The Binge Free Blog

There Can Be No Doubt

Recently I watched an online video by a doctor who stated that we should not eat from a certain group of foods. He had a very impressive background being a surgeon, a public speaker and writer in scientific journals for many years. He also lost weight at some point in his adult life and was determined that the foods he cut from his diet played a significant role in his weight loss and in keeping it off.

I was mesmerized with the video and how professional and scientific it was. Just for fun, I googled the foods he restricts and found doctors with just as impressive backgrounds who didn’t agree with him at all. Their websites were not quite as ‘in your face’ as his, but they, too, believed that certain groups of foods are unhealthy for humans. However, their lists were completely different than the first doctor’s. I added all these foods together and realized that if I restricted every food group touted as bad by someone somewhere, I would probably end up having to eat dirt and maybe a few wild berries.

In the midst of all the hype in the media about what is good and bad for us, it is difficult to feel comfortable eating whatever you think you want. We all want to do the right thing for ourselves and our bodies. But the people we depend on for information about diet and nutrition have let us down. And I don’t mean any disrespect, but just because doctors and medical professionals have degrees behind their names doesn’t mean they understand the problem of overeating and obesity. If doctors, diets, pills, nutrition experts and exercise gurus had the magic solution to the problem of obesity, overeating and disordered eating, it would have already been solved by now!

And the reason it has not been solved is because we buy into what the ‘experts’ say. We think they know better than we do what we should eat. This is false! No one knows better what you should eat than you and your body. And once you begin to trust yourself you will understand this concept.

The first several months of my binge free journey I would second guess myself. I would hear of a new breakthrough diet or some new superfood that we should be eating and I doubted my decision to eat what I wanted. I wondered if I should go back to counting calories or trying out the new food or stop eating certain foods. When these thoughts crept up, I found myself with cravings, which made it harder to eat sensibly. In other words, thoughts of restricting portions of food (by counting calories) or thoughts of restricting certain types of foods (sugars, fats) caused me to crave more food and eat more.

I do advocate eliminating one thing from your diet, though, and that is guilt. Yes, guilt is the number one cause of the restrictive thoughts that create cravings and make you overeat. When you eat what you want, you must truly believe that you can eat anything you want now and forever after. This means you cannot worry about how many cookies you may eat now, you cannot think about eating less at the next meal or running five miles to make up for these calories. You can’t think of the cookies as a special ‘treat’ that you are only allowed to eat once in a while. You must allow yourself to enjoy the cookies for what they are and tell yourself you can eat them anytime.

Once you can do this, shame-free, you will find yourself eating a few cookies and putting the rest away. There is no urgency to eat them all now if you can eat them anytime you want. And by allowing yourself this freedom, your body will reward you by giving you a feeling of satisfaction after a couple of cookies or telling you when it doesn’t really need or want cookies, and you will grow to be repulsed by the thought of eating the whole box. You don’t believe this? Give it a try and see the amazing results.

The statement, ‘eat whatever you want’ may sound like sketchy advice, but it is the only advice that helped me to stop bingeing and overeating. And I am not the only one. There is a large presence on the internet, in books and videos stating that restricting certain foods or portion sizes does not produce the results we hope it will, and even increases our chances of eating unhealthily and gaining weight in the future. Unfortunately, some of that hype places too much importance on keeping weight down. (This warrants an entire article to itself, stay tuned.)

I don’t have the technical skills or the money to make a slick video just yet, but when I do, I will be as adamant as the doctor who wants you stay away from certain foods. But my mantra is- don’t restrict any food from your diet. I want to stand on the street corner and shout to everyone I see, “Eat what you think you and your body want and need, eat when you want, wherever you want, however you want, as much as you want, with no guilt, no shame, and watch yourself morph in to the person you have only dreamed about becoming. Free yourself from bingeing and overeating forever.” Amen.

I have stepped down from my soapbox now. Thank you for reading!

Binge free- steps to start – click here

“Food is not something to try to avoid. It is energy for your body. Give your body some credit for knowing what to do with it.” MD

Person In Training

Pita – “I’m tough, Creasy.”

Creasy- “There’s no such thing as tough, there’s only trained and untrained.”

This dialogue is from the movie ‘Man on Fire’. Creasy, played by Denzel Washington, is teaching nine-year-old Pita (Dakota Fanning) to be unafraid of the sound of the starting pistol as it fires a shot to signal the start of a swimming race. This scene turns out to be the crux of the movie because, later on, Pita gets kidnapped and her training with Creasy (spoiler) may be what saves her life.

While coping with depression, anxiety and eating disorders, I remember thinking I was tough and resilient. I figured I could just ‘tough it out’ and eventually overcome my problems, but year after year, I struggled. I had the desire, the determination, but I had the belief that I was born with certain personality traits, that these struggles were just a part of who I was.

I innately knew my parents didn’t teach me about self-esteem, integrity, or what it took to be successful. They did the best they could, but they were busy fighting their own demons and trying to make ends meet . They had the belief they were not meant to be too successful or even too happy. I followed in their footsteps until I finally realized that just because I wasn’t born with certain qualities or hadn’t been taught them, didn’t mean I could not acquire them at this time in my life.

Many people fall into the category of thinking all they need is toughness and persistence to ‘make it through’ their ordeal. Each day they hope for a better outcome than yesterday, they think persistence and determination is all that is needed. Persistence is a great attribute to have, but if you are persistent in going the wrong direction, you will never get where you want to go.

I don’t believe life is made to be “toughed out.” I believe we are made to thrive and be happy. And the only thing we need to make this happen is a belief that we can learn how to overcome our weaknesses. This takes our undesirable behavior out of the realm of shame and puts it, blamelessly, into the realm of acquiring knowledge. Once you step out of that sphere of guilt and self-loathing, nothing can stop you from obtaining what you need to be happy and healthy.

You can train yourself to be content, to stop bingeing, to love yourself, or anything you desire. Any attribute you think you lack, you can acquire. You don’t need to have been born with a special personality, you don’t need to lose weight first. You don’t need tons of people around you to tell you to ‘hang in there.’ You can do more than just ‘hang in there’. All you need is the belief that you can teach yourself those life lessons you thought you missed out on, and you can fly.

Assess the attributes you think you need to be successful in whatever you want to do. Be honest, don’t underestimate your good traits. Find sources of inspiration and teach yourself to pay attention to the positive messages. You can be trained or untrained, its up to you.

Click here for a similar article.

Click here for first steps to a binge free life.

“My past has no hold on me unless I let it.”

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Our Functional Lies

Recovering from binge eating is not unlike recovering from an addiction. Even though I don’t believe binge eating falls into the addiction category (here’s why), I do recognize that there are underlying beliefs and attitudes common to both. The one I want to focus on today is truth. Or rather lying. It’s not truth that is the problem, it’s the lies we tell to cover up the truth, to disguise ourselves from reality.

Some of us, myself included, believe our own lies. We become so adept at telling them, we forget there is a truth. Lying becomes a thing we must do to make ourselves more valuable or at least less shameful. You may impress someone with a lie, but once you speak it, trust is broken down. You can’t build a relationship on lies or half-truths. And you can’t trust yourself when you don’t know what the truth really is. So, how do we get out of this maze?

You must first recognize you have a problem. I’m not talking about your overeating problem. You already recognized that or your wouldn’t be reading this blog. But think about the kind of lies you tell others or yourself, not just deceitful lies, but your functional lies. These can be lies about your feelings, needs and desires. They can be lies about your past or even about not being hungry and pushing your plate away when you really want to finish that pasta. We use these lies to prevent shame or enhance our standing in someone else’s eyes. We use them to trick ourselves into believing we are okay or are doing the right thing.

I used to tell the story that I learned how to swim because my dad pushed me off a dock into a deep lake when I was seven years old. In reality, I took swimming lessons the summer I was seven. I also used to tell people that I went to Catholic school from first through twelfth grade. Actually, I only went to parochial school for a few years. But, to me, it just sounded more impressive to say otherwise.

These lies were innocuous. They were not bad or dangerous, but they reinforced a sense in me that I was not enough as I was. I had to constantly think of enhancements to my story to keep people interested. And the more I told these lies, the easier it was to weave a tapestry of a false life.

Once you start this, it eventually becomes second nature to hide events and thoughts and feelings from others. You may even be convinced that you are protecting them. But this is an arrogant position to function from, as if you think you are smarter or have a greater depth of being than everyone around you. You convince yourself you must lie so that others will not make false assumptions about you, because they would never understand and accept you if you told them the truth, right?

In this type of existence, you may feel lost and empty, you don’t know what you want out of life because you cannot accept yourself for who you are. In my case, this led to harsh scrutiny of my body. I didn’t have very close relationships with other stable people and instead of examining my interactions with them, I blamed my outward appearance. I looked for diets and food plans to keep me on track and when these failed, I became bulimic. Even after overcoming bulimia, I was still obsessed with food and body issues, for many years, to a point of malfunction.

And really, all the suffering I put myself through over the years was only caused because I believed the biggest lie of all – that I was not good enough just the way I was.

“I am not concerned what others think about me, I am concerned what God thinks about me.” MD

Do You Have What It Takes?

If you’ve read any other posts from this blog, you know I believe anyone can cultivate any trait they desire. You may not believe it just yet, but you were born with the characteristics of integrity, persistence, a positive outlook, a thankful spirit, self-confidence, and many more. You didn’t miss the boat if you had a crappy childhood or made bad decisions in the past. You don’t have a character flaw or some defect in your brain. You can cultivate characteristics you desire to be successful in any endeavor you choose. All you must realize is that you don’t need to DO anything to earn these traits. You possess them already, they are just waiting to be acknowledged.

Success can be defined in many ways. To some, it’s a great paying job, to others its completion of a creative endeavor, to someone else it may be getting healthy or overcoming a setback. For me, overcoming binge eating was a huge hurdle. And I’ve had days, in the past, where getting out of bed meant I had a successful day. But whatever you call success, we all have some common characteristics that make it happen. It could be hard work, determination, persistence, confidence or desire. It could be changing a process or creating a daily habit.

Whatever you think it requires to be successful, there is one underlying belief which is the foundation for any positive trait you desire. This is a knowledge that you are valuable. And I’m not talking about a value that comes from prior successes and accolades from others. I’m talking about a belief in the core of your being that you are okay, that no matter what happens, you have everything you need to do what you want to do.

You may say, “How can I believe I’m valuable if I feel so unworthy?” or “I feel like I have a hole inside that can’t be filled with anything.” Well, here’s the revelation- just because you don’t feel worthy or significant doesn’t mean that you aren’t worthy or significant. Your feelings don’t reflect your value. They only reflect the thoughts and beliefs you have learned during your experience of life. And no action on your part, good or bad, will change your inherent value. You are a valuable human being whether you believe and feel it, or not.

What Happened?

We all start out with confidence as kids, but life happens, and we end up second guessing ourselves. I remember, in seventh grade, being chosen to represent my school in an oratory contest. I had a month to practice and knew I could win. I was so excited, I ran home that Friday afternoon and read the speech to my mom. She promptly told me I would have stage fright. I know she didn’t mean to quench my enthusiasm, she just meant to warn me that it would be different up on the stage. But that word ‘stage fright’ stayed with me. By Monday morning, I had convinced myself that I couldn’t possibly get up in front of hundreds of people because I would have stage fright. So, when I got to school, I found myself explaining to the nuns why I couldn’t do this. They quickly dismissed me and found someone else to represent the school. I was heartbroken and ashamed.

I wouldn’t say this event was the cause for my struggles throughout life, but it was one of a myriad of events that made me question my value. I found myself thriving on the encouragement and positive feedback from others. The problem is, when you look for the approval of others, you end up doing things you think they want you to do and not what you were really meant to do. It took a long time to realize my confidence had to come from inside me, that it was a direct reflection of my inherent value. All I had to do was see it.

Applying this to my eating disorders, I came to terms that my exterior body was just a fraction of the totality of me. And my complete persona is different than anyone else on this earth. I don’t have to fit into anyone else’s idea of beauty or goodness to be a valuable person. I don’t have to eat what everyone else thinks I should eat. I just need to eat what I think I want and need and go from there. Sometimes I eat too much or too little or the wrong things, but I am confident that my body and I will get it right in the long run and I keep chugging away each day. And whatever happens, I remember this…..I am a child of God. I don’t have to do anything to earn the grace that God offers me. All I have to do is reach out and accept it.

For more information on how to start the binge free process click here

“Confidence may not be what you think it is. It may not be the self-assurance that you have talent or that everything is going to work out, it may just be the willingness to take a first step and see what happens.” MD

Perpetual Motivation?

Just like it’s easier to clean your house when someone is coming to visit, its easier to eat normally when you are properly motivated. But continual motivation does not come from wanting to lose weight or fit into smaller clothes. Appetite overrides those reasons easily. And motivation doesn’t come from disliking your own body or being disgusted with yourself. (why would you want to help someone you don’t like?) Lasting motivation doesn’t even really come from wanting to be healthier or be your best self.

All these things may inspire you to change something in your life. But when there is no substance to back up the initial surge of motivation, each time you start a diet or make a change in your food or exercise habits, something inside you thwarts your attempts. When you feel stressed or things just don’t turn out like you planned, you lose your mojo.

So how do you ‘stay motivated’ to do the right thing?

The truth about motivation is that it is inconsistent. Its very nature is fleeting and unfaithful. We look at others who accomplish what we only dream of and wonder how they stay so motivated. But it isn’t motivation that keeps them going. It isn’t even their routines and habits. It’s much more basic than that. Motivation is just the key that starts the engine, but your beliefs are the fuel that keep that engine running.

Imagine you know a person that gets on your nerves. Maybe they’ve said unkind things to you or kicked your dog, or they burp in public. For whatever reason, you don’t like or respect them. Now imagine they asked you for a really big favor that would benefit them and puts you in an uncomfortable position. Would you be inclined to help them? Probably not. Someone being mean to you is not a very good motivator for you to do them a favor. If they had not been mean to you and treated you with dignity and respect, would you be more willing to help them?

It’s the same for yourself, even if you desperately want to change, you will find it difficult to help yourself if you don’t already like who you are here and now. When you are busy berating yourself and feeling guilty for eating or being overweight, you want to change because you are anxious to be a better person. But this anxiety can blind you to the fact that you already ARE an awesome person. You are already one hundred percent good just the way you are. Getting thinner and healthier will make you thinner and healthier, it will not make you any more valuable than you are now.

So, the secret to staying ‘motivated’ is self-acceptance, self-respect and self-love. No amount of eating right or weight loss can give you these things. But if you can realize them now, as you are, you will be able to do the things you set out to do.

Once you stop the guilt and shame, you will be immune to fast food marketers and food pushers. You will be able to walk into a buffet and eat only what you want and not crave anything else. You will be able to walk into the supermarket with a list of foods and not come out with two boxes of donuts that you will demolish on the way home. You will be able to keep cookies and other treats in your panty without being afraid of eating them all at one sitting.

This is a miraculous feeling and it is within your grasp, no matter how abnormal you think you are, no matter what you have eaten in the past and no matter what anyone has told you. It IS possible to eat well without trying to restrict certain foods, without counting calories and without using sugar free and fat free substitutes. When you accept that you are a valuable person just the way you are, you will find you will naturally have what it takes to take care of yourself and your body.

For more on Binge Free Living click here

Be bold. Don’t beg God for favors. Ask once and thank him that it is already on its way.

How To Surrender… And Win

After yo-yo dieting and binge eating most of your adult life, eating whatever you want may seem impossible. When I first began my binge free journey, I told myself I would eat what I wanted, when I wanted, where I wanted. I took all restrictions off food. In case you are wondering, I did not picture myself eating ten thousand calories worth of chocolate cake every day and not gaining a pound, but I did picture myself eating meals I liked and food I wanted, including chocolate cake, with no restrictions on type of food or portion sizes.

Somehow, I knew this was the right thing to do. I was overeating at almost every meal and bingeing in times of stress. I know, it doesn’t make sense. If you want to stop eating too much, you should be able to say to yourself, “Stop eating so much.” And poof…you stop eating so much. I tried this for 25 years and it never worked, and it never will work, so why do we keep doing it? I finally gave up dieting to save my sanity and maybe even my life.

When I say the words ‘gave up,’ I don’t mean I considered myself a failure and started eating because I’ll never lose weight anyway or that food defeated me. It’s quite the opposite. I took control of my eating by allowing myself to eat what I thought my body wanted at any given time. Instead of succumbing to the food I used to restrict, I now eat my fill and it doesn’t rule me anymore.

I didn’t throw all my knowledge about nutrition out the window, but I did buy and eat foods I never allowed myself to eat in the past. It seems ironic that I eat less of those foods now than when they were restricted.

When you restrict food or even have thoughts of not eating in the future, like starting a diet on Monday, your body gets a stress signal – ‘food will be scarce.’ So, it encourages you, rather compels, you to eat more now. How many ‘last suppers’ have you had? If you do happen to thwart the compulsion and reduce your calories for any period of time, your body slows down your metabolism to conserve energy. At some point, you will give in to hunger for more calories and go off your diet, which causes you to feel guilty and eat more. There you are, back in the vicious cycle.

To stop this cycle forever is not difficult if you really want to do it. The hardest part is to be faithful to it. As with any change, you must make a concerted effort to stick with the program. This means eating cookies when you have a taste for them and not thinking of ways to make up for it later. It means telling yourself you can still eat whatever you want the next time you are hungry, regardless of what or how much you just ate. It means taking the guilt out of the eating process entirely.

Once you get used to this process and quit second guessing your decision to not diet, your body and your psyche will stop being at odds with each other. And once they get on the same side, you will feel a peace that you may have not experienced in a long time.

For tips on Motivation click here.

“I used to ask the question -Why do I always do stuff that makes me feel guilty? When the real question is -Why do I feel guilty for the stuff I do?” MD

The Binge Is Gone, Now What?

The thrill is gone. The food police have left the building. The scale is broken. The party is over. But it’s not an ending, its just a beginning.

All this doesn’t mean I don’t overeat sometimes or that I lost tons of weight or that I eat exactly what I want all the time. In fact, the first few months of binge free living, I found myself eating just because I could.

But truthfully, food just doesn’t turn me on that much anymore. I still love to eat, but my tastes have changed. It’s almost depressing, knowing that a piece of homemade chocolate cake won’t send me over the moon. If I don’t have cravings, why do I still eat those things?

One reason is that I am still proving to myself I can eat whatever I choose. And if I have to work too hard to eat something healthy over junk food, many times, I’ll choose the junk food. It seems obvious how to change this. Just make it easier to eat healthy food. But in reality, you have to work with what you have, play the cards you were dealt, make lemonade out of lemons… you get the idea.

I’m not making excuses, but I live with my husband, my mother in law and my son. My son is 24, a college graduate and has a great job, but he also has student loans, so we told him he could live here for awhile after he graduated to get a handle on the loans. And after my husband’s dad died, it became pretty clear his mom couldn’t live alone, so we made room for her in our home. That leaves my husband and I in the classic position that characterizes our generation, sandwiched between our progeny and our parentage. All who eat completely different than me.

I’ve often pictured how I would eat if I lived alone, or with people whose palate was more akin to mine and I always prefer to be with my current family than alone or with someone who shared my dietary likes. So, yes, I AM using my family as an excuse to eat less than the best I know and want to eat.

I want to eat colorful veggies at every meal, they all want meat, cheese and starch. I don’t typically care about snacks; my hubby snacks throughout the day. I can’t complain about my son because he’s not here half the time for meals, and when he is, he’ll eat just about anything that isn’t nailed down.

So, how do you eat what you really want at any given meal without cooking three different entrees?
I could just cook for myself, but in my household, I do the cooking for everyone and mother washes up the kitchen. I like this state of affairs, it keeps her feeling like she has a responsibility and it keeps me from cleaning (win-win). I also figure that if I cooked exactly what I wanted all the time, everyone in the house would eat bologna sandwiches.

I’ve given up trying to change their eating patterns and help them eat healthier because, well…because it doesn’t work. I realized this the day my husband chose to make a sandwich over a balanced meal I had prepared. I can’t make them eat any differently than they have always eaten just because I am eating differently. I can encourage them, but decided this is not good either since it puts me in a position where I am trying to control the behavior of other adults and I don’t want to be in that position. I just got OUT of that mindset!

I could make this another dilemma in my life, but I don’t focus on it. Somehow, we get through each day. We have ‘fend for yourself’ days, we go out to eat some days and sometimes, I do cook two different meals, but I keep it simple. That mindset seems to work for me.

To read how I thwarted a binge and never went back, click here.

“Take care of itself, the outcome will, if you focus on the process more.” MD