Binge eating is a serious problem for many people. Here's how the idea of shaving your head can help you quit binge eating according to a Reddit post.

Happy 2-Tips Tuesday!

Here are two ideas to consider this week.

By Jennifer Broxterman, RD

1. Reddit Thread: How I Quit Binge Eating

Binge eating is a serious problem for many people (see tip #2 for statistics). There are the usual suggestions to help people be more intentional with their food intake:

• Eat healthy, balanced meals regularly

• Plan ahead

• Practice mindfulness

• Try urge surfing

• Go to therapy

• Keep tempting foods out of the house

• Use distraction techniques

• etc.

But what do you do when all of those ideas fail to help someone stop binge eating (for a client, or maybe even for yourself)?

As I went deep down the rabbit hole to help a struggling client, I stumbled across one of the best Reddit threads from a recovered binge eater. Specifically, their brilliant analogy about shaving your head, voluntary muscles, and binge eating was the lightbulb moment for my client to stop binge eating.

Here is their entire Reddit passage:

I used to binge eat 3x times a week in an excess of 3,000 calories or more. Food had an incredible amount of power over me. I was scared to go places because I was worried I would binge eat. I won't go over how it got to that place. But I'll tell you how I got out and now have the healthiest relationship with food that I've ever had.

Step 1 - Understanding

Reading List *Kathryn Hanson - Brain Over Binge *Dr. Livingston - Never Binge Again *Jack Trimpey - Rational Recovery + Taming the Feast Beast *Charles Duhigg - The Power of Habit

The four books listed above are what gave me a good understanding of what binge urges really were and what was causing my binge urges.

Insight 1 - All binges are caused by the urge to binge.

You only binge to cope with the urge to binge and get the subsequent anxiety/anticipatory relief from the craving. This is explained best by Kathryn Hanson, although she is really taking Jack Trimpey's concept in RR and applying it to binge eating. There is no greater meaning to your binges. Thinking otherwise will actually validate your binges and make it harder to stop! Many things may trigger an urge, but the actual binge itself is always caused by the thought along the lines of "Hey let's binge eat right now". Everyone gets stressed, bored, angry, etc. But not everyone binges because they don't get the urge in the first place because they never developed that habit.

Insight 2 - The urge to binge is not you, and comes from a different part of your brain that has no access to your voluntary muscles.

This explains your ambivalence towards binge eating. Part of you REALLY wants to stop (why else you be reading a post called how to stop binge eating?), but part of you feels like it wants to binge eat. The part of you that wants to stop, is the real you, and the part that says binge eat can be dismissed.

Insight 3 - You have total control over your voluntary movements and nothing - no thought, feeling, or sensation - can make you binge eat.

Again going back to "all binges are caused by the urge to binge". Let's do a thinking exercise. Think about shaving your head right now. Really think about it and try to let that thought move your hands. No matter how much you try to convince yourself to shave your head, your hands probably haven't moved an inch. Because you actually don't want to shave your head. And you actually don't want to binge eat either, but you get tricked into thinking you do by thinking that thoughts that encourage binge eating have meaning or significance. If you can accept with 100% commitment that you NEVER want to binge eat and that all thoughts, feelings, and sensations telling you to binge eat are garbage, things become a lot easier. Accept that you have total control - NOTHING can make you binge eat, especially not mere thoughts. You are not powerless.

Insight 4 - Binge eating is nothing more than a really bad habit.

How your binge eating habit started doesn't matter because now it wired into your brain. Your cravings to binge are just generated neurological impulses to carry out a habit in the same way that your urge to brush your teeth at night is from the same process. There is no greater meaning to your binges. Recognizing the cue for the habit (binge eating) and the reward (relief from the craving) can give you the space you need to stop immediately acting on the habit.

Again all of this makes a lot more sense if you read the books.

Step 2 - Putting new beliefs into practice

My pivotal moment was doing the crash course in addictive voice recognition technique (AVRT) on Jack Trimpey's website. Mentally replace alcohol/drugs with binge eating, when you read through it. That was the thing that did it - that empowered me to fully stop binge eating. I had the power to stop all along. Using Kathryn Hanson's advice in Brain Over Binge, I dismissed all thoughts that encouraged binge eating. Before, a thought about binge eating would make me wildly upset, I'd get in a frenzy, panic, get angry/sad/annoyed, cave, and binge. Now I hear those thoughts with detachment. They can't make me do anything. And once you stop binge eating and acting out on these thoughts, the cravings and urges diminish over time.

Step 3 - Getting back to normal eating

1. Neutralize Food: The single greatest thing you can do for your mental and physical wellbeing (after you stop binge eating, of course) is to not let food have so much power over you.

Stop treating food like a drug, a medicine, like this great unstoppable force, like your reason for living. It's just a donut. You can eat it and the universe will not explode. You can also not eat it, and likewise you'll be fine. The importance and power you give to food creates stress and causes you to obsess over it. "Should I eat it or shouldn't I?" over and over and over debating in your head as if your decision will cause WWIII. It's not that high stakes! Seriously. No other inanimate object likely causes you this much stress. Think of food in the same way, i.e. neutrally.

2. Neutralize food obsession.

Normal people are not thinking about food all day outside of their meals. They get hungry, but they don't treat hunger as an emergency. It's just a sensation that doesn't need to be immediately satisfied. If you find yourself anxiously waiting for your next meal or obsessing/fantasizing about food, 1) don't judge those thoughts, 2) accept that they are there/don't try to get rid of them, and 3) don't get so wrapped up in them (this is basically mindfulness meditation 101 btw). These thoughts are no different than thoughts about binge eating. Neutralizing these thoughts and not letting them have power over you will allow you to move on and get back to what you were doing.

3. Eating normally.

My eating plan now is very simple - 2-3 meals a day, no snacks. Generally I try to eat when hungry, stop when I'm full, which sounds simple but it used to feel impossible to do. But whenever I feel those crazed, frenzied thoughts saying "Eat! Eat! Eat!" that encourage me to act impulsively around food, I take a step back and think "Bruh it's just food." I relax basically and don't listen to those thoughts. Now for those of you with more complex eating issues, this is where Dr. Livingstone's Never Binge Again comes in. He used to be obese and used the philosophy along Jack Trimpey's Rational Recovery to solve his bad food habits. https://www.eatlikeanormalperson.com/ is also a good website for a simple eating plan. She also had binge eating disorder for years and was obese but overcame her food issues.

4. This one is sort of an aside but don't food orgasm. You know when you're eating something really tasty or you're eating when you're super HUNGRy and you're thinking "oh my fucking god this is sooooooOOOOoooOOO good!!!" and you're in like complete ecstasy? Stop doing that. You're treating food like a drug. Be grateful for food. Find pleasure in food and see it as an enjoyable activity. But for god's sake don't food orgasm. #NeutralizeFood

Finally as a closing note, I'd like to say that all of these things are skills that you can develop. Having the right mindset -- believing that you can stop, that you never want to binge eat, that you have 100% power over your voluntary movements, etc. -- will be a huge asset in your journey.

PS. All of the books listed can be found online for free except for Jack Trimpey's book, but he does offer a free course on his website.

2. Binge Eating Disorder Statistics

• In the general population, binge eating disorder is estimated to impact between 1.2% to 2% of all people (source, source).

• In obese patients who seek weight-loss treatment, research suggests that between 25% to 50% of people suffer from problems with binge eating (source, source).

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Jen

Jen Broxterman
Registered Dietitian
Prosper Nutrition Coaching

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