Emotional Eating and Binge Eating: A Personal Insight
Peanut Butter, by Maria Raquel Cochez
From my own personal journey since I was a young girl struggling with binge eating and being overweight, and as a professional working for the last 21 years with binge eating and compulsive eating men and women who struggle to lose weight, stopping binge eating has taught me over and over again that it is their emotional issues, their emotional hungers that they keep stuffed inside of their bodies by eating that keep them living in the binge eating world. It is their emotional hungers that keep them from incorporating and practicing normal healthy eating habits that would allow them to feel physically healthier, psychologically happier, have more energy, lose weight and be able to move more freely in the world. Emotional eaters who suffer from binge eating spend most of their adult life trying to stop their binge eating by going on one diet after another rather than addressing the binge eating disorder directly so they can live a happy and normal life. What I teach my clients at Solutions Program for Binge Eating Disorders is to do exactly that. Stop binge eating!
Binge Eating Ideas That Work:
How to Stop Binge Eating Idea #1
- Give a voice to your feelings. The more you give a voice to your feelings the less you will attempt to swallow your feelings by binge eating.
- Learn healthy, nurturing, ways to ‘feed’ your emotional hungers without using food.
- Learn to give a “voice” to your uncomfortable feelings such as anger, fear and sadness instead of “swallowing” those feelings by bingeing and overeating.
- Learn to differentiate between your physical and emotional hungers.
How to Stop Binge Eating Idea #2, 3, 4
Do you know how to perform self-soothing? Most people with binge eating disorders don’t. They didn’t learn how to self-sooth as young children for various reasons. Instead, they have learned to use binge eating of food as a way to self-soothe. But, it doesn’t work. If you want to stop binge eating, learn these self-soothing techniques as an adult. (Taught in our 6 week course Binge on Words©)
- What are your favorite foods when you are binge eating? Do they have any early family memories attached to them? Think about what you are trying to get from that emotional connection now.
- Don’t stop at “I don’t know”. Most people are stuck in what I call the “I don’t know syndrome”: they don’t let themselves think beyond this point. There is valuable information that you need in order to stop binge eating. Ask yourself the following question: “If I did know how I feel, what would I be feeling”? Some thoughts will come up. Even if you think you are making these up, it comes from you, so it’s a good starting point.
- Write down how much time in a 24-hour period you label yourself in a demeaning or derogatory way. Many people with binge eating problems refuse to nurture and respect their bodies and themselves until they lose the weight. However, beating yourself up and demeaning yourself is not the way to build up your self-esteem and confidence. What feels better, praise or criticism? If you think the way to lose weight is by criticizing yourself, look at who in your life taught you that. If you want something from other people, you need to start giving it to yourself first.
How to Stop Binge Eating Idea #5
Binge eating disorder and emotional eating is not about being out of control with food. It’s about needing to control uncomfortable emotions that you want to avoid. If you change your focus and learn the skills to give voice to your emotions and your feelings, rather than try to control your food, you will be amazed at how much easier it is to set limits with food.