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| Health & Support | ~~Bingers Anonymous~~ | Nov 24 2008 15:15 (UTC) |
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| Hi everyone,
I used to binge frequently. I MADE myself get over it because I feared it would ruin my life. The secrecy and feelings of shame used to just torture me on a daily basis. But now, I only binge once or twice a month. I eat three or four small meals a day now. Here are the strategies I used, and still use:
1. Binging thrives on secrecy. You know that feeling where half of you wants to be around people so you can't eat, and the other half wants everybody to leave the house so that you can be alone with the fridge? Well, stamp out that desire for secrecy by pulling the revolting little binge monster out into the open. If you tell someone, you are no longer alone with the weight of secret binging. If you do binge, even just having one person to cry on - your Mother, best friend, partner, someone REAL in your life (i.e. not us, in this forum - we are still too detatched from reality) - honestly halves the problem. Hearing it spoken out loud "I ate a whole box of cereal and six bars of chocolate and now I feel awful" at once brings a sense of perspective to your actions. Being accountable is necessary. The longer binging is a secret that you are getting away with, the longer it will go on for. 2. Think of each day as a new day. Each new day you are going to practise NOT binging. Focus on the end of the day and how glorious it will feel to be able to reflect back and think, I have not binged today. Think how lovely it will feel to be liberated from those feelings of disgust. If you break each day down into smaller parts, and tackle every two hours - "I am definitely NOT going to binge in the next two hours" then you will get through a whole day. Then, the following day, just copy exactly what you did the day before. Like a robot. Re-learn your new, fresh patterns of behaviour. Look forward to another day of being binge-free. And the next day do the same thing. Don't even entertain the idea of binging. This is how baby steps begin to add up to giant leaps. 3. If you feel like you want to binge, stare you binge monster in the face. Tackle it. It will be very difficult not to get swept along by the fog of binging that seems to settle, but grit your teeth and resist. If you can make yourself walk away from the fridge and tell your confident, whether in person or over the phone, that you really want to eat lots and lots of food it will lift the burden. I promise. It even used to help me to say out loud "I really want to eat loads of ice cream and biscuits now" - because then it was REAL, it was a problem to solve, and I had expelled the impulse from my brain. 4. I know that the problem with binging is the desire to get that immediate gratification from food totally over-rides the desire to get better. Binging lures you to the kitchen because it seems like an instant fix - it seems exciting, comforting and strangely sexy. But think of this: every binge is continuing the problem. If you always resist your next binge, you will NEVER have to binge again. You will be free to run and skip around. Life can be full and happy again. So even if you have to DRAG yourself away from the fridge, say this mantra out loud "MY FUTURE SELF WILL THANK ME FOR THIS". 5. Whilst 'tricks' such as replacing chocolate with celery and ice cream with carrots are pragmatic solutions to lowering your potential calorie intake, I still think they are binge tactics. The problem is an emotional attachment to food, a belief that food can make life better, not a straightforward love of chocolate or peanut butter. I think in order to overcome binging, you must recognise that in that exact moment when you want to eat the whole world, YOU HAVE A CHOICE. You can slow down time and join the action to the consequence. So if you have eaten 4 chocolate biscuits, make your hands put the packet back in the cupboard and say in a loud voice, "I choose not to eat any more" and physically put one foot in front of the other and get away from them. Don't you see? It's the 'f*ck it' mentality that's the problem. That is the exact moment at which you have to make the choice. Because at the 4 biscuit stage, the day is retrievable. 300 calories is not 3000 calories unless you make it into 3000 calories. 6. Get a mantra. I know that's a common strategy but for some reason, it really worked for me. Every time I picked up something to eat, and my hand was about to put it to my lips, I would say "No, I'm on the water diet". Then I would make myself get a glass of water and I would drink it as I was walking away from the kitchen. I don't know why that sentence helped so much - it doesn't even really make sense - but it was useful to have something consistent to focus on. Plus, the idea of water being clean and pure compared to thousands of calories of muck I used to eat was an appealing idea. Understanding that binging has terrible but preventable consequences is so important. You are NOT powerless, and conquering your binging will be the best thing you will ever do. I will close by emphasising the grave importance of putting your faith in other people. Tell someone. Let them help you with the burden of trying to cope with your binge monster. It might be the most humiliating, embarrassing, and upsetting thing you ever tell anyone (I told my Mum and having to say "sometimes I binge on cakes, biscuits, chocolate and ice cream when you and Dad are in bed, and it makes me feel so scared and alone that I want to cry forever" was truly the most frightening thing I have ever had to say. But honestly, that humiliation made something click inside me and it saved me.) Good luck, all. You CAN do it! This is YOUR life that you are in control of. x |
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