You want to stop binge eating. And you know the logical way to do it: Just find ways to avoid the circumstances that lead you to binge. Know your weaknesses and shore them up. Make a list of foods that you find likely to encourage binging. Resist. Be strong. Endure.
But now you have a problem. You've swapped one form of deprivation for another.
Not true, you say. "I'm avoiding certain things and exercising willpower, not depriving myself. And binge eating is being indulgent. I'm turning from being weak to being strong!"
Based on speaking with those with eating disorders, I don't think so. Making a list of dangerous foods, for example, is really a form of dieting. My thoughts on dieting are well-documented; basically, the deprivation in diets creates cravings and a sense of entitlement that we normally can't ignore when the diets end. Other kinds of avoidance and restriction tend to do the same thing to us psychologically.
The deprivation in binge eating is less obvious, but more insidious: My work with those who binge indicates that binge eating deprives a person of pleasure, self-awareness, and accomplishment.
Binge Eating Forces Numbness
Consider what happens to someone who is eating due to emotions or compulsion. Binge eating creates a sense of numbness to all kinds of input:
- By ignoring food as he is eating it, the person deprives himself of any pleasure in its flavor, texture, temperature, aroma, or visual appeal. Something that can feel life-giving is literally on the tip of his tongue, but he is unaware.
- The person also doesn't sense what the rest of his body is telling him. If he did, he would find that the process isn't enjoyable. He would recognize that he is eating past feeling full, even to the point of physical pain in some cases. Once a binging person eats beyond a certain point, his numbness shuts out discomfort.
- Shutting down the brain by becoming distracted by food (and often by the television, a magazine, or a cereal box at the same time) means that the things that the person really wants from life are forgotten for the moment. He may long for marriage (or improvement in his marriage), or success at work, or the thrill of completing a major creative project. To go after these things, he must be engaged and focused. Binge eating makes such focus impossible.
In short, binge eating becomes an out-of-body (and out-of-mind) experience. It can take hours from every day.
Why We Still Binge
Many times, the things that we truly want from life are the scariest to pursue. If we start, we may fail. If we fail, we fear we won't recover. And if we binge, we avoid failure, because we won't have the energy and focus to start.
When the numbness subsides, it usually leaves shame behind ("Why did I do that? Stupid!"). It's the first sense of being alive after a time of deadness, but it doesn't feel good. So the thought of becoming more alive to what we feel in other areas is even more frightening than it was before.
Stop Deprivation to Move Toward Binge Eating Recovery
What would you have to do to be generous toward yourself? It could mean buying the better chocolate so that you'll savor each bite more. It could mean finishing a poem you started two months ago in hopes of submitting for publication. Maybe it would be generous to eliminate unnecessary tasks that drag on you to free up time and energy to plan for a job change.
And it's always generous to eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Be kind enough to let your food and your body be your focus when you eat. When you leave the table after eating in a way that doesn't deprive you, you'll be more likely to do things away from the table that are nourishing to your heart and mind.
