Tag Archives: binge eating

Nourish to Heal: How Eating Enough Supports Binge Eating Recovery

Nourish to Heal: How Eating Enough Supports Binge Eating Recovery

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Eating more will likely help you reduce binge eating.

This feels counterintuitive and is certainly not what the weight loss industry or the medical community typically advises, so I know this recommendation can feel very scary. 

The weight loss industry provides “tricks” to reduce binge eating, usually focusing on how to limit consumption of certain foods. However, rather than helping navigate binge eating, it often fuels and perpetuates binge eating. Science has taught us that dietary restriction is a risk factor for developing an eating disorder, including binge eating. Dietary restriction also maintains the eating disorder–in other words, a restrictive diet keeps the disorder going. 

Binge eating can cause significant distress to those who are experiencing it, so understandably, you would do almost anything to stop it. 

First, we need to normalize binge eating. Most humans experience eating episodes related to emotions, as eating can be a common way we cope with and regulate emotions. If you have sensory and neurological differences, including anxiety or ADHD, eating can be a useful tool to help you feel more comfortable. 

We hear harmful messages in our culture about binge eating: that it means something negative about us, or that we “have no will power or we are not disciplined enough”.  Of course, we then internalize these messages, meaning we believe these untrue messages about ourselves, further disconnecting us from self. 

Let’s take a closer look at why eating more helps to reduce binge eating.

Our brain’s primary job is to keep us alive. We need food to survive. Most of us experience pleasure from eating (That’s our brain’s way to ensure that we eat!).

If your meal gets delayed for some reason, you feel really hungry, often leading to feeling “hangry” (hungry & angry–that grumpy feeling we get when we’ve gone too long without food)-our body’s cue to eat. Consequently,  you might eat quickly and possibly more than usual. This is our body’s nifty mechanism to keep us alive. 

Many people who experience binge eating try to limit their food intake or the types of food they typically binge on. This makes perfect sense given the messages about food in our culture. But dietary restriction is eating less food than your body needs. An example of dietary restriction may be “I am going to eat out for lunch, so I’ll skip or have a ‘light’ breakfast”.  This simple act, which our culture often rewards, sets our body’s drive up to alert us to eat.

Dietary restriction is a key feature in what initiates and sustains eating disorders. 

Herman and Polivy coined the term dietary restraint in the 1970s. It suggests that when human eating behavior is under cognitive control, it reduces the ability to read internal satiety cues. 

In other words, simply thinking about restricting food types and amounts can lead us to eat past fullness. Dietary restraint is the key feature of EVERY DIET. And dietary restraint is a significant risk factor for developing an eating disorder. 

What can be done? 

Many clients who experience binge eating also experience dietary restriction and restraint–the natural reaction is often to focus on eliminating binge eating by using more dietary restriction and restraint. Again, this makes sense given diet culture and our medical system. However, it often maintains the eating disorder. 

One of the first steps in my work with clients is to gradually reduce dietary restraint and restriction. I can understand that this can feel very scary. 

In sessions, we explore your personal story and understand where you learned about dietary restriction and restraint.  We then consider if it makes sense to approach things differently.  

We do work on reducing binges, but that typically comes later in treatment. First, dismantling the restriction and restraint is needed to reduce binge eating. 

If you want to learn more about binge eating, I highly recommend this book. Additionally, Decolonizing Wellness is an excellent resource. If you would like to learn more about how I work with clients struggling with binge eating, the first step is to schedule an initial consultation. I would love to hear from you. 

2017 year in review

2017 Year in Review

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Wow! This year really flew by! Can you believe we’re already at the end of 2017?

 

I’ve covered a bunch of different topics on the blog this year. You can find them here, all in one place. Now, you can look back with me and see everything we covered with ease!  

 

If you’ve been reading for a while, you can revisit some past favorites or refresh your memory on any of the topics that speak to you. If you’re new here, this is a great place to get to know what I’m all about and become familiar with my style. My goal is to work collaboratively with clients to reduce food and weight preoccupation and teach clients to trust their bodies, rather than a diet, to know how to feed themselves.

 

First off, make sure you check out 5 reasons not to diet in 2017!

It’s relevant for every year, not just 2017. Since we’re heading into the season where everyone and their brother will be talking about their New Year’s Resolutions it’s good to have these facts in mind to support you in your choices.

 

Don’t suffer in silence!

The theme for National Eating Disorder Awareness week this year was “It’s Time to Talk About It.” Check out this post for the best place to get started on your journey.

 

Are you ready to break up with dieting?

Learn about what intuitive eating is, and the 10 basic principles that can help you get off the diet roller coaster for good.

 

There are a lot of questions you can ask yourself about your relationship with food.

Do you feel out of control with food? Is the good-bad food trap ruining your relationship with food? Are you an emotional eater?

 

Diet culture is everywhere these days.

It surrounds us on social media, on TV and in movies. It’s even present in the interactions we have with others. It’s important to understand that dieting is hazardous to your health. There are lots of myths and inaccuracies floating around that people use to justify diet culture and that lead to misunderstanding eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder. Eating disorders don’t just affect teens- they are common in midlife, in people who suffer from anxiety disorders, and can even occur in people who are perfectionists.

 

There is hope.

Eating disorders are treatable, and there are resources available for people who are ready to ditch diet culture. It’s possible to like your body better without having to change it!

 

Let me know if there are any topics you’d like me to cover in 2018. Don’t forget to share your favorite posts with friends and family!

2017 year in review

Ditch the Diet

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Dieting can make our eating problems worse.

Q:  I can lose weight on diets, but then I get off track.   I gain even more weight back than I lost.  This has happened several times.  I am tired of this.  What do recommend?

A:  Weight cycling (losing/gaining of weight) is a common pattern seen with chronic dieters.  It can leave dieters feeling frustrated and hopeless.   And ultimately feeling like a failure.  I believe that diets fail, not the people who follow them.  Diets fail because they usually don’t give us all the tools to be successful.  Diets are really good at telling us what to eat and what not to eat–setting food rules.  Some diets can be good at telling us how much to eat.  But, diets don’t usually teach us to monitor our internal cues for hunger and fullness, how to eat at restaurants or parties, how to deal with emotional eating or binge eating, how to be flexible with food, take into consideration our food preferences, how to feed our families, etc.

There are many studies to support that dieting works–for awhile–but there isn’t much data to show the effectiveness of dieting with long-term weight loss.   The dieting industry makes billions of dollars promoting their diets, pills, plans, etc.  Well meaning health care professionals encourage patients to diet, which can often add fuel to the fire.  Studies also show that dieting can increase the risk of eating disorders.

So what is a dieter to do?  I encourage a more holistic approach.

1.  Take stock in why you want to lose weight.  Make a list of all of the reasons why you want to lose weight-health (be specific), looks, increase self-confidence, moving around easier, etc.  Body weight is part of all of these-health, looks, self-confidence-but not all of it.  Let’s take health for example.  There are many ways to improve health-physical activity, eating nutrient dense foods, getting enough rest, etc.   I encourage people to focus on all areas in order to meet their health goals not just weight loss.

2.  Assess your eating style and rule our an eating disorder.  According the Binge Eating Disorder Association, 30-40% of people seeking commercial weight loss services in U.S. meet the criteria for Binge Eating Disorder the most common type of eating disorder.  Click here for a free and confidential eating disorder assessment tool.

Here are some questions to help assess your eating style:  Are you a grazer?  How many meals do you eat per day?  Do you eat while distracted (working, watching TV, on devices)?   What type of food do you eat most often?  What types of foods do you like best?  How often to you go to the grocery store?  How often do you eat out or away from home?   Do you know when you are hungry and when you are full?  Do you eat when not hungry?

Once familiar with your eating style, it makes it easier to target behaviors you want to change in order to meet your goals.

3.  Mindful Eating.  Mindful eating is eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full, eating all types of food (not just diet foods), taking both health and pleasure when considering food choices and eating without distractions.  Once you have become clear about why you want to lose weight, have become familiar with your eating style (and ruled out an eating disorder) then begin to practice mindful eating.  Be patient with yourself, changing eating habits take time.