Dr. Kerri Fullerton ND

Intuitive Eating. Health At Every Size Doctor

binge eating

Recovering From Binge Eating

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When my patients come to me struggling with binge eating they feel desperate, ashamed and skeptical.

The desperation is about wanting this behaviour to stop. It’s something that they’ve been struggling with for years (sometimes decades) and they’re so sick and tired of the cycle.

These patients show a great deal of shame around their relationship with food. They feel like they ‘should’ be able to get this ‘under control’ and that they ‘shouldn’t’ need help. It’s been their own private struggle for so long that they feel alone and scared.

Skepticism is seen when we start talking about actually recovering from binge eating. As much as they want to be done with it, they’re not convinced that they’ll ever be free. After-all, they’ve tried EVERYTHING!

The progression of binge eating recovery

An important part of the process, it to understand that it’s a process.

Recovering from Binge Eating isn’t a one-step process!

Recently a woman was telling me about her recent ‘binge day’. She woke up and just knew that today was going to go sideways.

She’s been struggling since childhood with emotional, stress and binge eating. Over the last few years she’s had great success with reducing her binge eating as she really started to embrace the concept of ‘pleasure food’ and found new ways to cope with uncomfortable feelings.

Covid has changed her life so much, as it has for most of us. And she’s starting to struggle a bit more.

Key learning here! When old patterns start to re-emerge, it’s not a sign that you’re failing. It’s that your stress now outweighs your ability to cope.

If we look back to a few years ago this woman would’ve eaten her way through the day, feeling guilty the whole time, beating herself up the whole time, and then she would’ve carried on with the guilt and self-deprecation into the next day or two (possibly longer).

This time, she pulled out a journal and decided to write about her feelings all day. She still ate all day, but she was ALSO writing.

Key learning here! When the way that you engage with unwanted behaviours start to change, you’re making progress.

I created the graphic above to help her (and you) understand the progression of recovering from binge eating, stress eating and/or emotional eating.

It’s quite specifically a horizontal line and not a linear graph. Sliding between the stages is normal and expected. It’s not failing. Let me say that again. It’s not failing to slide into a stage that you’ve already passed through. It’s simply an indicator that your stress has surpassed your coping strategies so you had to pick up an old one to get through.

Time for some maintenance

The opportunity now is to practice self-compassion, examine what’s happening in your life and if you can, make adjustments.

When you’re using coping strategies that don’t serve you, ask yourself what you can delegate and what you can delay. It’s time to take something off of your plate.

Women are culturally trained to put everyone else’s needs first. You can only do what you can do. It’s okay to say ‘no’ or ‘not right now. What you can handle ordinarily will be very different than what you can handle when other stressors are added on.

When these old behaviours or thought patterns return, it’s like seeing the check engine light on your dashboard go on. This is bigger than regular maintenance. You may be able to put gas in the car, change a tire, check the pressure or even change the oil. But check the engine? Nope. That’s time to see the mechanic.

It’s the same for you. If these old behaviours are showing up, you can try some of your usual maintenance. Maybe that’s all you need. But if it’s not, it’s time to bring in a professional.

And just like the car, the earlier you bring yourself in, the less extensive and expensive the damage will be.

Dedicated to helping you find peace and power with your body,

P.S. I’m always happy to connect. You can book a free Food Freedom Discovery call here.

Can you be addicted to food?

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Ten years ago if you’d asked me “can you be addicted to food” I would have said “absolutely, yes”.

In 2009 I attended my first Overeaters Anonymous (OA) meeting. I started out with phone meetings because I just couldn’t bring myself to walk into an in-person meeting. Shame whispered “what if you see a patient or someone else that you know?”.

Back then I was part of the 90% of people who believe that food can be addictive. I believed with all of my heart that I was an addict – a compulsive overeater. The pattern after all – craving, loss of control, excessive consumption, tolerance, withdrawal and distress.

So I got a sponsor, made my list of ‘trigger’ foods that I would abstain from, and attended my meetings.

As with any diet before, I threw myself into it fully. I read all of the books, did all of the work, and recorded my food intake and weight with the diligence of any ‘good girl’. 

But I started to notice something the longer that I stayed in OA: nobody was actually getting food freedom. The lists of trigger foods were getting longer. I thought that was really weird. How could a food that they were eating without issue last month now be a trigger food? Instead of  bingeing on junk foods they were bingeing on vegetables and meat. The foods may have changed but the behaviours hadn’t.

That was when I started to question the whole food addiction theory. I started to do a deep dive into the research and I was surprised by what I found.

Food Addiction Research

It’s not very clear cut at all. Consensus isn’t even close to being achieved.

When self-proclaimed addicts were assessed using the Yale Food Addiction Scale, only 12% actually met the criteria. Using the scale assumes that food addiction is real, which is still up for much debate, but even based on that assumption, almost 90% weren’t addicts.

Researchers have not been able to identify the addictive substance. And that’s a problem. Those who are in the food-addiction-is-real camp believe that sugar is the addictive food. But it’s blurry. All sugar? Just some sugar? Foods that converts to sugar?

The other sticky bit is that Food Addiction is eerily similar to Binge Eating Disorder (BED).

Another interesting thing about food addiction studies is that they’re not corrected for restriction (read dieting; read hunger). In animal studies the way that they get the animals to exhibit the food addiction behaviours that I was going through they had to starve them first – or at least restrict them.

In a hungry state our brains create chemicals that lead us to obsess about food. And those chemicals make us vulnerable to hyperpalatable foods (junk food, fast food) because we’re not going to let ourselves starve.

Why does this matter?  Because as a society right now, we’re focused on restricting. We’re watching what we eat and trying to eat smaller portions. We’re forever putting ourselves into this vulnerable state.

So, are you addicted to food?

Maybe, but you’re probably not.

More likely, you’re overeating because of one of two things.

  1. You’re vulnerable due to restriction.
  2. Food is being used as a distraction.

I’ll dive into using food as a distraction in another blog/video.

For now, let me share a few tips on how you can start to overcome binge eating:

  1. Stop skimping or skipping. Hunger wins every single time. Shift your attention away from maximum calories and start focusing on minimums. Eat regularly so that your body doesn’t ever think that it’s going to starve. *this step speaks from my privilege; food scarcity is very real for a lot of people, do the best that you can with what you have
  2. Find a community. Shame kept me from addressing my binge eating disorder. I didn’t dare tell anyone about my binges and nobody asked. Everyone seemed quite content to help me lose weight and restrict but nobody talked about the binges or the emotional side of things. I created a Facebook Group called Applaud Your Bod for this purpose. A safe place to share and feel normal and to feel inspired. Consider this your cordial invitation. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1437974869844063
  3. Take the Binge Eating Quiz. https://psychology-tools.com/test/binge-eating-scale We don’t know if Food Addiction is real but we do know that Binge Eating Disorder is. Treatment for Binge Eating Disorder is available and effective. If you’d like to talk, you can book a free Food Freedom Discovery Session with me. You don’t have to go it alone.

Dedicated to helping you find peace and power with your body,

Kerri

Neuropsychopharmacology 2018 Dec; 43(13): 2506–2513

Why do I binge?

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If you don’t already know my story, I have a history of both Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and Bulimia.

‘Binge’ has become a word that’s used fairly loosely now. It’s not uncommon for someone to say that they binged watched a show.  So too with food, it’s common for someone to describe any kind of overeating as a binge.

But what is Binge Eating Disorder (BED)?

BED is the most common of the eating disorders. It’s currently estimated that 30% of people seeking professional help for overweight or obesity have BED.

BED isn’t ‘just’ overeating. It’s eating a large amount of food (although this varies from binge to binge) in a short amount of time WITH feelings of being out of control. Binge eaters often eat very quickly. They don’t have to be hungry to eat and will eat to physical discomfort and may still not stop. 

Sometimes the binges are driven by emotions – stress, anger, boredom. The eating is a coping mechanism (even if they know that it doesn’t work).

The most destructive part of BED is the effects on self-esteem and self-worth. There are tremendous feelings of guilt and shame about the food and the way it was eaten. There’s often a lot of secretive food behaviours while they try to hide the binging. 

What causes BED?

While there’s still much debate around the ultimate cause, we do know that the most common trigger is restrictive eating. 

For example, one of my patients developed BED after doing a cleanse with her friends. Yes, cleanses are restrictive diets.She was in grade 10 and at the time, she didn’t have any food or body image issues. Not that she loved every part of her body everyday, but she didn’t have an unhealthy relationship with her body. She just wanted to be included with her girls. And cleanses are touted to be healthy right? By the time that I started to work with her she was 5 years into BED and she had MAJOR food and body image issues.

Once the restricted diet is over, the binge occurs. Sometimes the binge is the mark of the diet being over. And then the feelings of shame sink in. Self-loathing settles. And then the ‘obvious’ answer is to ‘tighten the reins’. Kitchen clear outs and new plans are often the go-to answer. Maybe it’s to skip a meal the next day to ‘make up for it’ or to practice ‘portion control’. Unfortunately, these restrictions just cycle back into another binge. 

Is it Primary or Secondary BED?

If you binge, ask yourself this question:

Is there a time of day that my binges happen most often?

If you answered ‘yes’ then you likely experience secondary binge eating.

This type of binge eating happens secondarily to dietary restriction and responds very well to dietary interventions.

Primary BED also responds well to eating interventions but may also need the support of a professional trained in this field. Medication has been found to be helpful with this type and I’ve also seen great results with some natural options as well.

How to stop binge eating

BED responds to eating enough food. It responds to the inclusion of more foods, not less.I know that’s scary to think about and I’m not suggesting that you just go out and buy all of your forbidden foods. 

Intuitive Eating is a researched backed system to help you make peace with food and your body. I’m trained in this system.

The principle that we teach before bringing in the forbidden foods is Honour Your Hunger. That means eat! Eat regularly to avoid getting overly hungry. This alone can greatly reduce the number of binges experienced. 

Eating regularly often requires some planning, especially if you’re prone to skipping meals or just grabbing a quick bite. 

And yet meal planning can cause a lot of stress. 

Next week I’m running a free webinar called Mindful Meal Planning. 

I’d love for you to join me. It’s free and there’s nothing to buy. I will also introduce Intuitive Eating during the webinar.

You can register by clicking here.

Dedicated to helping you find peace and power with your body,