Bingeing, Miserable & Out Of Control
Everyday I start again with good intentions. I often avoid eating for most of the day, not eating and feeling in control………….until late afternoon when the children come in from school and there’s food about and I start to pick…and then my husband comes home and there’s more food about, he cooks something that smells delicious so I have a bit even though I’m not hungry because of all the bits I’ve been picking at…and then I think sod it I might as well have what I want and start again tomorrow, so I have it all….some wine, crisps, dip, chocolate fingers, his tasty chicken & bacon with veg and mash…..then I’m feeling really guilty and I need to keep eating to quell the sense of panic that starts to rise about my belly and how big it is getting and how hopeless I feel……ice-cream, picking at left overs in the kitchen, I open that box of Lindor that one of my children asked me to buy for a school teacher, I’ll buy another on the school run tomorrow – if I eat them all no one will realise, then I need something savoury so I grab some bread and butter and more…I make some tea and join my husband for the 10 o’clock news…we have a few chocolate biscuits…he goes to the loo and I grab several more and quickly get another piece of bread and butter before he’s back….I’m starting to sense that feeling of self loathing rise up ….he comes back and sits next to me on the sofa and puts his arm around me and cuddles up to me, kissing my neck………..and I feel so bloated and ugly and windy and ”yuk” that the last thing I could possibly entertain is him coming onto me…I pretend its my period and I’m having bad stomach pains….he says he understands and gives me a little squeeze…….I resolve to make tomorrow the beginning of a new chapter….yet again
Maybe you can see some of your own behaviour in this little vignette, a life in which a person seems to be trapped inside a “feast and famine” relationship with food that is “used or taken as if a drug” as opposed to being consumed as a form of energy and nutrient that promotes life and health.
Perhaps you too have young children and find your life has changed from previous times in which you might have worked and enjoyed more independence. Being at home, tidying, cleaning, washing clothes, shopping for food, preparing food, supporting others like a husband and children while they get on with “their” lives…..everyday…..can feel like a thankless task despite the genuine love you probably feel for your family. This is a role in which you may have relaxed attention to your appearance, spending time in comfortable, lose clothing, losing touch with the person you are underneath your mantle of care-giving to others.
But what about the care you give to yourself…or are you completely spent after looking after the needs of your family whether young children, aged parents or a husband perhaps if you are not working and staying at home. Whatever your circumstances, I imagine you are not very happy if you have been drawn onto this site. If you are reading this article about disordered eating, bingeing and dieting, I suspect that you are in a relationship with food in which you feel trapped and inside a body that you want to change but frequently feel powerless to do so. In your mind there may be a daily conflict about eating, both WANTING and NOT WANTING food and feeling miserable, depressed, anxious, hopeless, ugly, smelly, panicky, sad, disappointed, frustrated, envious of others, tearful, guilty, ashamed, lonely or some other thought or feeling.
There is something that can help you to feel better and in more control quite quickly but you are probably not going to believe me and you may not want to follow what I suggest! The very thing that you are “abusing” in your life, is also the best “medicine” for your disordered eating pattern, so I am going to talk to you about FOOD.
If you are still reading, I suspect that you are motivated to try anything given how helpless and hopeless you might be feeling, so let me share some important facts with you about food:
Nutrient dense FOOD is not your enemy but SUGAR probably is!
If you try to avoid eating because you are hoping to lose some of the calories from a recent binge, then not eating will not be effective. What this WILL do, is make you increasingly likely to reach for something sweet because you are inducing “cravings” within your body. As cravings develop, a person who is trying to avoid eating is going to become increasingly likely to reach for something “forbidden” like a sugary snack. When this happens, it is likely to set off a binge and if this occurs, the body experiences inner turmoil:
Sugary foods and drinks = Insulin released to take sugar into body cells
Lots of sugar = TOO much Insulin released = Body confused = BODY craves SUGAR!!!
The body can’t cope very well if we take in too much sugar in one go. When we eat sugar it enters our bloodstream and is harmful to body organs if it is not removed. So insulin is released by the pancreas to help get glucose out of the blood and into body cells. This system works quite well in a normal diet but when we suddenly start eating LOTS of sugary foods and maybe drinks too, the body becomes confused. In response to the high level of sugar, the pancreas releases TOO MUCH insulin which then leads the body into thinking that it NEEDS sugar and sets up a craving for sugar. You might like to imagine a computer when you give it too many instructions………….it is likely to “freeze” and you might be driven to turn it off and on again, to “reboot” in order to restore normal function. The body is not so dissimilar. It is not designed to digest an overload of sugar and starts behaving weirdly, making us think we want more sugar when we don’t, generating unhappy feelings and making us feel we need something “sugary” to make us feel better but we don’t, its just that the body is confused, in “stuck or frozen” mode, needing a “reboot!”
How to reboot your body
Turning your computer off and then on again, generally helps solve a computer problem. With the body it’s a similar thing in that we need to get it out of the “SUGAR LOOP” its trapped in. Protein, complex carbohydrate and fat is the way to reboot your body. You don’t have to understand the inner workings of a computer to know that “switching it off and then on again” will restore normal functioning and it’s the same with the body. You don’t need to understand the biochemistry of food in the body but you DO have to believe the impact of consuming lots of sugar AND do something about it.
How to keep your body running smoothly
Eat protein, complex carbohydrate and healthy fats 3 times a day
Avoid eating sugary foods on their own – at the end of a meal is ok
Remove ALL the crisps, sweets, biscuits, sweet cereals and any other sugary foods from your cupboard – this will make it more difficult to binge and at least slow up the process of you accessing more!
Remove ALL the sugary drinks in your cupboard and don’t buy them anymore!
Make your own sweet foods from natural ingredients – scones with oat flour and almond for example which you can eat with clotted cream and full fruit jam; flapjacks with seeds and honey or dark chocolate……etc…Discover ways to satisfy a desire for sweetness by researching products available or make your own.
How to feel happier and more in control
MOOD is significantly affected by what we eat and if you avoid the “sugar roller-coaster” I’ve described above, there is a very good chance that you are going to feel much stronger, more level emotionally and more able therefore to address your weight concerns. The key to emotional health is the food you eat everyday so disordered eating treatment must tackle food before it explores any of the other reasons that you think may be contributing to your mindset because if you change what you eat, you may find that many of your emotional difficulties are reduced or may even disappear.
If you think it would be helpful to have some support in addressing your eating behaviour, then you may want to arrange an initial assessment to understand how your particular problems could be managed through counselling coaching.
