Archive for May, 2007

I am a completely different person now than I was while I was emotional overeating. I went from a person who declined every invitation to a person that finally enjoys hanging out with people again. From a person that hardly ever laughed to a person that has regained my personality. From a person that would be embarrassed to walk next to people my own age in fear that they would make fun of me because I was overweight to a person that smiles at people my own age because I actually like myself and don’t compare myself to anyone else. From a person who didn’t have an interest in meeting new friends to someone that has made great new friendships. From a person that was completely miserable with every aspect of myself to a person that loves myself so much.

I’ve realized how strong I really am and how determined and focused I still remain in my true desire to help others that suffer from emotional eating. It really isn’t just about me at all – It’s about the lives that I can change. It’s about the emails that tell me what an inspiration I am. It’s everything that I’ve ever been passionate about doing.

It has been a very gradual process, but I am a firm believer that slow and steady is the way to go. I’ve really built a stable foundation underneath me and I can honestly say that emotional eating never crosses my mind. Not ever. I get emails from people all of the time that ask if I ever emotional eat or even think about bingeing. The answer is no. Emotional eating was what used to be me and I never want to go back there again. I never want to go through the struggles and trying times of food being my best companion.

I’ve been where each of you is right now and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the trials that you face with food. It’s a hard place to be when emotional eating controls your whole life. I tell you this because I want you to know that there is so much for you to look forward to. There is a whole life out there for you that you haven’t even experienced because emotional eating is holding you back. My days are no longer filled with darkness, instead my days are brighter than ever and I want that so badly for each of you. I’m so excited for you to see what the other part of life can be like.

I want you to think about your life right now – What do you wish you could do but do not do because of emotional eating? Perhaps it’s due to the weight that you’ve gained while emotional eating over the years. Or it might just be the simple fact that you don’t feel good about yourself and you just want to hide from the world.

What activities has emotional eating stolen from you?

What does it keep you from doing?

Are you not as social as you used to be?

Do you isolate yourself?

What goals did emotional eating take away from you?

A positive body image is one that we should all strive for. This is when you know yourself and who you are. You have a very true perception of your size, shape, and weight. You see yourself as you are in the present. You accept yourself, even though you may be overweight. You believe in yourself and love yourself while still striving for something better. When you have a positive body image, no time is spent obsessing about food, weight, calories, exercise, etc. You are proud of who you are and feel comfortable in your own body.

One effect of binge eating disorder is that many people do not have positive body images. Instead, they have very distorted images of how they see themselves. Here are six ways to create a positive body image for yourself.

1. Create a list of people that you admire. Write down why you admire each person. As you are writing the characteristics you like, take notice of what you are writing down.

For example, let’s say that you have a high regard for Oprah. Your list might include her generosity towards people, her willingness to support what she believes in, and her strong character that went for success no matter what background she came from. You do not admire Oprah because of her looks; you admire her for the difference that she has made in the world. For her contribution to society. How she has touched and changed so many lives.

2. Remember a time in your life when you felt great about yourself.

Travel back in your life to a time when you were happy with your body. Maybe this was high school or college. Whatever the time, just close your eyes and remember how you felt. Let these good feelings radiate within you.

3. Write down what you like about yourself now.

Take out a piece of paper and write down everything that you like about yourself: your legs, your eyebrows, your smile, your hair, etc. The key here is to focus on the likes of yourself instead of the many dislikes. Start appreciating what you do like about yourself. This will make you feel better overall.

4. Notice how you carry yourself when you walk.

Do you walk with your head down looking at the ground? Do you slump your shoulders? Perk up! Start walking and making eye contact with people. Hold your head up high. Walk with your shoulders held back.

5. Start exercising.

If you haven’t exercised in a while, start off slow. Go for a walk outside on a nice day. If you are used to exercising, keep it up and change up your routine so that you don’t get bored. When you exercise you begin to feel good about yourself, even if it is for 15 minutes. Start off slow and work your way up.

6. Hang out with positive people.

Take a look at the people closest to you. Are they positive or negative people? Chances are if they are negative this attitude will reflect on you and your attitude. Try to limit your time with any negativity as this will only make you feel bad about yourself. You will focus on the things that you do not like about yourself.

Start feeling good about yourself and learn to accept yourself as you are right now. It doesn’t matter if you have binge eating disorder or not, you can still love yourself. Little by little you will notice changes that have occurred. Learn to be on your side instead of always being against yourself. Put your shoulders back and quit thinking about what you’re not. Love the person you are and the person that you are becoming.

When you want to overcome binge eating, you need to make a decision and change your old habits. Perhaps these habits have been around for years, but no matter how long they have been your fallback, you need to make changes and create new, positive habits for yourself. You need to end the pattern of binge eating. You need to stop playing games with yourself.

How do you do this, you say? First and foremost, you need to make the decision and commit to fixing this disorder that has control of you and your life by overcoming binge eating. Make a commitment now to yourself. Do not put it off until tomorrow, next week, or even next month. Like Oprah says, “The space to live in is not ‘I’ll try’, not ‘I want to’, not even ‘I really want to’. It’s ‘I have decided’.” When you make that decision once and for all, you are declaring a commitment. You are stating this to yourself and the Universe and this is powerful! Make a commitment now to overcome binge eating.

One of the most important things that you can do is to start seeing yourself as you truly are. Don’t look at yourself as the person that is a victim of your circumstance. Instead help yourself to get over the situations in your past that gave you that particular mentality. Do whatever it takes so that you can literally transform yourself into the person that you want to be, without hindering yourself and falling back into the old habits that you have become so used to.

Another important thing to remember is that no one is perfect. It is not necessary to constantly stab yourself for binge eating. We all have flaws. You need to let it go and keep on moving forward. All of the added stress that goes along with criticizing your every move will just keep you at a standstill and that will be enough to drive you crazy. Realize that you may have binged, but don’t keep nagging yourself about it. Let it go so that you will be one step closer to overcoming binge eating!

Finally, no matter how many times you fall down, always pick yourself right back up and press on. Do not dwell on your failure; instead continuing moving forward, keeping your goals on how you can overcome binge eating fresh on your mind.

Most importantly, you deserve to feel good about yourself. Make YOU your number one priority and always strive to live your life to the fullest. Always keep yourself in mind. Believe in yourself and know that you will overcome binge eating and that the life that you have always wanted and dreamed about is just around the corner. So many new doors will open for you after overcoming binge eating disorder.

It is proven that affirmations help to reprogram one’s mind. When one repeats an affirmation over and over, the subconscious picks up on it as the present reality. Does this mean that people have the ability to completely turn around their life as they know it? In one word: Yes.

You can co-create your world to your own specifications. You want a better relationship? Start telling yourself that you deserve it. Once you have heard this for so long, your mind will not settle for anything else. You want a better job? Learn to say affirmations about your passions and watch how many doors open in your direction.

Now, what if you want to end your emotional eating habit? Although this may sound tricky, there is nothing tricky about it. Truth is, when you boldly affirm your thoughts to yourself and to the Universe, you will get what you want in time. For example, you can say “My body is a healthy temple.” As with any subject that you affirm, your mind is changing and will not accept anything less. You will start to regard your body as sacred and will not want to damage it in any way. A newfound respect will start to flourish within you. You will start to think twice about what food you fill your body with. Before eating, you will wonder what nourishment will enter your body from eating that food.

As all binge eaters know, iemotional eating is not about being hungry and wanting food. No, you eat because you are numbing your feelings toward a particular subject. What if you start to affirm that you are capable of handling those difficult situations that cause you to binge? Your mind might just start to believe what you are saying and this will make the emotional eating slow down. Of course, it won’t get rid of emotional eating overnight, but it will cause you to become more aware of what you say and what you think. It will cause you to really think about the type of food you are feeding your soul.

When your thoughts on emotional eating and on yourself start to improve, your life with follow in the same direction. The new love and respect that you have for your body will guide you away from any emotional eating. You will learn to supplement your negative feelings with positive ones. Ultimately, this is the beginning of your end to changing your food habits and getting rid of emotional eating. Start believing in yourself and only wanting the best for yourself and watch how things will start to shift in your life. Pretty soon emotional eating will be a thing of the past!

Are you sick and tired of wondering if your eating habits are normal? What about pondering over and over again why you feel like you aren’t fully capable of having the potential to take control of your life? Are you the type of person that finds comfort in food? Does food numb your feelings and make you forget about life for a moment? Do you eat when you are not even hungry? Do you stuff yourself full until you feel sick?

If so, you may have Binge Eating Disorder. Although, you probably feel like you are the only one crazy enough to find solace while eating – You are not. In fact, there are about 25 million others who are just like you. Nice to know, isn’t it?

Now, what is the next step for binge eating treatments?

There are many different routes that you can take for binge eating treatments. If you feel like you need to talk to someone, but would prefer a more one-on-one atmosphere, then talking to a medical professional regarding your binge eating habits just might be what you need. There are many therapists, psychiatrists, and doctors that can help you get to the root of your binges and help you move forward into recovery with binge eating treatments.

Another type of binge eating treatment for the kinds of people that deal better talking to others with a similar problem is to join an Overeater’s Anonymous Group. These groups modify the 12-step program that you can find for Alcoholics Anonymous. If you don’t feel comfortable speaking to many people at once, just sit back and listen. Chances are that you will hear someone’s story and relate to it. Maybe you can meet up with that person after the meeting and talk to them about your problem. It’s always easier to open up to someone that we know can relate to us – What better the circumstance than this one?

Another option for binge eating treatments is to talk to a trusted friend or family member about how you are feeling and your eating habits. This will allow you to get everything off of your chest about your emotions and the reason that you turn to food.

Pick the route of binge eating treatment that you find most comfortable for you. If you do not feel comfortable, you will not be able to be completely open and honest about what is going on between you and food.

Even though you are part of the 25 million people that suffer from Binge Eating Disorder right now, remember, you do not always have to be part of that number. You can regain control of your life and of your eating habits and be well on the way to joining the recovery number from Binge Eating Disorder by find the best binge eating treatment for you.

When you suffer from Binge Eating Disorder, you are in constant need of different ideas to help you overcome your food addiction. Times get tough and sometimes doing the same thing over and over doesn’t work like it used to. I struggled with Binge Eating Disorder for over eight years. Eight years of my life that was spent thinking about my next binge. Eight years of my life that took away from the person that I really was. Eight years that stole my personality away from me. Eight years of being absolutely miserable and hating myself. Eight years too long to deal with Binge Eating Disorder and not having overcome my food addiction.

Throughout my battle with trying to overcome my food addiction, I discovered some tricks that really helped me stay on track. I truly believe that practicing these tricks will help you to curb an upcoming binge and bring you that much closer to living your life binge-free by overcoming food addiction! Say goodbye to Binge Eating Disorder and get ready to overcome your food addiction!

First of all, do not focus on any sort of dieting. I believe that the cycle of dieting, which includes depriving yourself of certain foods will only cause you to binge on those foods, thus perpetuating the binge cycle over and over. Focus on healing yourself and forming a healthy relationship with food.

While I had Binge Eating Disorder, I tried to think about how certain foods would nourish me. I knew that healthier foods would benefit me more than eating junk (binge food). I started to implement thinking about the balance of eating whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and protein in every meal.

When I go out to dinner or if I eat at home, I make sure to eat a dinner salad before my meal. I would much rather get full on spinach lettuce and vegetables, if it meant that it would help curb any hunger that could lead me to binge.

When I suffered from Binge Eating Disorder, I hardly exercised. Eventually I started to put into practice small things that would provide some kind of exercise for me like parking far away from where I was going instead of trying to find an upfront spot. At least a further walk in a parking lot will count for something!

I learned this next trick from a forum that I regularly visit online. One of the things that I binged on very regularly was chips. It was almost like I had a food addiction to chips. I learned to visualize the ingredients that make up the food that you want. Whenever I wanted chips, I would think about the ingredients that went in to making chips: partially hydrogenated soybean oil, a ton of salt, and potatoes that were probably covered in dirt. Suddenly, not so appealing.

I never kept the foods that I binged on in the house. It’s impossible to eat a binge food when it’s not there.

When Binge Eating Disorder was part of my life, I did not eat breakfast on a regular basis. When I started eating breakfast every single day, no matter what the day’s activities were, it helped jumpstart my day and curb my binges so that I wasn’t ravenous by lunchtime.

I always kept healthy snacks in my purse when I wasn’t at home. This helped me to continue my regular snacking without having to find food while I was out.

If I had a craving for an unhealthy binge type of food, I would make a healthier version of it at home.

I learned to never buy a binge food in a big quantity.

Finally, something that really helped me curb binges was to create a routine of eating that I could stick. This meant that I ate breakfast, sometimes a mid-morning snack, lunch, a mid-afternoon snack, dinner, and sometimes a snack after that. When I ate every few hours instead of just when I felt hungry, my body felt full and I didn’t binge as much.

I hope that some of these tricks prove to be helpful to help you overcome your food addiction and end Binge Eating Disorder.

So, you are at the point where you realize that you have Binge Eating Disorder and you want to make a change in your life for the better… But what do you do next? If you are like how I was, a mixture of emotions used to begin to fill my head about what my new self would be like. I was excited about getting on with my life and making overeating a thing of the past. But I was also a little nervous about letting overeating go. Why? Not because I wanted to overeat myself to death, but because I didn’t know any other way. I had turned to food for about nine years of my life and that was all I knew. I didn’t know how to deal with anything that was going on in my life. I didn’t know what I would do without bingeing to make myself feel better. What would I now do when I was happy, sad, bored, excited, or scared? It was definitely a scary time for me to wonder what my new life would be like.

The most important thing that I did was to first transform my feelings toward change. When most people think of change, they are scared because they are chartering along unknown territory. They are not sure of what the future has in store for them. They start questioning whether or not they are truly ready to take on this risk.

I knew that I had to erase everything negative in my mind about change and focus on what good would come from it. There were so many things that I was able to think of. For example, I would be a healthier person. I would feel better about myself. I would start to like myself. I wouldn’t feel like I was leading a double or secret life. I would not worry about when or how I would overeat next. I would finally have a normal relationship with food. Most importantly, I would finally be happy.

When your negative thoughts of change start to turn into good thoughts, change doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. It certainly doesn’t seem like something to be scared of. I found myself starting to get excited about changing my life. I couldn’t wait to see what was going to unravel and become my life.

After the decision has been made to make changes in your life, next will come motivation. Motivation is the driving force inside us all that push us to better ourselves. Motivation is what keeps on refueling us and reminding us what it is that we truly desire. Positive change is what produces positive motivation within each and every one of us. When you feel inspired to change the bingeing in your life, motivation will kick it up a notch to push you in the right direction. You will begin to do whatever it takes to achieve your desire result: no more overeating!

Once positive changes in your life start to happen, you will want more. You will feel motivated to keep on pushing forward, no matter how hard the obstacle may seem. It is motivation, along with hard work and dedication, that is going to create the new path for your new life of no more overeating.

Compulsive Overeating Disorder affects just about as many men as it does women, even though the stereotype is that eating disorders are thought to be a women’s disorder. This stereotype is incorrect. There are 25 million people that struggle daily with Compulsive Overeating Disorder. Out of that 25 million, you may be surprised to know that 40% are men. According to Wikipedia.com, this means that three women for every two men suffer from Compulsive Overeating Disorder.

There are different reasons as to why men develop Compulsive Overeating Disorder. One cause is if they play or played sports sometime in their life that required them to be thin or to lose a lot of weight for a particular competition, such as a wrestling match or running. Football players and body builders are still at risk, but it is lower since these sports require some meat and muscles in order to be successful. Another reason is that the chosen profession calls for thinness, such as modeling and acting. Men feel a pressure, just as women do, to maintain a level of thinness when they are in the public eye and when they are in looked at.

A man is more at risk for developing Compulsive Overeating Disorder at a older age than a woman does, especially if the man had a tendency to be overweight at a child. This is because growing up a man believes that he needs to be strong and be able to protect not only himself, but also a female. If he is thin, this translates to fragile and he will see himself as not being powerful and not being able to get the things that he wants in life because he is considered weak.

Treatment for men for Compulsive Overeating Disorder is the same as women; although, men are more reluctant to visit a professional since eating disorders are considered to be female difficulties. The professional will go into detail to find out why the man comforts himself with food. Once the reason why he binges comes to the surface, the professional can give him ideas of how to change his behaviors. Once this happens and once the man feels comfortable with the professional, then the journey to recovery begins.

Compulsive Overeating Disorder is not only a female disorder, as many males are affected too. Regardless of being male or female, it is important to admit that your relationship with food is not healthy and to seek help on how to make it healthy once again.

When you feel at your lowest point, food becomes your best friend. Food makes you feel better from the hurtful comment that you heard a stranger say about your weight. Compulsive overeating comforts you when no one else can. Compulsive overeating numbs any pain that you don’t want to feel.

But, compulsive overeating is actually the enemy in your life. In this case, food is the enemy because it is what you binge on. Compulsive overeating is what creates sadness within you. It is what makes you unhealthy. Ultimately, compulsive overeating is what keeps lowering your self-esteem.

You want to have a high self-esteem. You want to be one of those people that smiles throughout the day from a true happiness found within. But you aren’t right now. You are under the bounds of compulsive overeating and it isn’t until you start improving your self-esteem that you will get out of this cycle.

This endless cycle that has become your life needs to come to a screeching halt right away. How do you expect for your self-esteem to rise when you aren’t doing anything to help it? All you are doing is feeding your mouth and that isn’t going to make you feel better about yourself. It is just going to continue refueling the cycle that you live in every day.

You want to stop compulsive overeating, but your self-esteem is so shot that you eat more. Many people are stuck in this trap. Here are some things that you can put into practice daily to help improve your self-esteem so that you can start living.

Read a personal development book. There are many good ones out there. Go to your favorite bookstore and immerse yourself in the self-help section. Spend hours there reading whatever books catch your eye. If the books continue to appeal to you and your situation, buy the book and start reading a little every day.

Another thing that you can do is to not think any bad thoughts about yourself. This, of course, is not as easy said than done, but you have to start from somewhere. If you find yourself thinking about how fat you are, or how miserable your life is, find something that you like, or better love, about yourself and think about that. Turn your negative thoughts into positive ones. When you start seeing the good in you, the bad will start to fade away.

If you are a person that likes reading celebrity gossip magazines, but find that you don’t feel good about yourself after you finish, stop reading for a short time. If you begin to wish that you were skinnier or looked like so-and-so, you are damaging your self-esteem. Take out whatever pictures make you feel inferior and rip them to shreds!

You do not have to look like you walked out of Hollywood. In fact, why would you want to? You are unique in your own way. When you learn to be happy in your own skin, you will learn how to accept yourself, even though you are not at the ideal weight that you wish to be. Accept your flaws and focus on the good things about yourself.

Finally, make a list of all of your accomplishments, big or small. When you remember the times where you accomplished what you thought was impossible, you will develop a new outlook on yourself. You will see yourself in a new way and start to think of yourself as a braver person. When you think of all that you have accomplished, your self-esteem will strengthen because you aren’t dwelling on the negative that brings it down.

It is only when your self-esteem improves that you will start to see yourself in a new light. This light will shed you from the dark world of compulsive overeating.

It’s the little things that you will need to notice and congratulate yourself on when beginning the recovery process of compulsive binge eating. These little things will be the stepping stones to gaining full control over yourself when food is involved. These tiny stepping stones will prove to you that you are in control, at least somewhat control, of your actions. It’s time for you to rejoice in them, instead of beating yourself up about why you aren’t fully recovered yet.

Are you someone that compulsive binge eats twice a day for about five days out of the week? What are your trigger foods that you compulsive binge eat on? Let’s say that an example day of bingeing for you includes three bags of chips, one whole cake, one gallon of ice cream, ten cookies, and three sugary, carbonated drinks. When you start to take notice of you eating less, you need to pat yourself on the back. Instead of three bags of chips, do you only consume one? If so, this is a building block for your road to success. Instead of ten cookies, do you only eat two? Again, time to congratulate yourself for this accomplishment.

The reason why this is so important for your recovery is because most people see their life as black or white. Their life is either good or bad, right or wrong, sad or happy. Who puts these stipulations on us? Why such extremes? When you rid yourself of these chains and start living your life in most of the gray area, you will take things as they come and not be so hard on yourself for failing. Extremes will lead you to failure because it will be highly impossible that you will be able to live that way.

When you can learn to accept yourself, including all of your flaws, this is when you move into the gray area of life. The gray area allows for mistakes and is a constant learning experience. The gray area also allows falling, but pushes you to get right back up. The gray area is where we all need to be living, especially when we compulsive binge eat; but sadly, it is not most of our realities.

We put insurmountable pressure on ourselves to be perfect. We want the perfect car, the perfect outfit, the perfect body. Society helps to fill our head with the perfect mentality. Anything short of that will not do. We are taught that perfectionism is the only way and that we should all constantly be striving for it.

Strive to get out of that mindset. You will only be setting yourself up for failure. It’s the harsh reality of it. Learn to live and prosper in the gray area. Congratulate yourself for the small things that you overcome throughout your day. It’s when you are at the point of seeing your obstacles being taken over by you that you will be creating your own path for recovery from compulsive binge eating disorder.