In a study conducted by Harvard University in February 2007, it was determined that binge eating is the most common eating disorder. It is more common than either anorexia or bulimia and yet it is not discussed or understood fully. If you're a binge eater, you're not alone. It is something that millions of people struggle with. Keep reading and you'll see why binge eating is so common.
Binges appeal to people in two ways. One, is that they provide something that I call the "Food Trance." The food trance is the mind numbing experience that binging offers. Here are some of ways that people describe the food trance:
"In a food trance; I belong. I fit in. I'm somebody. I'm in love. I matter. I'm not inadequate. Happier times are remembered. I'm soothed."
"I feel like a zombie out for a pint of blood when I go for these 'feedings,' as though I am going for a heroin fix on the corner, but it is legal and in the grocery store. There is no one or no part of me that can stop me from doing what I am about to do."
"If I am all doped up on a food high, nothing else matters."
"The perfect escape for the moment. When I concentrate on what I am eating I don't have to deal with other emotions."
When you read some of the euphoric descriptions of the Food Trance you can understand why food can become an over-the-counter form of self-medication. It is legal and readily accessible to anyone who wants to make it their drug of choice. It makes you feel good for a little while. That little bit of relief feels worth it when you're running from an uncomfortable feeling (it can be depression, stress, loneliness, boredom, anger, rejection). For some people, they'll even push off their feelings and "deal" with them later on by binging. I call this a delayed binge. You might be frustrated at work and spend the whole day thinking about what you're going to eat when you get home.
When your mind is screaming with thoughts, you're willing to run into the comfort of food as a temporary safe-haven-anything for a few minutes of quiet. However, when you shut down your mind too many times with food, binging becomes a compulsion. That means your mind always believes it needs food to deal with stress. Once that happens, you can't control what you eat no matter how hard you try.
The second way that binging appeals to people, seems paradoxical on the surface. When the binge is over, you're filled with regret. Your mind plays a tape of how awful it was that you gave in to the binge. You probably know the words well. But that tape feels better (and more familiar) to your mind than the one that talks about the things you're afraid to face (that could be relationship issues, low self-esteem, career issues, unmet needs). The post-binge guilt gives you something else to think about.
Consider my patient "Roxy." She is 45 and has three children. She told me about a frustrating day at the mall with her sixteen-year-old daughter. Her response to the frustration was to binge on a whole box of donuts.
She told me, "I was so mad at her, what else could I do?" Roxy is very smart, but in spite of my prompting and questioning, she couldn't think of any other option but to binge. Her pattern of binging by stuffing down feelings with food was so deeply ingrained in her mind that it short-circuited her common sense. Binging felt like the only way to dial down her frustration and rid herself of angry thoughts toward her daughter. More than that, her guilt about the binge stopped her from feeling guilty about not being a good-enough mother-a mother that would intuitively know how to handle the situation with her daughter in a graceful and effective way.
The Three Causes of Binges:
- You binge to cope with your feelings.
- You binge to create the illusion of feeling good.
- You binge to feel "safe" or to shut out the world.
If you're a binge eater you probably already know the painful cycle of desperately wanting to binge, giving in to a binge, feeling remorse after a binge, and then promising yourself a binge will never happen again. Then you hate your -self when it does inevitably happen again. It's this cycle you need to understand before you can eat sensibly. Attempting to diet just sets you up for failure. First, you must understand how compulsive eating has been benefiting you. If you understand why you depend on binge eating, you'll be in a better place to let the pattern go and find better ways to deal with emotional hunger. Shrink Yourself will help you understand why you binge and more than that, it will give you the tools to stop.
You must understand that there is a part of you that feels afraid to let go of the binging cycle because you don't know what will happen to you if you don't have food to quiet your mind. I'm here to tell you that learning how to quiet one's mind is an essential part of adult development. When you learn how to do it, you're ready to give up binge eating. Not only will you lose weight, but the whole quality of your life can change for the better, too.
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