And finally – you get together with him and he tells you, “this just isn’t working for me…” and you say “what? why? What did I do????”  and he says, “you’re great! I wish I could, but I just don’t feel the same way about you.”

“But you did!” you tell him, “you used to! how did your feelings just change? just like that? you lied to me! feelings can’t just change!” you insist.

“I’m sorry he tells you.” And you cry. You cry a lot. 

“But we’ve only been dating for like 2 months!” he says

“10 weeks!” you tell him.

He leaves and you are sitting by yourself at the restaurant crying hysterically. The food in front of you no longer seems appetizing. You can’t eat and so you don’t eat… for days. And then you become addicted to not eating, sure that if you lose the weight that you think you need to, that then he will love you. Doesn’t matter if you are 18 or 81. This is an anxious attachment style.  

 I don’t want to get much into attachment theory here – but in a few sentences, our attachment style corresponds to how we related to our primary caregivers as children and how we then translate that into our adult relationship patterns. 

For our purposes here, I’ll focus on an anxious attachment style. I will also focus on women. While there certainly are many men who have anxious attachment schema, they do tend to be more on the avoidant spectrum. Avoidants and anxious styles seem to attract each other like gnats to a light in summer, thus creating a deeply charged and often dramatic relationship patterns. Both syles tended to have parents who were highly critical, preoccupied with other things and  inconsistent in their parenting and in the way they showed love. 

*Jessica (not her real name) grew up with a narcissistic father who left her mother when Jessica was 18 months old.  At the age of thirty, when he came into his full trust fund, he decided to move from their home in Massachusetts to Los Angeles for a more fun life.  Jessica’s mother, his college sweetheart,  stayed behind in Massachusetts both angry and bitter. Jessica’s father came to visit her once every few months and when he did, Jessica and he had the most fun together. He would take her into Boston, they’d eat at the Hard Rock Cafe, they’d ride on the Swan Boats, they’d get ice cream in Faneuil Hall, they’d shop in Harvard Square, go to the Children’s Museum! It was a magical escape for 48 hours. And then, he’d  drop her home at her mother’s angry apartment where Jessica’s Mom would yell and scream and get angry at Jessica for being happy and liking her father. She felt that Jessica was being disloyal.  Often she’d even hit her.  Jessica didn’t want her mother to be mean, so she became hyper-compliant, doing everything that she possibly could to keep her mother even and calm. She believed that it was her responsibility to behave in a certain way and anticipate her mother’s moods so that she could keep herself safe. Her father was her savior, swooping in about four times a year to spend a magical weekend with her. She dreamed of her father coming and taking her away from the misery and darkness of her mother’s sad life. When Jessica’s father got remarried, he stopped coming to visit. He’d say that he was coming to visit but then cancel last minute. Jessica remembers spending a whole month excited about her father coming to see her and then, on the day that he was due to arrive, while she was waiting in her room for him to show up, the phone rang. Her mother came in and told her that her Dad wasn’t coming. “Just couldn’t get away!” he told her. “It’s okay Daddy. Will you come again?” “Of course I will,” he told her. Once or twice a year or so, Jessica would board a plane and travel the seven hours all by herself from Logan to LAX to spend a few weeks in the summer with Dad and Katrina, his supermodel wife. Katrina didn’t like Jessica and Jessica didn’t like Katrina.  Her Dad would ignore her unless he was yelling at her to be nice tell to Trina. Trina told Jess’s Dad that Jessica was jealous of her and then Jess’s Dad would yell at her about not being so jealous. Jessica had no idea what she had done wrong. But her life had become sad, lonely and the person who used to save her from her angry mother had abandoned her.  Mostly Jess stayed home with the housekeeper and ate Tamales and beans and ice cream while watching television. Trina told Jessica’s Dad to stop her from eating so much, said that she was getting fat. Asked him how he could have such an ugly daughter. Eventually Katrina became pregnant and once they had their own family,  Jess stopped coming at all and her father stopped visiting.  Jess believed that her father stopped seeing her because she wasn’t good enough and didn’t try hard enough. She was too fat, too ugly, too jealous, too needy. That in order to be loved, Jess had to look like a Katrina. This was validated for her as her father had left Jess’s Mom who looked nothing like a supermodel and discarded Jess who, like her Mom looked nothing like a supermodel.

This set the springboard for Jess’s attachment style. She had the double whammy of both anxious attachment and seeing men as saviors – the only thing that could save her from her terrible life.  Neither her father nor her mother were capable of giving her the sort of mirroring or unconditional love that all children need. Not because she didn’t deserve it, but because they were not able to  due to their own issues.  Her parents had preoccupied attachment patterns – unable to consistently give her the love and support she needed.  It then led to Jess having an insecure/anxious attachment style.

Adults who have this attachment style  tend to be highly self-critical and insecure. They believe that they need constant approval from the people around them and will do whatever they can to seek out that reassurance from people around them. However, no matter how much reassurance they get, they never seem to be able to feel steady and safe. Their self-doubt is alleviated only briefly and then they become anxious for more reassurance.  They deeply believe that they will be rejected and thus they do what they can do avoid that sort of abandonment. , yet this never relieves their self-doubt. They then become extremely clingy with their partners which in turn creates the opposite of the desired effect and drives their partners away. They then have the reinforcement that they are worthless. Often, they then take up the role of the pursuer in their relationship believing that the people around them are somehow “better” than they are.  Often, they then do things to change themselves in order to increase their sense of self-worth or in order to look or seem formidable in the eyes of the person they are pursuing.

Our friend Jessica in this case became obsessed with her weight and obsessed with achievement. She wanted to be seen by her father as acceptable and seen by boyfriends as worthy of love. She exercised obsessively, ran marathons, rose to the top ranks of her law firm before the age of 30 and yet… she would still be that girl who was getting drunk and blowing up the phone of the boy she had just met slept with the night before. When she came to me she told me that she was having trouble getting over a guy and that she couldn’t make sense of it. She started dating Richard a few months prior. Richard was a “painter” who lived off his parents trust fund and mostly spent his days getting high and playing video games and possibly painting.  She thought that she had found “the one.”  She described him as a brilliant artist and showered him with love, attention, gifts – so many gifts… she cleaned his house while he was playing video games, did his laundry, cooked him meals and expected that he would think that she was the most irresistible wife ever. I mean, she could bring home the bacon AND fry it up in a pan. But he started pulling away after awhile and then one day, after not seeing each other for a week and him dodging her calls and her texts, she asked him if she could come over. He said that he was home sick, bad head cold. So she made homemade bone broth, cookies from scratch and brought them over to his house. When he answered the door, he was in his boxers and there was a woman behind him wearing one of his tee-shirts.  And there was a scene. Jessica cried and screamed, “how could you how could you?”  Richard said, “why are you so upset? It’s not like we were exclusive. We’ve only known each other for what? Two weeks?”  According to Jess, the girl just snickered in the background.

Richard texted her a few weeks later and she went right back to his house for a rendezvous. Then he’d blow her off. This pattern lasted for a few years. Every time he texted her, she was happy and felt great. And then, after a few weeks of not hearing from him, she’d get anxious and on a few occasions she had full blown panic attacks.

In the meantime, she’d do everything she could to be “good enough” for Richard. She’d starve herself for weeks on end, she’d run several miles a day or do back-to-back Soul Cycle classes and then she’d wind up bingeing on foods she had been restricting herself from.  Her eating disorder was a way to manage her anxious attachment. She believed that when she made herself “good enough” that she’d feel better.  The eating disorder behaviors helped to mitigate the anxiety that she was feeling about being rejected and all the beliefs that she had underneath that… those beliefs that told her that she wasn’t good enough, that had she been a better human being, her father wouldn’t have rejected her and her mother wouldn’t have been so angry all the time.

So when we think about this, what do we see as the two over-arching emotions? Love and fear.  Fear of not being loved. The fear then overtakes everything and becomes bigger than the love. Jessica never even stopped to think about how she really felt about Richard. Had she really thought about it, she would have realized that she actually didn’t love him or even really like him and definitely didn’t respect him. She was just afraid that he wouldn’t love her. And she craved love significantly. However, when someone really did love her, it didn’t feel real because as a child, she associated love with rejection and abuse and she lived out those relationships over and over again. Her angry mother and her rejecting father set the stage for how she valued herself and how she believed she was supposed to be treated.

In our work together, we helped Jessica to understand that she was perfect and whole and complete in that moment and that people who were rejecting and avoidant probably weren’t the people she wanted to be with, but the people who felt familiar and thus REAL to her. As her own sense of self love grew, she began to seek out relationships with men who had a more secure attachment style. So there were no texting games or manipulations or playing on her weaknesses, but a less exciting, yet more even-keeled relationship. As she got into these more balanced relationships, her relationship with herself and her relationship with food and exercise began to balance itself out as well.

The most important parts of healing anxious attachment are not putting your own self worth in the hands of someone else. When you define your own values and decide what makes you find another human being valuable to you (is it living off a trust fund and getting high and playing video games all day?) You can then allow yourself to unfold into the person who you really are and really love and respect.

Jessica defined her personal values and kindness, compassion and advocacy. As she allowed herself to be that person (and it was so easy because that’s who she naturally was) she also found someone who loved her for her. She didn’t believe that she had to change for him and he shared her values.

Define your personal values and allow yourself to just be that human being. Not for anyone else, but just for you. Being your authentic self is easy because honestly, it’s all you have ever really known or wanted .  As this happens, you will find that who you really are unfolds beautifully. And then your next relationship is easier. you don’t have to be anything for anyone else, but allowing the person who is most right for you comes naturally. 

The post Eating Disorders and Anxious Attachment – What’s the Relationship? appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.

I’m So Scared that Intuitive Eating Is Making Me Fat

Over the past few months I’ve been getting a similar question over and over again in both my private practice and from my readers. “I’m so afraid that Intuitive Eating is making me fat…”  They tell me that they really think that they should be on a weight loss diet again because they believe that they have been gaining an unacceptable amount of weight with intuitive eating protocol.  Here is the most recent email I received:

Dear Leora,

I read a comment on another Facebook support page, where intuitive eating is promoted, and some steps have been very helpful, but this particular comment really upset me…Someone wrote that with intuitive eating she gained weight and she has to bring some of her old clothes  back from storage and someone else replied that she was going through the same thing due to intuitive eating.   Since I am trying so hard to implement intuitive eating and I feel better physically, I got a panic attack thinking that I am going to put on more weight and had the urge to weigh myself, but I didn’t, but my head is still messed up  I am trying to make sense of it all that it is probably different for different people. If someone had just stopped a very restrictive diet and started intuitive eating, chances are that she will regain some weight! If on the other hand, someone has been eating mindlessly (until the plate is finished, irrespective if full or not), emotional eating, habitual eating and sometimes binge eating (like me!) Then chances in that case are weight loss. I am not turning intuitive eating into yet another diet, I am very aware of that, I am not aspiring to be mega thin, I want my body to find it’s natural weight on it’s own by guiding me, when what and how much to eat. I feel heavy, sometimes very out of breath when climbing stairs and the last thing I want is to get heavier.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Although the email above assumes many different outcomes and looks at different angles of the situation, there is something underneath it, which is what lays underneath this question consistently.

The fear underneath is due to the following beliefs:

1. I don’t trust my body to do what it needs to do. I must control it brutally in order to keep it in line.

2. I don’t want to gain weight.

3. Weight gain is bad.

4. I am afraid of being out of control.

5. A diet is the only way to control me.

6. I can control what other people think of me by being skinny.

7. Controlling what other people think of me is extremely important to my well-being.  (Read How to Stop Worrying about What Other People Think About My Body.)

Let’s start by discussing what intuitive eating is and what intuitive eating is not. Intuitive eating is what happens when you are allowed to eat what your body needs and wants to keep it vital, healthy and peaceful without you having to think about it.  Intuitive eating is not a diet. However, because of both the diet industry and the food industry, most of us have lost our internal cues for eating what our bodies need. We are told that we need to be skinny and thus we shouldn’t eat carbs or fat or only eat fat or we should eat like a caveman or we should never eat fruit or we should only eat fruit or we should never eat meat or we should only eat meat or we should put butter and coconut oil in our morning coffee because we aren’t eating enough fat. At the same time, we are being advertised to by unethical food companies with never-ending pasta bowls and packaged food with so many chemicals preservatives in them that our bodies have completely lost their abilities to correctly process food and figure out what nutrients they need.

The food and the diet industry are both out for their bottom line. They don’t care about you. They want you to spend your money. And the only way they can get you to spend money is to completely distort your relationship with food and your body.  SCREW THEM!!!!

This is actually the way I quit smoking. I got real, real mad at RJ Reynolds, the tobacco company that made my beloved Camel Lights that I smoked regularly from the time I was fourteen until I was thirty! Anyway, I realized one day that this horrific company was getting rich off of people like me who were tragically addicted to cigarettes. And they did what they needed to in order to keep us in their clutches. I just didn’t want to contribute to that and I didn’t want those evil conglomerates having power over me.  My anger is what caused me to quit a habit that I’d done for more than half my life.

Now most people in my general eating disorder milieu would argue that there is no such thing as food addiction. Fair enough (we all argue a lot over semantics in this field). However, what is true is that there is a distinct addiction to the process of both dieting, binge eating, feeling guilt over eating, and the way our mind tells us that once we start a diet and get skinny, our lives will be perfect.  So once we start to incorporate intuitive eating, we don’t just do away with diets– we do away with a whole way of thinking, behaving, and we get rid of specific ways of behaving cognitively (letting our mind obsess about food, diets, controlling what people think when they see us, believing that being skinny is the answer to all our lives troubles, etc.) Intuitive eating isn’t just giving up dieting and eating whatever you want whenever you want it, it’s rejecting the dominant paradigm about food, our bodies and control.

The problem is, intuitive eating has been co-opted as another weight loss method. And if you are still focused on losing weight, your stress about diets, weight loss and changing your body are going to continue to nag at you. As long as you continue to obsess about your body and weight loss, intuitive eating ceases to be what it is meant to be, intuitive.

Don’t blame yourself. As I said before, your environment has set you up for this. You are controlled by the environment to be obsessed with both food and with weight loss. You are being controlled by a nasty industry that makes money off your desire to lose weight and your survivalist desire to eat food.

If you want to know the truth, in both my private practice and in my five week binge eating program  I don’t have people start with intuitive eating. For the reasons I mention above, I think it’s too difficult. I start by having them track their emotional and physical sensations around food. Some people notice that beans give them energy, strawberries makes them anxious, steak makes them happy, bread makes them tired… etc etc… this is just an example. But the truth is, only you and your body know what happens for you emotionally and physically when you eat a certain food. It’s true that there are certain foods that might cause anxiety because they were previously thought of as “bad foods” like grains or bread or dairy or whatever they’re saying is bad right now… so it’s important to distinguish if these emotions are due to the food that you’re eating or due to the conditioning you’ve gotten from the diet industry.

I also ask people to take the emphasis off of losing weight. The more weight focused you are, the more likely that your weight won’t normalize. Instead, focus on doing things that your body enjoys and helps you to feel strong. For example, of course moving your body is a good self-care ritual, but so are things like getting a papsmear, paying your bills, flossing your teeth, washing your sheets, donating old clothes, working through your laundry pile, getting rid of stacked up papers around your house, and generally just lightening your load, the things that make you feel heavy and overwrought.

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to people around you. Be kind to the food that you’re eating. Send love and gratitude to food that you consumer.  When you thank your cream for being rich and creamy and delicious, your greens for being crunchy and life affirming and keeping you regular, your chocolate for being soothing and sensual, your coffee for being dark, hearty and the best part of your morning, you are more likely to eat it with love and thoughtfulness rather than to eat it quickly and without regard for the food and for your body. Be kind to your body. Thank it for digesting your food, for carrying you, for keeping you alive, for giving you freedom or for whatever your body does for you.

The emphasis on weight and weight gain and doing things like calling intuitive eating the “intuitive eating diet” (I swear that’s a thing) completely undoes any positive effects that intuitive eating has. Intuitive eating is also intuitive body-ing. It’s letting your body do what it does when you are moving it and eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re feeling satiated. When you try to control your body, you come back to the position where you were when all of your food issues began.

I hope that this was helpful for you.

Do you have a question about binge eating, bulimia, anorexia, or anything associated with eating? Send an email to leora at bingeeatingtherapy  dot com. All questions will be kept confidential. Include your first name or the name you want to be referred to as and your location. Are you interested in individual therapy or online coaching sessions  to deal with your binge eating? Please contact me to discuss getting started.

The post Q & A Friday – Intuitive Eating is Making Me Fat appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.

Have you ever gone online to find out how many calories you should be eating to lose a certain amount of weight and the calculator spits out something like “you should be eating 1200 calories a day to lose 10 pounds by… ” whenever? The fact that a 1200 calorie per day diet is healthy is an evil myth.  

The idea behind the 1200 calorie diet is that it is enough calories to allow your body to keep up with all its essential functions while allowing you to lose weight in the fastest possible amount of time. It’s the lowest you can go without your organs shutting down and your body becoming very ill.   The only problem is that 1200 calories per day actually is starving for many, many people. The methodology is so fundamentally flawed, yet, somehow, that number became magic in the diet world. 

A long, long time ago, when I was still dealing with lot of my own disordered eating, I saw a nutritionist who asked me how much I was eating. I told her that I made sure I got 1200 calories each day. She said to me, “The World Health Organization defines anything under 1500 calories per day as starvation.” I can’t find that statistic anywhere in the literature. I’ve been looking for it for years, but it’s not findable. If anyone finds it, please point it out to me. 

I’ve had lots of clients come in who have been bingeing, who have lost their periods, who have lost hair, who all have physical symptoms of anorexia from living on a 1200 calorie diet for multiple months or even a year or more. Here’s the way the pattern usually goes. A client comes in and tells me she can’t stop bingeing, that she feels hopeless and out of control because she has been bingeing uncontrollably for months. She then tells me that she got her weight down very low by following a 1200 calorie diet. But then something happened, she fell off her diet, started bingeing and has now desperately been trying to get back on her 1200 calorie regimen.

Now here’s the thing, given how many reputable sources recommend a 1200 calorie per day diet for weight loss, you wouldn’t expect that someone who has been following these recommendations would be suffering symptoms of anorexia such as amenorrhea, hair loss, food obsession and binge eating, Yet they do. The problem is, when you eat a very low calorie diet, you will lose weight initially but your body will adjust and your metabolism will slow way down to compensate for the lack of calories.  Because your metabolism is so slow, the 1200 calories per day will level out and your body will stop losing weight after an adjustment period.

Because you will be starving, you will start to eat more and probably start bingeing.  Then, rather than blame the diet, you will blame yourself. You will tell yourself that you are to blame because you couldn’t stay on your diet. You will try again and again to get back to that 1200 calorie per day diet. Because you’ve had the initial “reward” of weight loss, you will believe that you can replicate it by getting back to the 1200 calorie per day diet and getting your body back to where it was when you originally lost the weight. It will be difficult though because your body will be afraid of starvation and when you are tired, or emotional or your defenses are down, you will binge again. You will beat yourself up for it saying that it’s all your fault and that you can’t understand why you were able to do it once but you can’t do it again.  I see this happen again and again and again. If it weren’t a typical pattern, people would have gone on one 1200 calorie diet once in their life and never had to do it again.  It’s almost like an addictive drug cycle. You repeat the same behavior again and again to achieve that initial high, but it’s unattainable now. 

Low calorie dieting creates adrenal fatigue, high stress issues (which can trigger emotional eating) and food obsession. It can also create additional stress for those who feel that they cannot do things socially because they are afraid of the food.  In fact, studies have shown that a 1200 calorie per day diet leads to weight gain by increasing cortisol levels and emotional distress. 

Eating 1200 calories per day is not sustainable in the long run, though you will lose weight initially, will wind up gaining more weight than you lost. 

• because your metabolism will slow down in order to sustain your low calorie intake
• because you will most likely binge

If you are even a little bit active (that means doing more than just laying in bed all day), this low calorie amount will lead to increased hormonal stress levels and there is a good chance that you will lose your hair, lose your period, and lose bone density.

There are 30 year old women who sustain themselves on low calorie diets and wind up with the bone density of 80 year old women. I know, I see them in my practice all the time. 

A 1200 calorie diet is not sustainable. In fact, when I went online to find more information about it, I found tons and tons of forums with people talking about how much weight they lost on their 1200 calorie diets, but they gained the weight back and needed to get back to it. That should be a red flag for everyone.  You are not alone. This kind of caloric restriction works for almost nobody. 

So how to find a comfortable weight for your body in a healthy way?  

Don’t restrict your calories. 

Make sure that you are eating more high density nutrition foods than low density nutrition foods

Don’t let yourself get very hungry nor very full. 

BE PATIENT  Finding your body’s healthy weight is a game of patience and loving kindness. The 1200 calorie game is tempting because it’s quick weight loss but it can set up years of dysfunctional eating and body distress. When you allow yourself to slowly let yourself settle in to the body that your body wants to be, the body that feels wonderful and healthy, you will find peace. 

References: 

Yes you should eat 1200 calories

Why 1200 calories is so wrong

The Calorie Theory, Prove it Or Lose It

An Open Apology to my Former Weight Loss Clients

1200 Calories- Sophia Herbst

The post The 1200 Calories a Day Myth appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.

Last week, one of my clients said to me, “Leora, can you just teach me how to gain self-esteem? If I just had some self esteem my life would be so different…”  I knew what she meant. She tries to use her eating disorder to give her self confidence. She believes that if she were thin enough that she would be worthwhile and important, but if she is not thin enough, she is a worthless human being with no value. But she is never thin enough. And so her life has been spent waiting to feel valuable and trying to be good enough. Her focus is always on her weight and never on anything else. Her critic is always telling her that she will be better, more people will like her and she will be happier when she is thinner. She is already very, very thin.

What she thought was that she could “get self esteem,” like gain something that she’s never had before, something new.  The truth is, having self esteem isn’t about harnessing some mystical force or  acquiring something new- it’s about letting go of something old– old messages that tell you that you’re not okay, that you have to be better than you are, that there is something wrong with you. Self esteem is about being kind to yourself, accepting and loving yourself even if you’re not perfect.  Self acceptance can often become confused with settling for something that you don’t like. But that’s not what self esteem is about. It’s about accepting who you are in the moment and accepting that it’s okay to be who you are as you go toward  greatness (even more greatness!) and allowing yourself to evolve, but caring for yourself and being kind to yourself and even loving yourself in that process. It’s about holding yourself with integrity to the best of your ability, always being kind, thoughtful, compassionate and loving to the people around you and to yourself.  It’s about knowing what your values are and doing your best to uphold those values. So, when you hear the voices telling you that you’re not okay and that you won’t be okay until you… CLIMB MT. EVEREST, RUN A MARATHON, LOSE WEIGHT, FIT INTO A SIZE XX JEANS, READ WAR & PEACE, WRITE YOUR FIRST NOVEL, BECOME A BEST SELLING AUTHOR, MAKE 6 FIGURES, GET MARRIED, HAVE A BABY, QUIT DRINKING,  QUIT SMOKING, QUIT EATING CARBS, EAT NOTHING BUT KALE SMOOTHIES AND SUNFLOWER SEEDS, BECOME A VEGAN, HAVE CLEAR SKIN, GET YOUR MBA… Or whatever those voices are telling you, remember that you don’t have to engage with those thoughts. It’s not true and it’s not real. It’s okay to be okay with who you are in the moment instead of after you’ve done these things. People confuse acceptance with resignation and defeat.  Acceptance doesn’t mean resigning yourself to being stuck in your circumstances. It means accepting that you are in the place that you’re in now and you don’t have to wait to be who your are until after you’ve changed your circumstances. It means that you can be yourself now and thrive and be in the world while at the same time improving your circumstances. We all have goals to achieve, that’s part of what makes us psychologically healthy and what helps us move forward in life. But when you get into the cycle of “I won’t be okay until…” you set yourself to be unhappy and you have a very hard time finding happiness… because it’s never enough.

So, how do you do this? I’ve created 10 tangible steps to achieving self-esteem. You don’t have to do all of them right now. But just try one this week and see how it goes. When you start to feel a difference, try another one. I know that doing these exercises will be life-changing for you.  

1. Make a List of What your Values Are 

Think about what is fundamentally important to you and write it down. This could be being a kind and compassionate person, being the kind of person people turn to when they are having troubles, not judging or criticizing other people, living with integrity, having positive intentions. Knowing that you are never going to be 100% at all these things, when you are feeling badly about yourself, check in and ask yourself if you are doing your best to live in accordance with your values. If you are, then you can fall back on that foundation of strong values and strength. If you are not, give yourself a reminder of what your values are and try to live according to them. So, if someone does or says something to you that hurts your feelings or if you yourself say or do something to yourself that hurts your feelings, check in with yourself and ask, “am I living according to my values? Am I behaving and acting in a way that I can feel good about? Am I acting like the kind of person that I would want to have as a friend?”  And remember, we always forget to do these things and fail at them sometimes, and that’s normal, but having your values written down in a list form can be a great reference for you to come back to. It will help you remember what is truly important to you and when you remember and when you live according to those values, you find self-efficacy.

2. Don’t Compare Yourself To Other People

Your values and your dharma (path) are different than anyone else’s, so you just can’t compare. You can’t compare your money situation to anyone else’s, your relationships, your jean size… we were all born with our own individual paths. When you begin to look at other people’s paths and think that you should be like them or different from who you are, you fail to move along your own, or you reject your path. This inherently makes you feel bad. This keeps you from moving forward.  You also shouldn’t be comparing your backend to anyone else’s front end. Meaning, you can’t compare the knowledge that you have about your own situation to what someone else is outwardly showing you about their own. You never know what is going on with someone else. As M. Scott Peck says in The Road Less Traveled, life is hard for everyone, not just you. And once you remember that life is hard across the board, you can transcend the existential angst and pain that comes with the difficulties of life. You can understand that when things happen (you get a parking ticket, break your arm, get into a car accident, lose a parent) that it’s painful and it’s difficult- but you are not alone, that bad and difficult things happen to everyone who chooses a life of being human.

3. Do Things for other People Often

Performing acts of kindness actually makes you happier and boosts your self esteem, making you feel more valuable and more at peace. A study published in the Journal of Social Psychology showed that participants who performed directed acts of kindness every day for 10 days in a row showed an increased level of life satisfaction. Self-esteem comes from life satisfaction and feeling your value in the world. Doing things for other people can be as small as smiling at someone when you are walking down the street or as big as volunteering your time to help someone out. It can also be remembering to give loved ones around you big hugs, kisses and compliments and reminding them why you love them so much and telling them how proud you are of them.

4. Live Mindfully  – Mindful living is about being aware of your body, being aware of your choices, your environment, being mindful or your choices, your environment, your bodily sensations, your thoughts, your actions and your fears. Often, people who are suffering with eating disorders have a really rough time living mindfully. They reject their true needs to focus on the goal of weight loss or looking better and  either binge or starve themselves, they don’t honor their appetites, they hate their bodies because they believe that there is something wrong with them. They completely reject themselves. When you are living mindfully, you are working to honor the needs of your body.

If you are signed up for the newsletter, you should have received your free mindful eating meditation. If not, sign up here to get it. You might also like the loving your body and letting go of negative body image meditation.  

Do check out this article on mindful living. 

5. Learn Self Acceptance:  Part of self acceptance is knowing what your strengths are and honing in on those and not punishing yourself for things that you are still working on. Make a list of things that you are good at and that you like about yourself. Be with that list and do more of those things. Make another list of things that you are not so happy with and that you want to change. Tell yourself that it is okay that you are where you are. And that it doesn’t make you bad and you can still like yourself and care for yourself as you are working to change those things. Get love and support and help for changing the things that you want to change. Change and healing is difficult all alone and in a void. But when you find other people who are working on the same change together, you have a group of encouraging, loving folks to keep you accountable and to be kind to you when you fall down. You can also do the same for others which will help you (see #3!)

6. Take Responsibility for Yourself: This is about not blaming other people for choices you made. Understanding that you have power and that you are not stuck and that just because you made a bad choice, you are not stuck in it because you have the power to constantly be rethinking and recreating your life. If you make a mistake, don’t shift the blame. Don’t say that you did this thing or said this thing because someone made you. For example, “I’m sorry I yelled at you, but if you weren’t acting so irrational, I wouldn’t have.” You have just negated your apology and given away your power. Always take ownership for your actions. Knowing that you have it in you to make your own decisions based on your own values (see #1) is part of what gives you self efficacy and self-esteem. Saying that someone else made you yell or act mean or say something wrong basically says that you have no power to make your own decisions about how you behave. Remember that you almost always have the power to undo a decision that you made. 

7. Be an Advocate for Yourself:  When you have self-advocacy, you always treat other people with respect and you do not allow other people to talk down to you or to treat you poorly. If you have a boss, for instance who is verbally abusing you or yelling at you, it’s okay to look at them and say, “it’s not okay to talk to me that way.” You also stand up for others who might not have the ability to voice their own needs. If you are unable to stand up for your own needs and have your own voice, you find someone who can be an advocate for you. 

8. Live with Purpose: 

Consider your life’s purpose. When you begin to live with purpose, you take care of yourself, but your main purpose in life isn’t about getting thin or getting pretty or making money or trying to impress or look good to other people. It’s about having goals that long term feel important and meaningful to you and using your life to work on these goals that help the world at large. 

9. Have Lots of Integrity: 

What is it to live with integrity? In my opinion, it’s to be as honest as you can without being hurtful. Being honest doesn’t mean telling someone that they look fat in their new dress or that they’re acting like a jerk. That’s not honest, that’s your subjective opinion. Being honest is more like telling someone that your feelings were hurt when they didn’t answer your phone calls or respond to your messages. Being honest is not stealing, not lying, not purposely saying things to hurt people, not spreading hurtful rumors, and not using other people to achieve your own means. It’s about being kind, being helpful, but also not sacrificing yourself or your own needs for the sake of others. Personal integrity is about knowing what your values are trying to live up to them.  (See #1). When you identify your values and do your best to live up to them, you will always know that you are okay and you won’t have to worry about what other people think about you.

10. Challenge Your Inner Critic- 

What would it be like to gently let go of the old thought patterns that you are so intensely holding onto? As I said earlier, self-esteem isn’t about gaining or building and changing, it’s about letting go. Imagine the beliefs that you have that plague you and make you feel bad,  (ie: “I have to be thinner, I have to be smarter, I have to be cleaner, I have to be richer, I have to be prettier…) and just choosing to disengage with them. Choosing instead to engage with the above ideas that are helpful and help you to feel better about yourself than the thoughts that intrude into your mind and keep you from living your life with zest and enjoyment.  That doesn’t mean you won’t have these thoughts pop up. They are old and part of old patterns. However, what about trying to hear them like background noise (like a fire engine siren outside) but not follow them. Let them fly through your mind, notice them and rather than grasping onto them, think about doing things that align with what makes you feel good about yourself. 

For more help on improving self esteem, check out some of Nathaniel Branden’s sentence completion exercises. 

What about you? What are some things that you have done that helped you feel into your self esteem? 

The post How to Raise Your Self Esteem in 10 Easy Steps appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.

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 television? will you be searching the web? will you be on the phone? or will you just be sitting alone with the food?) You begin to get excited and your amygdala (the part of your brain responsible for emotional reaction) lights up with excitement. Just the anticipation and desire of a binge creates activity in your brain that basically brings you to the binge. So your actual binge starts about 6-8 hours before the binge starts. It’s those first thoughts about it, the anticipation which just carries itself and basically makes you feel as though you don’t have a choice. The thoughts of bingeing carry you straight to your binge.

So that’s where mindfulness and meditation come in. When you first have those thoughts and the pleasure center in your brain begins to light up with anticipation (it’s not unlike the process of flirting, or hooking up with someone pre-sex or orgasm), it feels as though it’s over. You’re going to binge. However, when you check in with yourself and say, “oh yeah, there are those thoughts again, I’m planning my binge…” you can slow yourself down. You can tell yourself that just because you are planning your binge, doesn’t mean that you have to go through with it. Just because the process part of the addiction has begun does not mean that you have to go through with it. Remember, this is the SAME EXACT function that cocaine addicts go through before they score their drug, it’s the same process that sex addicts go through when they are looking for a prostitute, it’s the same process that gambling addicts go through when they are selling their wedding ring for money to put in a slot machine.

So what we want to do here is slow your brain waaaayyyy down. Even though it’s just noon and you are at work in front of your computer, your mind is at home in the refrigerator.

So what can you do?

1. First, recognize “oh, I’m having THOSE thoughts again…”

2. Remind yourself, “I’m not in the middle of the binge yet, I’m right here at my desk.”

3. Ground yourself, look at your feet on the floor, look at your hands, put your hand over your heart and breath into your belly. Be where you are, not where your mind is taking you.

4. Remind yourself why you don’t want to be on the other side of the binge

5. Think about alternatives, think about what it would be like to wake up the next morning without a binge, let that process excite your mind

6. Plan something equally relaxing for that evening ie: date with friend, bubble bath, taking a long walk outside while listening to music or podcast

7. Call someone and tell them that you have a binge planned and you don’t want to go through with it.

8. Get on this forum and ask for support.

9. Remind yourself that you have a choice. It doesn’t feel like you do, but you do, the thoughts and the desire can’t make you binge, they are just thoughts and desire. You have thoughts and desires a million times a day that you don’t act on.

10. Calm your brain down and slow down your thinking with deep breathing and meditation. 

Eating disorders are notoriously rough because they hit you on lots of different levels, process addiction, food/sugar addiction, trauma relief, bad habit… there are a million different reasons that people binge, but if you can bring some mindfulness into the equation, you have a great chance of recovering.

The post How does mindfulness help binge eating? appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.

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 like 4 years. For the past year and a half, I’ve been eating sugar again, and not in a healthy way. I’ve been bingeing on it. I’m not purging, which is great, but every time I try to get back off sugar, I last for like maybe 2 or 3 days, then I’ll have an insane binge. I want to quit again for good. My current therapist says that sugar addiction is a myth and wants me to learn to eat it in moderation. But I can’t! I really can’t. And I definitely feel better when I’m off sugar. When I’m eating sugar, my head is foggy, I’m bloated and tired, I think about it all the time, where to get it, what I’m going to do with it, how to stop eating it,  my skin breaks out, and I’m lethargic. When I’m off sugar, I’m calmer, more relaxed, more focused and happier. Do you think that sugar addiction real?  How can I give up sugar once and for all? -Rebecca

Answer:  Hi Rebecca, thanks so much for your question and I want to tell you that there is no easy answer to this. I understand your therapist’s perspective on this.  Many eating disorder treatment programs shun the addiction model and believe that restricting particular foods is what leads to bingeing, purging, and anorexia. Many programs will even take patients out for dinner as part of treatment and have them order dessert to learn to integrate sweets in a healthy and moderate way.   However, the 12-step model of recovery does believe in the addiction model and programs like OA will support abstinence not just from a behavior, but also from a particular substance (sugar, white flour, etc.)  The recovery community is at odds as to which model to follow.  There have been many studies done,  but there has been no consensus on whether sugar addiction is real or not.

That being said,  there is evidence of sugar addiction.  In a 2003 study published in Brain Briefings, it was found that rats exhibited identical behaviors toward sugar that follow the addiction model in humans, which are bingeing, withdrawal and craving.  They doubled their intake and began bingeing on it after having it restricted from them, which of course it what happens to people when they diet and restrict calories then come in contact with lots of candy, ice cream or baked goods. According to Takash Yamamoto, in his  May 2003 study “Brain mechanisms of sweetness and palatability of sugars” published in Nutrition Reviews, Sugar and the taste of sweet stimulate the brain by activating beta endorphin receptor sites, which are the same chemicals activated by heroin and morphine. However, a literature review published in 2010,  in Clinical Nutrition Journal states that there is no support  that sugar may be physically addictive or that addiction to sugar plays a role in eating disorders.

So, although there’s no real consensus from the scientific community, in your email you state When I’m eating sugar, my head is foggy, I’m bloated and tired, I think about it all the time, where to get it, what I’m going to do with it, how to stop eating it..  That statement alone can describe someone dealing with a crippling addiction.  So, is sugar addiction real? I think that for you it certainly feels real.

So that brings us to another question, do you have to give up sugar completely? I am always hesitant to go for the all-or-nothing approach. I do like to encourage people to learn to eat sugar moderately. Sometimes I’ll have someone bring in their binge food to the office and eat it slowly, very slowly to see what comes up for them emotionally when they eat that food. We then discuss it, and as they s-l-o-w-l-y eat the food, they begin to take the power away from it and reclaim their own power. They then make a plan as to how they will eat the rest of the night and what they will do to take care of themselves. This act of eating sugar in a contemplative way, without the fury and the madness, and then walking away from it, can change your belief about yourself around it. If you can physically walk away from it, even once, then the addiction is broken. Then you know that you have the power, not the sugar.   That’s an exercise in mindfulness.

But it is true that some people find avoiding sugar altogether much easier than using mindfulness to gain power over the sugar. And it’s true, it’s a practice.  But it is possible to find peace around sugar whether you decide to give it up completely or to find some moderation with it.  Below is a list I created to help you to give up sugar if that’s what you would truly like to do.

How to Give Up Sugar

1.)Eat fruit! Your body needs glucose. Some anti-sugar advocates will say that you need nothing but meat. Even our first food, breast milk is very, very sweet. We need glucose to give us energy, rebuild our cells and keep us going. Don’t eschew fruit in attempts to let go of sugar.

2.)Take it one day at a time. Don’t say, “I am giving up sugar forever,” say “I won’t eat sugar just for today.”

3.)Don’t be all-or-nothing about it. Just because you eat one cookie, that doesn’t mean that your body has to continue on a sugar binge. You can choose to make the next thing that you put in your mouth be something healthy, or nothing at all for a few hours until you’re ready for your next meal.

4.)Meditate! Try hypnosis for sugar addiction.

5.)Try to get more healthy fats into your diet. By adding Omega-3 fatty acids, or olive oil to your salads, or even a teaspoon of extra virgin coconut oil, you might find that your cravings decrease.

6.)Try supplements:

B-Vitamins help regulate serotonin levels to elevate mood and decrease binge episodes

Chromium 200 mcg per day – when needed for sugar cravings. Helps insulin to get into your cells to regulate glucose so that your hormones stop sending messages to your brain that you need more sugar.

Manganese– 10 Mg per day helps the transport and metabolism of glucose. It stabilizes blood sugar to reduce sugar cravings

Magnesium– 500 mg per day- calms the body and the brain while stabilizing glucose levels which can wildly fluctuate when a person is bingeing on sugar. When magnesium levels are stable, cravings decrease.

Zinc– 15mg- per day- helps to regulate appetite

5-HTP– 200 mg per day in the evening- or whenever you have the urge to binge. The precursor to serotonin will  suppress your appetite and relax you to take the anxiety away from the binge.

L-Glutamine- 500 mg when needed no more than 3 times per day. When you are having a strong sugar craving, take 500 mg of L-Glutamine or open a capsule and put the powder on your tongue. L-glutamine is an amino acid that is converted into food for the brain.

7.)Stabilize your blood sugar by eating protein with every meal and eating bits of protein between meals. When you’re not having blood sugar dips, your body won’t crave sugar.

8.)Drink teas, like peppermint or chamomile when you’re having a sugar craving.

9.)Get support. Consider getting into an eating disorder group at ANAD to address these issues and get support for your mind, body and spirit.

10.)Use fruit like raisins and bananas and spices like cinnamon and cloves to “sweeten” things like plain yogurt or oatmeal.

Thank you for your question, and I hope that this has been helpful.

Do you have a question about binge eating, bulimia, anorexia, or anything associated with eating disorders? Send an email to bingeeatingtherapy  at gmail dot com. All questions will be kept confidential. Include your first name or the name you want to be referred to as and your location.

The post Friday Q & A- Help I’m addicted to sugar! How can I stop eating sugar? appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.

I’m really sick of hearing people talk about how if so and so knew what she was doing to her health, she would just stop eating and start exercising, or why can’t so and so stop eating, or so and so is setting such a bad example for her children.  Let’s set the record straight. Here are the top ten stupid-ass things that I’ve heard people say (otherwise known as myths).

MYTH #1.  Obese women should be educated on how to eat right. 

Not true, In fact, because popular society is constantly reinforcing that being a women of size is undesirable, many women of size have a Phd knowledge of food, calories and exercise. When you are an obese woman, you are reminded of it constantly. Your doctors tell you that any ailment will be solved with exercise and proper diet, sometimes people yell shitty things at you in the street, friends try to be “helpful” by giving you pointers. Trust me, a woman who has been dealing with obesity knows more than her doctor does about nutrition so having information and knowledge about calories, carbs, fat, etc. isn’t what she needs more of.

MYTH #2. Obese women should just get to the gym and exercise. 

Totally lame. First off, there is such a thing as being fit and fat. In fact the Health at Every Size movement tells us that it’s okay to stop focusing on weight loss and let yourself be healthy first and foremost. Many women of size are fit and do exercise often. Why don’t you see many fat people at the gym or out jogging? Gee I don’t know, maybe some people don’t like being stared at, or condescended to, “hey buddy good job, you’re doing great… you go girl…”  Not helpful.

MYTH #3. Obese women are “easy”

This is disgusting. I take a lot of issue with any woman no matter what her size being called easy or slutty or anything like that. I can’t even go into why this misperception makes me so angry. A women of size won’t just take any scraps she can get just because of her size. Why does that stupid idea persist? I don’t know, but I want to go on record saying that a woman of size has as much discretion and intelligence as a skinny woman. Most women want to find a kind, loving partner to be with. And if a woman happens to have a one night stand  with a d-bag (who hasn’t?) the woman of size happens to stand out more. There are no statistics available that obese women have more promiscuous sex than smaller women.

MYTH #4. Obese women are setting terrible examples for their children

Being self-hating, self-berating, and self-critical is setting a poor example for their children. She doesn’t have to be obese to do that. Making an effort to love yourself and love your children and let your children see you love yourself is a great example. When you love yourself you will take care of yourself. Taking care of yourself doesn’t mean being skinny, it means eating lots of healthy food often and less healthy food in moderation and getting out into the fresh air and being kind to yourself both physically and psychologically.

MYTH #5. Obese women are very unhealthy

Not true, in fact women who are considered overweight (according to the BMI) with a BMI between 25-30 have the same relative risk of death as women who are in what’s considered a “normal” BMI.  You can’t judge how healthy someone is by looking at them or weighing them. Blood tests, energy levels and quality of life is a better indicator or health.

MYTH #6. Obese women all binge eat

Not true. The research says that 20% of obese folks suffer with Binge eating disorder, which means 80% of obese folks are not binge eating.

MYTH #7. Obese women have no willpower

I’d venture to say that the opposite it true. As I said in myth #1, many women of size have been on multiple diets and willed themselves down over and over and over again. But as we know, restrictive diets don’t  work in the long term. 

MYTH #8. Obese women have a low self esteem

Lots of women have low self esteems, not because they are fat, but because we are constantly bombarded by a media that tells us we are not good enough. Being thin doesn’t make a woman immune to low self-esteem and being larger doesn’t make a woman more likely to have it. Self-esteem is an inside job. It’s a practice of letting go of beliefs about yourself that the outside world has given you that tells you it’s not okay to be you.  You don’t need to let go of weight to let go of beliefs.

MYTH #9. No one will marry an obese woman

That’s just  fucking stupid.

MYTH #10. Obese women should go on diets 

No one should go on a diet ever.  95% of people who go on diets will gain the weight back. In fact, many people who start out at a lower weight go on diets which then creates eating disorders and weight gain.

Related articles

• ‘Ideal Weight’ may be an Illusion
• Last Ob Appt before the big day

The post Top Ten Myths about Fat or “Obese” Women appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.

1. When you are eating  compulsively you: Scarf your food down quickly and without thought and without noticing what you just ate.

When you are practicing mindful eating you: Eat slowly noticing the tastes and textures of your food and take note of the way it feels in your body. You also notice what your body feels like and how much you actually need.

2. When you are eating  compulsively you: Eat while you are driving.

When you are practicing mindful eating you: Do your best to create time and a break for yourself to sit and eat your food.

3. When you are eating  compulsively you:  Eat in front of the TV, eat in front of your open laptop, or eat while staring and thumbing through your iPhone.

When you are practicing mindful eating you: Are paying attention to your food, your thoughts, your feelings, and taking time to savor the moments of peacefulness and quietude that you have to yourself or on pleasant conversation with another human being.

4.When you are eating  compulsively you: Heat up your food in the microwave.        

 When you are practicing mindful eating you: Take time to cook or heat up your food in the oven or on the stove.

5. When you are eating  compulsively you: Grab take-out or fast food most of the time

When you are practicing mindful eating you: Take time to shop for and cook with fresh or seasonal ingredients.

6. When you are eating compulsively you:  Automatically get food whether you actually want it or not out of habit

When you are practicing mindful eating you: Assess whether or not  you are hungry and whether you actually want the food that you are going for rather than eating it out of habit (like grabbing popcorn at the movies).

7. When you are eating compulsively you: Eat until you are uncomfortably full

When you are practicing mindful eating you: Pay attention to your body and stop eating when you are comfortable, satisfied, and before you are full.

8. When you are eating compulsively you: Often eat food that is devoid of nutrition

When you are practicing mindful eating you: Eat food that is nurturing to your body and contributing to your overall health

9. When you are eating compulsively you: Often didn’t even notice that you ate something and then find that you’ve devoured the whole thing and you’re sitting with an empty plate, you wonder, “did I just eat that? I barely noticed.”

When you are practicing mindful eating you: Focus on the intention of eating and notice how much you are eating, how quickly you are eating and  figure out if you’d like to slow down or not, you think about whether or not you are enjoying the meal.

10. When you are eating compulsively you: Munch on snacks that are set out in bowls in front of you just because they are in front of you, such as pretzels, M&Ms, peanuts, hard candies, whatever…

When you are practicing mindful eating you: Think about whether or not you’d like to be eating what’s in those bowls, whether or not you are hungry for these things or if you want to eat these things or not.  If you don’t want to eat those foods and you are finding that you are feeling too impulsive when they are in front of you, you either move to bowl or move away from the bowl.

To start out with a mindful eating practice, just set one intention before a meal. That intention can be anything, such as “I’m going to let myself taste my food and experience it more fully,” or “I’m going to eat slowly,” or “I’m going to notice my hunger and satiety in this meal.”  Maybe at your next meal you will set a different intention. Just try it once and see how it goes for you. Once you become mindful and conscious of your eating, things totally change. Food no longer has a hold over you because you have brought consciousness to what was once a compulsive or unconscious behavior.

You might additionally check out:

Guided Visualization for Integrating Mindful Eating

The Center for Mindful Eating

Dr. Susan Albers Blog (Psychologist specializing in treating eating disorders using mindfulness)

Mindful Eating as a Way to Fight Bingeing

Related articles

• FYI Friday – Practicing Mindful Eating
• 14 Habits Of People With a Healthy Relationship To Food
• Enjoy the Taste of Mindful Eating (National Nutrition Month Series)
• Why You Should Eat Mindfully – & How To Do It

The post Ten Differences Between Compulsive Eating and Mindful Eating appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.

The post Friday Q & A- Help, I’m obsessed with food appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.

Many of my clients come in feeling as though they’d love to stop counting calories, but they don’t know how, they feel as though if they did, they’d totally lose control. Counting calories helps give them a sense of control and satisfaction.

Usually, when I begin people on the road to intuitive eating and mindful eating, I help them wean off of calorie counting by using numbers to help them assess their appetites. It’s actually a lot more challenging than calorie counting, but ultimately more useful. It increases mindfulness and helps you to actually get in touch with the needs of your body.

How to do it: 

1. Learn the hunger and satiety scale.

2. Decide to  learn to not let yourself drop below a 3 and not go above a 7.

3. Check in with yourself throughout the day. When you find yourself at a 4, it’s time to think about getting a meal.

4. Before each meal, note or write down where you are on the hunger and satiety scale.

5. Eat your food slowly and mindfully and stop right in the middle. When you stop, note or write down where you are. If you are at a 5, you know that you can eat a bit more. Stop again and if you are at a 6 or a 7, stop eating.

It’s that simple. But it’s not simple really because you are using the wisdom of your body to tell you how much or how little you should be eating rather than an arbitrary number that doesn’t necessarily relate to what your body needs. Keeping track of the numbers on the hunger and satiety scale will help you to feel as though you are in control in a way that calorie counting did only it’s also a way to increase mindfulness. After a while, you will be able to stop using the numbers because you will intuitively know when to eat and when to stop eating.

Start by trying it for one meal a day. You can also check in with yourself every 1-2 hours and ask yourself where you are on the hunger and satiety scale.

You might try some hypnosis to help you stop dieting and to eat more mindfully for your body and less by someone else’s calorie chart.

Interested in doing a  seven day experiment? Try it and link to this blog post, I’d love to see how it goes for people!

The post How to Stop Calorie Counting appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.