal from your binge eating.

There might be certain situations that cause you to binge eat, for instance, visiting your parents, or talking to your boss, or seeing a certain friend put an update of Facebook— think about your binge triggers. Beginning to find connections about what causes you to binge eat rather than just trying to have the willpower not to binge eat will make this journey easier. So, if you know in advance that certain people on Facebook trigger your symptoms–  hide those people. If you know that going to your parents’ house triggers a binge, line up a group of people to call before you go, and after you come back. In 12-steps, this is known as “book-ending.” You talk to someone before you go to your parents’ house and tell them that it’s your intention not to binge while you’re there or after you come back. You call them on your way home from your parents’ house to tell them your intention and ways that you plan on taking care of yourself without food after you come home. If you need extra support while you’re at your parents’ house, you can always call the support person/people that you’ve lined up ahead of time.  If you know that talking to your boss sends you right to the vending machines, either walk outside your office building to go for a walk, or head to the phone to talk to a support person and decompress from your meeting with your boss.

It’s about knowing what your triggers are and making plans ahead of time to not let these triggers bring you to a bad place.

Binge eating can be such an unconscious behavior. What we are trying to do here is make it conscious. Many people say that they feel as though they don’t have a choice in the matter, they just wind up “waking up” in the middle of a binge, almost unsure as to how they got there. The goal of hypnosis is to keep you conscious. For you to be aware of when you’re thinking about binge eating, to know that you are stronger than the urge to binge eat. To know that you are in charge, not the binge. To know that this will just pass. As the days pass, you will find that letting go of binge eating becomes easier and easier.

Next is utilizing an Alternative Choice Journal. Every time you feel the urge to binge, use this tool:

For additional hypnosis downloads for eating disorders and body image, click here!

Continue reading »]]>   You know those voices that pop into your head and tell you that you’re fat, that you need to lose weight, that you’ve eaten too much, that you’re ugly, stupid, boring, or whatever?  A lot of people with eating issues suffer with these voices. They hear them and believe that the voices are right. They get sucked into them.

But you don’t have to engage with those voices. When you hear them, rather than listening to them and believing them and doing whatever you can to change yourself so those voices won’t pick on you quite so much, you can turn to them and just say, “there’s no room for you right now, I hear you, but I’m not going to listen to you. I’m choosing not to engage with your mean words.” Just because you hear these things, doesn’t mean it’s true.  The truth is totally subjective and you can choose your own truth. That truth might be, “You are perfect, whole, and complete, just the way you are.”

These “voices” so to speak is the voice of your eating disorder, or your super-ego, or your inner critic. You might not be able to shut it off, but you can choose not to listen to it or not to let it control you. You can choose to tell it that you are not making space for it right now. You can choose to create a different voice that helps you to feel better about yourself.

What are some things that you do to disengage with the critical  inner voice?

Continue reading »]]> Do you ever eat when you have hurt feelings? Do you find yourself in the middle of a binge or emotionally eating? Do you ever come home or get off the phone with someone, and feeling sad and lonely, stressed or anxious, angry or overwhelmed, walk over to the refrigerator and unconsciously start eating until you feel badly about that instead of what you had originally felt bad about?

Dealing with hurt feelings through emotional eating is one of the ways that we learn to soothe ourselves. But there are other options. When you notice that you are hurt, know that this is a prime time for you to run to the kitchen. Remind yourself that you are at risk for bingeing and ask yourself if there are other things that you can do. Some ways to deal with hurt feelings or anger are:

1.)talking about them to someone else

2.)screaming into a pillow

3.)going for a long walk

4.)reminding yourself that you’ve done nothing wrong, or if that’s not the case, taking the steps that you need to apologize or correct the situation.

5.)take deep breath/meditate

6.)punch pillows

7.)give yourself a break, forgive yourself.

8.)write about it. get on a forum and discuss what happened with others.

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Your eating disorder might feel like a tyrannical dictator, telling you what to eat, what not to eat, pushing you to give in to obsessive cravings, pushing you to purge, pushing you to starve or restrict, but for many  people, that voice is actually a scared little girl (or boy) living inside of you, dressed in adult clothing, trying desperately to get their needs met.

Often, in eating disorders, there is a child inside of you who didn’t get his or her needs met when they were little, perhaps she or he was ignored, or yelled at or abused, perhaps kids at school were mean to him or her, or perhaps she or he was part of a very large family where it was hard to get the attention he or she craved.

What did you desperately need, that you didn’t receive enough of when you were a child?

What helped you then? Was it food? Did you ever use food to make yourself feel better when you were lonely or picked on or ignored? Or did you get attention for not eating? Did you get attention for being the best athlete or the skinniest?  Did putting on weight give you attention?  Did your parents give you food to keep you happy when you weren’t getting enough attention from them or when they didn’t have time to give you what you what you needed?

This can be variable for everyone. But the most important thing is to think about that child who still lives inside of you and desperately needs something from you. Now think about what you would actually give a child who was needy right now. Would you give her a piece of cake if she was sad? Would you tell him to shut up and toughen up and stop crying? Would you sit with her and hold her and give her the attention that she needs? Try to give your child self what he needs. Try to send some compassion to the part of you that feels very angry and mean, but is just trying desperately to get her needs met.

Think about what you needed as a child but you didn’t get. How can you give it to yourself?

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One of the easiest exercises that you can you do to help you let go of binge eating is practicing mindful eating.

The first step in eating mindfully is to slow down.  When you serve yourself a meal, don’t pick or snack until you are sitting down with your plate in front of you. Then, when you go to eat, pay attention to your food. Don’t eat in front of the TV or internet, notice each bite. Notice what it feels like on your tongue, notice what it tastes like, notice what it feels like to chew and to swallow. Pause between bites and allow yourself to enjoy what you are eating in the moment that you are eating it. When you are binge eating, you’re chasing the taste so you barely get a chance to enjoy what you are eating in the time that you are eating it and it becomes a race to finish one food and get to the next.

Today, plan just one meal that you can eat mindfully. When you eat it, slow way down. Taste and savor  your food — no matter whether it’s romaine lettuce or a piece of dark chocolate. Allow your body to integrate the nutrition into your cells. You might find that when you slow down, you become more conscious of your needs and you might even find that you need less food or more food.

As you begin to slow down your meals, you might find that you can even slow down your binges, when you do that, you might find that you are able to make the choice not to binge, that mindfulness and thoughtfulness will win out over the compulsion.

slow. slow. slow. That’s the word of the day when it comes to mindful eating. Slow down and let your body make the choice rather than the binge. You might want to try this guided visualization to help you learn mindful eating.

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Watching someone that you love being active in their eating disorder is devastating.  It’s so painful to watch your mother, sister, wife or girlfriend (or husband, father, brother or son) either restrict their food, or binge on foods that are unhealthy for them, or to know that they’re purging in the bathroom after they’ve eaten. It’s painful and upsetting and scary.

You might find yourself becoming very angry at the person whom you love when you see them taking such poor care of themselves. It’s important to find compassion for the person who has the eating disorder when you choose to talk to them about it.

1.)Although you might feel angry, please try to understand that this is a serious problem that she/he has. They would certainly stop if they could.

2.)When you talk to them, don’t be attacking. If you come at the person and say things like, “you really need to be eating more,” or  “you have to take better care of yourself,” or “I want you to stop purging now,” you’re going to create a face off and a defensive stance. The person is going to be forced to defend themselves against this attack. Instead, talk to them using I statements. For example:

“I have noticed lately that you look very, very thin, and I’m worried. I haven’t seen you eat at all in several weeks. It’s really hard for me to watch this because I love you so much and I’m terrified that I’m going to lose you. I just don’t know what I would do without you. Is there anything I can do to support you? Would you be willing to do some family counseling with me with an eating disorder specialist? Or can we go see a nutritionist together and perhaps I can help you go shopping? I just really love you and want you to be healthy.”

Really contact your own feelings of fear rather than anger in order to get a conversation going.

3.)Don’t try to fix the person. Don’t try to take food away from them or force food on them. Don’t refuse to eat if they’re not eating. Don’t make comments about what they are or are not eating.

4.)Don’t be afraid to talk openly and honestly about how their eating is affecting you.

5.)Remember that this is a very hard topic and the person who you confront will most likely feel embarrassed and ashamed. You don’t want to shame them into recovery. In fact, this can often backfire. Let them know how much you love them and want to be there for them and you’re not going to let them go through this alone.

6.)Understand that recovery takes time, don’t expect them to see a therapist once and then all of a sudden to be cured. Be patient and if you can, try to be an active participant in their recovery.

7.)If this person is completely unreceptive to you, don’t push or get angry. Get help for yourself. You need support when you love someone with an active eating disorder. You might want to check out Al-anon or Codependents Anonymous or seek therapy or a support group for family members of people with EDs.

8.)Even though you might feel angry and frustrated (that’s so normal) don’t give up on someone you love. Let them know that you love them and you will be there for them when they are ready.

Recovery from eating disorders is hard. But watching someone struggle is downright painful. You feel helpless and scared and depressed. Please try to get love and support for yourself as well.

Some further reading and resources:

http://fishybb.something-fishy.org/

http://www.pbs.org/perfectillusions/help/friends.html

http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/information-resources/family-and-friends.php

http://bingeeatingtherapy.com/?p=277

http://bingeeatingtherapy.com/?p=283

http://bingeeatingtherapy.com/forum/index.php?board=27.0

http://bingeeatingtherapy.com/forum/index.php?board=29.0

http://bingeeatingtherapy.com/forum/index.php?board=35.0

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“You’ll never regret the things you do; only the things you don’t.” This quote doesn’t necessarily work with food though, does it?  With food, you won’t necessarily regret the food that you pass up, but the food that you choose to eat, the binge that you choose to have might lead to some regrets.

I began thinking about this over the weekend. I was out to lunch with some friends, including a dear friend of mine who continues to struggle with food issues, let’s call her “Liz.”  We all put our orders in, and even though Liz had ordered something  healthy, when others’ orders came out, she began to regret her order. She looked at another friend’s less healthy choice and decided that she wanted that. She said, “I’m having orderers’ remorse,” and changed her order to the same thing that the other friend who ordered the less healthy choice.

I had a feeling that I knew what she was feeling at that moment. It seemed that she was dealing with food regret. At that point, the food choice in that moment became overwhelming to her and she was unable to contain the compulsivity of the want. The truth is, had she told herself, “this is what I ordered and this is what I’m eating now, there’s always another meal later or tomorrow when I can choose something different…” she probably would have been fine. She wouldn’t have spent the whole afternoon sitting around regretting that she’d eaten the healthier choice– she probably would have forgotten about it in fact, or even felt satisfied that she’d been able to make a good choice for her body and well-being and not given into that compulsive in-the-moment urge.

That’s the thing about food choices. Sometimes they can feel very, very dire. Ordering that double bacon cheeseburger with fries when you had intended to order the veggie omelet with fruit and whole wheat toast can seem like it’s the most important thing in the world– AT THAT MOMENT. And it probably will. It will be very hard, but for people with binge eating disorder, often, ordering options that they hadn’t planned on can set off a binge.  The regret then will not be what you did not eat, but what you did eat. You might have a binge, do a behavioral chain analysis and realize that your binge was set off by choosing to give into a compulsion rather than sticking with a choice that might have felt less exciting.  Compulsions are challenging because they don’t always feel as though they’re in your control. They don’t feel like you can actually make a choice outside of the compulsion. Compulsions feel like they’re in charge. The truth is though, no matter how strong the compulsion feels, you ARE in charge!

Next time you have a compulsion to eat something that you know will trigger your eating disorder, remember, “I’ll never regret what I don’t eat… This is just a compulsion, it’s strong,  and it’s hard, but I’ll never regret not letting it have control. I might regret if I do give this compulsion control.” That’s why it’s so hard. Compulsions feel as though you can’t make an alternate choice. They feel as though that’s the only choice. But it’s not. It’s not about willpower, it’s about knowing that this strong feeling is only temporary. You can sit with the fear of regret. And you won’t actually feel regret about choosing not to eat something that feels unhealthy or feels as though it might trigger a binge.

Continue reading »]]> Often, in attempts to quit binge eating, people will set up a rule structure for themselves such as “I can’t eat sugar anymore, I can’t ever eat white flour, I can’t eat gluten…” etc. However, more often that not, those foods that they restrict themselves are the foods they wind up bingeing on. Rather than attempting to control the binge by taking something away, try to add something. For instance, “I will eat a vegetable with every meal and a fruit for desert for each meal,” or “I will take a walk at night after dinner,” or “I will write in my journal or do a blog post  when I have the urge to binge,” or “I will call my sponsor/friend/family member/support person when I am feeling down.”  Change “I won’t”  statements into “I will statements.” The hope here is that you will begin to fill up your time (and your meals!) with the good stuff which will help you to generally feel better.