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What is Your Motivation for Dieting?
in Binge Eating, Blog, Calories, Dieting, dieting weight gain, fasting, Habits, motivation to lose weight, Overeating, stop dieting, stop overeating, yo-yo diet cycle, yo-yo dieting/by Kathryn HansenThe first urges to binge commonly appear after a period of restrictive dieting. The binge urges are a primal survival response—when you restrict food, the primitive part of your brain starts to encourage you to eat as much as possible. (You can learn more about this in Episode 2: The Cause of Binge Eating: Urges […]
Challenge Cultural Body Messages (with Ayurveda)
in Binge Eating, Blog, Body Image, Dieting, Health, Weight/by Kathryn HansenI often speak out against restrictive dieting, because not only does it promote binge eating, it is a harmful practice that is not effective in helping you reach and maintain a healthy weight. Giving up restrictive dieting does not mean giving up health or fitness, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. When you stop restrictive dieting (and binge eating), you can focus on […]
If You Decide You Binge to Cope
in Binge Eating, Blog, Emotions/by Kathryn HansenIf you are familiar with my blog or books, you know I hold the opinion that binge eating is not a coping mechanism for underlying emotions or life’s problems. Instead, I believe binge eating is about coping with the urges to binge. In the Brain over Binge approach, the urges to binge are the one […]
Freedom: Reframing Your Motivation to Stop Binge Eating
in Binge Eating, Blog, Habits, Health, motivation/by Kathryn HansenTo stop binge eating, you have to want to…not in every moment, but on the whole, you have to have reasons why you no longer want the destructive habit in your life. If you feel very little or no desire for recovery, then your higher brain is likely to continue following the binge urges from the lower […]
Don’t Let Thoughts of Purging Encourage You to Binge
in Blog, Detachment, Purging, Resisting Urges/by Kathryn HansenThe urges to binge are the only direct cause of binge eating. An urge to binge is: any thought, feeling, or physical sensation that encourages a binge. For those with bulimia, the thought of, “I can just purge afterward” often strongly encourages binge eating. To avoid a binge, it is necessary to avoid giving thoughts like […]
Dealing with PMS as a Recovering Binge Eater
in Blog, Cravings, Emotions, PMS, Triggers/by Kathryn HansenHas this happened to you?… You feel like your eating is going pretty well, and you are feeling relatively good in your life, and then suddenly, you start to feel down, and everything seems a little darker and more difficult? At the same time, do you experience an increase in appetite and food cravings? Whether you have recently stopped binge […]
Weight Gain from Binge Eating Recovery?
in Anorexia, Anxiety, Binge Eating, Blog, Body Image, Calories, Dieting, dieting weight gain, Health, stop dieting, Weight/by Kathryn HansenIf you have bulimia or binge eating disorder, you’ve most likely experienced weight gain from binge eating. You may wonder what will happen as you recover…will you lose the weight you’ve gained? Will you gain more weight as you begin eating normally? What will your weight be as a binge-free and diet-free person? It’s important […]
Orthorexia and Binge Eating: Guest Post from Elisa Oras
in Anorexia, Binge Eating, Blog, Calories, Cravings, Dieting, fasting, Health, Intuitive Eating, Nutrition, Orthorexia, Purging/by Kathryn HansenIf you struggle with binge eating, you may also have obsessive thoughts about eating healthy. Extreme or excessive preoccupation with healthy eating that results in unhealthy consequences is called orthorexia. Like other forms of restrictive dieting, orthorexia can lead to binge eating, and orthorexic tendencies can fuel the binge and purge cycle. Trying to eat […]
Is “Wanting to Binge” Holding You Back in Recovery?
in Binge Eating, Blog/by Kathryn HansenToday, I’m going to address an issue that may be causing you some confusion and stagnation in your recovery. The issue is a common inner conflict, which can be described like this: Wanting to binge, while also knowing that you want to recover. Any eating disorder recovery program or philosophy would agree that wanting to recover is […]
How to Get Unstuck with Recovery: The Meta Chatter (Guest Post from Lydia Wente)
in Binge Eating, Blog/by Kathryn HansenHi! My name is Lydia Wente. I was a Lifestyle coach that had coached hundreds of people to better health, but also had a terrible secret: I would regularly feel like I had lost total control, my body hijacked, leading me to eat massive amounts of food, and only stopping once the pain became too […]
Learning How to Eat in Recovery
in Binge Eating, Blog, Coaching, Dieting, Meals, Nutrition/by Kathryn HansenA central theme of my new book is that only 2 goals are necessary for recovery: 1.) Learning to dismiss urges to binge and 2.) Learning to eat adequately I share principles, recommendations, written exercises, and resources to help you accomplish those two goals in a way that works for you. One of the resources I recommend–primarily in the area of learning […]
The Primal Brain’s Role in Normal Eating (and Binge Eating)
in Binge Eating, Blog, Cravings, Dieting, hunger and fullness, Hunger and Satiety, indulging in food, Intuitive Eating, Pleasure/by Kathryn HansenI received a good question from someone struggling with binge eating regarding which part of the brain—the higher brain (rational) or the lower brain (primal, habitual, instinctual, and pleasure-seeking) is involved in normal eating. This is topic I address thoroughly in the Brain over Binge Recovery Guide but I want to answer it briefly here—and […]
Improve Self-Control and Stop Binge Eating Under Stress
in Binge Eating, Blog, Self-Control, Stress/by Kathryn HansenI received a request for a blog post about how to improve self-control and dismiss binge urges when you are under stress. Stress can deplete the self-control functions in your higher brain, especially if you have stressful responsibilities that seem to require heroic self-control—like caring for an aging parent, nursing a sick spouse, being with […]
Eating on Plate – A Simple Awareness Tool
in Binge Eating, Blog/by Kathryn HansenI wrote this on my Instagram account (@brain_over_binge) a few days ago, and I thought I’d share it here as well, and add a little to the discussion. I wrote about the benefits of taking a moment to put the food you are going to eat on a plate, especially highly palatable processed foods, sweets, […]
Simple Technique to Resist Urges and Overcome Binge Eating
in Binge Eating, Blog, bulimia, Coaching, Purging, Resisting Urges, Support, urge to binge, urge to purge/by Kathryn HansenIn my last post, Am I Ready for Recovery From Binge Eating?, I talked about staying focused on the two recovery goals of the brain over binge approach: dismissing binge urges and learning to eat adequately. You can use what best helps you reach those goals. There are many ideas out there about how to […]
Am I Ready for Recovery from Binge Eating?
in Anxiety, Binge Eating, Blog, Body Image, Calories, Coaching, Cravings, Depression, Dieting, Emotions, Overeating, Resisting Urges, Weight/by Kathryn HansenDuring my years of binge eating, and what seemed like thousands of attempts to recover (before I finally found help in Jack Trimpey’s book, Rational Recovery), I looked for the reasons why I wasn’t successful. Through therapy and reading self-help information online, one of the theories I came up with was that I simply wasn’t […]
Binge Eating at Night and Late-Night Cravings
in Binge Eating, Blog, bulimia, Cravings, Detachment, Habits, Health, hunger, Night Eating, Overeating, Pleasure, weight gain/by Kathryn HansenIt’s common for binge eaters to primarily binge at night; and even after binge eating stops, you may still find yourself having late-night food cravings. Some people are bothered by these cravings, and wonder if giving in to them means that they are overindulging; or conversely, if ignoring those cravings means that they are being […]
“My Case is Different”: When You Feel Your Unique Problems Prevent Recovery from Binge Eating
in Binge Eating, Blog, Stress/by Kathryn HansenDo you find yourself thinking that quitting the binge eating habit may work for others, but not for you? Do you think your life is more complicated than others who have recovered? Do you think your binge eating may have developed for deeper reasons, or that you have too many struggles in your life to […]
How Much Should I Eat?
in Binge Eating, Blog/by Kathryn HansenThis is a big question – one that I can’t answer thoroughly in one post, and one that actually doesn’t have a right answer because everyone is so unique. However, I want to share some thoughts on this topic because I think that not eating enough can undermine people’s ability to resist binge urges. This […]
Is Intuitive Eating a Remedy for Binge Eating?
in Binge Eating, Blog, Cravings, Dieting, Health, hunger, hunger and fullness, Hunger and Satiety, indulding in food, Intuitive Eating, Nutrition, Overeating, Processed foods, self-esteem, stop dieting, Weight, weight gain, weight loss without dieting, yo-yo dieting/by Kathryn HansenIf you’re a binge eater trying to recover, you’ve likely come across the term “intuitive eating.” It has become a common term that refers to tuning in to your own body and hunger signals to guide your food choices. The philosophy of intuitive eating was originally developed by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, and detailed […]