Welcome to How to Love Your Body - on this week’s episode we are going to be talking about bingeing. Bingeing is a very common side effect of dieting - why? The number one reason is due to restriction. Where there is restriction - either mentally or physically - the bingeing will persist. We know, because we were in the restrict/ binge cycle for 10 years each. 

Before we dive in - we wanted to share with you about a couple exciting things we have coming in early 2021. One of those things being our documentary called Behind the Before and After and another being a giveaway where you could win one of 3, 6 months of free UnDiet support. We’ll share more about it later on but to To learn more - go to bit.ly/btbagiveaway 

Okay, here we go - let’s talk about bingeing and how we can help. 

Things you may have heard that will help with bingeing:



-Eat MORE food 

-Get foods that you restrict/ binge on IN the house 

-Eat whatever you want, when you want 

-Allow all food and give yourself unconditional permission to eat 

 

You may be thinking - HOW is this possible? You want me to eat MORE? You want me to buy bags of chips, jars of peanut butter, and chocolate bars and keep them in my house? This seems counterintuitive!!! Are you trying to ruin me and fuel the fire underneath all my binges!?? I can’t trust myself to do any of these things. I am out of control around food! 

These are very normal things to feel and to say. 

So why are things that feel so counterintuitive, things that will actually help with bingeing? 

Because allowing food and having an abundant mindset around food creates a healthy relationship with food. When you know it’s available to you at all times there is not a preoccupation with food anymore. This allows you to think clearly and actually have space to listen to your body signals. If you aren’t constantly thinking about food you’ll notice when your body starts to get hungry. You’ll start to only think of food when you get hungry - or at least it won't be all the time - it’ll just be fleeting thoughts that don’t feel obsessive. 

Another part to this is trust - It may feel scary to allow food that you feel like you dont have control around. It may feel scary to allow food into your house that you never allow because you know most of the time it just leads to bingeing. But once the food is around you and you know you can have it whenever - it will shift. It’s about learning to trust your body. If you can allow and then let trust lead you, you’ll be able to get to the other side of the bingeing. It may feel like you are being led in the dark, it’s you challenging yourself to do things differently. That you are willing to let your body lead you through the dark - imagine your body in front of you and you having your hand on it’s shoulders so it can guide you - and what your body is doing is guiding you into the light. It may feel really dark and scary, that you can’t see - but you can trust there is light on the other side - you know it’s there you just have to travel through it - and on the other side the light will shine and the bingeing will end. 

 

How to work on moving your way through the dark and into the light “aka allowing food and ending the binge” :

 

“Faith it till you make it” - I heard someone say this once and I liked it a lot better than “fake it till you make it” - because feeling fake just makes it feel like you’re lying to yourself - but if you can faith it till you make it - you know it’s challenging but you can tell yourself - this is hard but I have faith it can be different - so it really is choosing to allow the food. Choosing to get it in your house. And then having faith!



Learn more about the biology of binge eating if you feel resistant to taking this approach, the book Body Respect is a great resource. If you don’t believe this approach it is difficult to truly commit to it and therefore see the results.


 

BODY TRUST! This is such an important part of this work. If you