Making Commitments Last in Binge Eating Recovery
When I was a binge eater, I seemed to have endless Day 1’s. What I mean by this is—telling myself it was Day 1 of my binge-free life, because I had resolved to never binge again. I had too many of these new starts to count.
New starts were sometimes spontaneous, for example, when I would wake up feeling awful after a binge and declare it was Day 1, and that I’d never do that to myself again. But more commonly, I planned my Day 1 in advance and lined it up with an occasion like my birthday, New Year’s, or even just with the start of a new week or month. I often picked a Day 1 that coincided with my next therapy appointment, or when I was going to start a new meal plan, or a new strategy in recovery. If I had an important event coming up—like a friend’s wedding—when I wanted to be at my best, I’d sometimes set my Day 1 to be a certain number of days or weeks in advance of that event.
Leading up my self-declared Day 1, I would often do things like buy a new journal, or make a new chart to track all the binge-free days I knew I was going to have, or come up with a new reward system for myself for when I was successful, or create elaborate plans for my upcoming binge-free days—thinking that if I somehow blocked out every minute with something to do, then I would not binge. In addition to any planning I did for Day 1, I always did a lot of bingeing as well. I would usually binge all the way until the “official” start date and time that I had set for myself.
My new plans and new commitments had good intentions, but they typically did not last very long. Until I finally recovered for good, I rarely got to day 3 or day 4 without a binge, regardless of the plan I implemented. So it seemed like I was always either bingeing or starting over on Day 1 with a new plan—that led right back to bingeing. Each time, I really thought that setting the new commitment would help, but I stayed stuck in this frustrating cycle.
When I was caught up in this, I couldn’t really see what was happening. I seemed to automatically go into planning a new Day 1 or making a new resolution, without stopping to think about why the last one hadn’t worked. I don’t think I ever really slowed down to observe what I was doing, and how my thoughts and actions were getting in the way of my progress.
Knowing what I know now, I want to help you feel better prepared to make a commitment to binge eating recovery, so in this post, I want to give you some advice on making commitments last.
Avoid Thinking of “Day 1” in a Literal Way—You are Not Starting Over in Binge Eating Recovery
It’s understandable that you want to make a commitment to stop binge eating, and it’s great that you want to be free of this habit that’s causing you so much pain. But, if you’ve been trying to recover for any amount of time, you’re never truly starting over at Day 1. I suggest that you stop thinking of recovery attempts as brand new starts. You can even stop using the term Day 1 altogether.
You already have knowledge and experience that you can use to your advantage as you fully end the binge eating habit, and thinking you have to go all the way back to the starting line makes recovery seem daunting. Imagine recovery to be like running a race with hurdles—the runners don’t go back to the starting line every time they trip over a hurdle. They simply get up and keep running—committed to jumping the next hurdle, and the next, until they finish the race. They begin again from the place where they fall, and they can still complete the race successfully.
You’ve already made progress in recovery, even if you are struggling right now, so look at your commitment as a continuation, rather than a new beginning. You are committed to finishing the race, to doing your absolute best from this day forward, even if you trip over other hurdles along the way. With this mentality, you will arrive at where you want to be, so try thinking of new commitments in terms of renewed focus, not in terms of going backward and starting at Day 1 again.
Even With a New Commitment to Stop Binge Eating, You Will Still Have the Same Brain
The next piece of advice I’ll give you is to know that your new commitment doesn’t undo the binge eating habit in your brain. You may think that your new commitment or new plan will usher in a new you who does not want to binge, or at least does not want to binge much at all. The reality is that the you that shows up to refocus on recovery has fundamentally the same brain pathways and the same physiology that you did the day before your new commitment. Once you repeat the behavior of binge eating many times, it becomes habitual—wired into your primitive brain centers. Furthermore, the large quantities of food that you’re consuming affect your physiology, digestion, hunger signals, and cravings; and recommitting to recovery does not automatically give you a new body and a new brain.
As you refocus on recovery, and stay committed, your brain and body will gradually change as you decondition the habit. Your brain and body will get the message that you’re no longer binge-eating, and they will adapt accordingly. The problem that I made and that a lot people make is thinking that there will be little to no temptation if they are firmly committed to recovery. This is not the case, because your brain is not yet wired as someone who does not binge.
It is true that you don’t want to binge anymore. You, in your higher brain—the part of your brain responsible for your goals and plans and rational thinking—absolutely does desire recovery. But it’s also important to understand that your lower brain is still conditioned to react as if the habit is absolutely necessary, and it will still send urges for the behavior.
When I didn’t understand my lower and higher brain, it was so frustrating that—despite my shiny new chart to keep track of my success, despite my beautiful new recovery journal, or meal plan, or therapist—I still felt driven to binge. Because I didn’t realize that desire for the habit is a normal part of habit change, I lost focus and I lost my commitment when I had that desire. When I started feeling those binge urges on Day 2, 3, or 4 of my fresh new start, I assumed it was because I truly did want to binge after all.
This made me so angry with myself to want two completely different things—complete freedom and non-stop binge eating—in just a matter or days, or even hours. When the urges to binge got strong, I gave in; and in those moments, it was as if I concluded that binge eating was what I really wanted, and that the new commitment I’d made wasn’t actually me.
But after the binge, I always wished I could erase it. I wished I could go back to being that “new commitment” me. So yet again, I created a new plan and I said that this time I would keep my promise. I’m telling you this so you will understand that a new or renewed commitment does not make your urges to binge go away. Having urges to binge even when you are committed to recovery is totally normal, and does not mean anything is wrong with you. It means your brain is operating as it should.
When you make a commitment to recovery, it then becomes your job to begin to rewire your brain, using whatever support and whatever approach helps you. The day you decide to focus on recovery is the day you will begin to chip away at this habit in your brain. The commitment may help give your higher brain some strength and motivation, but you will still feel a pull toward the harmful behaviors at times, and it’s important that you don’t let this surprise you. You can allow those tempting feelings to pass, while keeping your commitment to remain binge free, and those urges will fade in time.
A “Last Binge” Will Only Make New Commitments More Difficult
I’ve talked and written about the “one last binge” mentality before, and I encourage you to check out this blog post and podcast episode for more on this topic; but there can be another layer to this mentality as well—which relates to making new commitments. What can happen is…in the days before you know you want to really commit to recovery, you can have thoughts that say having “one last binge” will actually help you when it’s time for your commitment to begin. You may believe these thoughts for two reasons:
First, you may think that having a last binge or a last string of binges before a new commitment will finally make you feel satisfied. You may believe that you’ll finally feel like you’ve had enough, and then you’ll be totally ready to give up the habit.
Looking at it from a brain-based perspective, this belief does not make logical sense. Each time you try to have a “last binge” to fully satisfy the habitual desire, you only strengthen that desire and the neural pathways and physiological processes that fuel it. You teach your lower brain that you need to binge even more—you do not teach it that you are ready to quit. This sets you up to have a more difficult time when the day of your commitment arrives.
Due to your “last binge” or “last binges” (in an attempt to silence the urges once and for all), you’ve created stronger urges, and also stretched your stomach and affected your digestion so that cravings are worse, and it’s harder to eat normally. Going into a recovery attempt while dealing with the acute after-affects of binge eating makes everything much more challenging. You can definitely overcome these challenges, but you’ll make it easier on yourself if you don’t have these big, “last” binges.
The second reason you may believe you need to have one last binge, or several last binges, before you refocus on recovery is because you think the binges will make you feel so badly afterward that you will never want to do it again. You know the pain that comes after binges, and you may think that the pain will deter you from ever wanting to binge again—which will make your new commitment last. But, this is also working against you—again because of how the brain works:
When the lower brain is conditioned to binge, or to have any other destructive habit, you’ll still have a desire for it regardless of the pain that it causes. When you are feeling driven to binge, you don’t usually remember the pain of past binges. As much as you can try to remind yourself of the pain, it doesn’t convince the lower brain. Binge eating in advance of a new attempt to quit will not somehow make the lower brain remember the consequences of binge eating.
Any thoughts that say “one last binge” will benefit you and your commitment are faulty, lower-brain thoughts that you can learn to dismiss. The sooner you can start dismissing these thoughts, and any other thoughts that encourage binge eating, the better position you’ll be in to break this habit for good.
I hope the ideas I’ve shared here will help you make a new commitment and make it last!
If you want help becoming and staying binge-free, you can get my course (only $18.99 per month), and also get personalized support and accountability with one-on-one coaching or group coaching.
Stop Having “One Last Binge”
Do you tell yourself that each binge is going to be your last, only to find yourself bingeing again? You are definitely not alone in repeating this pattern, but you can learn to stop the cycle of broken promises to yourself.
Having frequent last binges can keep you putting off recovery indefinitely, and in this post, I want to help you overcome this harmful tendency. I’ve discussed one last time thoughts in Episode 14 and Episode 73 of the podcast, and here, I’ll give you some additional ideas—because this issue is a big factor that interferes with stopping binge eating for good.
First, I’ll talk about the one last time mentality more generally—to help you understand why it occurs, and then I’ll explain how you can successfully deal with this in binge eating recovery.
The One Last Time Mindset is Part of Our Nature
You are not the only one who tells yourself one last time and then doesn’t follow through. I think everyone has this tendency to some extent, even if binge eating is not involved. We tell ourselves one last episode of a tv series late at night—only to watch 2 more after that. We tell ourselves one more minute of a warm and relaxing shower—and then indulge in 5 more minutes. We hit snooze one more time in the morning—several times. We tell ourselves one more scroll through social media—only to find ourselves still scrolling 20 minutes later. We sometimes do keep our word in these situations, but most of us are guilty of not always being true to our “last time” commitments.
If you’ve tried to quit an addictive substance like cigarettes or alcohol, how many times did you tell yourself it was your last smoke or last drink before it actually was—if it ever was? Even with food, normal eaters may say one last chip or one last cookie—only to go back to the bag a few more times. They may say it’s their last fast food lunch of the week—and then find themselves pulling in the drive-thru again the next day.
This tendency is understandable considering that humans are pleasure-seeking creatures, and habitual ones as well. We all have desires to engage in behaviors that bring us enjoyment and ease. However, we are also rational beings with goals and responsibilities, and as I’ll explain, the one last time mentality is a way that we try to satisfy both parts of ourselves—the rational and the pleasure-seeking.
The Last Binge Appeals to the Lower Brain and the Higher Brain
I’ve come to view the one last time mindset as a sort of intersection between our rational and primitive nature. It’s where our lower-brain-driven desire for instant gratification and temporary pleasure meets our higher-brain-driven desire to accomplish things and pursue deeper meaning in our lives. (For more about the lower and higher brain, listen to Episode 3).
Although it’s in our primitive nature to want to be comfortable, we know that we have other aspirations as well. Our higher goals—or even the necessary tasks like dishes or laundry—are often not pleasurable, but bring the results that we truly want (like clean clothes to wear). We all know it requires self-discipline to ignore the urge to continue being lazy or engaging in mindless activities, and turn our attention to the things we need to do and rationally want to be doing to move our lives forward.
Because we often have two competing lines of thinking—one that wants to be productive and one that wants to indulge—we end up with a sort of cognitive dissonance or inner conflict. To relieve this debate in our minds, we tell ourselves that we’ll stop engaging in the pleasurable behavior…but only after we do it one last time.
When we declare and believe this, it seems to allow the rational brain to check out, and allows the primal brain to take over. The one last time statement temporarily quiets your higher brain’s plea for you to do something better with your time, and for a little while, this solves the dilemma of whether you should or shouldn’t be indulging. You basically give yourself permission, and there is definitely some relief in making that decision—which allows you to enjoy whatever you are doing with more peace of mind. In effect, saying one last time appeases the higher brain while giving the lower brain what it wants.
It appeals to the higher brain because one last time does seem like a logical thought, and I think that sometimes it can be—especially when the behavior is not harmful and when it’s not a well-worn habit. However, as behaviors are repeated, the one last time mentality becomes part of habit formation and a significant reason why the habit persists. In other words, the one last time mentality may initially begin as a rational thought (that attempts to balance your more primal desires with your higher goals), but then it becomes an automatic thought that keeps you in a rut.
One Last Time Does Not Satisfy
Sometimes we do stick to what we say about it being the last time, but that usually requires some effort—because when the stated last time ends, the primitive brain’s desire for pleasure is still there. It can be frustrating to realize that even though you said it would be the last time, you still want more. It can be discouraging to realize that you still feel unsatisfied, and this is why you may find yourself saying one last time again and again—until you feel exhausted and ashamed. It’s as if you are chasing the feeling of satisfaction that never arrives, and instead, guilt arrives in it’s place. Once you understand your lower and higher brain, you realize that you simply have to pull yourself away from the pleasure at some point—whether you feel satisfied or not.
In commonplace circumstances, the one last time mentality isn’t really a big deal. We do eventually turn off the tv, we manage to get out of the shower, we pull ourselves away from Facebook, and we get out of bed. We may waste more time on mindless, lazy, or pleasurable activities than we would like, but who doesn’t deserve a little pleasure? The point where some normal indulgence becomes unhealthy overindulgence is not always perfectly clear, and it’s different for everyone based on their goals, preferences, and responsibilities. Even though the one last time thought stems from your lower brain’s desire for temporary pleasure, you can still choose to follow it—that is, when doing so isn’t going to be harmful, like in binge eating. The goal is not to become a perfectly rational being who is always productive and never experiences pleasure.
However, you do not want the lower brain to be completely in charge, so it’s important to get in touch with that wise part of yourself—and choose when you want to follow one last time thoughts and when you don’t. Of course, when there is a harmful substance or behavior involved, you definitely do not want to follow your one last time thoughts. This is where the often innocent and common one last time mindset takes a bad turn. When it comes to destructive habits like bingeing, repeatedly following the one last time thoughts can keep you hurting yourself over and over again.
Pass on the Last Binge and Stop Binge Eating for Good
When your binge urges first appeared, you probably felt powerless to resist them for any length of time, so you might have reasoned that you’d binge one last time and then be done. Your stated commitment to quitting gave you a justification to just go ahead and give in to the urge. It makes perfect sense that you’d want a reason to give in, considering how uncomfortable and unsettling the urges can feel. By giving yourself permission to binge one last time, you got immediate relief from all of the anxiety and craving that the urge caused—but ultimately, each “last” binge made you feel awful, and the relief was never worth the pain.
In the moments of the urge, you may still believe and take comfort in the one last time thought. It may still appease your higher brain, because you truly feel you are committed to each binge being your final binge. When you believe the one last time thought, you don’t feel separate and detached from it, so it’s much more difficult to dismiss it. Even if you are successfully dismissing other binge-encouraging thoughts, the one last time thought may still feel like a logical reason to give in and binge.
This gets back to what I discussed earlier about one last time thoughts being an intersection of the lower brain and higher brain—expressing the higher brain’s desire to stop the behavior, and giving the lower brain what it wants right away. But, if you take time to think about the one last time thoughts a little more deeply, you’ll realize that they are not at all supporting your higher brain’s commitment to recovery, even though it can seem that way at times.
If having a last binge somehow helped you quit, then maybe it could make some logical sense, but that last binge only makes things worse—every time. There was never a time when I thought, “I’m really glad I binged that one last time.” I regretted each and every last binge. I always wished I had not done it. I always took a step back in recovery because of it. Every last binge solidified the habit in my brain.
If the one last time thoughts were truly expressing and supporting your desire to stop binge eating, those thoughts would not encourage you to binge. A thought that is in line with commitment to recovery never drives you toward the harmful behavior. Think about someone in your life who cares about you and wants you to be free of binge eating…would that person tell you that you should go ahead and binge one last time? Of course not; it makes no logical sense if your goal is to quit. (This does not mean that you’ve failed if you do follow an urge—you can always get back on track after a binge).
Dismiss One Last Time Thoughts
In the Brain over Binge approach, the urges to binge are the only direct cause of binge eating. Urges to binge include all thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations that encourages binge eating—and since the one last time thoughts encourage binge eating, they are part of the urge. Therefore, you can treat those thoughts like any other binge-encouraging thoughts and dismiss them as meaningless, powerless, and harmless neurological junk. When it comes to recovery, it doesn’t matter if these thoughts originally had some sort of rational basis—because now, the thoughts are automatic and are keeping you in a destructive cycle.
You can learn to stop giving those one last time thoughts any attention, and you can learn to stop following them. It’s powerful when you realize that you truly do not—nor did you ever—want to binge one last time. You want freedom from binge eating now and for good.
If “one last binge” thoughts keep winning, you don’t have to break that cycle alone. In Group Coaching, weekly live coaching calls and a 24/7 forum of people who understand will help you spot those permission-giving thoughts as lower-brain junk, so you can finally stop the round of broken promises to yourself.
