If you want to turn your binge habit into a healthy eating habit, you first have to BELIEVE that you can do it. This is the first and most important step on the road to binge-eating recovery.
Let’s put it this way: If you think you can eat healthy without overeating, that means you’ll be able to eat healthy sooner rather than later. If you don’t believe it, you won’t be able to eat healthy regardless of the type of therapy you undergo, unless you start to believe that you can, the future for you is cloudy.
You may be asking yourself “how can I believe in my ability to eat healthy if I am always overwhelmed by these excruciating urges to binge?”
We understand that binge urges are strong, but nonetheless, it is possible to overcome them. Lots of people have done it and you can do it too if you really want to.
You see, impulses are really just thoughts and feelings. So if you’re determined to stop them, you can do so by making a few changes to your daily routine. Then these binge thoughts will weaken if you continue to practice the changes.
Here are some important points to help you make changes:
1. Start imagining yourself thin (or have a thin image of yourself in your mind).
2. Make a sketchy drawing of yourself on a piece of paper where you are skinny and happy.
3. Set aside 30 minutes a day to sit quietly, close your eyes, and visualize yourself slim and healthy. Attach happy feelings to this image of yours.
4. If you have a special time when you binge (for example, some people binge after work or after school) try to meditate at that special time or any time close to your normal hours of eating. binge
5. Never eat alone. Ask a friend or family member to share dinner with you. Tell them to stop you if they see you lose control.
6. When you eat, look at yourself from a different angle, try to look at yourself from a third person perspective. Mentally make comments to yourself as if you were sitting in another chair watching yourself eat. For example “She/he is now eating her Caesar salad delicately and calmly because she is a lady/gentleman. She is chewing slowly because she is enjoying the taste of the food and doesn’t want to rush it.” . She/he is talking to her/her friend about what happened during her/his day.” Slow down, think before you act.
7. Learn to observe your own behavior and make regular mental comments about your own behavior throughout the day. From the moment you wake up, make mental comments about your behavior as if you were watching yourself from a distance.
8. Don’t keep too many snacks in the fridge. Put more fruits and vegetables in the fridge in case you feel like bingeing, if there is no junk food then you will have more control.
9. Regular exercise changes your feelings from negative to more positive. This is because you release the feel-good chemical endorphin in your brain after regular physical activity; this will reduce your cravings to binge (gradually).
10. Always remember that you don’t need that much food to stay healthy. The truth is that only by moderating your food intake can you truly be happy and healthy. You know this is a true statement, because you know how bad you feel after getting drunk.
Now, I’ve saved the best for last.
If you think that all of the above is going to be too difficult for you right now, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way that you could make all of this easy and fast? What if another person could install the information into your subconscious mind simply by listening to a hypnotic voice and putting you in a meditative state? What if you can do this while you sleep too?
The good news is that you can do this using special binge/overeating mindfulness training. Mindfulness training allows you to easily and effectively make the changes you need by programming your subconscious to change to help you break the binge-eating cycle.