Monthly Archives: April 2012

I Just Binged- Now What??? How To Recover From A Binge

Date: April 30, 2012

Author: leora fulvio

Categories: binge eating, how to recover from a binge, how to recover from a food binge, recovery

How To Recover From a Binge

“How do I recover from a binge? How long will it take me to recover from three days of binge eating? How long will it take me to recover from a week of binge eating? How do I start over after a binge? Can you tell me how to recover from a binge?“

These questions come usually as someone begins to “wake up” and find that they’ve been in a day long (sometimes weeks long) binge coma. Sometimes it can be as serious as spending days alone in your flat, bingeing or bingeing & purging and not getting out of bed to do anything besides eat, use the bathroom or pick up food. Other times it can be a solitary binge one evening or one afternoon.

Exactly How to Recover from a Binge:

Forgive yourself. Usually, if you are bingeing, it means that there is something going on for your emotionally. Beating yourself up is the last thing that you need at this point. Binge episodes are wrought with shame and frustration. But you don’t need that right now. What you need is self-compassion. Be kind to yourself. Know that you can’t go backward, but you can go forward and learn from the binge.
The rule of thumb is to try and stop as soon as you can. If you realize that you are bingeing in the morning, this doesn’t mean that the whole day is shot. You still have the whole day to to recover. Try to step away from the food and get outside and walk around the block, breath, relax, call a friend. We often think that a morning binge has to last the whole day. Just look at the clock and know that in a few hours, after your body processes the food and you’ve digested, you will feel much better. Take some time to get away from the food and know that in 3-5 hours, your body will feel much better.
Don’t try to compensate for the binge (ie: don’t vomit, don’t try to exercise the amount of calories that you think you ate, don’t starve yourself). This will set up a cycle of bingeing and compensating. The goal is to end that cycle of craziness immediately, or else it will continue. The other side of the binge is the compensation and the other side of the compensation is the binge. They go hand in hand. You can’t go backward you can only go forward. Trying to go backward will hurt you because you will just stay stuck in the binge and the vicious cycle.

How to recover from a binge when you’ve had a bad binge at night and you wake up in the morning feeling ill, ashamed, depressed and uncomfortable….

THE MORNING AFTER A BIG BINGE

Don’t panic! It’s okay, binges happen and your body will recover as long as you get back on track with your recovery quickly. Recovery is not about never falling down, it’s about how quickly you get up. Everyone backslides, don’t let yourself get stuck in it and in the shame of it, let yourself move forward with it.
Drink a Glass of Water with some lemon squeezed into it and maybe a few slices of cucumber to help your body remove the bloat.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T WEIGHT YOURSELF! — Weighing yourself won’t give you an accurate measure of your weight and will likely agitate you and keep you in the binge cycle.
If you are hungry, drink some tea and prepare yourself a proper breakfast with protein and fruit or oatmeal. It’s important to prepare yourself a nice breakfast and to make it appetizing and lovingly for yourself. Set the table, eat off of nice plates, and put on relaxing music. This is so if you are tempted to continue your binge, you might find that a mindful and quiet breakfast helps you to reset.
After eating breakfast, leave your home immediately so that you are not tempted to continue your binge. Continue to drink water and herbal tea throughout the day to help your body process the extra food. But don’t drink too much, you don’t want to feel too full and have that trigger a binge. Just sip slowly and try to pay attention to what your body wants.
If you can’t stomach eating breakfast because you are feeling ill from the binge, drink some tea, preferably something soothing to your stomach, like chamomile or ginger or peppermint. You might be nauseated or uncomfortable. Give your body some time to recover. Make sure to be gentle with it. However, don’t wait too long to eat. You don’t want to swing the pendulum to starved. If you are not hungry by lunch time, eat something light like some broth, or miso soup or vegetable juice, or fruit and a bit of protein (such as an egg or a chicken breast).
Don’t wait too long for your next meal. Check in with your body and when it is beginning to feel hungry, but before you are feeling too hungry, try to sit down and feed it leafy greens, protein, and some fat such as olive oil and cheese or nuts.
Make sure that you get a good night sleep. The next morning you will feel much better and in a few days your body will feel back to normal.
Know that in two days or so, you will feel back to normal. You did not harm yourself with one binge.
Be kind to your body, make sure you are eating three meals a day and let yourself come back to balance so that you can get to really let go of the binge and get back on course with your recovery.

How Long Does it Take to Recover from a Major Binge?

It can take anywhere from a few hours to several days. There is no set rule on this. If it was an isolated binge, usually, after a day of reclaiming yourself, you will begin to feel better both physically and emotionally. If it was a weekend of bingeing (friday through sunday), you will likely feel back to yourself by Wednesday if you start taking care of yourself on Monday.

Food can affect your body for body for several days- it can even take up to three days for some food allergies to show up. But you should be feeling much, much better by 72 hours after your binge. Definitely sit with it, be kind to yourself and allow healing to happen. This is a big part of how to recover from a binge, but the part that stays with you is the ability to move forward and not let yourself get stuck in it and to remember to keep moving forward.

For more info, check out Recovery Warriors!

Play in the Dirt for Good Mental Health

Date: April 26, 2012

Author: Leora Fulvio

Categories: binge eating, Stress Eating

Comments: 2 Replies

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.

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

Date: April 23, 2012

Author: Leora Fulvio

Categories: eating disorder

Comments: Leave a reply

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.

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

Date: April 14, 2012

Author: Leora Fulvio

Categories: binge eating

Comments: 1 Reply

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.

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

Date: April 12, 2012

Author: Leora Fulvio

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

Comments: 2 Replies

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.