How to stop Binge Eating
By Heleen Woest
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Please read the scenario below that I’ve written in my quest to find out how to stop binge eating.
See if you can relate …
When you’re struggling with binge eating disorder, food becomes your abusive lover. The relationship is dysfunctional and toxic, yet it has a strange hold on you. You know you need to get out, get away, but somehow you just can’t.
You try not to think about it, yet you daily see and feel the scars of the abuse:
Clothes don’t fit and if you buy bigger sizes, those might be too tight in just a couple of weeks.
Black sweat pants becomes your armor, your shield against the world.
You clearly feel the isolation: Family gatherings and work functions become your worst nightmare. In fact, you dread just going to church. Any other social event seems unthinkable. You hate to smile while you’re crying inside, and you hate to watch the skinny people dart around when you have absolute no energy.
Before going somewhere you beg God for snow, hail, anything! And every time when you miraculously get out of some social gathering, you celebrate with a big meal and thank God that you have another opportunity to lose weight before you have to face the world. Your diet will begin tomorrow!
You have bought some time to lose weight, but you never do, because your lover is not about to let you go.
When everybody else enjoy Summer and get their shorts and swimsuits out, you feel hurt by your lover. You begin to feel that this lover might not be the one for you, that you might deserve something better in life.
You decide that you have had enough, you are leaving! You go on hikes. You feel hot, sweaty, and chafed. You hate it. You try your best to eat only green salads while your heart longs for the hot dogs, potato salad, and chips displayed on skinny, happy people’s picnic tables. You try so hard to stay away from this lover, but your heart yearns for him; yearns for the warm embrace of a binge.
You start to bargain: The abuse is not that bad, you can always wear big baggy T-shirts. You don’t feel that sick. You reason that you are not like those skinny people; you love food. You simply can’t live without this lover, you need to binge on lots and lots of food until the pain goes away and you feel okay again. Life is too hard, it hurts too much to be without your lover, even if he abuses you, at least you’re not alone. Your thoughts turn to food; you feel the rush of planning a binge; you’re almost happy…
It’s clear now: You would rather die from shame than stay away from you lover, in fact, you would rather die…
If you can relate to this scenario then you are probably desperate for change.
How to stop binge eating:
I’ve written the post below to give you an outline of how to stop binge eating. This post zooms in on breaking the power of a binge. It discuss in a nutshell what I cover in detail in my 12 Week Online Program.
Breaking the power of a binge
How do you prevent a Binge from turning into a whole day (or month) of overeating? Of course it would be best to not binge at all. However, preventing a binge is easier said than done. If you are on a journey of finding healing for the root issues behind your eating disorder, you might not quite be at the place where you recognize the early signs of a binge (starting in the thoughts and emotions) and thus find yourself still binging from time to time.
You can easily undo all the progress you’ve made with one lousy binge! So how do you keep a binge from taking over your life?
The answer lies in TURNING YOUR BACK ON PERFECTION FOR GOOD!
There is a strong link between Perfectionism and Eating Disorders. If you have strong perfectionist tendencies then you might have a very difficult time trying to break away from binging. The reason: You want to have a 100% perfect day or NOTHING – No middle ground.
In order to find healing in this struggle and to BREAK THE POWER OF THE BINGE, our focus has to shift. We have to ask the Holy Spirit DAILY (maybe even hourly) to help us shift our focus from:
WEIGHT LOSS to HEALTH AND 24 HOURS OF PERFECTION to A YEAR OF HEALTH
So what am I trying to say?
If you can change your focus (only with the help of the God of course) to not see your life in 24 hour compartments of “today-I-will-have-a-perfect-day” but rather view your progress over a period of a year, you will not be so devastated by a binge. As soon as a binge loses it’s power over you, it will start fading into the background of your life, until you don’t binge anymore. We are so scared of those binges because it makes us spiral down. But if we remember every day that a 90% successful day will give us a 90% month, which in turn will give us a 90% year, things will start to change.
Do you realize that if you throw every binge in the 10% “failure-basket” and just get on with doing the 90% of healthy eating, exercise, rest, and drinking a lot of water YOU WILL HAVE AN AMAZING YEAR? You will be healthy, stronger, peaceful and yes some weight loss will be on the agenda. However, if you keep having “100% success days” and “100% failure days” (the days when you binge and just keep eating because you’ve already “failed”) then you either end up at the same place after a year, or worse…
Ask God today to help you change your focus FOR GOOD! A binge has no power over you if you know exactly where to “file” it and remember that it’s just a drop in your big sea of 365 days!
You can get help for yourself or a loved one through my 12 Week Online Study Course. I’ve compiled this course from my own experience with food struggles, insight and understanding I’ve gained through counseling ladies in my support groups, Biblical principals, as well as material I’ve gathered by well-known Christian authors, counselors, and doctors. This study is jam-packed with information, practical guide lines and honest testimonies.
People die daily from eating disorders, please find out today how to stop binge eating!
Click on the image below to learn more about the 12 Week Online Program
Read my story. Click on the image below to download my ebook for free
