It feels like a runaway train inside of you that you just can’t control. If you’ve ever felt out of control around food, you know exactly what I’m talking about.Sometimes it just seems easier to succumb to the craving than try to fight it. You think maybe it will leave you alone if you just give in.
While binge eating is powerful and it feels like you can’t stop it, research shows that it isn’t something you’re “powerless” over. You have the power to stop it. It’s really just a habit gone haywire. And what we know about habits is that they’re changeable. That’s not to say it’s easy or comfortable to change a habit. In fact, stopping a binge can feel excruciating!
But the only way to stop your pattern of binge eating long term is to change the neural network in your brain. You’ve created a robust neural pathway for binge eating. It’s the behavior you go to when you’re stressed, lonely, tired, happy, bored, etc. Then it even becomes a habit that you reach for even when emotions are not present.
So, how do you stop a binge before it starts?
I have a number of strategies I use with clients. Some may work for you right away. Others may not work at all. The key to stopping a binge is to keep trying things until they do work. You need an arsenal of tools available to you to help you kick this habit. Here are my top favorite tools to stop binge eating.
Set a timer for 10 minutes
It sounds trite, but giving yourself a full 10 minutes to get some space between you and the food when the urge to binge hits is a powerful tool. Do anything you can to remove yourself from the situation. Take a walk, chat wit the neighbor, call a friend, dance in the living room, take a drive–really anything! The point is to begin to give your mind some space. Your brain has been trained to go to food as a solution. This gives you an opportunity to begin to develop new habits.
The key to this is to tell yourself that you can have the food when the 10 minutes is done. Otherwise you won’t do it! So, it’s a success if you hold yourself off for 10 minutes, even if you end up bingeing anyway.
Remember, this is a process about retraining the brain. You have to start somewhere.
Practice Self-Compassion
No lasting change is ever made by berating yourself. Seriously. We have a tendency to think that beating ourselves up is the only way to change, but it actually makes things worse. When you do binge or “mess up” use it as an opportunity to reflect. Be curious about your patterns, and practice looking at yourself with eyes of compassion. You developed binge eating out of a lack of tools. Your stress level or emotions exceeded your coping mechanisms, and it proved an effective method of getting through something tough–for a time. Now, you’re just ready to grow out of a behavior that is not serving you anymore. That’s all! No reason to berate yourself. Time to move forward and learn new tools.
Become Self-Aware Through Journal Writing
As you’re being curious about your binge eating, begin by writing down the last time you binged. What were the situations, feelings, thoughts, beliefs that preceded the binge? A few hours before up to a few days before. I used to find that a binge was sometimes in the works for a few days before I actually had one. And, usually it was because I stuffed a feeling or didn’t stand up for myself in some way.
For you it could be that you skipped a meal and were extra hungry. (We might not even call this a binge, depending on how much and how you felt. Could just be compensatory eating for being hungry which is normal and OK!) Or you felt especially exhausted or stressed and food seemed like the only way to calm down in that moment.
Once you’re clear about the reasons you binge, then it’s easier to develop solutions and alternate behaviors.
Learn How to Effectively Cope With Your Emotions
See my previous post on healing from emotional eating on this one: https://eatingrecoverycoach.com/2020/01/13/are-you-an-emotional-eater/
There are all kinds of tools for coping with emotions. From distracting yourself with a walk or a bath, to sitting with them and letting them subside. Find what works for you. Mindfulness practices, DBT, meditation, and simply sitting on the couch and being with my feelings have all been very effective for me.
Remember That Urges Pass
Urges are just feelings. They pass if we let them. Every time we go to food to cope, we strengthen those neural pathways we talked about. Every time you resist an urge, you strengthen the neural pathway in the other direction. The more you resist now, the easier it becomes.
This same concept is taught in addiction recovery. I don’t believe that eating is an addiction, but I do think there is some crossover in holding yourself off from urges. The brain is so powerful! It grows in response to what we are exposing it to. If you keep exposing it to excessive food in response to emotions or urges, it will keep giving you urges. If you begin going to deep breathing to cope with stress, it will remind you to deep breathe in times of stress. It’s all about changing the habit.
Is this easy? Heck no! No one ever said it was going to be easy. This is hard work, but surprisingly not as hard as you have been telling yourself.
Don’t Sacrifice Your Long-Term Goals for the Short-Term Reward
Since urges go away on their own if you let them, you’re really giving into a harmful behavior simply because you want the urge to go away. Urges are uncomfortable, but they’re not unbearable. You’re not “powerless” over them. It feels like you are, but you are smarter than them. You are armed with tools now.
When you think about your long-term goals and reasons for quitting binge eating, they cannot be achieved if you keep succumbing to urges. When you give in to an urge, you sacrifice your long-term goals for your short-term comfort. And, that rationale has gotten you where you are today with food: miserable, hating yourself, and in food jail.
You have to muscle your way through urges until you don’t have them anymore. There is no magic solution here. Just don’t do it.
Does it suck? Yes. Does it feel bad? Yes. Is it uncomfortable? Yes.
But you are stronger than the urges, and you can get through uncomfortable things. Having the life you want is worth the short-term discomfort.
Look at Your Overall Pattern of Eating
Are you skipping meals? Dieting? Cutting carbs or sugar? There could be biological reasons that you’re having cravings that have nothing to do with emotions. It is important to take a step back and examine your pattern of eating.
I see lots of clients that restrict what they eat most of the day, then after dinner the excessive food comes out. When they begin adding more nutritious and balanced food (yes, that includes carbs) throughout the day a good half of their cravings after dinner subside. You have more control over food when you’re not in a starved state. That’s why eating more frequent small meals throughout the day can help with cravings. Your body is getting the nutrition it needs, so you’re cravings can subside. It’s simple science.
If you’ve been dieting or eating “clean” for a long time, you may need a nutrition professional to take a look at what and how you’re eating to determine if you’re restricting in some way. Diet culture is powerful in convincing us that we’re not restricting, when we actually are. You may not realize that you have set up a pattern of restriction that is greatly contributing to your binges.
Ultimately, stopping a binge is a multi-faceted process. It involves coping with urges in the short-term, getting clear about your reasons for not wanting to binge anymore, learning how to cope with emotions without going to food, changing a habit, and becoming self-aware. Not an easy journey, for sure, but totally doable.
Sending you lots of love and encouragement today. You got this!
