Why Letting Go of Desire will Usually Help You Get What you Want

Despite what I want to tell you, I don’t have my binge eating under control.

Quite often it flares up, and I’m left wondering why. Why now?

Why now, at the beginning of 2017, when everything is supposed to be regimented and better?

Why now, when all I see on social media is how good everyone is doing with their New Year’s Resolutions, am I’m sitting here stockpiling my mouth with leftover Christmas candy, telling myself it will be different tomorrow?

Why now, when I’m supposed to be getting better, when I’m so FUCKING SERIOUS about getting better?

It’s like the more I want something, the deeper I obsess over it. When it feels threatened, the monster inside of me rebels. It wants to remind me it’s still here and doing well. It wants to show me who’s boss.

I’ve noticed a pattern.

This Post is Going to Suck

First and foremost, thanks to all my followers for sticking with me thus far. I know I post sporadically, and I’m trying to get myself into a routine.

I’m not sure if that’s going to happen, however, as I’ve been struggling with making regular updates for some time now.

I find myself with a lot of excuses as to why I cannot or should not post a blog:

My ideas are stupid.

I don’t have a drawing that matches this entry.

My ideas are irrelevant; they’re only helpful to me.

I have no time.

I don’t have anything to say. I’ve run out of ideas.

This is only half an idea.

No one will read it.

 What’s the point?

Even as I write this, I feel as if I’m cheating you, squandering your time.

But as selfish as this may sound, I’m making this post for me, and not so much for you.

To show myself that it’s okay to not have an idea, or a great idea, and that the world isn’t going to implode if I commit to a less-than-perfect post.

I’m trying to push past all the negativity in my head.

THIS ISN’T LONG ENOUGH, it’s taunting. THIS DOESN’T’ COUNT AS BEING CREATIVE.

I’m trying not to care. I’m trying not to slow down and critique what I’m saying, I’m trying not to go back and look for spots to edit or rewrite.

I’m trying to look at this post as is and just accept it.

I’ve done some research into why I can’t seem to get myself to do the things that are important to me (writing/being creative daily, being at the forefront).

Most sources would say that my problem is crippling perfectionism, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate.

In any case, I’m striving to allow more imperfection in my life.

In what ways can you invite imperfection into your life today?

To Those of You Who Want to Stop Binge Eating, but Can’t Get Started

When will it click for me?

I saw this question asked on Reddit awhile back, and I felt compelled to post about it.

You may be asking yourself:

How many times do I have to stuff my body full of sugar until I FINALLY want to stop?

How many times do I have to obsess over the day’s meal until I’m fed up?

How much longer do I have to wait to start living my life?

Why has it clicked for other people, but not for me?

Maybe you’ve heard people say that unless you want something bad enough, unless you’re TRULY fed up, you won’t make a change.

Maybe you feel like rock-bottom hasn’t come for you yet, so you must settle for the way things are until the day comes.

Are you accepting the status quo, hoping that one day you’ll stumble upon that “A-HA!” moment that will make everything from there-on out easier? Do you believe that maybe you just don’t hate yourself ENOUGH yet?

I used to feel this way, too. My epiphany was always lurking somewhere in the future, rendering all current efforts useless.

I used to think:

When I’m in college, I’ll mature and feel differently.

When I’m done with my senior thesis, I can really take the time to evaluate my life. Things will fall into place.

When I’m in France, I can learn the art-de-vivre, and I will know how to savor food.

When I start working full-time, I’ll see that I can’t keep doing this to myself.

Eventually I got tired of waiting for some mythical day to come and rescue me from my own self-loathing. I put down my shovel, and tried to create my own epiphany.

Stop Binge Eating: Rock Bottom is Where You Refuse to Keep Digging.

If you’re anything like me, you probably have a tireless faculty for self-sabotage. There isn’t any moment “real” enough that would convince you to get your shit together. In fact, if such a moment existed, you would probably just beat yourself up about it, believing if you only tried harder, if you only hated yourself a little more, you’d make it out of this predicament.

Self-hatred is your shovel, and fear is your motivation.

These emotions don’t magically disappear when you feel horrible enough; you just have to make the conscious decision to stop acting on them.

Many people who say they’re recovered make it seem as if one day, after a long series of trial and error and heart ache and indigestion, things just “clicked” for them. As if by magic, they perceived the error of their ways and changed course.

This is no-doubt true for some people, but I would imagine it doesn’t ring true for most.

For most people, the desire to change doesn’t occur in a single moment in time. It does not fall from the heavens, or strike like a muse. It is the accumulation of many steps forward and backward. It is a daily refusal to fall through the cracks of doubt.

Perhaps I’m guilty of making it seem like one day life just made sense, and I knew from there exactly what to do differently. This is untrue. Despite offering you all tips and tricks, I still have days where I can’t take my own advice. Yesterday, for example, I restricted despite being hungry, and wound up gorging myself on Nutella and Runts.

The difference is that I no longer use this “slip-up” as negative energy. I learn from it, using it to propel myself forward and UP OUT OF THE HOLE, rather than further down the tunnel of soil. Slip-ups become new tools, new ways of understanding yourself.

Use them to climb instead of burrow.

Every day, you must refuse to stop digging,

It’s OK if you mess up. This DOESN’T mean you’re broken or that you’re not trying hard enough. It doesn’t mean you’re a hopeless cause, or that you’re fundamentally different from everyone else.

A mistake simply means you’re a human blessed with the remarkable capacity to adapt and respond.

Today can be the day you waited for.

Put down your shovel, and begin your ascent.

Does even a bite of “junk food” make you binge? Here’s why.

If you’re anything like me, you know the following scenario all too well:

It’s been an exhausting day. You’re tired, overwhelmed and probably more than a little irritable. You know you should probably wash the sweat of your face and go to bed, but your mind is still abuzz from the day’s tribulations and mini-injustices.

If you could just calm down, you’d feel better.

So, to soothe yourself, you decide to indulge in a cookie from the packet you picked up from the supermarket (this week would be different, you thought, assuring yourself that future-you would be much more capable of fighting of any urge to binge). What’s the harm in a single cookie?

You DESERVE this cookie after picking up that extra shift at work. You DESERVE this cookie for not losing your cool with your mother-in-law.

One bite, and your neurons explode in pleasure (In fact, if scientists scanned your brain at this pivotal moment, they would probably confuse the image with an aerial shot of the Fourth of July).

This cookie was immensely satisfying, so much so that you consider closing the packet and heading upstairs to bed.

But guilt creeps in and suddenly, a deluge of thoughts:

 Well, I’ve already had this one, I might as well…

I screwed it up. Better take advantage before I have to give it all up tomorrow…

I can’t even resist one cookie. How can I resist this entire packet?

 

There is a small moment of silence before you buckle. FUCK IT! you think as you angrily begin to shovel fistfuls of chocolate chips into your mouth.

The Fuck-it Binge Mentality

What do flat tires have to do with binge eating?

In the past, when I’ve Googled ways to stop sabotaging myself by binging after eating one “unhealthy thing,” I stumbled across the following idea on more than one occasion:

“Binging because you felt bad about eating one cookie is like popping the remaining three tires when you’re upset that you have a flat.”

This never resonated with me. After all, the function of a car is to DRIVE, to propel itself forward. Even with a single flat tire, the car cannot function, so it essentially does not matter if there is a single flat tire, or four.

Of course deciding to pop the remaining three tires will increase the amount of time it takes to recover from the incident (15 minutes versus an hour or so), but I could always understand WHY someone would act this way. Maybe the release of frustration that followed popping the tires seemed worth the extra time it would take to repair the car.

When I applied this analogy to my own binge eating experience, I felt the same way. I TOTALLY understand why someone would eat a bag of cookies after attempting to eat just one. In fact, it doesn’t even seem THAT unreasonable to me.

That’s when I realized I was looking at the issue backwards. I was treating my symptoms (bingeing after eating something “unhealthy”) as the problem instead of addressing the cause: my rigid thoughts and food rules.

It’s not about the binge, it’s about your thoughts

The reason the aforementioned person pops their tire is because they’re frustrated by the failure of the PERCEIVED function of the car (moving, driving, taking them somewhere, etc.).

Let’s imagine, however, that another person perceives the function of their car as a place for them to live (they just lost their house, and have no money for gas, therefore driving is not relevant). Would this person sabotage their tires in frustration if ONE single tire became flat? Or would stress-relief be a none-issue for them, as the purpose of the car remains exactly the same as before? This individual may not be so upset about a flat tire, and probably wouldn’t consider popping the other three in despair.

What does this tell you?

Self-sabotaging yourself by bingeing is CAUSED BY WHAT YOU BELIEVE THE “GOAL” OF YOUR EATING TO BE. It is sparked by your thoughts.

 Rigid food rules lead to self-sabotaging binges 

In order to stop, you need to figure out what your hidden food rules are. You need to ask yourself what you believe to be “ruined” when you eat one cookie, and why you then feel compelled to eat the whole bag.

If you believe the GOAL of your diet/recovery is to eat healthy or clean or low-carb or paleo 100% of the time, then yes, essentially it does not mater if you had ONE cookie or TEN since the goal collapsed the moment you took that first bite.

From this perspective, IT MAKES SENSE to eat as many as possible and start fresh tomorrow.

But this type of black-and-white thinking leaves little room for progress or life, and is largely unsustainable. No one eats perfectly 100% of the time, and you need to allow flexibility in your life if you ever want to have a more neutral relationship with food.

How to embrace junk food without bingeing

First, compile a list of your food “rules/goals” that may lead you to self-sabotage. Here were/are some of mine:

1. I must eat healthy 100% of the time.
2. I cannot have more than one serving of carbs a day.
3. I can NEVER drink my calories.
4. If I’m going out to eat, that’s the only meal I can have for the day.

Find a way to alter these rules so that they allow more flexibility and spontaneity in your life.

1. I will nourish my body with healthy foods as much as possible, but I am allowed to eat cookies whenever I feel like it.
2. Nothing is off-limits, and I can eat what I enjoy throughout the day.
3. I aim to stay hydrated with water and tea, but I can always enjoy a Snapple or other drink if I want to.
4. Eating out is not an excuse to skip meals. I will care for myself no matter what.

By changing your perceptions, boundaries between “good” and “bad” eating become much more forgiving and fluid.

If you take baby steps, eating a bite of a cookie will no longer feel like a game-changer.

 

3 Unusual Tricks to Stop a Binge in Its Tracks

Here are three tricks I have used to stop a binge in its tracks!

Try these when fighting an urge to binge. Attempt each for at least 10 minutes before deciding whether or not you are still going to binge (and it’s okay if you still do, so long as you give them a go!).

1. Before you break down and binge, take a few minutes to write down your plan of attack. Make a list of absolutely everything you want to eat, as well as how much.If you still feel like binging after you complete the list, try to follow it step by step as best you can. That is, if your list looks like this:

• 1 box of cereal
• 3 cookies
• ½ bag of crackers

Do your best to “binge” in this order.

This may seem completely absurd, and perhaps it is, but by making your binge feel like a chore, you reduce the amount of immediate gratification you would normally experience. It takes the fun out of giving in.

If you keep doing this, binging will start to look ridiculously unappealing.

2. Complete a Sudoku puzzle or other brain challenge. Puzzles immediately take you out of your emotional mind. Give your rational mind some exercise, and then decide how you want to proceed.

3. Watch a murder mystery, crime drama or other scary movie.Crime dramas help me to channel my need to lose myself into something else; they direct my energy elsewhere. They’re most effective when they hook you right away, so pick something juicy! I like the original Law and Order for this reason.

*Please keep in mind that these methods probably will not work if you’re experiencing a biological need to binge. Sorry to break it to you, but you cannot overwrite your body’s instinct to survive.

What unusual tricks have helped you to stop a binge?

How I Used Math to Help Me Stop Binge Eating

For the majority of my life, I believed that OVEREATING was my main problem. Binge eating was the obstacle in my way of being a thin girl who was capable of successfully restricting her intake.

A few days of restriction would follow a few days of binge eating. Some weeks were worst than others, but overall the pattern remained consistent. Each time I would binge, I convinced myself I just needed to TRY HARDER to not binge. When this didn’t work, I searched relentlessly for reasons “why” I binged.

Was it emotional? Was it biological? Did I have a hormone I imbalance? Vitamin deficiency? Did I need to work out more? Was I eating enough fiber? Drinking enough water?

I hoped that each of these distractions would solve my issue, but they never did. Every pursued reason cost me time, money and unnecessary anguish. Whenever they failed to reveal themselves as the solution I hoped they would be, I felt more and more hopeless, like there was something fundamentally wrong with me.

Why couldn’t I just stop binging?

I was putting so much effort into “healthy eating.”

Eventually I decided to take a long-hard look at my habits.

Making Friends With MyFitnessPal

I was hesitant at first to track calories, or examine my dietary needs. While I used myfitnesspal.com in the past to make sure I was only eating around 1,000 calories a day, I had never used it to figure out what was really going on. I never, ever used this app to track my binges. I more or less used it as guide to tell me what sort of foods I should or shouldn’t avoid.

This all had to change.

First, I looked up my TDEE, or Total Daily Expenditure, using this calculator. TDEE tells you how many calories your body needs a day in order to function properly. You need this amount of calories so that you may sleep, move, exercise, clean, run, pee, eat, watch TV, etc.

In my case, I needed around 1,700 calories a day to maintain my weight at my current activity. This amounted to 11,900 calories a week.

Then I did the math. For a few weeks, I tracked everything I ate, INCLUDING the binges. It was tedious and sometimes embarrassing, but eventually the math exposed all.

On average, I was consuming around 800-1,200 calories a day when I was trying to restrict. This came out to be about 6,300 calories a week, or about 5,600 less than I required.

Interestingly, my binges were typically around 800-1,000 calories (not extravagant by any means, but still enough to cause me discomfort). This averaged about 5,950 calories per week.

Can you see where this is going?

Let’s do a fun equation!

6,300 a week from normal, restrictive intake+5,950 a week in binges = 12,250 a week.

12,250 / 7 = 1,750 a day.

Do you see it?

Let’s try it with some algebra.

11,900 required for survival = 6,300 from normal restrictive intake + X

In this equation, the missing variable is binge food. In other words, if you’re restricting your intake, your body “needs” the binge to stabilize its weight and keep everything functioning.

Restricting is Causing You to Binge More

If you’ve followed my math up until this point, you can see that

MY BINGES WERE A BIOLOCIAL RESPONSE TO RESTRICTION. MY BODY WAS FORCING ME TO COMPENSATE FOR THE CALORIES I DIDN’T REGULARLY EAT.

While I may have thought I was doing myself a favor and flexing my willpower muscle by not eating until 4pm, or eating a paltry 800 calories a day, in reality I was setting myself up to binge Every. Single. Time.

In fact, regularly under eating caused me to be irrational and unfocused, probably to the point where I was eating more calories than I needed some weeks, ultimately leading to the weight gain I was trying to escape in the first place.

I was the cause of my own problem.

Is the Crazy Binge-Restrict Cycle Worth It?

At some point, I asked myself if it was all worth it.

Was one out-of-control meal at the end of the day worth missing out on three warm, slow-paced meals?

Was feeling hungry all day rewarding enough that it made up for the nights spent avoiding my friends so that I could binge?

Was not planning my meals worth the extra two hours I gained to watch TV or mindlessly surf the internet (usually looking for advice on how to stop binging)?

Was skipping breakfast worth the overwhelming late-night cravings?

Did guiltily consuming four candy bars as fast as I could taste better than leisurely enjoying one?

Were the frantic, messy eating habits more satisfying than a balanced approach?

I decided they were not.

How I Started to Break Free From the Binge Cycle and How You Can Too

Basically, I did these three things:

1. I strived to hit 1,700 calories a day, no matter what. Even if I binged the night before.
2. I started to learn how to meal plan, and didn’t wait until I was ravenous to begin eating.
3. I strived to eat three meals a day, and two or three snacks, instead of eating all of my calories at one tim

If you have also decided these things aren’t worth the pain they cause, try these simple steps:

1. Start by calculating your own TDEE* and do the math. If you’re comfortable counting calories, myfitnesspal.com is a great place to begin. Track your intake as honestly as possible for a week or two. Refrain from judging yourself too harshly. You may find that you’re binging to make up for the calories you are not consuming on a daily basis.
2. Strive to hit your TDEE every single day.
3. Eat three meals a day, and 2-3 snacks.

*Don’t low-ball your TDEE. For instance, if you’re working out five times a week, don’t say that you’re “sedentary.” This is counter-productive, and is no better than restricting.

Why You Must Stop Restricting to Stop Binging: A Short but Sweet Idea You Aren’t Going to Like

This morning, I tried to put off breakfast as long as I could. I checked my e-mail three times, my Instagram five. When there was nothing new to discover, I read a chapter of a book and even wrote down a few jokes.

My addicted brain was trying to stall me, hoping he’d find the right moment to weaken me.

It’s so easy to get caught in this neural infective. It’s still something I struggle with on a near daily basis. However, after some trial and error, I’ve realized that resisting restricting is imperative in recovery from binge eating.

If you listen to your disordered voice when it tells you to restrict, you’re also going to listen to it when it tells you to binge.

If You Restrict, You Will Binge.

Whenever you make a conscious decision to restrict your calories or compensate for a binge or overeating in someway, you’re also making a conscious decision to binge later on down the road.

There is no way around. You cannot have it both ways.

Anytime you deprive your body of nutrients, your biology will revolt.

“Well,” you may say, sounding suspiciously like my addicted brain, “anorexics do it. They restrict and survive and never binge. If they can do it, why can’t I?”

 My response to you is no, actually they don’t. At least not forever.

There exists only two ways out of anorexia:

1. Death, fast or slow.
2. Being placed on a medically observed* “binge” meal plan of upwards of 3,000+ calories a day in order to keep the body from shutting down and restore a normal weight.

*The binging isn’t always medically regulated. Sometimes anorexics develop BED on their own. This is the body’s attempt at keeping them alive.

These are your only options.

When I started therapy late last year, I tried my hardest to stick to my meal plan (3 meals, 2-3 snacks per day). However, slips-up happened, and I occasionally binged. Whenever I binged, I believed I NEEDED to restrict the next day to wipe the slate clean. I just couldn’t handle those surplus calories. So, I would restrict, perhaps more than necessary to “compensate” for the binge.

Without fail that one-day of restriction caused binges to happen faster and harder.

Until I learned my lesson.

So here’s the quick-and-easy tip:

If you binged, don’t restrict. I honestly do not give a shit if you ate two cookies or 9 sleeves of chips ahoy, do NOT restrict.

By restricting, you’re only further teaching your body that it can’t trust when its next meal is coming, so it had better get it all in now while it can.

Make sure you understand this:

RESTRICTING CAUSES BINGE EATING.

After a binge, continue to follow your meal-plan. Continue to follow your hunger-cues. Get a little bit of exercise. Go for a walk. Go to the movies with a friend.

I ate my damn breakfast this morning, and I wasn’t happy about it.

But that’s ok. You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.

How the Binge Free Challenge Sets You Back

I see so many girls on Instagram believe that they’re doing something good for themselves by partaking in the various “binge free challenges” that crop up. While I certainly agree that these challenges encourage a sense of community, I do not really understand how they are beneficial.

Are Social Media Eating Disorder Challenges Causing You to Binge More?

If you’re not familiar with these challenges, they are basically a list of questions. Each day, participants answer the question that corresponds to the number of days that they have been “binge free.” They are intended to be done consecutively in the hope that participants will remain “binge free” at least until they run out of questions. Responses are posted to their social media accounts (Instagram, Tumblr, etc.).

This is the most recent one that has been popping up on my Instagram feed:

 

Let’s take the first three questions and dissect their flaws.

DAY 1 question: Obviously.

DAY 2 question: This is a loaded question that belongs nowhere near an ED community.

First of all, binges are incredibly subjective. If you’re an anorexic dealing with episodes of binge eating, what constitutes a binge for you may be wildly different than what constitutes a binge for an obese person. When people search through these tags and see what other people define as a binge, they will, in all likelihood, compare themselves. Maybe one of these will sound familiar to you:

“His binges look like my snacks!”

“I’m glad I can’t eat that much…”

“She considers that a binge? I don’t think she really has a problem…”

“Will my binges eventually get as bad as her’s?”

“My binges aren’t as big as other people’s. Maybe I’m just exaggerating…”

 These types of question create forums for disordered eaters to compare themselves, their stories and their habits to others.

When I used to look at these challenges, I felt so ashamed if my binges were larger than the others who posted their responses. I felt misunderstood and alone. Similarly, if I saw foods that I ate regularly without guilt on someone else’s “trigger food” list, I started to question myself.

Should I be eating bananas? I didn’t know they had so much sugar. She’s thinner than me, so she must know what she’s talking about. I should stop eating fruit…

And so your circle of fear foods expands.

And so your binges intensify.

DAY 3 question: If you want to stop binge eating, you need to stop worrying about your weight, EVEN IF you’re technically overweight (this is a topic for another day, but I just wanted to point out how detrimental this question is). You shouldn’t be thinking about your weight, especially as it pertains to weight LOSS. In my opinion, you cannot recover from binge eating if you’re sole motivation is to lose weight.

Stopping Binge Eating Isn’t As Important as Forgiving Yourself

Even though these challenges are made with the intention of motivating people to stop binging, they put unnecessary focus on things that tend to make people want to binge more. Furthermore, they provide no real skills or information that their participants can apply to their lives. Let’s say a person finishes the challenge, 30 days binge free. Now what? Will they go back to binging because they have no more questions to answer?

After counting my binge free days, I’m not sure it’s the most useful tool in preventing binge episodes. It may be a great place to start, especially if you are struggling to go more than a few days without binging, but it eventually becomes a crutch. The more days you go without binging, the higher the stakes. Zero starts to feel overwhelming.

For a binge eater, a “binge free” challenge isn’t necessarily a “challenge” at all. While I do not deny that resisting a binge can be crazy difficult, the hardest part is actually refusing to get caught back up in the cycle of restricting. Yes, you binged, but tomorrow will you get back on track? Will you follow your meal plan or hunger cues?

Forgiving yourself and moving on, that’s the REAL challenge.