If you live in terror of food cravings and weight gain, you won’t learn to become a “normal” eater. It’s simply not possible. Something has to give: the fear or the desire. This is a major conflict for people who ping pong between restrictive eating (restraint via self-control) and going hog wild with food. I often see this process played out in therapy. Here's what happens. A client comes in saying she (it’s usually but not always a she) is sick and tired of dieting and wants to learn how to eat “normally.” She provides her diet history and explains why and when she binges and how she is physically and mentally so done with this cycle. She recognizes that neither behavior serves her and comes to me to help her find the alternative, saner approach to eating. All is well and good so far. At some point, after talking at...

“Intuitive Eating: The anti-diet, or how pleasure from food is the answer, says its creators,” a CNN Health article, makes it sound as if intuitive eating (IE) is making a comeback, when it’s never gone away. Back in the 80s IE taught me how to eat intuitively after decades of dieting and binge-eating and the movement has only grown stronger nationally and internationally. (Sandee Lamotte, 1/31/20, accessed 1/31/20, https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/31/health/intuitive-eating-no-diet-wellness/index.html). Since then there have been hundreds of books written about appetite-attuned eating. Here’s some how-to advice straight from the mouths of its creators and the authors of Intuitive Eating: An Anti-Diet Revolutionary Approach, Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, both well respected registered dieticians. “The scientific mechanism behind intuitive eating is called ‘interoceptive awareness,’ or the ability to perceive physical sensations that arise within the body. Intuitive eating is really instinct, emotion and thought," Resch said. "It's the instinct, hunger, fullness. What we...

Certainly not all, but many people with dysregulated eating suffer with underlying Depressive and Anxiety Disorders. Even if they don’t have full-blown disorders, they experience sub-clinical distress that is enough to contribute to eating problems. It’s not uncommon for me to hear about panic attacks, excessive worrying, isolation due to social angst, low energy, apathy toward beneficial activities, low self-esteem, a shame-based mindset, and over-focusing on controlling life.  What is of interest here is how clients are much more likely to be aware of and wish to talk about their eating problems than the emotional distress which drives them. I am not saying that depressive or anxiety disorders (or any other mental health problems) cause dysregulated eating. All three are biopsychosocial conditions concurrent with eating disorders. But focusing solely on eating better, without attending to underlying issues of anxiety and depression, will derail even the best therapeutic efforts. Here’s why this...

If you’ve felt an uptick in urges to munch and crunch your way through the day since COVID19 has revamped our lives, you’re not alone. It’s hard enough not to fall prey to emotional and mindless eating in the best of times. Enduring sky-rocketing stress while hunkered down, we need compassion for what we’re experiencing and a redoubling of attunement to emotions and appetite regulation in order to stay sane and healthy.    How can we not feel overwhelmed when seemingly overnight our usual host of worries has been transformed into inconceivable horrors: ourselves or loved ones succumbing to COVID19, losing our jobs and financial assets, and wondering when this nightmare will end? As our stress ramps up and routine pleasurable, relaxing activities are cut off one by one, it’s natural to experience feelings of extreme loss of control so that the mere act of eating seems like a magical antidote to...

Check out “Why We Eat The Way We Do” on NPR’s Hidden Brain which runs just shy of half an hour (https://www.npr.org/2019/11/11/778266536/hungry-hungry-hippocampus-the-psychology-of-how-we-eat, accessed 11/23/19). Here’s what I learned from this entertaining and enlightening podcast.  Psychologist Paul Rozin was being interviewed by Shankar Vedantam, host of Hidden Brain. Rozin, who has spent decades studying “the interplay between food, identity, and culture,” maintains that "Food is not just nutrition that goes in your mouth or even pleasant sensations that go with it. It connects to your whole life, and it's really a very important part of performing your culture and experiencing your culture." This is why we enjoy certain ritualized foods—from birthday cake to Christmas pudding, Hebrew Sabbath challah, and Muslim couscous—and why we have strong associations to traditional or simply familiar foods from childhood. Two discussion points got me thinking. One was the difference between French and American eaters: Americans are focused...

Most of our self-talk about food and everything else is so ingrained that we don’t realize what we’re thinking or saying to ourselves. Self-talk comes in the way of directives or judgments and truly can be a silent killer (of self-esteem and positive motivation) or a life saver. Feelings and actions don’t just pop up out of nowhere. They spring from what we think and tell ourselves which leads to experiencing and doing this rather than that. I know that you have words, phrases and ideas lodged in your brain learned a long time ago which are damaging your attempts to be a “normal” eater and feel compassionate about your body at any size. But the fact that I know this doesn’t help you unless you know it as well. Moreover, you not only need to be aware of damaging things you say to yourself around food and about your body,...

At an airport waiting with an old friend for a flight, the topic of food planning came up. Seeing as it was about lunchtime, I pulled out my freezer bag containing my yummy lunch and snacks for later. My friend asked why I just didn’t eat airport food and wasn’t I being a bit obsessive about carrying food with me whenever I travel. As I munched on lunch, I explained that airport food didn’t strike me as nutritiously appealing. Clearly she thought I was crazy for schlepping food around and I thought she was unwise to depend on airport food for sustenance. An aside: I love to eat at restaurants and have no problem dining at the homes of others without knowing what they’re serving.  So, imagine my delight when I attended a clinical workshop with a therapist friend, bumped into a colleague, and the three of us pulled out our...

What would you give to be binge-free? Here’s how one of my clients, after 30 years of binge-eating, has been free of it for nearly two months, saying she doubts she’ll ever resume this behavior again. I asked what she’d been doing differently and if she minded if I shared her story. She was eager to share her thoughts and encouraged me to blog about her success. My client is a divorced, hard-working mom in her early 40s with a history of overeating, dieting, and hyper-focusing on food and weight. She came to me insisting that she could never change her eating. It was only in her third round of therapy with me (after two previous stints of a couple of sessions each time) that she began to make strides. Here's the advice she wants to pass on to you that has helped her not binge:  She has a strong commitment...

You can learn to become an intuitive eater. I know because I learned to do so and it changed my life. I went from restrictive and binge eating and bulimia to eating according to my appetite and health needs. And learned life skills I didn’t even know I needed. Dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch coined the term “intuitive eating” in 1995, referring to the “process of using internal cues rather than external rules to guide decisions about what to eat.” (“To eat intuitively, trust your instincts” by Carrie Dennett, Sarasota Herald Tribune, 10/15/19, E28, accessed 10/15/19). Their book has been a mainstay of the international intuitive eating movement ever since and undoubtedly helped me hone my ability to eating according to appetite. Their advice is to “honor your hunger” and “feel your fullness,” while stressing that these are only two of the 10 intuitive-eating principles. This is similar to the...

One of my clients joked that it sometimes feels as if a 2-year-old is in charge of her eating. A highly competent teacher, she also does an excellent job taking care of her elderly parents. She’s a can-do person and a great problem-solver like many of the dysregulated eaters I treat. With all her maturity and capability, why, then, would she hand over the reins of her eating to a toddler? Think of 2-year-olds you know. Maybe you’re trying to tame one right now. Or have heard tales of how you ran your parents ragged at that age or remember what it was like raising your little hellion. You know enough to recognize that you don’t want to put a 2-year-old in charge of anything, never mind your eating. Would you let one drive your car, pay your bills, or pick out your clothes? Of course not. A child at that...

I attended a workshop entitled “Nutritional Psychiatry: Your Brain on Food” which had a section on Binge-eating Disorder or BED. (CE International, www.ceinternational.com, Ginger Schirmer, PhD, RD). It included a description of five types of overeaters that I found interesting, although I’m not sure I agree with them being all that different. I’m blogging about them because doing so may help you identify why you overdo with food and develop strategies to avoid doing so. First, consider what Dr. Schirmer had to say about food addiction: that no food is addictive, but that we can form an addiction-like relationship to foods that changes our brain and body chemistry much as it would if we were dependent on drugs or alcohol. I’ve heard others describe this dynamic as having an eating addiction. At any rate, when you read the categories below, remember that Dr. Schirmer isn’t talking about the food being addictive...

“30 Years and 7 Books of Eating Disorder Recovery Wisdom,” is an interview of me by Jared Levenson. Below is a bit about my crazy eating days. To hear more of my story and recovery, listen to this podcast at https://eatingenlightenment.com/2019/12/01/eating-disorder-recovery-interview/.  I talk some in my books and more in my sessions with clients about how I went from being a chronic dieter and world-class overeater to a “normal” eater. They are often amazed when I tell them that I’ve been recovered for half a lifetime which, at 72, sometimes seems like it was just yesterday and sometimes seems like my warped relationship with food happened to another me and not the one I am today. I was a deprivational eater who weighed myself several times a day. I counted calories to know what and how much to eat. You could have slapped on me any other label that applied to...

Many pieces of recovery need to come together to reach your goals. If you’re focused on looking in the mirror or down at the scale, you’ll miss them. You want quick change, like now! I get it. But for success, instead of measuring progress in pounds or inches, you’ll need to shift your focus to how you’re making small attitudinal and behavioral adjustments in other aspects of life that will eventually move you toward recovery. Recently a client was lamenting the “bleepin’ lag time between learning how to have a better relationship with food and her body” and actually doing better around food and improving her health. It’s true, the lag time can be frustrating and seem daunting. That’s because there’s generally a good deal for dysregulated eaters to learn in order to manage life in a healthier manner. For the umpteenth time: It’s not just about the food. Clients start...

Many dysregulated eaters crave and overeat “treats.” But, guess what: If you’re eating them all the time, they are no longer treats. That’s because a treat is something pleasurable, out of the ordinary, and not in your daily routine. It’s meant to be an occasional pleasure to the palate or boost to the spirit, but many dysregulated eaters ruin their purpose by seeking and consuming them excessively. From my own bingeing history and 30-plus years of working with troubled eaters, my take is that they often don’t enjoy life very much and seek food to increase its pleasure. That’s just plain sad. You cannot have a healthy relationship with food if you’re overly reliant on it and it’s your singular go-to for pleasure and a bounce in your step.  I’ve had clients who use vacations the same way. They’re anywhere from unhappy to miserable in their lives and seek travel to...

Been there done that: purging after eating, that is. I had bulimia for about 18 months in my late twenties. Back then my binge-eating was in full force and I thought that purging (a more genteel word for “vomiting”) was such a clever idea to combat overeating. This was long before the word bulimia came on the scene. No one I knew purged and I don’t recall reading anything about its health dangers. I suppose there was less shame attached to it because there was no big fuss made about it. But somehow I knew it was wrong or, at least, something I didn’t want to be doing. I finally confessed to a friend who knew about my ongoing struggles with food that I was also vomiting (let’s call it what it is), and she very caringly insisted that I find myself a therapist post haste. I think I told her...

Sometimes I miss the obvious. I treat many clients who were raised by parents (most often mothers) who either excelled at dieting and food restriction or modeled nothing but emotional, mindless or binge eating. Or parents bounced from one extreme to the other—one week tossing out any foods that contained carbs or sugar and the next week bringing all those same foods into the house in bingeing on them. Now, even when dysregulated eaters come to therapy desperately wanting to stop dieting or bingeing, they have no clue how to do it. Not one real clue. As children, they learned specific eating behaviors like denying themselves food when they were hungry, eating less caloric foods than others in their family, eating out of deprivation, seeking food for comfort, ignoring appetite signals, or a combination of all of these strategies. Sometimes they were criticized when they reached for food and other times...

One of the reasons I eventually was able to overcome my chronic dieting and emotional and overeating was that I’m a tenacious person and not inclined to give up when I set my mind on doing something. So, persistence served me. More importantly, there is no area in my life that I wouldn’t discuss and try to change (with the help of a therapist) in order to become a “normal” eater. I was willing to delve deeply into whatever was wrong in my life (lots!) and take steps to remedy it. Nothing was off limits for discussion and discovery if it would help me stop being a crazy person with food and weight. One of the barriers clients have is shying away from aspects of their lives that are obviously not working for them. Even talking about those areas makes them squirm. At first they may deny problems, but eventually (if...

Dysregulated eaters too often rule out the possibility that they might over time enjoy nutritious, tasty fare more than the high fat/sugar/carb foods they now eat. They won’t even consider that their taste buds can be radically altered. In fact, they can. I was reminded of this amazing fact one night watching a TV commercial for pizza, a food I used to adore and eat to excess decades ago. I took one look at the image on the screen and said aloud, “Yuck!” My revulsion to pizza surprised me. What happened to the college coed who could eat leftover cold pizza for breakfast and think she’d won the lottery? Or to the ecstasy, I used to feel in an Italian restaurant when a waitress plonked down my order and, asked: “You the extra cheese?” I certainly could eat and maybe even mildly enjoy a slice of pizza now, but I know...

You might be surprised, or maybe not, how many people eat in secret: in their cars, in the bathroom with the door locked, or sneaking treats up to their rooms. I used to do it myself—tiptoeing down the stairs to the kitchen in the house I grew up in to swipe something I was forbidden to eat from the fridge, popping a leftover into my mouth in the kitchen of friends the moment they turned their backs, or barely nibbling at food during a party or dinner I hosted, only to gorge on remains after my guests had left. When clients bring up secretive or sneak eating, I make sure to tell them about my own experience to let them know a few things. First, they’re not alone. Many dysregulated eaters—high and low weight and in between—choose to eat without prying (aka feared judgmental) gazes. Second, it’s vital that they understand...

A reader of my books and blogs wrote with a question that many of you might have: “Why,” he asked, “do I buy foods I think I’ll enjoy and bring them with me to eat, then find I don’t want them and crave something ‘quick and easy’ and eat that instead?” Here are my ideas on why this might happen and how to change the pattern. Remember that intuitive eating isn’t a science. Sometimes we’ll nail a craving and sometimes we won’t. This occurs in other realms of life as well, but we probably don’t think much of it. We get excited about going to a movie because of all wonderful things we’ve heard about it but, when the time comes to go and see it, we’re more in the mood to stay home and read a book. Or we go to the movie and end up not caring for it....

Many people who seek therapy to resolve their eating problems become rapidly and easily disappointed and frustrated that the process takes longer than they expected. This is the exact same problem they have with food: the quick “fix” desire for whatever ails them. Fortunately, helping them respect and value the slow pace of therapy provides equal instruction on how to manage “gotta have it now” feelings around food.   Here are two problems and ways to deal with them that arise in both eating and therapy. Urge to control: Although some clients enter therapy without the desire to control the process, many dysregulated eaters come in wanting to focus exclusively on eating and weight loss. They could spend an entire session telling me everything they ate—and didn’t “allow” themselves to eat—since the last time they saw me. Whenever I veer off to inquire about other issues, such as how their life...

If I could wave my fairy godmother wand to abolish certain thoughts, I’d eradicate those having to do with self-control and will power. Science is telling us repeatedly these days that they don’t work long-term to change eating or exercise habits. Please let this concept go so that you can learn what does help to establish better ongoing self-care. One research-based article is “Why willpower is overrated” by Brian Resnick (Vox, 4/25/18, https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-willpower-is-overrated-2029766008,   accessed 11/28/18). It describes a 2011 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that says, paradoxically, that participants “who most readily agreed to survey statements like ‘I am good at resisting temptations’ reported fewer temptations throughout the study period. To put it more simply: The people who said they excelled at self-control were hardly using it at all.” A study of students in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science concluded that, “It was...

At dinner celebrating a friend’s birthday, I was full and satisfied by dessert time, while she’d eaten a small dinner just to save room for dessert. She ordered key lime pie which came with a slab of dark chocolate melted on top of it and the waiter brought over a dish of chocolate chip ice cream as well because I’d mentioned that it was her big day. I managed to down a few spoonsful of ice cream, which she insisted I share, then watched her polish off the pie. When she was done, she asked if I wished to take home the remaining ice cream and slab of chocolate and I joyfully took it off her hands. I don’t care for dessert after a meal when I’m usually full. From my diet-binge days, I hate feeling uncomfortably full or too hungry. My habit is to eat seven or eight mini-meals daily,...

It’s ironic that clients often don’t want to discuss their sleep habits but focus obsessively on their eating habits. In truth, sleep may be a substantial determinant of what and how much we eat, and disruption of our circadian rhythms may have a significant effect on what we weigh. Here’s what science has to say on these subjects. According to “Sleep Longer, Eat Less, Maintain a Healthier Weight” by Mugdha Thakur, MD (Duke Medicine Newsletter, 5/2008, p. 7), “Sleep is a modifiable risk factor in the link between obesity and cardiometabolic diseases…” and “Reduced sleep affects the regulation of appetite hormones such as ghrelin, which increase appetite, and leptin, which decreases appetite.” It is also thought to increase cortisol (a stress hormone) release, which increases eating behavior. Consider the paradigm above: By sleeping less, you’re putting yourself at risk of generating increased stress and appetite. This combination is the perfect storm...

Whether or not we take good care of our bodies, most of us have a schedule we eat on. Taking topnotch care, we may ensure that we eat early in the day to replenish our bodies nutrient-wise after a long night’s sleep and keep ourselves fortified during the day to sustain our energy. If we don’t take such great care, we may grab food on the go, refrain from eating during the day, and do our heaviest eating at night. Does it matter when we eat? Scientists think so. Here are some highlights from “When we eat or don’t eat, may be critical to our health” by Anahad O’Connor (7/24/18, accessed 9/15/18, https://www.nytimes.com/.../when-we-eat-or-dont-eat-may-be-critical-for-health.html). “Studies show that chronically disrupting [our circadian rhythm]—by eating late meals or nibbling on midnight snacks, for example—could be a recipe for weight gain and metabolic trouble.”Satchin Panda, a professor at the Salk Institute and circadian rhythms’ researcher,...

I’ve blogged on this subject before, which warrants a frequent revisit. Many of you are not reaching your “normal” eating or health goals because you’re not consistently following the guidelines for changing your thinking and behaving around food. You then become disappointed because you’re not making strides as quickly as you’d like to and feel like giving up. I don’t say this punitively, believe me, but facts are facts: The more you practice a behavior, the more it will stick as a habit. Doing a behavior inconsistently—one day, then not the next, or one week on and one week off, will get you exactly nowhere but frustrated. So, here are my suggestions: Eat without distraction. I stopped telling clients to do this at every meal because they insisted that doing so was impossible, so I dropped down to suggesting that they do it at least once a day. I found that...

Having been a therapist for more than 30 years, I have some ideas on how to get the most out of the process. As an eating disorders therapist, I also have advice on how to use therapy to help you move toward “normal” eating. Of course, if you’re not in therapy, you can still focus on the areas I highlight to promote psychological healing. Have an agenda. Clients often wait for me to bring up a topic to talk about, which may be hit or miss on my part. If a client doesn’t raise a subject, I generally ask, “How can I help you today?” This doesn’t mean that you always need to come in with a problem. It’s important for clients to share pride in their accomplishments or progress. Often my validating clients’ concerns or ideas is helpful. It’s fine to occasionally not come prepared with questions, but it doesn’t...

A debate about which behaviors are addictive and which aren’t has raged on for decades. Can food be addictive? Here’s the latest on what science thinks about addiction. (“Science Says: What makes something truly addictive?” by Lindsey Tanner, Sarasota Herald Tribune, 6/22/18, page A3, retrieved 6/23/18) Tanner says that “The strict definition of addiction refers to a disease resulting from changes in brain chemistry caused by compulsive use of drugs or alcohol. The definition includes excessive use that damages health, relationships, jobs and other parts of normal life.” According to UCLA psychiatrist, Dr. Walter Ling, it is ‘a disease of extreme behavior. Any behavior carried to an extreme that consumes you and keeps you from doing what you should be doing becomes an addiction as far as life is concerned.” Dr. Andrew Saxon, chairman of the American Psychiatric Association’s addiction psychiatry council, deems drugs addictive because they over-activate “the brain’s reward...

Many people ask me how to eat just the right amount to feel nourished without experiencing over-fullness. There’s a good deal of information out there on the subject, all the way from flat out wrong to inconclusive to tentative but needing more research. “How to Eat Less: What Works, What Doesn’t” by Caitlin Dow (Nutrition Action Healthetter, Jul/Aug 2018, pp.6-8) provides some evidence-based answers. Are smaller plates the answer?: According to Barbara Rolls, a nutrition professor at Penn State University, “Focusing on plate size is a diversion” because studies tells us that people often don’t eat less when using smaller plates. They eat about the same quantity of food they’d eat on larger ones. However, if you mindfully choose to use a smaller plate as a reminder to eat less, they can be helpful. The goal is not to heap your plate with foods you love in order to feel as...

While talking to a client about her dysregulated eating, it struck me how many ways we can get into trouble with food. Here are three categories I came up with. Of course, you may not engage with just one but two or all three. Not to worry, each has solutions. Emotional Eating: This type of eating may be intentional or unconscious. You may have a fight with your boss/friend/child/partner/parent/neighbor/colleague and be so irate that you feel justified in food-seeking because you tell yourself you can’t stand how you feel or think you’re entitled to a treat because you’ve been wronged. Alternately, you may not realize how much someone or a situation upset you and think you’re fine, but still be food-seeking to avoid or lessen your distress. Two ways to avoid emotional eating are to stay connected to your feelings and to find effective ways to comfort and cope. Mindless Eating:...

I was at a dinner meeting at a restaurant when the focal point of discussion became the cake slices set out on the table. The meal had not been served, but there, diagonally to the side of every plate, sat a slice of cake. It was a real attention-grabber. Aside from wondering why it was out so early when we hadn’t even ordered drinks, we all seemed compelled to give voice to its appeal or lack thereof. It wasn’t even a particularly attractive slice of cake—kind of yellowish, double-layered with common white frosting on its sides and top, sitting in a pool of mustard-colored sauce drizzled around it. Nothing to write home about in my book (I was hoping for tiramisu or something equally exotic), but not everyone agreed. Here’s what was said about the cake as best as I recall and, at dessert time, how speech turned into action. •...

Four proficiencies are essential for becoming a “normal” eater. In one way or another, I’ve blogged and written about them all before, but here they are together so that you can see which of them you might be missing. These proficiencies are skills in coping with stress, practicing self-comfort, finding purpose and enjoying pleasure. None of us was raised to excel in all these areas, yet they are crucial for having a positive relationship with food and living your best life. Coping with stress: We all have stress in our lives, but it need not overwhelm us nor drive us to eat mindlessly. First off, we need to accept that no matter what we do, there will be times when life is not in our control and this can cause us to feel crummy. By accepting this truth, we go a long way toward reducing stress. Stress management skills include ending...

On one of my favorite TV shows about politics, I heard an enlightening explanation of the term cognitive overload when a panelist described how constantly being lied to affects our brains. She said that ideas “land” on us and that we need time to process them to decide to believe if they are rational or not. However, when lies fly at us at too rapid a pace, one after another, we don’t have the focused ability to analyze their veracity, and so they remain “landed,” that is, we simply accept them. Politics aside, this analysis seemed applicable to two client situations. Says Lucy Jo Palladino, Ph.D.: “Information or cognitive overload can lead to indecisiveness, bad decisions and stress. Indecisiveness or analysis paralysis occurs when you’re overwhelmed by too many choices, your brain mildly freezes and by default, [and] you passively wait and see. Or you make a hasty decision because vital...

Every week, at least one of my clients tells me that she overate or ate mindlessly. When I ask why, she inevitably sounds like she thinks I’m awfully dumb for an eating disorders therapist and says something like, “Because it tasted so good, I just couldn’t stop myself.” And I think to myself, “No, no, no. That’s not the reason. Sure, it might have tasted delicious, but you didn’t eat it because of that. You ate it because...” First, because you don’t have enough things in your life that make you swoon, that cause your heart to sing, that trip your dopamine switch and keep that magical chemical swirling around your brain until you’re ready to make a smooth landing back on earth. You go crazy with food because you have such a paucity of daily pleasure in your life—or you have it but don’t know it’s there—that food has become your...

Most dysregulated eaters don’t do a lot of mindless eating in the morning or mid-day. Some find themselves food-seeking in the late afternoon (they’re probably fatigued due to insufficient nourishment earlier in the day), but the biggest problem time for troubled eating is in the evening. Although it may be caused by a need to relieve stress or because people eat when they’re bored and lonely, hormones may be the culprit. “Hunger strikes harder after the sun goes down” by Roni Caryn Rabin (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, E14, 2/27/18) describes a small Johns Hopkins University study which “suggests that satiety hormones may be lower during the evening hours, while hunger hormones rise toward nightfall and may be stoked even higher by stressful situations. It’s not clear whether these hormonal patterns cause the binge eating behaviors or are conditioned by an individual’s eating habits. But, either way, you can get stuck in the cycle,” says...

Half a lifetime ago, I only knew two other people, one in college and one in my mid-20s who binged on food the way I did. We all thought that there was something seriously wrong with us and never dreamed that this behavior had a clinical name. The good news is that we are all fully recovered. The bad news is that the number of people with Binge-eating Disorder is rising. In 1959, Binge-eating Disorder (BED) was described by Dr. Albert J. Stunkard. It was included in earlier versions of the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but didn’t become an official eating disorder diagnosis until 2013 as part of the DSM-5. According to “How Common Is Binge Eating Disorder in the US?” (EatingDisordersReview.com, vol. 28/No. 1, http://edr.karunaconsulting.com/common-binge-eating-disorder-us/, accessed 2/26/18), its recorded prevalence grew when its criteria were increased at that time. Criteria include bingeing at least once per week for a...

Having turned 71 in April, I’ve been a “normal” eater for more than half my life. I also know a lot about what causes dysregulated eating and what turns it around. My knowledge is scattered in the writings of my books and blogs. Here are seven simple (but not always easy) success principles: Stop focusing on weight-loss. There is simply no other way to become a “normal” eater. Said another way, it will not happen if you continue focusing on losing weight. You can wish to lose it, but it can’t be “the” goal or something you often dwell on. Wanting good health is great. Couple it with a desire to be a “normal” eater and you’ve got the two most powerful forces to improve your relationship with food. Don’t ever give up. You can give up for a few hours or days, but don’t let surrender drag into weeks. You must believe...

More and more it has occurred to me that people, and not just dysregulated eaters, view food as their enemy. They use words like battle, struggle, war, and fight when talking about eating and their bodies. No wonder they’re having difficulty taking pleasure in eating. They’re generating so much negative energy toward food, eating, and their appetite that any efforts they’re making toward “normal” eating are being cancelled out. If you’re one of these people, it’s time to change your attitude toward food and your body in order to become a “normal” eater. You can do this by examining and reframing your beliefs. Here are some of the irrational, unhelpful thoughts you may currently have. Do they sound like the foundation for a positive belief system for “normal” eating? Food is the enemy.I need to fight my urges to eat junk food.If I struggle against my cravings, I’ll become a healthy eater.I feel...

There’s no way to achieve “normal” eating without practice. Here are a few simple exercises toward that end. Although I note how often to do them, practice at least as often as I recommend, but feel free to do them more often to repattern your brain.To improve at identifying fullness and satisfaction, set a practice of taking three bites of food, then stopping and putting down whatever you’re eating and noting your hunger and satisfaction levels in numbers (0-10) or words (not hungry, a bit hungry, fairly hungry, very hungry). Do this exercise at least once a day.To get better at not finishing all the food on your plate, leave a tiny bit of it every time you eat—a slice, some crumbs, a spoonful, a bite. Do this exercise at least once a day.To assess how fast you eat, when dining with others, notice how quickly or slowly they eat and pace yourself with...

I recently did an eating workshop for a local organization which included us eating lunch together. As I usually do, we spent half an hour having lunch. The first 15 minutes was an exercise of eating in silence and the second 15 minutes was a discussion about what participants observed during their silent meal. The discussion was pretty much the same one I’ve had with other groups doing this exercise. I truly wished that I could have videoed those first 15 minutes and maybe someday I will, with the groups permission. What I’d really like to do (but won’t), because it would be far more beneficial for them, is to make a video without their knowing it to capture their natural style of eating. Granted that it’s likely that most participants were a bit self-conscious about eating with others and having me observe them, but I think that self-consciousness disappeared for some...

I often say that sometimes how and what you eat is like a train’s locomotive and what you weigh is like its caboose. Not that we can always control weight by diet, as 50-70% of what we weigh may be due to genetics. However, according to new research, we may have an impact on how much (or less) food we eat just by chewing more. Here’s some of the science behind this theory from “Why slow eaters may burn more calories” by Markham Heid (Time.com Health, Diet/Nutrition, 4/12/17, accessed 9/9/17, http://time.com/4736062/slow-eater-chew-your-food/).“Some preliminary research has found that chewing until “no lumps remain” increases the number of calories the body burns during digestion: about 10 extra calories for a 300-calorie meal. Eating fast, on the other hand, barely burns any calories.” (“The number of chews and meal duration affect diet-induced thermogenesis and splanchnic circulation” by Hamada, Kashima, and Hayashi, 5/1/14, Obesity, doi: 10.1002/oby.20715) The point,...

My October 20 blog, Do You Need to Eat Breakfast?, gave one (surprising) evidence-based answer to this question about our morning meal: eating breakfast is not essential for good health. Now come more studies saying, not so fast, that breakfast is, after all, an important aspect of a healthy lifestyle. Rather than get angry or frustrated that there is no “right” answer, appreciate the beauty of science testing hypotheses and coming to new conclusions due to new evidence. Let your critical thinking skills (my new book, Outsmarting Overeating, due out January 13, has an entire chapter devoted to improving critical thinking skills as a way to eat “normally”) analyze what you read and come to your own conclusion—which may be that the jury is still out on the question. Heather Leidy, assistant professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at Missouri University, reports that “’research showed that people experience a dramatic decline...

Too many disregulated eaters try to change their eating behavior before they’ve examined their beliefs and, therefore, fail to make progress. In fact, I bet most of your frustration with your recovery is due to not having a rational belief system. To create one, here are some irrational beliefs passed down from generation to generation. Where is it written that you must be busy and doing something meaningful every minute of the day or you’re not living up to your potential? Is this true? Where is the evidence? Why can’t you take a break and relax and feel good about it? It’s time to throw out that old belief your parents taught you about productivity and factor in some time to chill out. Why must you always succeed and do the best you can? Success is all well and good but, frankly, failure will teach you as much about life and...

As a first step in healing eating problems, legalizing food is a tricky and complicated business, based as much on biology as psychology. Many disregulated eaters get stuck in the effort to widen food horizons and don’t move beyond it. This blog and future ones can’t tell you exactly how to manage legalization, but will help you sort out the issues. When the concept of legalizing foods surfaced in the late 1970s/early 1980s, it was positively revolutionary. I know, I was one of those eaters who was revolutionized by it. Eat whatever you want whenever you want in whatever quantities you want—what an astounding idea! It worked for a lot of us. Merely thinking that we could eat the foods we’d forbidden ourselves enabled us not to. It took many months and years of practice to convince ourselves that all foods were fair game. I used to think, I can eat...

For people who’ve spent a long time engaged in dysregulated eating and are trying to become “normal” eaters, it takes a while to put food into a comfortable perspective. These questions must be asked and answered: Do you see food as a source of pleasure or only nourishment? How much focus and what kind of focus will you put on eating to be physically and mentally healthy? What place do you want food to have in your life?Of course, the answer to all of these questions can be given only by you. How other dysregulated eaters respond will be what they think will work for them. Eating is, indeed, a very idiosyncratic activity. I was reminded of this process of figuring out how food fits into one’s life while talking with a client recently. She is a mostly “normal” eater at home or eating out by herself and is joyfully re-discovering...

If “comfort” food didn’t really bring you comfort, would you be as likely to eat it or eat as much of it? We’ve come to believe that foods which are high in fat and sugar boost our mood by activating the brain’s reward system. But what if that’s not actually the case? According to recent research cited in “Comfort food may fall short on the comfort” by Jan Hoffman (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 1/6/15, p. 26E), Kelly D. Brownell, dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke, concludes that “…the assignment of the word ‘comfort’ to [high-calorie foods] implies there is a relationship between ‘comfort’ and ‘food’ that may not exist.” The article describes comfort food as giving substantial pleasure and elevating a blue or blah mood. It says that women most often choose sweets and that men generally select “heartier, more savory items.” The article highlights a Minnesota study funded...

Most of us were born “normal” eaters and the process for responding to appetite is really more about relearning than starting from scratch. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t have gotten this far as a species if we didn’t automatically know how to feed ourselves well. What you remember about eating “normally” may help you return to it more quickly. Think back to when food wasn’t an issue for you, when you ate when you were hungry, knew exactly what you wanted to eat, and stopped when you were full or satisfied. When you didn’t seek comfort in food or obsess about calories and weight. Recall, if you can, the wonderful feeling of connection to yourself and your ease with food. What was it like for your body to be so naturally satisfied with food without you giving much thought to it? If you’re able to remember that experience, allow yourself to...

A while back, I read about a research project studying loss of control (LOC) eating and got to thinking about the study’s need to distinguish it from garden variety overeating. The subject can be confusing. For example, the concept of loss of control eating may be helpful for overeaters, but it is problematic for highly restrictive eaters who are too in control when they eat and need to cut themselves some slack around food. So for strict undereaters LOC eating might actually be a good thing. To be clear then, today’s blog is for overeaters who lose control around food to their detriment. The way I see it is that all overeating isn’t LOC eating, and all LOC eating isn’t overeating. Overeating is continuing to consume food past fullness or satisfaction. Of course, sometimes we consciously take a few more bites than we really need, but it doesn’t make a huge...

One thing that leads us to eating in ways which are not in our best interest—and prevents us from stopping even when we’re aware we’re hurting ourselves—is the script that runs in our heads. It may come through loud and clear, be a barely audible whisper, or we may not even notice it because we’re on autopilot. Whichever, the way to create a different outcome in a situation is to create and practice a new script. Here’s the outline of a common script: Tired after a day of school/work/running around, on the way home you start thinking about eating to unwind. The voice in your head coaxes you toward places you can stop to buy your favorite treats. It insists that you deserve to relax after a hard day and that having a treat, just for now, won’t make a difference because you were “good” around food all day. You know...

Many of my clients are making terrific progress toward “normal” eating. However, some don’t think they’re moving forward at all and lament how slow and hard the process is. Although I never would have believed at the time that the decades I engaged in mindless, emotional, and overeating (and the couple of years I had bulimia) could possibly have any value in my life, I now know that my eating disorder recovery is one of the most useful tools I have in my therapeutic toolbox. When clients rail against how ridiculous they feel when they know exactly how to eat and do the opposite, I can sympathize with them. When they complain that they’re not changing fast enough, I can tell them how well I understand their impatience. When they feel torn about continuing on the path to “normal” eating, returning to dieting or giving up on eating better, I can empathize...