"Sometimes what you are most afraid of is exactly what sets you free." ~ Robert Tew
I recovered from binge eating and bulimia by giving myself permission to have binge eating. Sounds crazy doesn't it?
My decade-long weight and food war began in my youth, immediately after reading my first diet book on Atkins, to be precise. I spent the next two decades losing weight (just to keep gaining weight) and struggling with food.
In my early thirties I finally managed to lose weight, but it hadn't ended the war, it had just started a new one. The war to try to drop the weight and transform my body even further.
This is how the decade of my “fitness journey” began. I became an award-winning personal trainer and nutritional wellness coach and even a nationally qualified champion figure athlete.
The weight and food war continued.
I was introduced to clean eating by a trainer I hired before I became one myself. Four days after my first attempt to eat clean, I was bulimic – out of control, then starved and exercised too much to try to make up for it. I was officially diagnosed within eight months.
It became common to feel like I was dying in my sleep, and I realized that I had two options: potentially eating myself to death, or healing. I decided to take the last option.
I felt that understanding what drives these behaviors was the key to learning to change everything, and I decided to learn just that.
And I realized that I had to stop thinking about my food choices (and hating myself for it). You weren't the problem; They were the symptom of everything that was going on inside me that triggered these behaviors.
So I gave myself full permission to eat what I wanted, when I wanted.
I even gave myself permission to binge as much as I wanted.
And slowly I started to binge less and less. It's now been years since I've done it – the ride is just completely gone.
I know being allowed to binge sounds crazy, but did trying to force yourself not to binge or eat "bad things" work? Do you try to judge, control, criticize, limit and shame your path to "eating right" and / or health and happiness?
If so, go ahead. But if what you did didn't work, stick with me as I explain two reasons why permission is so important and the helpful and unhelpful way of practicing it.
Why is permission so important?
Allowing us to eat whatever we want helps reverse two of the main reasons we eat self-destructively: restrictions and self-punishment.
Food restriction (the rules about what we should and shouldn't eat) caused my cravings, overeating, and even binge eating.
Science has shown that food scarcity / restriction activates the millennia-old survival instinct in our brain that induces cravings, coercion and even food obsession until we "give in".
Self-punishment contributes to bingeing because we treat ourselves as we think we deserve to be treated.
We have been taught that certain foods are good and create "good" bodies, and that certain foods are bad and create "bad" bodies. We are taught that we are what we eat and to judge gaining weight or eating “bad” things as failure, that we are good or bad, depending on what we eat and what size we are.
We punish ourselves by trying to restrict ourselves even more, or we go the other direction and eat the things we keep telling ourselves we shouldn't have, which keeps the circulation going.
How can you make nurturing or nourishing decisions for yourself when you hate, judge, shame and criticize yourself? You can not.
This thought, "Well, you've already screwed it up, you might as well eat the rest and start all over again tomorrow." – Thinking all or nothing, the bingeing, the self-sabotage – becomes big Style pushed part of those two things: restraint and self-punishment.
Full permission to binge yourself helps postpone both.
It stops the feeling of scarcity in certain foods (so that they lose their appeal) and helps to improve the relationship with yourself (so that you no longer judge yourself and berate yourself for eating "bad things").
Well, you might think, but Roni, who eats anything I want, got me into this mess. I can't be trusted to just eat what I want.
Here the biggest lie of all has steered us in such a poisonous direction: The idea that our natural compulsion is to be "bad" and to eat all that bad stuff is Taurus.
We are not born into bodies that naturally want to eat in such a way that they feel like garbage. We are not even born into bodies that are "too lazy to exercise". I also call all of these cops.
We are born into bodies that know how to eat and want to move naturally. We are born into bodies that want to feel good and actively work to keep us healthy around the clock.
But we actively learn to ignore or separate from them, and we can ignore and separate our body's natural signals so well that we can no longer even hear them.
We learn thought and behavior patterns that are programmed into our brain and ultimately determine our decisions, instead of the natural instincts with which we were born.
It is not your natural instinct to eat a whole bag of potato chips just because they are there. It is also not your natural instinct to ignore your body's call for exercise. These are learned behaviors.
As we grow up, the ways we eat, think and live become learned behaviors – that can change if you stop following other people's rules and understand how you got to where you are .
If you spend your life “on the line” or “out of the line” in this cycle, you are completely separated from yourself, your body and what you actually want and need.
The two things that drive you and your decisions when you live in this place are either:
1) learned thought and behavior patterns from old programming (if you are "off track")
or
2) Fear and other people's rules about what you think you should do (if you are "on the right track")
They also have nothing to do with you – with what you actually need or want in your core.
By giving yourself full permission to eat what you want, when you want (yes, even permission to binge) you are given space to reconnect with yourself and what is best for you .
What You Think Is Permission Vs. What It Actually Is
There are two ways of doing this whole permission thing: the way you think you're going to do it when you're "off track" and the helpful way.
* back on track, we won't have it anymore. Then we feel bad and guilty all the time.
This is not a permit but a clear example of the food restriction / self-punishment cycle that causes you to get out of control over food / overeating or binge eating.
How? It's restrictive and punitive. We know that at some point we are no longer "allowed" to do it – you know, when we start to be "good" – and since we are already "bad" we may as well eat everything in the end we don't feel great.
This is a dietary restriction that maintains these ancient patterns.
True permission means losing all food rules and judgments. I know it sounds scary and wrong, but it really is the key to learning how to eat in a way that serves you and your body hears when it tells you why you are best feel.
Start noticing the things you say to yourself about your food choices and noticing how you feel after you eat them.
Do you feel energetic and fine when you eat this thing, or do you feel bloated, sluggish and sick? How do you wanna feel
If you eat a lot of things that make you feel the latter, just notice it, you become curious about why, and most importantly, you expand your compassion and kindness.
The next time you eat something that you know will make you feel terrible, remember how you felt the last time and ask yourself if you really want to feel this way now.
If you think I don't care, ask why? Why don't you care to treat yourself and your body well? Don't you wanna feel good If you keep listening I don't care that this is a sign that there is likely to be more digging, but permission is still where you start.
Notice how many times during the day you judge yourself for having eaten something you think you shouldn't. How does this judgment affect the decisions you will make next?
Recall that what you eat does not determine your worth and you are an adult. You can eat what you want.
It was the first step towards a binge-free life to give me permission to eat what I wanted, even binge, because it helped me learn to change the biggest reasons that I was in the first place binge: destructive thoughts, habits and behaviors caused by food restriction and self-punishment.
In this way you will learn to end the food war, trust yourself and your body, no longer feel out of control over your food and make decisions that make you feel best because you deserve it, yours To give the best.
About Roni Davis
Drawing on her own healing journey and over a decade of expertise, training and experience, Roni Davis, Founder of the Cognitive Eating Academy, guides chronic dieters through the process of uncovering and Alter the patterns of thought and behavior that cause weight and food struggles. Your clients heal their relationship with food as they learn to approach their overall wellbeing from a place of connection, confidence, compassion, and love. Grab Her Free eBook Why Did I Eat This? here.
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