Dr. Kerri Fullerton ND

Intuitive Eating. Health At Every Size Doctor

emotional 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.

When grapefruit became emotional eating

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Grapefruit is a comfort food for me. And that falls into emotional eating.

In order for me to get comfort from it, it has to be prepared in one of two ways: cut like the photo with each segment being separated, or cut up into a fruit salad.

When I eat grapefruit in this way, I’m transported back in time to my Grandparents Florida home. I can remember the details of the house, the layout, the smells, the colours and sounds. I can see my Grandma in the kitchen and my Grandad in his recliner.

The memories flood in if I stay present with the grapefruit. I remember the pool, the way the whole community would light their driveways with candles for the Christmas tour, riding our bikes to the tennis courts, running our buts off on the tennis courts, taking the canoe out and having my brother scare the crap out of me by hitting the side and telling me it was a gator…

Food has the ability to transport us. It is that powerful.

Emotional eating has a bad rap. It evokes feelings of guilt. One study showed that half of adults admitted to feeling guilty after eating food they enjoy.

Diet industry has tried to steal the emotional-feel-good side of food away from us. As most things in the diet mentally, it’s either good OR bad. This black-or-white thinking is not healthy.

What if it’s not that simple?

This is a visual representation of what’s in the Intuitive Eating book to depict the range of emotional eating.

Sensory gratification is a normal part of a healthy relationship with food. It’s the cornerstone of satisfaction. Craving something warm and gooey won’t be satisfied by eating a cold crisp salad. Warm and gooey could be sweet or savoury. It could be a risotto or mac-n-cheese or warm cabbage salad with goat cheese and pecans. It could just as easily be warm caramel sauce or toffee pudding. So the point it simply this – when we match our desire to our intake we leave the experience feeling satiated and done. When we don’t, we leave the eating experience feeling like something’s missing or deprived.

Eating for comfort can also be a very healthy part of your relationship with food. Like my grapefruit story, using food to create a sense of peace, safety or calm is perfectly fine.

Both of these kinds of emotional eating could be problematic as well. If you’re regularly eating outside of hunger cues for the emotional comfort, it could lead to some disordered eating behaviours.

Distracting oneself with food can be both helpful and harmful. Sometimes we don’t have other tools to cope with our emotions. So food can be a tool to get us through. It’s like self-medicating. And just like medication, it has it’s place. Hopefully you’ll be working on the underlying issues while you’re using it.

Using food to numb is the sedation stage. When food is being used this way, it’s not bad, but it is a clear indication that deeper issues are at play. The same is true when food being used as punishment. These disordered eating behaviours may be the best you’ve got right now. I hope that you can also find the strength, courage, and resources to work with a professional to get to the underlying issues.

Where do you land on the continuum?

Most people will relate to at least the first three forms of emotioanl eating.

Sensory gratification where your meal just ‘hit the spot’; comfort eating where that food just left you feeling so good; using food to distract from the boredom or the fatigue that happens at the end of the day.

It’s important for you to know that you are under no moral or legal obligation to address disordered eating. If it’s not important to you, that’s okay and valid.

If you’re concerned about how often you’re using food emotionally, then I invite you to consider asking yourself a series of questions when you’re thinking about reaching for food.

Am I Hungry Flowchart

The most obvious and yet often overlooked question is “Am I hungry?”. We’re so conditioned to eat for external reasons that we rarely consider our internal barometer. If the answer is ‘yes’, then proceed down the pink side.

You’ll notice that the questions to choose what to eat consider sensory gratification and comfort as they are a normal part of a healthy relationship with food.

If the answer is ‘no’ then proceed down the blue side.

“What do I need?” is a powerful question. Answers can include:

  • physical feelngs (restless, tired) would need physical solutions (movement, rest/sleep)
  • emotional feelings (bored, angry, sad) would need an emotional solution (call a friend, journalling, feeling the feels)
  • spiritual feelings (lack of purpose, missing connection) would need a spiritual solution (meditation, journalling, prayer, nature)

The next question is “Can I meet that need?”. If you can, then go do that. If you still want to eat afterwards, that’s cool. You absolutely can.

If you cannot meet the need then you have to decide if you’re willing and able to sit with the discomfort.

For something like boredom you may be willing to sit with it for a bit. Some emotional and spiritual discomfort can be a healing experience.

Other times, you’re not going to be able to address the need. For instance, past trauma surfacing or setting boundaries and not having the tools.

In this case, you will need to find support and distraction. Sometimes this will be food. That’s okay. You’ll use the tools that you have until you’ve learned how to use new ones.

Putting tools into your toolbox

There’s a lot of self-help out there. Explore and play with different strategies. If you’re in a place where you can access qualified support, amazing. We are built for connection, love and belonging. Talking to someone about what brings you shame can be a very healing experience. As long as you’re met with empathy and compassion, then you can start to work on what’s underneath the unwanted behaviours.

Please understand that this takes time. Just like every other new thing that you’ve tried, you won’t start out as a pro. You’ll try a new tool and it’ll feel weird and unnatural. That’s expected. After some time of trying it you may decide not to keep this tool. That’s okay too. Try another. And another.

For many of us food will remain a coping strategy. That’s actually a cool gift. When I find myself using food more often than what’s comfortable I see it as a cry for help now instead of evidence of my failures. It’s the ‘check engine’ light coming on. Time to see the mechanic – this is more than I can handle on my own.

I can help you with a lot of this work. If it turns out you need more that what I offer, I have met many great social workers, psychotherapists and psychologists who are intuitive eating trained. It would be my pleasure to introduce you to one of them.

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

Are you ready for extra support? Let’s talk. Use this link to book a call.

Community is important and so healing. Join us over in the Facebook group.

What my food cravings were trying to tell me

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All of my life I’ve felt like I had demons in my head telling me to eat. Those demons were my food cravings.

Each and every day they were a reminder that I couldn’t be trusted with food.

When I’d finally give in, I’d eat to excess and feel awful. Physically I’d be stuffed and bloated. Emotionally I’d be so ashamed.

Monday morning was my reset. The day that I’d get control.

Except that the control only lasted a few days at best. Often I’d be back into the food by Monday afternoon.

So how did that change for me? Why is this no longer my normal?

It changed when I stopped seeing my cravings as these awful demons, and started to see them as compassionate confidents.

I realized that my cravings for foods that didn’t serve me, but actually harmed me, must have a purpose. Otherwise, why would they still be there?

Think about it. Why would I continue to engage in a behaviour that didn’t give me some kind of benefit? That doesn’t make sense.

At first, I acted like a rebellious teenager. Even though I’d realized that the food cravings were a compassionate voice, I’d still yell and rebel when those voices tried to guide me. I’d push them away and act out (usually by restricting my food severely or by overeating).

Until one day, after I’d overeaten, I sat there bloated and uncomfortable and ashamed, I didn’t want to do this anymore. So I said “OK crazy food brain – what is it that you’re trying to tell me?”.

What I heard was that I was tired. Or overwhelmed. Or scared.

Each time I got a different message with the same theme.

I needed to be nurtured. I needed to be comforted. I needed to feel loved.

Sometimes it was something leading up to the cravings. Often for me it was lack of sleep or an over-scheduled life.

Other times it was something that was coming up. A presentation. An event.

No matter what the cause, it became clear that my food cravings were me trying to take care of myself.

That was  hard pill to swallow.

It was easier to make it the foods fault. To tell myself that I was a food addict or that it was these deceitful food companies putting addictive ingredients in there.

Looking within is a lot more uncomfortable. And it’s worth every moment of discomfort.

Now when I have a food craving, I have choices.

I can eat some of what I’m craving. I can do it sanely. I can do it moderately.

And when enjoying that bit of food doesn’t satisfy, then I can see the continued food craving as a gift.

It means that my stress has surpassed my ability to cope with it.

It means that something needs my attention.

And just like when a baby starts to cry we go down the list “Hungry? Wet? Dirty? Tired?” I too can go down my list.

Am I getting enough sleep? Am I getting enough rest? Am I moving my body enough? Am I acknowledging and dealing with my feelings?

Once the real reason for the food cravings is unveiled, they go away. Just like that.

 

 

 

P.S. Watch the video on YouTube for more Food Cravings goodness