treats in binge eating recovery

Can Treats Coexist with Binge Eating Recovery?

in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by

I wrote this blog post back in 2012, and I wanted to update it after an experience I had a few days ago while preparing for Halloween…

2012 post:

I eat Halloween candy. I also eat many other types of sweets and desserts in moderation. I don’t think continued recovery requires this, although it is extremely helpful to learn you aren’t powerless around any food. You may find that avoiding certain foods temporarily or even altogether works for you (and if you have a health condition, then elimination of specific foods may be a necessity). Even people without eating disorders sometimes choose to avoid a food because of the effect it has on them, or because it feels too difficult to stop eating it once they start. It’s up to you to decide the amount and frequency of treats and sweets in your life, and holidays can be an opportunity to determine how binge eating recovery and treats can coexist.

Halloween definitely got the best of me when I was bulimic. During my last year of college, I was struggling with frequent binges as Halloween approached, and I remember hesitantly buying a large bag of peanut butter cups for trick-or-treaters. I lived alone in a small duplex at the time, and I knew it was a possibility for me to get some kids knocking on my door on Halloween night. I didn’t have any other plans for Halloween, because at the time, my binge eating was causing so much shame and weight gain that I didn’t have much of a desire to be social.

When I bought the peanut butter cups, I knew it was a risk that I’d eat them all before Halloween. Sweets were dangerous to me. I was trying to recover at the time, and I went back and forth between trying to avoid sweets altogether and trying to learn to eat them in moderation—but neither strategy seemed to help. Sure enough, the day before Halloween, temptation took over and I ate all of the peanut butter cups during a binge. So, on Halloween night, I turned off my outside light, and didn’t answer the door.

Fast forward to today (2012), we often have candy or junk food in the house, and I don’t view it as dangerous at all, or even think much about it. Since I recovered in 2005, we’ve celebrated Halloween every year and kept candy in the house days beforehand for the trick-or-treaters. Then, after Halloween, my own kids’ trick-or-treating buckets have sat on the kitchen table—often for weeks—and I have a few pieces of candy here and there, but I don’t feel drawn to it like in the past.

I believe there are a few reasons for this change:

  • I haven’t dieted or restricted calories in many years. A food-deprived body and brain make food the top priority. When you aren’t eating enough, cravings increase, and the reward value of food skyrockets. Pleasurable food is much more tempting and gives you more of a “hit”. This is a survival response designed to encourage you to eat more, and this response can continue for a while after dieting stops—until the body/brain fully senses safety from deprivation. Then, it gradually turns the volume down on cravings, even in the presence of highly pleasurable food.
  • I learned to stop acting on urges to binge and problematic cravings, and therefore deconditioned the habit of overeating treats. I didn’t understand my cravings in college while bulimic. I thought my urges represented my true physical or emotional needs. When I recovered, I learned that urges to binge were a glitch in the primitive part of my brain, and I did not have to act on them. Once I ate candy or other treats in moderation many times, and experienced the urges to binge that followed—without acting on them—my brain changed and those urges went away.
  • I didn’t make the treats “forbidden” or think I was a failure for eating them. When I would eat candy as a bulimic, I would often tell myself it was the “last time” I would eat that particular food, and therefore I needed to eat all I could now and then “start over tomorrow” with a clean slate of eating perfection. I didn’t realize that thinking I would “never have the candy again” made me eat so much more of it than if I just believed what I believe now—that I can have more later, or tomorrow, or another day, if I want.

It’s not that I never experience a desire for more pleasurable food, but that desire has become so much more mild after recovery, and that desire is never for massive quantities or binges—which now seems like the opposite of pleasure. Sometimes eating a sweet like Halloween candy creates a craving for a few more bites, but that is just a natural part of being human with the pleasure-seeking brain that we have, and especially in the food environment that we live in. When faced with an inclination for a little more candy, I have a choice—to have a little extra or not—but no matter what choice I make, it never has to lead to harmful behaviors like bingeing or restricting.

Recovery doesn’t mean giving up on the pleasure and enjoyment of food, it means redefining your relationship with it.

2024 update:

Just a few days ago, nearly 20 years after my recovery from binge eating and about 12 years since I wrote the blog post above, my youngest son and I went shopping together. Halloween was approaching, so we bought a bag of peanut butter cups for trick-or-treaters. Just like in college, I likely chose that particular candy for the trick-or-treaters because peanut butter cups have always been my favorite Halloween candy. Unlike in college, I know I can eat some now without it being an issue at all, so buying them didn’t create any anxiety.

My son (well, actually, both of us:-)) decided to open the bag in the car on the way home to have one. We each unwrapped a peanut butter cup and took a bite, but to my surprise, my reaction was, “it’s not even that good.” It wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t anything special. I finished the one peanut butter cup, and I didn’t have any desire for another one, which I found odd because I usually want at least one more. As I type this, the bowl of leftover peanut butter cups is sitting on my kitchen table in front of me. It’s not due to a strong will that I’m not having any, it’s a genuine lack of desire. I’ve definitely had other pleasurable foods over the past few days, but not the peanut butter cups.

I’m sharing this blog post update to tell you the following insights that I hope will help with your own recovery and relationship to treats:

  • Your relationship to even your most challenging foods can change dramatically over time. You may think a food will always have power over you but stay open to the idea that this likely will not be the case. You can learn to incorporate these foods in a way that makes sense to you, and also take comfort in the fact that time naturally changes some of your preferences.
  • When you allow foods and allow yourself to truly listen to your taste and your body, you may discover some formerly tempting foods aren’t even that good. I’m sure if I would have eaten that same peanut butter cup a few days ago with the “forbidden food” mentality or the idea that I would “never have a peanut butter cup again,” I would have craved and wanted much more. An allowing mindset surrounding treats lets you tune into how you feel about them—before you eat them, while you are eating them, and after you’re done.
  • When you set aside the dieting mentality and approach sweets with a body that is well nourished, you gain the freedom to make genuine choices, instead of being driven by the survival instincts. When you are deprived of calories, you will feel such a strong pull from the primitive brain to eat excessive amounts, and you will have heightened cravings, which makes reasonable decisions around treats nearly impossible.

Related to these points, I read a social media post last week from Dr. Mark Hyman, in which he talked about how the ingredients in Halloween candy have changed over time to include more artificial additives and preservatives. It’s definitely possible that these chemical changes truly have made the peanut butter cups taste worse over time, which lead to my “it’s not even that good” reaction a few days ago. But, even if that is the case now, when I was a binge eater, I would have eaten the candy so quickly, mindlessly, and with so much guilt that I wouldn’t have even given myself the chance to notice if I was actually enjoying it or not.

Everyone’s experience and reaction to foods is different, and your journey will not be exactly like mine, but I’ve talked to enough recovered individuals over the years to know that my story surrounding treats is not unique. So many people have transformed their relationships with sweets and have had the experience of their most-craved desserts simply losing their allure. I hope this will give you some encouragement as we approach the holiday season so that you can find a balance that works as far as treats coexisting with your recovery.

Brain over Binge resources for more help:

Free Inspiration Booklet – The booklet contains 31 daily messages to help you stay focused and motivated each day as you let go of binge eating.

One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute private and highly personalized session with Kathryn or Coach Julie. You will learn to change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.

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.

Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.

Brain over Binge Books – Get Brain over Binge and the Brain over Binge Recovery Guide on Amazon and Audible.

Ep. 160: Cooking and Eating to Feel Great and Have Fun! (with My Nguyen)

in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by
Read more

Ep. 159: Generating Curiosity in Recovery

in , , , , , , , , , , , /by
Read more

Is Grazing a Problem in Binge Eating Recovery?

in , , , , , , , , /by

In this post, I’ll share some insights surrounding the topic of grazing in binge eating recovery, with the hope that it helps you understand grazing behavior better and any connection it may have to your binge eating. Grazing isn’t an inherently harmful behavior—it can be a way of eating that works for certain people in certain circumstances, but you can learn to reduce any grazing behaviors that you deem harmful in your life.

Sometimes grazing makes sense, sometimes it feels wrong

First, I want to share a little about my own experience with grazing, because I can be a bit of a grazer from time to time. Grazing has come and gone in different periods of my life, and I’m currently in more of a grazing pattern now, which I’ll explain. In an ideal world when I have the time and energy, I like to eat three larger meals per day and usually a few smaller snacks as well, but the busier I am, the more my eating can look like grazing. This was especially true when my four children were younger, and I was involved in the demands of raising four kids very close in age. I just grabbed what I could every couple of hours to try to keep my energy up. Even now that they are teens and preteens, there are still days when I’m on the go so much that I simply eat whatever I can, whenever I can fit it in.

Grazing just makes sense and fits my life at times, but when things slow down, I usually do gravitate back to those three meals and snacks when I can. At this point in time as I’m writing this, what’s going on for me as far as grazing isn’t necessarily busyness, even though that’s still a factor as well. I shared in a recent podcast episode (Episode 151: Emotional Not Eating) that I went through an emotional and stressful time a few months ago, and my appetite really decreased. When my appetite was so low, I found it so much easier to eat smaller meals rather than bigger ones, but in order to give my body the nourishment it needed throughout the day, I needed to eat more often. So my eating ended up looking a little more like grazing.

This way of eating felt good to me at the time because the idea of eating a big meal wasn’t appealing at all due to my low appetite. Even though my appetite is back for the most part now, I find myself continuing to eat the smaller meals more often. It feels intuitive at this point in time, and it feels like what my body needs. I just follow my body when I feel some hunger, I have a snack or a small meal, I get right back to whatever I’m doing, and I really don’t think too much of it. I have been starting to eat some bigger meals again, and I’ll probably get back to the three meals with some snacks on a more consistent basis at some point soon.

I’m using myself as an example here, but the larger point that I want to make is that sometimes grazing simply works. It feels normal and natural to graze for whatever reason, or it can fit your lifestyle, or it can feel like what your body intuitively needs. When grazing is done in this way, it doesn’t cause any distress and there’s not a thought that something is “wrong.”

I often hear from people who tell me that their grazing does in fact feel “wrong” and is a problem. I talk to one-on-one coaching clients or I get emails from people saying that eating too frequently is causing them distress and is actually not feeling like what their body needs. So for the rest of this post, I want address when grazing might be a problem and how it can sometimes get connected to bingeing. I also want to give you some ideas that may help you curb any grazing that feels problematic to you.

Grazing and bingeing are different, but can be linked

It’s important to know up front that grazing is not the same as bingeing. A good definition of grazing is: “eating small quantities of food at frequent but irregular intervals.” In contrast, the definition of binge eating involves eating large quantities. The official definition is: “eating, in a discreet period of time (for example, within a two-hour period), an amount of food that is definitely larger than what most people would eat during a similar period of time and under similar circumstances.” Binge eating is also characterized by a sense of lack of control over the eating during the episode—a feeling that you cannot stop eating or control how much you’re eating. I’m going to come back to the lack of control part, but for now, looking at these definitions, you can see that there’s a big difference between grazing and bingeing just in the sheer amount of food consumed.

That being said, there isn’t a calorie limit where anything over a certain number of calories is a binge, and likewise, there is not a calorie rule that defines grazing. The definitions of bingeing and grazing leave room for interpretation, but the majority of the time grazing does not fall under the category of binge eating. However, there is some nuance there and grazing can sometimes fit the definition of bingeing if the grazing is very frequent and sustained throughout a long period of time. For example, if someone is grazing every few minutes through a whole day, they may end up eating much more than a normal person would eat in a day. If you add in that feeling of being out of control, then yes, this type of grazing behavior can fit the definition of a binge.

Another way that grazing and bingeing are related is that grazing behaviors can be included in binge eating episodes. In my own experience, I would typically have specific binge episodes where I would eat massive quantities of food in maybe a couple of hours, but then after that time period of bingeing to the extreme, I would sometimes just keep eating for the rest of the day in a more graze-like way. It definitely wasn’t normal grazing, it was me feeling driven to keep the binge going in some way, but I felt so sick and full that I simply couldn’t keep eating with the same speed and in the same quantities. I considered this post-binge grazing to be a continuation of the binge itself.

A different way that grazing felt like bingeing was when I would wake up feeling hopeless about my eating and give up on trying to eat normally at all. I would start eating from the moment I woke up, and although I wouldn’t eat with the same desperation as a typical binge, I would graze from one food item to another for most of the day. I think if anyone would have seen me at any one particular time during that type of day, they may have thought I was eating relatively normally, but if you looked at the entire day of me feeling hopeless and eating so frequently, it was not normal at all. I ate huge amounts of food even though it wasn’t contained to one specific episode. I certainly considered those days to be “binge days” because my eating was so far away from what my regular eating looked like and because I felt so out of control.

These “grazing binges,” as I could call them, gave me a similar awful feeling of shame and similar physical effects as my shorter, more contained binges. The grazing binges felt nothing like my grazing now—which feels like a healthy way to take care of myself sometimes and a way of eating that fits my life during certain circumstances and allows me to get nourishment. If I graze now and look at my whole day, the amount of food I consume is normal and it’s the amount that my body needs.

You can dismiss urges to graze in binge-like ways

So far I’ve said that bingeing is different than grazing, but also that grazing can fit the category of a binge if it’s very frequent and out of control, and also that grazing can be included in binges. If your grazing appears in these ways, it’s important to learn to dismiss urges to engage in this problematic grazing behavior—just like you would dismiss any other urges to binge. If you look at your behavior and the problem that it’s causing in your life, you can usually tell the difference between urges to graze in a way that’s normal and natural and urges to graze in this more binge-like way. It may take some practice and self-observation to know the difference, but you can absolutely learn to recognize and stop these graze-like binges.

It’s important to remember that when you dismiss urges to graze in a harmful way, you need to make sure that you’re not dismissing all urges to eat. You have to replace the harmful grazing with a way of eating that feels normal for you, nourishes you, and gives you the food that you need.

Grazing can spiral into binge eating

Now I’m going to shift my focus to another way that grazing is connected with bingeing, and that is a common pattern of grazing leading to bingeing. This pattern shows up often in the people I work with, and it showed up for me as well. In this case, what happens is that you start snacking or grazing and then you find yourself wanting more and more. The grazing increases in the amount of food you’re eating and the speed at which you’re eating it, and then urges to binge start appearing and what started as grazing spirals in a binge.

When this happens, there are typically two things going on. The first thing is that the grazing activates a pleasure process in the brain, and the brain naturally wants more pleasure, so you have urges to eat more and more of the food. If you don’t recognize this is going on and if you have a bingeing habit, this natural drive for pleasure can activate urges for that excessive, temporary, and ultimately harmful pleasure of a binge. You may not be consciously thinking this—your experience simply may be that when you start grazing, you feel unable to stop until you’re in a full-blown binge.

The second thing that’s typically happening when grazing transitions to bingeing is that the “I’ve blown it” thoughts appear. This is especially common if you are trying to restrict your food or be on a diet. If you start grazing on foods you think you “shouldn’t” be eating, you may start having thoughts that say, “you’re bad for eating this way,” or that “you’ve already ruined your eating for the day.” When you have the binge eating habit, the lower brain’s next thought is usually, “you might as well keep going.”  You’ll likely also have thoughts that say “this is the last time,” and “you’ll start over tomorrow.” In effect, the grazing makes you feel like you’ve done something wrong, and then instead of trying to contain it, your brain encourages you to do the opposite and abandon all control.

If you can relate to this, it’s really important to increase your awareness surrounding any grazing that you do. It’s important to try to pause and notice what’s going on in your brain and learn to view those “I’ve blown it” thoughts as neurological junk and learn to dismiss them. Stopping at any point during grazing—even if you’ve already eaten more than you think you should have—is so much better than going into a binge. It’s so much less harmful to your health and your mental health, and it’s not going to cause those physical and emotional consequences that bingeing does. Just be on to your brain and know that grazing is never a justification for a binge. Even if you’ve already grazed on this or that, it does not mean you’ve failed, and it does not mean a binge is inevitable. It’s ok if you have some negative thoughts about what you’ve eaten—that’s much better than the negative thoughts and feelings that follow a binge. Remind yourself that no one is perfect and this is a great opportunity to disconnect grazing from bingeing.

Everyone grazes from time to time—you don’t want to ever feel like you have to avoid grazing in order to avoid bingeing. However, if right now grazing is always a problem for you and it always spirals into a binge, there’s nothing wrong with deciding not to go into that behavior in the first place. Some people who have a strong connection between grazing and bingeing find it really helpful to have some structure in their meals and snacks so that they’re eating at more specific times and they’re dismissing urges between those times. If you’re using this strategy and your brain encourages you to graze, you can remind yourself that you’ll be having a meal or a snack very soon.

If the idea of this structured approach (that does not include grazing) feels too restrictive and you don’t want to give up grazing altogether, another strategy that can help is to use a pause before you start to graze—or even after you’ve already started grazing—with the goal of learning to set some gentle boundaries for yourself. When you pause, you can decide on an amount you will eat, knowing that your brain will likely encourage you to keep going beyond that amount. You can accept that it’s okay for your brain to react that way and still stick to your self-caring limits around your grazing behaviors. What this could look like is—as you start to reach for some food—you take a few deep breaths, and you consciously choose how much you’re going to have. You can visualize it in your mind, or you can actually take the food and put it on a plate and maybe even move away from the rest of the food. Then, you can eat the food you’ve chosen and enjoy it. When your brain urges you to keep going, that’s your opportunity to dismiss urges to graze in that more harmful way.

Deciding what’s right for you as far as how grazing fits into your life, and when it fits into your life, and how to best avoid binges can involve a lot of personalized decisions, and this is something that we help people with frequently in one-on-one coaching and also in group coaching. Coach Julie and I would love to help guide you through some of these decisions so that you can find a way of eating that works for you.

Food quantity and quality affect desires to graze

I want to give two more final tips as I end this discussion on grazing. The first is that—if you find yourself grazing very frequently—really take a look at your eating and make sure that you’re getting enough food overall. If you’re eating too restrictively and not giving yourself sufficient calories, your urges to graze could be appearing out of genuine hunger. If you’re in a state of physical food deprivation, of course your mind is going to keep you focused on food, and it’s going to keep encouraging you to go back for more food. In this case, instead of focusing on reducing the grazing, you would be better off turning your attention toward adding some satisfying meals and satisfying snacks to your day, and that can significantly reduce those desires to graze.

The last tip is to look at the quality of food you’re eating as well. If you’re familiar with the Brain over Binge approach, you know that I do want people to have the freedom to eat all types of foods. But if you’re frequently eating highly-processed foods—and especially eating those foods on an empty stomach—it could be causing spikes in your blood sugar which can lead to desires to graze. You could be getting blood sugar highs and then crashes, which can leave you wanting to reach for more food even if you didn’t eat that long ago. Similar to when there are deficiencies in food quantity, when there are food quality issues, the focus shouldn’t necessarily be on reducing the grazing. Instead, it’s much more helpful to focus on adding in some more satisfying and blood-sugar-stabilizing foods like fats, proteins, and slow digesting carbohydrates. That can help you stay more balanced overall as far as your cravings, which then naturally reduces that desire to keep getting more and more food and going into those problematic grazing behaviors. Looking at the way you’re eating also includes looking into any health conditions you may have that are leading to abnormal craving and getting nutritional and/or medical help when necessary.

If you’re doing well as far as eating enough, and also making sure you’re getting some quality foods as well, and you still have desires to graze that you think are harmful, then I do believe you need to look at habit as a strong factor as well. Your body and brain could simply be used to constantly reaching for food, and it is about learning to break that habitual behavior. You can start gradually adding some space between the times that you’re eating, starting with whatever interval feels comfortable for you right now—even if it’s as little as 30 minutes.  You can slowly increase the intervals so that you’re giving your body some time to digest and some time to start to notice your hunger and really get in touch with your appetite signals again. Another benefit of having some space between your eating times is so that you can focus on life. If you’re constantly grazing and focusing on food, you’re not giving attention to the things you truly want and need to be focusing on, which is an important motivation to end the problematic grazing.

You never have to be perfect surrounding grazing or create rigid rules—because like I’ve talked about, everyone grazes from time to time, and it can even be a behavior that works for people and fits their life. You’re simply trying to find a level of grazing that feels right to you and doesn’t create any consequences or negative effects. There’s no one right way, and there’s a lot of freedom in knowing that. I want you to empower yourself to make decisions about grazing that feel authentic to you, and we’re always here to help you in coaching if you need it.

________________

Brain over Binge resources:

Free Inspiration Booklet – The booklet contains 31 daily messages to help you stay focused and motivated each day as you let go of binge eating.

One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute private and highly personalized session with Kathryn or Coach Julie. You will learn to change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.

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.

Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.

Brain over Binge Books – Get Brain over Binge and the Brain over Binge Recovery Guide on Amazon and Audible.

hunger fullness stop go signals

Beyond Hunger and Fullness: Learning to Deal with “Stop and Go” Signals around Food

in , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by

Hunger and fullness signals are an often-discussed topic in the eating disorder space, but today, I’m going to go beyond that to discuss what I’m calling stop and go signals and to explain how these signals come into play in binge eating recovery.

Stop and go signals aren’t the same as our physical cues of hunger and fullness. The go signals are primarily thoughts, but also feelings and sensations, that drive us to eat (or keep eating), and they are independent of actual physical hunger. The reason I say go signals are primarily thoughts is because the physical feelings and sensations are usually more indicative of actual hunger, but you can definitely still have physical sensations encouraging eating when you’re not truly hungry.

For example, a go signal could occur when you’ve finished eating a meal, and you’ve had plenty of food and possibly even dessert, but then your thoughts keep telling you to eat more—even though you’re full. These go signals can also occur when you’re not hungry at all, but you see some delicious food or you’re offered something to eat, and your thoughts and cravings encourage you to have some. The most extreme go signals are the urges to binge, which drive you to eat so far past fullness that it’s painful.

The stop signals are primarily thoughts, but also feelings and sensations, that tell us to stop eating—which are also independent of actual hunger or fullness. The stop signals I’m talking about here primarily show up if you are restricting. I’m not talking about the stop signals that come up after you’ve had a reasonable, nourishing amount of food. Problematic stop signals come up when you’re actually hungry or you physically need more food, but you think and believe that you should stop eating in order to control your weight or because eating is somehow “wrong.” The stop signals tend to be very self-critical and come with a lot of guilt.

 It’s not just binge eaters—everyone has stop and go signals

What both the stop and go signals show us is that our thoughts and feelings encouraging eating (or eating more) are not always based on hunger, and on the other hand, our thoughts and feelings encouraging us to stop eating are not always based in fullness. This is something that people with or without a current or past eating disorder have to deal with, especially in the modern food environment that we live in. Highly processed, highly stimulating, highly pleasurable foods can turn up our food desires, promote more food thoughts, and rev up our cravings—in other words, increase the go signals around food. Additionally, those very same foods can also create some of the problematic stop signals in our minds as well. If we tell ourselves that certain foods are “bad,” or if we’re worried that certain foods will lead to weight gain, it can lead to restrictive thoughts telling us to stop eating (or avoid eating in the first place), even if we’re hungry.

Food is not just fuel, and you are not broken

There is a common analogy about eating being like filling the gas tank of your car, and that analogy makes sense if we’re strictly talking about hunger and fullness—you fill your stomach or your gas tank when it gets low and stop when it is full. But, when we’re talking about these stop and go signals, this analogy doesn’t hold up. There’s just so much more to human food decisions and consumption, especially with all of the modern foods that we have available.

Cars don’t face tempting food (fuel) on a daily basis, or social settings where there is pressure to overeat, or highly processed options that can make cravings and desires stronger. Basically, we’re facing a lot more challenges than a car that simply needs energy to run, and I think it’s important for everyone in recovery to come to terms with this. I encourage you to accept that hunger and fullness don’t tell the whole story, and that you’ll need to learn to make peace with the stop and go signals as well.

Having stop and go signals does not make you broken or mean that something is wrong with you, and this is something I frequently remind people of in my books, blog, and podcast. Everyone with or without an eating disorder has to deal with the effect that modern food has on the brain’s reward system, and everyone also has to deal with the messages telling us that certain foods are “bad,” so we should stop eating them. When you realize you are not alone and this is simply the way the brain works, it puts you in a more powerful place to start making choices that are best for you.

I want to say here that—even though everyone has some form of these stop and go signals—they are a lot stronger in people who struggle with bingeing and restricting. Furthermore, because restricting leads to bingeing, when the stop signals are strong and you follow the thoughts telling you not to eat, this has the effect of strengthening the go signals—which can lead to urges to binge. The result of strong and opposing stop and go signals is the dangerous restrict-binge cycle.

Why we have stop and go signals in addition to hunger and fullness signals

I want to dive a little deeper into why we have the stop and go signals. These are primal or primitive brain signals, which are part of the reward system in our brain that has helped humans survive by motivating us to perform behaviors that are necessary for our existence. Eating is basically at the top of that list of necessary (and pleasurable) behaviors.

Our primitive brain’s reward system has three basic goals: 1.) To survive, 2.) To seek pleasure, and 3.) To avoid pain. Some experts also add a fourth goal that is: To exert as little effort as possible.

When we’re talking about hunger and fullness signals, it’s more about that first goal of survival, but of course eating also brings pleasure and helps us avoid the pain of hunger. When it comes to stop and go signals, it’s no longer just about basic survival. The go signals are primarily about meeting that primitive goal of seeking pleasure and also avoiding any discomfort that comes with craving.

The stop signals are a little less clear as far as being a primitive drive, because often these messages arise from cultural conditioning and expectations surrounding how we should look or what we should eat. While it’s fine to want to eat well and take care of our bodies, when we make ourselves stop eating (or not eat in the first place) when we need food, this goes against our survival. However, it can feel like it’s helping us fulfill other needs like being accepted or connected with others or feeling safe, and that can seem like it’s meeting some of those primal needs for pleasure and pain avoidance. Plus, once repeated enough, the stop and go signals become habitual as well, and our habits are driven by the primal brain.

You are not powerless against stop and go signals

What is paramount to know is that your higher brain—your more rational, human brain—has the capacity to override any primitive, conditioned, and habitual thoughts and feelings—and that includes the stop and go signals. This is one of the fundamental principles of Brain over Binge, and you can learn more about the higher brain in Podcast Episode 3: The Lower and Higher Brain at Work in Binge Eating.

If you know you need to eat enough food to recover, but your thoughts keep telling you to stop so that you can restrict and lose weight, you can absolutely keep eating in spite of those signals. You can learn to be aware of your brain’s own patterns, you can notice the thoughts that arise, and you can know that these stop signals are faulty, and you can nourish yourself anyway. It’s the same for the go signals. You should allow for food enjoyment, but you can also recognize that when you eat certain foods, your brain may tell you to “go, go, go” and eat excessively, and even to binge. You can use your higher brain to control your actions and choosing a stopping point in spite of these go signals.

This is something that I think should be taught to us from a very young age, especially with the modern foods that we have available. People can be quick to blame the food manufacturers, and yes, there is some responsibility there, but this post is not about that. It’s about helping you take back your own power and realize that any go signals you have around these foods are not destiny. It’s necessary to accept that you will have these signals and not to be scared of them.

What often happens is that people are around tempting food, or they eat tempting food, and then they naturally have thoughts telling them to eat “more, more, more,” and they start having anxiety and negative thoughts about their desires. They might think, “oh my gosh, what’s wrong with me, why do I want so much of this food, why do I lack control?” These thoughts are not productive and having go signals never means you lack control.

It’s much more helpful to think, “oh, of course my brain is signaling me to eat more of this highly pleasurable, highly stimulating food because my brain is wired for pleasure. It’s only natural that I’m having these go signals, but these signals and feelings of desire are safe. I can learn to have feelings of wanting for food, and still be okay, and still have a choice about what I eat.”

Even after recovery, you’ll have something pleasurable like a cookie and your brain will probably want another one, but that doesn’t mean there’s a problem. You can feel those go signals, you can understand them, you can know that it doesn’t mean you’re broken, and then you can decide to have another cookie or not. The good news is that after you stop the binge eating habit, these go signals are so much less strong, and the idea of continuing to eat and eat—let’s say until you’ve had the whole pack of cookies—that just seems like the opposite of pleasure. But you will still have go signals—to a much lesser extent—so I want you to have the proper expectations so that you’re not surprised when you have desires for some extra food pleasure. Always remember that the go signals are normal, but they do not have to dictate what you choose to do.

We have stop and go signals in other parts of life, not just around food

I thought of an example recently regarding these signals and how we need to be more accepting of them, but also not let them lead us into harmful actions. The example that came to mind has to do with sports because I love sports, and I think there are so many life lessons to be learned from them. It’s also timely with the Olympics going on as I’m writing this.

If you read Brain over Binge, you know that I ran track and cross country in high school and college, and now my daughter is actually running track in high school. As an aside, my running got wrapped up in very unhealthy weight obsessions and eventually resulted in many injuries, stress fractures, and an inability to continue to compete. To my daughter’s credit, she’s participating in this sport in a vastly healthier way than I did, and I’m so thankful for that.

The point of this story is that my daughter and I had a conversation recently about stop signals while running. We talked about the fact that—in every single race that we’ve ever run—our thoughts try to convince us to stop. I think this is extremely common, and I’m sure a lot of you can relate if you participate in sports. As I’ve talked about, the brain wants to survive, seek pleasure, and avoid pain, so exerting yourself strenuously in a race (for seemingly no reason at all to your brain—it’s not like there’s a lion chasing you!) is really the opposite of pleasure. It’s very painful, and it also goes against that fourth goal that I talked about of exerting as little effort as possible, so it only makes sense that the brain tells us to stop.

My daughter and I also talked about how we have a lot of justifications for stopping going through our minds too. It’s just something you learn to expect, but you still finish the race in spite of what is going on in your brain, and I know this is not just applicable to runners. Now, I’m sure there are some extremely mentally strong people out there who don’t have these stop signals when performing something strenuous. Maybe the Olympians don’t have them or can override them so well in order to get to such a high level in their sport. But I think all athletes learn to ignore these signals to some extent, and perform the physical endeavor anyway. The brain wants comfort and safety, but if you want to grow and improve, you have to push your own limits.

Of course, sometimes there are real reasons for needing to heed and follow stop signals in a race or any athletic event, but that’s in rare circumstances like when injury occurs. What I’m talking about here is what happens the majority of the time when you simply keep racing or keep performing in spite of the thoughts telling you to stop.

I’m going to bring this back to eating now to say that eating a delicious, highly stimulating food is basically the opposite of running a race. Instead of the brain saying stop in a race, it says go for more food because it wants that pleasure. The takeaway here is that those go signals never have to prevent you from stopping after a reasonable amount of food—just like those stop signals don’t have to prevent you from going on to finish the race.

When eating the pleasurable food or running the race, you simply have to understand that those signals will be there, but also that you have the ability to do what you need to do anyway—whether that’s crossing the finish line or putting away the bag of chips after a normal amount. When you aim to eat a food that’s challenging for you, you can know that you’re committed to eating a normal amount of it no matter what your brain says, just like you can be committed to finishing any race you start. The race may not look pretty, the eating may not be perfect, but you can commit to doing your best and not listening to the thoughts that try to distract you from your goal.

The last insight around this racing analogy that I’ll talk about here is that you absolutely can be selective about the races you choose to run or the foods you choose to eat. I would never tell my daughter—who primarily runs the mile—to sign up for a marathon and then to just ignore all of her thoughts telling her to stop. That would be foolish and dangerous. The takeaway when it comes to food is to go at your own pace with eating foods that bring up challenging go signals. You may not feel ready for certain foods right now, and that’s okay. You can be strategic until you get more practice.

You can also go at your own pace when it comes to stop signals around food as well. It’s possible that you’ve developed some food fears over time and your brain is telling you not to eat them at all. Or it’s possible that when you do choose to eat certain foods, you feel extreme guilt and your brain says to stop eating them. It can be a gradual process to learn that you can choose to eat any food and override the guilt and the stop signals, but you don’t have to start eating anything and everything right away.

The overall message in this post is that your stop and go signals are a normal function of the primitive part of your brain, but you can use your higher brain to overcome these signals to make the choices that you want to make. You can do this with self-awareness and self-compassion. I hope that this discussion will help you learn to eat a fear food that you want to add back into your life or learn to find a reasonable stopping point when eating a food that is challenging for you.

________________

If you want more help as you stop binge eating and learn to eating normally (in spite of the stop and go signals), you can check out the following Brain over Binge resources:

One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute private and highly personalized session with Kathryn or Coach Julie. You will learn to change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.

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.

Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.

Ep. 155: Reclaiming Fullness (with Coach Julie)

in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by
Read more

Eating the Way You “Should”

in , , , , , , , , , , , /by

Are you constantly telling yourself that your eating should be a certain way?

Do you believe you should never eat over a certain amount?

Do you think you should or should not be eating certain foods or at certain times?

When you have a lot of “shoulds” around eating, it creates pressure and stress each time you have a meal or snack.

I want to help you have more peace with food, and a big part of that is not getting caught up in thinking that there’s one right way that you should be eating at any given moment.

 Are Your “Shoulds” Leading to Binges?

It’s exhausting to think that there are exact rules to follow with food or that you’re supposed to eat “right” at each meal. You may have thoughts saying, “you’re eating too much, or not enough, or at the wrong times, or too fast, or too slow, or in the wrong place, or with the wrong mindset.” It may feel like you’re always thinking your eating should somehow be different than what it is.

This gets more complicated when you have a binge eating habit, because what tends to happen is that the “shoulds” end up triggering urges to binge. This is because bingeing behavior is often strongly connected to breaking a diet or eating what you think is too much of something, and then thinking “screw it, I’ve already failed, I might as well eat everything and start over tomorrow.” If this has been your diet-binge pattern, then your brain will automatically suggest binge eating at times when you feel you messed up with your eating (even if you’re not trying to diet anymore).

In effect, your brain offers binge eating as a “solution” to eating in a way you think you shouldn’t have eaten.

For example, if you tell yourself that you should avoid food before a certain time of day, and then you eat something before that time, you may have thoughts like, “you’re a failure, you’ll never get it right, so you should just give up and binge.”

You Know You Should Not Be Bingeing

It’s important to realize that the brain has formed a connection between thinking that you did not eat right and encouraging you to eat in a way that you absolutely know that you should not be eating.

Looking at this logically, you can see that it doesn’t make sense. You know binge eating is the furthest thing from a solution to breaking your “shoulds” around food, but if you have this habitual pattern, it can seem very real and convincing in the moment. Instead of learning to accept imperfection in your eating, you may end up in a cycle of trying to eat perfectly, and then not being able to do that (because no one can eat perfectly!), and then jumping right back into bingeing.

You can certainly dismiss any urge to binge regardless of the what the binge-encouraging thoughts say, but what can also help in this specific situation is to stop thinking that you should be eating in a certain way in the first place.

Questioning the “Shoulds” 

It’s difficult to go through life with rigid “shoulds” and a lot of self-criticism surrounding them. Even if you stop bingeing, you don’t want to continue this form of stress. Now, I realize there are certain people who need to eat in a certain way due to health issues/food allergies/sensitivities, and Brain over Binge Coach Julie and I recently discussed this in Episode 147: Redefining Restriction. However, most of the rules people create for themselves are not related to specific health problems, but instead, the rules are based on something they’ve heard or seen about the way they should be eating (and it’s usually aimed at weight-loss).

I want you to start questioning your “shoulds” surrounding food:

Where did these rules come from?

What if it’s not true that the way you think you should be eating is the way you really should be eating?

What if there are not any actual “shoulds” around food?

If we go back to the previous example of thinking you should not eat before a certain time in the day… What if that’s simply not true? Or what if that’s not true for you personally? Or what if it’s just not right for you right now? What if it’s totally optional to eat whenever you decide to?

A way you can recognize your should thoughts as just thoughts and not absolute truths is to consider that other people may have completely opposite should thoughts…

If you think that you should avoid eating in the morning, someone else might think they absolutely should eat breakfast because it’s the most important meal.

If you think you should not eat meat, there are people out there who think that they should be eating mostly or only meat.

If you think you should not eat carbohydrates, there are people out there who believe they should because the best diet is based primarily in carbohydrates.

I want you to start believing that you can make your own authentic decisions about food without all of the arbitrary rules. If there is truly something that you feel you need to change about your eating, there’s nothing wrong with making adjustments, but you can make those changes because you want to and from a place of self-care, not from a place of creating rigid “shoulds.”

Drop the “Shoulds,” Create More Peace with Food

You can learn to see that there are simply food choices—which are neutral–and then there is feedback from your body about what foods work best for you. Even if sometimes you choose to eat foods that don’t tend to make you feel good, you can just go on with your life without the self-criticism and without thinking that you “blew it and you might as well binge.”

I encourage you to start dropping the pressure that you’re putting on yourself and to consider that you should be eating in the way that you are eating in any given moment. (I’m of course talking about eating habits that are not bingeing).

It gives you so much freedom to think: “maybe I ate exactly as I should have in this situation.”

This is not about tricking yourself into thinking that you ate healthy when you clearly didn’t, or that you ate the perfect amount when you feel like you overate, but it is about accepting the way that you ate in that moment. Maybe there is something to learn from the way you ate, or maybe not, but either way, you can simply move on without all of the overthinking.

Consider that you can just eat and let it be what it is. 

You can make a decision about food that you think is best for you (for whatever reason), eat the food, let go of any negative thoughts about it, and redirect your focus back to living. And then the next time you eat, you can just repeat this process—all the while thinking this is the way it should be.

Deciding what and when to eat is a lifelong journey, and you may certainly take into account health information, or what foods are going to make you feel the best, or what time it is, or when you’ll be eating again, or where you are, or who you’re eating with, or what foods you have available, or what you can even afford. But a sound decision for any given moment does not have to involve harsh “shoulds.”

Keep Food Decisions Neutral or Positive

If you stop to think about it, you could find flaws in any food decision, and even if you can’t, someone else probably could. You already know you can avoid a binge when you eat imperfectly, but you don’t even have to focus on the imperfection. You don’t have to tell yourself, “I did not eat perfectly, but that’s okay, I can still avoid a binge.” Yes, that’s true, but instead, you can choose to keep it neutral and just say, “I ate,” and that can be the end of the story for that meal or snack.

As I’ve said, there certainly may be lessons to take away from any eating experience, but there’s no use dwelling on what you feel was not perfect. You can even spin it in a positive direction by saying, “I ate, and it was delicious, or it was just what I needed, or it hit the spot, or it will give me energy for living.”

Positive after-meal thoughts will help train your brain to associate eating with decisiveness, confidence, and satisfaction, and it will break the habit of constantly second guessing yourself.

Giving yourself the freedom to decide what to eat without all of the “shoulds” does not mean that you’re going to suddenly start choosing all unhealthy foods. In fact, it will probably greatly improve your eating because you’ll avoid the mindset of thinking that you “blew it so you might as well eat everything in sight.”

You can still make healthy choices, but you can do that without rigid “shoulds.” Any healthier choices you make can be from your own insights into what is most helpful for you, and you can be kind to yourself in the process. You’ll realize that eating does not have to be so hard, and you’ll see that you’re doing so much better than you think.

________________

If you want more help as you let go of the “shoulds” and create more peace with food, you can check out the following Brain over Binge resources:

One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute private and highly personalized session with Kathryn or Coach Julie. You will learn to change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.

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.

Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.