Blog - Binge Eating Therapy

Binge on Thanksgiving

How Not To Binge on Thanksgiving

Leora Fulvio November 23, 2014

Well, that dreaded holiday is back. The one that gives us license to eat and eat and eat and then triggers a binge later that night to boot. Crap. Thanksgiving is here again. I think it was perhaps 1986, I was in 6th grade, and I’d been dieting. My world consisted of cottage cheese, cantaloupe and melba toast. Because, you know, it was the 80’s. Anyway, my Mom and I were visiting some cousins or something, I don’t remember, I think it was

Recovery Is Not Linear

Recovery Is Not Linear

Leora Fulvio November 13, 2014

I talk to lots of people every day who are really anxious to recover from their binge eating. They want to do it now. They want to do it yesterday. They are so angry at themselves. And they keep getting into a place of, “oh I messed up. Oh I ate the wrong thing. Oh I binged…” and feeling like they are no longer in recovery if they binged. This is not recovery. This is diet mentality. When you diet

Dealing with Deeply Ingrained Beliefs

Dealing with Deeply Ingrained Beliefs

Leora Fulvio October 23, 2014

I was talking to one of my long-term clients yesterday who is just SO. DAMN. TIRED. And she feels like the only thing she can do is stand in front of her refrigerator and binge eat. Of course she is tired, she has a part-time job in the healthcare field and she has a 6-month old baby at home. In discussing ways that she can delegate and get some rest sometimes, what came out is that she is afraid to

Have Binge Eating Disorder

Will I Always Have Binge Eating Disorder?

Leora Fulvio October 21, 2014

No. You won’t. You really, really won’t. You can heal and be free. Seriously. When people first come into recovery or first contact me, they often say, “I know this is something I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life…” but it’s not necessarily true. You can be at the point where you stop thinking about it, stop battling, and disengage with the fight. You know what I mean by the fight. The place where you are sitting

Make a Difficult Decision

How to Make a Difficult Decision

Leora Fulvio October 10, 2014

I was with a client this morning who has a really big decision to make. She is deciding between two jobs that have been offered to her or alternately staying in her current job. She is a wreck. She can’t sleep. She’s been bingeing non-stop on anything she can get her hands on. She’s depressed, she’s anxious and she’s not sure what impact each decision will have on her life. And ultimately, though she doesn’t really love her

mindfulness help binge eating

How does mindfulness help binge eating?

Leora Fulvio October 3, 2014

You know how sometimes it’s not even noon but you know that you are going to have a binge when you get home from work that night? You begin planning it, thinking about what stores you’re going to go to, what foods you’re going to get, where you are going to eat it, what you’re going to do when you eat it, what it will feel like in your mouth, what you will be doing while you’re bingeing (will you be watching

Binge Eating Disorder

Why Cheat Days Don’t work For Folks with Binge Eating Disorder

Leora Fulvio September 21, 2014

About seven years ago, Tim Ferris wrote a blog post called How to Lose 20 pounds of fat in 30 Days without Doing any Exercise. And here in San Francisco, Tim’s Slow Carb dieting became all the rage. Lots of people were finding lots of success on it. But… Not my clients. When Tim’s slow carb diet blew up I suddenly had lots of clients who had great recovery and been abstinent from bingeing for months or years fall back into full relapses. I’m

Dealing With Hurt Feelings

5 Simple Rules for Dealing With Hurt Feelings

Leora Fulvio September 21, 2014

Last night, I was talking to Sarah, a client of mine who was filled with anger, rage and hurt because she felt that a friend had totally betrayed her. Sarah had told her best friend Angela about a job that she was going to apply to and then, without telling Sarah, Angela went ahead, sent her resume in, was called in for an interview the next day and offered the position on the spot. All before Sarah had even had the chance

Free Binge Eating Coaching Call

Free Binge Eating Coaching Call

Leora Fulvio September 21, 2014

Due to popular demand, I’m going to start doing some group coaching calls to help people heal from binge eating and bulimia. For a limited time, these will be free! The first one will be in the month of September, I will announce a time and date in the next few days. If you are interested, please signup here. Even if you can’t make the call, a recorded copy will be sent to you afterwards.

eating survey

Please take this binge eating survey

Leora Fulvio September 21, 2014

This is a totally confidential survey to help create better and more efficient treatment for Binge Eating Disorder. Unless you provide your email address for further discussion, your answers will be totally anonymous and untraceable to you. Loading…

Top 5 Causes of Binge Eating Disorder

Top 5 Causes of Binge Eating Disorder

Leora Fulvio September 21, 2014

Originially published on Medium.com Someone asked me yesterday why people have binge eating disorder, as if there is one answer, she said, “is it trauma? or is it the media’s preoccupation with being thin? or what?” Okay, so clearly there is no one answer, there are like 100 or one million reasons and they’re all mix and match. But let me tell you here the ones that I’ve come across most often: 1. Backlash from dieting- A long time ago, somebody

Q & A Friday – What Should I Do with My Boyfriend Besides Eat?

Leora Fulvio September 21, 2014

This question comes from a reader in Ann Arbor, MI. Question: I am 26 years old and my boyfriend is 28. We have a pretty good relationship, but I often feel like we eat too much together. Since I’ve been with him, I’ve gained close to ten pounds. We hang out most nights and we usually sit in front of the television and eat nachos together or we go out to eat and usually have burgers or pizza or burritos

Join the Community

Join the Community for Support in Healing from Binge Eating!

Leora Fulvio September 21, 2014

Hi Everyone! I’ll be posting a box to my mailing list with a nifty new redesign in the next few days, but for now, I wanted to let you know that after SEVEN years of writing this blog, I’m pushing it to the next level and turning it into a support community! In the next several weeks, I will begin to let you know more and more about what’s going on and what I’m building here. I’m so excited! If you

Skinny and Other Myths

Intuitive Eating Will Make You Skinny and Other Myths

Leora Fulvio August 18, 2014

This was a guest post that I originally wrote for the wonderful and supportive blog from the BingeBehavior Community. He stood on the scale with wide, nervous eyes as the doctor shook her head and tsk tsked. “He’s overweight,” she told me, “you need to put your cat on a diet.” “But I don’t believe in diets,” I told her. “Well how much do you feed him?” “I don’t know, I just put food in his bowl. He eats it when he’s hungry

Binge Eater

Friday Q &A-How do I know If I’m a Binge Eater?

Leora Fulvio August 15, 2014

Our question today comes from K. Question: Good day How do I know if I’m a binge eater, or just an emotional eater or whether its just some sort of pattern that I have?I work in the mornings and usually eat two rusks with a fruit and yogurt or provitas with cheese and marmite on it, and eat a lot of small meals every hour or so….. but in the afternoons at home, especially after 3 and 4 in the

Already Missed

Robin Williams you are Already Missed

Leora Fulvio August 12, 2014

I cried when I read the news about Robin Williams last night. Not a little, but a lot. I sobbed and I sobbed and I sobbed. I just felt so sad about depression. About someone who had such a life dedicated to recovery was suffering with so many demons inside. Here is someone who had everything, who had been in recovery for years, who was known here in San Francisco to often be seen at the Dry Dock going

I stop eating sugar

Friday Q & A- Help I’m addicted to sugar! How can I stop eating sugar?

Leora Fulvio August 8, 2014

This comes to us from a reader in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Q- So I’m pretty sure that I’m a sugar addict. I’ve been in treatment for years to deal with my eating disorder. It started as anorexia when I was in high school. Spun into bulimia when I was in college. When I was 22, I went into rehab for my eating disorder where all sugar was off limits. When I got out of treatment, I stayed off of sugar for

Doughnut for Breakfast Today

I ate a Doughnut for Breakfast Today

Leora Fulvio August 6, 2014

I ate a donut for breakfast today. It was weird. I don’t eat a lot of donuts. But this morning I wanted a donut. So I went and I and got one. And it was pretty good. It wasn’t the amazing thing that I thought it would be, but it was good. I wonder why it wasn’t so amazing. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t prohibit it and tell myself that I couldn’t have it, then get into a battle where my

STRESS EATING

STRESS EATING!!!!!!!!!

Leora Fulvio August 4, 2014

I have a friend who has some pretty severe issues with food. We discuss them sometimes, but she is my friend, not my client. She has her own therapist to talk through these issues with and so we don’t discuss these things too often. This friend, I’m going to call her Angela, is an amazing, beautiful woman who struggles horribly with both depression and anxiety. Though she has been in therapy for a very long time, her main coping mechanism

We Really Diet

Why Do We Really Diet?

Leora Fulvio July 22, 2014

The obvious answer is “to lose weight.” But is that really, really true? I don’t think it is. Think about it, when do you start a diet? Usually it’s after you’ve had a particularly bad day or week or month or you’ve seen a photo of yourself that you don’t like or someone makes a comment about your weight, or you’ve gone clothes shopping and things don’t fit the way you hoped they would, or you’ve broken up with someone…