Look Behind the Scenes to Ease Your Mind
I had a conversation with my daughter a couple of weeks ago that immediately inspired an idea for this blog post. It all started when my oldest son, who is 11 and not scared of much at all, wanted to watch a trailer of a movie about aliens. The trailer wasn’t too scary in my opinion, and he watched it a couple of times before my 9-year-old daughter became interested. I figured it would be okay for her to see it as well, and she seemed fine at the time; but later, she told me that a certain image of an alien scared her and she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
After some initial “mom guilt” for letting her watch it in the first place, and telling her no more scary movie previews, I told her simply that it wasn’t real and there was nothing to be afraid of. Later, she brought it up again, and I said that her fearful thoughts about it would pass, and to try to focus on other things. After she brought it up for a third time, I started thinking of how I could do a better job of easing her mind.
Then, I remembered something my father used to say when I was scared of movies. He used to tell me to picture the camera operators recording the action, and to imagine the director, sound equipment, lighting…etc. behind the scenes. He told me to imagine the actors messing up while filming the scene and having to redo it over and over. He basically told me to turn my attention from the events happening on the screen and think about the events that created that scary scene in the first place.
I explained all of that to her, and also told her to see the people working to produce the amazing special effects that make it look so realistic. As we talked, I could see something shift in her. It seemed to really resonate and ease her fear, and she even laughed a little bit at imagining the movie from a new perspective.
As soon as the conversation was over, I immediately thought about how this “behind the scenes” view of a scary movie is related to binge eating recovery.
When you are looking at any of your harmful eating-disorder thoughts (including binge urges) from one angle, they can look real and powerful and can create feelings of fear. But, when you shift your perspective and look at those same thoughts and urges from another angle, they can look and feel completely different.
For example, if you look at your urges to binge as an indication of something you truly want or need, you’ll likely experience strong feelings of desire, and you’ll feel compelled to act on them. Viewing the urges as meaningful and powerful signals can make binge eating feel almost inevitable. But if you can instead look at where the binge urges are coming from – from a primal, instinctual system in your lower brain that is designed to maintain your habits – they will feel less intimidating. If you can see that the binge urges are automatic, faulty signals that have no real meaning to you, you can simply move on with your life without being affected. It’s the same with urges to engage in restrictive dieting. If you can view those urges to restrict as devoid of any truth or value, you may even find yourself laughing off thoughts about going on another diet.
You should know that, even with a new perspective, you may still experience some uncomfortable feelings, and I suspect this was the case with my daughter as well, in regard to the movie trailer. She likely still had some fearful thoughts, but the new “behind the scenes” perspective made it much more manageable, and gave her something to turn to, to ease her mind. It’s the same in binge eating recovery. Even though some feelings of discomfort, anxiety, fear, or frustration may arise, you can tolerate those feelings as you move toward lasting change.
Being that it’s Halloween in the US when I’m posting this, there is another analogy I’d like to use to illustrate how looking behind the scenes allows you to manage uncomfortable feelings…
Let’s say you go in one of those “haunted houses” on Halloween where people dress up in costumes to intentionally scare you. Even though you know it isn’t real, you probably still have some fear (of course you do, that’s what you pay for in a haunted house!). But, your fear is tolerable, because you know what’s behind the scenes. You can visualize the people behind the masks, just having fun trying to act as scary as possible. You know it’s harmless, and you can even laugh at yourself when you jump with fright or when you scream. If you thought it was real, the experience of an haunted house would be too terrifying for anyone.
Whether it’s a haunted house, a scary movie, or an eating disorder thought or urge, when you know how it all works, it allows you to experience it without feeling so threatened. You no longer feel like you have to run and hide, fight back, or do whatever you have to do to make the thoughts and uncomfortable feelings go away. You stop feeling like you have to jump into action and perform harmful behaviors. You can simply step back, look behind the scenes, and realize that you are safe.
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More help:
If you want extra guidance as you end binge eating, here are some resources for additional support:
Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $10.99/month. Includes over 120 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.
Group Coaching – Get help from coach Julie and support from others who are overcoming this habit. Includes a forum that is open 24/7, group coaching calls, mindfulness resources, plus course access.
One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute private session with coach Julie. She will help you change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.
What Makes Recovery “Work”? Part III (You Don’t Need to Work so Hard)
This is the 3rd and final post in my blog series, “What Makes Recovery Work?”. In Part I, I talked about expectations surrounding what it means for a recovery method to work. In Part II, I discussed the work you personally need to do in recovery, which is to dismiss each urge to binge (and also eat enough food). Now in Part III, I want to talk about eliminating unnecessary work in recovery.
When I was in therapy for binge eating, it felt like I had a lifelong journey of work ahead of me in order to stop the harmful behavior and then to maintain my recovery. But, since then, I’ve seen that it’s not necessary to work so hard to put aside the binge eating habit.
I know you aren’t afraid of doing work; I know you aren’t expecting recovery to be effortless; and I know you are willing to do what it takes to stop your binge eating. Working hard is certainly not a bad thing, but if right now, you feel that your hard work hasn’t gotten you closer to freedom from binge eating, you may be doing work that isn’t actually targeting the binge eating problem.
Commonly, in traditional eating disorder therapy, the work that is required has to do with managing emotions, healing pain from your past, and learning to cope better with daily stress. This is meaningful work that can help improve your life, but if it isn’t helping you avoid acting on the binge urges, it’s not helping with the binge eating specifically.
It can be baffling when you feel you are doing all of the hard work that therapy requires and you are still binge eating. If you find yourself in this situation, you may understandably start to look for something else to work on, and then something else after that. This can lead to a constant state of trying to find another problem to solve, or something else within yourself to fix, hoping it will eventually put an end to your binge eating.
You may also be working on improving and fixing the way you are eating, thinking that will get rid of the binge episodes. You may be trying to create the perfect meal plan, or trying to adhere to strict eating guidelines, so you may be working hard every day measuring, counting, and weighing your food intake. Additionally, you could be going through a lot of trouble to avoid certain foods that you believe are problematic or addicting, or you may be trying to research nutrition and take all of the right supplements.
Although improving your eating in ways that feel good to you is a positive thing, and although it’s certainly important to make sure you eat adequately, it’s possible you are putting a lot of unnecessary time and energy into your eating plan, without it making much of a difference in your binge eating. It can feel like a never-ending quest when you are always looking for something else to fix or change about your diet, hoping that will put a stop to the binges.
If you think a lot of hard work is required for recovery, it only makes sense that you would keep looking for something else to solve or fix, whether that’s in your life, your relationships, your personality, your emotions, or the way you are eating. It’s admirable, and shows determination and resilience. But, I know how frustrating it feels when it seems like no matter what you work on, you still end up binge eating.
What if working harder in recovery is not the answer?
It is my belief that no matter how much you improve your life, your emotional state, your relationships, your ability to cope, or the way you are eating, binge urges will still inevitably come up. Even if you work very hard in all of those areas, you’ll still be left with the fundamental work of recovery: not acting on the binge urges.
To stop acting on the binge urges, what if less work is actually more effective?
I had a conversation with Dr. Amy Johnson on my podcast last week, and part of what we talked about was how just seeing your binge eating habit differently can allow change to occur without the struggle or without needing to work so hard. When you have a fundamental shift in the way you view your urges and respond to them, it suddenly seems unnecessary to sort out and deal with all of your other problems or have a perfect eating plan in order to stop binge eating.
So, instead of thinking “what other problems and difficult emotions can I work on in recovery?”, you can change your mindset and think, “how can I work on developing a new perspective about the urges and respond to them differently?”
Ending binge eating doesn’t need to feel like intense, complicated, or tedious work. The work can simply be you deeply seeing that the urges do not express your true wants and needs, and then learning to connect with your own power to avoid acting on them.
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If you want help in increasing your ability not to act on binge urges, and you are new to the Brain over Binge approach, you can get started with my free eBook.
If you want extra help in making recovery work for you, the Brain over Binge Course is composed of over 125 audios to guide you and encourage you, including one audio you can listen to when you are having an urge to binge—to help you avoid acting on it. You can get access to the complete course for only $18.99 per month.
Tips to Help You Stop Purging
If you’ve read my books or blog, you’ll know that I did not purge through self-induced vomiting (instead, I purged with excessive exercise and also with restrictive eating). I fully realize that those of you who purge through self-induced vomiting face a different set of challenges in recovery.
Many of you have told me that the physical effects of stopping purging (such as bloating and other uncomfortable symptoms) make you want to binge and purge just to get “relief.” Even though you know rationally that binge eating and purging is not a real solution for those symptoms and that it causes further damage to your health, when you feel so uncomfortable, it may seem tempting to get that temporary reprieve from bloating or other physical symptoms. You may even be someone who has developed the habit of purging normal meals, and you are finding it difficult to stop, or you are concerned with what may happen to your weight if you stop.
To address this issue I’ve reached out to Ali Kerr of Binge Code Coaching, who has personal experience with overcoming self-induced vomiting, and who has guided many others to do the same. Below is a guest post from Ali!
Are you ready to stop purging your food but find yourself worried about what will happen to your body when you do? Perhaps you’ve recently stopped or reduced purging episodes only to find that your body is swelling up, bloating, and gaining weight as a result?
As the founder of Binge Code Coaching, author of the bestselling books The Bulimia Help Method and The Binge Code, and a qualified Nutritional Therapist, I have coached hundreds of clients over the years who have experienced this same fear and resistance when it comes to giving up purging. Not only that, I have experienced this challenge first hand myself.
It takes an incredible amount of bravery to stop purging your food and to trust your body to adapt through this process. When we first stop purging we tend to experience overwhelming and intense “side-effects” which include:
Bloating of the stomach
Swollen hands and feet
An uncomfortable feeling of heaviness right through the body, and
A temporary increase in weight
These changes often leave us feeling defeated, confused and convinced that we will never recover without our weight rapidly spiraling out of control.
I remember believing that my body could not handle food anymore. I was also certain that I would end up becoming very overweight and regularly thought about purging again just to gain some relief. Yet despite these impulses to purge “just one last time,” I persevered with recovery, I stayed strong, and I did not purge. I found that within a month the bloating and other symptoms had significantly reduced. The same is true for my clients today, with most them noticing a significant reduction in bloating and other associated symptoms within the first 4-6 weeks of stopping purging.
Through my research I came to discover that the bloating and other challenging “side-effects” that we associate with the cessation of purging largely occur due to our bodies being in a state of chronic dehydration at the start of recovery. This means it’s important to give your body time (and permission) to go through these healing changes.
Here are my top five tips to help you through the initial stages of quitting purging:
1. Keep your body well hydrated
As strange as it sounds, ensuring that you drink at least 2-3 litres of fluid each day will help to reduce water retention. So, get into the habit of sipping water regularly through the day, take a bottle of water with you wherever you go, drink soothing herbal teas to aid digestion after meals, and try to incorporate lots of fresh fruits and vegetables into your meal plans as they are naturally hydrating.
2. Stop checking your weight
The majority of weight fluctuations that occur when we stop purging are the result of water weight and this can equate to rapid weight fluctuations. Seeing big changes on your scale early on in recovery may derail your recovery efforts. It would be such a shame for you to give up all hope because of a little temporary water weight, wouldn’t it?! So, see if you can make a pact with yourself to avoid stepping on the scale for the time being. It can help to move it out of your bathroom completely or to take out the batteries. If this feels intimidating, challenge yourself to go without checking the number one week at a time.
3. Commit to stopping purging no matter what
To overcome bloating and the other associated symptoms you may be experiencing right now you absolutely, 100%, must learn to stop purging completely. Tell yourself that even if you overeat, binge, or feel incredibly bloated, purging is no longer an option.
4. Avoid seeking out quick fixes for your bloating
There is tons of advice out there on how to reduce bloating. Generally, it involves imposing new strict food rules or trying diets that eliminate whole food groups at a time. Not only is this not recovery-friendly but it simply will not work. Understand that your body is bloating because you are beginning to heal from the effects of purging, you must give it the time it needs to do this. There are no quick fixes. It’s important to understand that while this bloating may feel uncomfortable or even painful, it’s not dangerous because all you are doing is re-learning how to do something that is completely natural and safe, which is eating and digesting food. However if you do experience intense, prolonged pain, discomfort or bloating that becomes worrying you should always consult your doctor.
5. Let go of any misconceptions you hold about “the benefits” of purging (hint: there aren’t any!)
While purging your food may have caused some temporary initial weight loss when you first developed your eating disorder, purging does not help you to lose weight in the long run. In fact, prolonged periods of purging cause metabolic changes that prompt your body to store more fat. Purging also increases the likelihood that you will binge and research proves the number of calories absorbed from a binge, even after purging, is greater than the number that would have been absorbed on a binge-free day. If anything, purging contributes to weight gain NOT weight loss!
Really, this boils down to trust. You need to trust that your body can handle the food, you need to trust that the bloating will not turn to fat, you need to trust that the discomfort will pass. Give your body time to heal (at least 4-6 weeks). Please, please, please be patient with your body and give it time to heal. A lifetime free from bulimia far outweighs a couple of weeks worth of feeling bloated.
If you would like some extra support and guidance on stopping purging, you can read our step-by-step guide to stopping purging.
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BIO
Alison Kerr (BA, Nutritional Therapist) is at the forefront of a groundbreaking revolution in eating disorder recovery. She is the founder and CEO of Binge Code Coaching (formerly called HealED), a wellness company that specializes in coaching people to break free from their food issues.
Alison is a best selling author of several books on overcoming binge eating and bulimia. A native of Scotland, her first book The Bulimia Help Method was published in 2014 and has become a best seller in its field. Her latest book The Binge Code is the culmination of ten years working with people who suffer from binge eating and emotional eating. Alison’s approach is unorthodox, engaging, fun and most importantly, effective. Learn more and get one-on-one support