Most dysregulated eaters have difficulty switching from the diet/weight-loss mentality to a “normal” eating mindset. If you find this shift a challenge, you’re not alone. It will take time and an understanding of the process to reach your goals. If you don’t give up and, instead, keep at refining your thinking, you’ll get there—most likely not in the time frame you wish, but gradually and eventually. This is how change works for all of us. Take my client who was “struggling” with not thinking about calories and the scale, and who was unsure of how to frame her thoughts when making food decisions. She said several times in a session that although she wished to be a “normal” eater, she also still wanted to lose weight—as if we both didn’t know this after years of working together (on eating and family issues). I finally asked why she kept repeating that she wanted...

Why is it that so many people try to control so much in life, but let their thoughts run rampant every day? How come people can be such super managers of their time, workplace or households, yet don’t even consider the fact that they can also manage their thoughts? What is it about our thoughts that make us believe we’re at their mercy, when we actually have the power to manage them in a gently empowered way? If you wish to learn to master your thoughts, recognize that they are electrical impulses in our brain—not truth, not fact, not reality—that come and go. Some thoughts are constructive and others are destructive. Some will take us where we want to go, such as to achieving our goals or generating pleasant emotions, while others will do the exact opposite and ensure that we fail to reach our goals, keeping us in a perpetual state...

Many dysregulated eaters have an unhealthy preoccupation with doing what’s “right”— take the job offer, stay with the spouse, invite Betty Sue to the party, or go with low-fat over low-carb foods. Big and small decisions are focused on what the correct thing to do might be. Hope of being right and fear of being wrong underlies difficulty figuring out what and how much to eat along with being overly-oriented toward pleasing others. What if there is no “right” answer to many questions, no “right” response to certain problems, no “right” way to eat or to live? In order to become a mentally healthy person, you need to consider this possibility. More often than not, there is no “right” way to do something, but there’s often a “best” way—and a world of difference between the two. “Best” means making an informed choice by gathering all the evidence you can and making a decision...

I taught an eating workshop this fall in southwest Florida to a wonderful group of women. They exemplified the positive traits of the “nice” girls I write about in my book Nice Girls Finish Fat: Put Yourself First and Change Your Eating Forever), as well as the problems caused by having nice as a singular identity. I’m blogging about them for all the women and men (yes, there are men who are too nice for their own good) who tend toward being overly nice in any situation, then end up struggling with dysregulated or unhealthy eating because of it.    (An aside: When I came up with the book’s title in 2009, I thought it was catchy and my publisher, Simon & Schuster, loved it. Now I feel that it’s insulting to use the word “fat” so pejoratively. In truth, I would never choose that title now, but the book is stuck...

You may have read the title of this blog and thought I meant to pair creativity with “cooking” not “bingeing.” But the way creativity relates to a binge is exactly my focus, because much of what you get out of it is what you’re seeking in your wild food sprees. In “Creativity—A Bright Light in Your Golden Years” by Walker Meade (Better Living, 7/13), Alice Flaherty, assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, says the creative drive results “from an interaction of the frontal lobes, the temporal lobes, and dopamine from the limbic system.” Although you may think that folks are either creative or they aren’t, according to the article, “A good deal of research suggests that everyone is capable of tapping into his or her creative spirit.” This is good news if you’ve been abusing food rather than expressing your creative drive more appropriately. Have you ever heard someone...

Disregulated eaters who’ve had dysfunctional childhoods often have a very skewed view of what’s healthy behavior in adulthood. I’m not talking about eating here, but the nature of expected behavior as a mature individual. The more you understand what’s healthy, the more you can work toward it and acquire effective life skills. Members of my  "Food and Feelings" message board sometimes express wishes to think and act in ways which are unrealistic and only makes them feel badly about who they are. I get the sense that they think others are always fearless, secure, and excellent deciders, that they perceive most people know exactly how to handle problems. They think, “They must be doing it right and I must be doing it wrong.” In fact, the people they admire often appear as if they’re smart and in the know when in fact they’re not. Remember each of us see only each...

Last week I was talking to someone with an eating problem who joked about treating her dogs better than herself. She described feeding them exactly what they wanted and her joy in loving them unconditionally. My first thought was how common her attitude is among dysregulated eaters who often treat family members, friends, and, yes, pets better than themselves. Maybe you’re one of these people who are caught in a vicious cycle of devaluing yourself which leads to disordered eating which erodes self-love which perpetuates more disordered eating. The process of putting all your good feelings into an “other” and holding all the bad ones inside yourself is called projection and stems from discomfort with feeling lovable and worthy. Think about it: Why would you treat an animal better than you? You’d only do it if you didn’t think you deserved as much as Fido or Whiskers. I’m not suggesting that...

I had a conversation with a client a while back about how to stay motivated to grow and change. We talked about how prodding yourself forward with harsh demands doesn’t work and how words like “should” only trigger a desire to rebel. What, then, is left for us? Here are two useful mental constructs: the observing ego and the ego ideal. According to Wikepedia “the observing ego is that part of the self that has no affects, engages in no actions, and makes no decisions. It functions in conflict-free states to merely witness what it sees. It is like a camera that records without judgment. It is never weighing any thought, gesture or action on the scale of right and wrong, sane or insane, good or bad. It is a psychic entity that is intact and separate from what is taking place before it.” Of course, there’s no actual part of...

We all want to know what the best way is to change unwanted habits. Here’s some excellent advice from Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 1/1/15, “Advice Goddess” by Amy Alkon, 61E). Duhigg states that, “Habit is a choice we deliberately make at some point, and then stop thinking about, but continue doing.” Alkon explains that research cites three components of habit which Duhigg describes as a “CUE (a feeling that triggers behavior), the ROUTINE (the behavior itself), and the REWARD (some sort of payoff that tells your brain to repeat the behavior because it was enjoyable).” I know what a habit is, you may be thinking, but how do I stop the ones I don’t want to do any more? Duhigg suggests “swapping out the middle step, the routine.” So, say you always eat a bag of chips while you’re watching the news waiting to make...

The subject of being bullied, teased or shamed in childhood for being fat comes up often on my Food and Feelings message board and in talking with clients. If you have let these experiences from long ago shape how you feel about your body and self today, it’s time for a new take on the subject. By understanding the mistaken meaning you applied to these interactions and by correcting your impressions, you will feel more confident, secure, and fearless today. Many people who are fat were teased, bullied and shamed for it in childhood. Maybe it was your parents or a relative who did the shaming—an uncle or grandmother, your sister or brother. Or a neighbor, the kids at school, or your first crush and his or her friends. I’m not going to minimize the pain and suffering of being teased or bullied. It is one of the most awful experiences...

A client did a relatively small thing differently in a friendship, which made a difference in her relationships in general and in her feelings about friends and herself. She hadn’t heard from someone in a while after having reached out to her twice. Instead of assuming her friend was angry or upset with her, or saying something hurtful in retaliation for how hurt she felt, my client approached her friend in an even, open manner. She said she wondered why she hadn’t heard from her friend after having made two attempts to connect. Her friend threw her arms around my client and swore she’d been unusually busy and wasn’t trying to avoid her. Then she asked when they could get together. My client felt proud of being appropriate and staying calm and was pleased with her friend’s response. Not a life-changing event, by any means, but progress toward a healthier way...

We believe we’re lovable or unlovable based on our early experiences with people, primarily our parents. If they cared for us lovingly, we come to believe we’re lovable. If, due to their own limitations, they didn’t love us well, we may end up believing we’re unlovable. The whole lovability concept is that simple. Don’t believe me? Read on. Mentally walk out of the apartment or house you grew up in and go four doors down to the right, which we’ll call door #1. Now come back to your front door and travel down four doors to the left, which we’ll call door #2. Next, assuming that you have some sense of who lived there, consider what it would have been like to be raised by the person or people behind both doors. Maybe the folks behind door #1 were terrific—caring, stable, loving, bright, successful, compassionate, and sensible, with good jobs and...

A post on my message board (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings) a few months ago included the words, “Some of us are broken.” I hear often from clients that they’re “broken”—read as not fixable. However, there is no such thing as a totally “broken” person or a totally “fixed” one. This polarization is an example of unhealthy, all-or-nothing thinking that perpetuates the idea that anyone is wholly defective or entirely perfect. Needless to say, broken is not a good way to think of yourself. We all are lacking in some areas, and most of us excel in others. No one is a mess or completely okay. Each of us has our issues! Think of the most terrific, most together person you know, then consider their flaws. They have them, I assure you. Now think of the most dysfunctional person you know (not you!), then consider what they do well or have achieved. The problem isn’t...

Sometimes you may feel as if you’re doing a terrible job of managing your life. You’ve just been dumped by your lover or lost your job, fight constantly with your parents/children/spouse/partner, and hate your body and the relationship you have with food. All you can think of is what mess your life is and so you make it worse by getting down on yourself which, of course, makes you feel more ashamed. One way to reverse this spiral is to focus on excellent self-care which makes you proud. You don’t need to engage in some grand gesture like go to a spa for a week or run out and buy a new wardrobe. The point is to act in ways that you know are healthy and make you feel better. However, you must not only do these things, but urge yourself to feel proud that you did them. You can’t brush them...

If there is one thing I’m sure to hear every week from clients, it’s their “need” to get through something. Maybe it’s getting over a break up or a job loss or having their teenager arrested for dealing drugs. Sometimes, it’s their “need” to lose weight or get their act together around food. Whether the challenge is big or small, they tackle it the same ineffective way by believing that if they want something enough, they’ll make it happen. Do you ever fall into this trap? The way discussion usually goes is that a client raises a topic, say, “getting over” a break-up, then says repeatedly in our session, “I’ve got to get past this,” “I can’t keep feeling like this,” or “I have to get on with my life.” What these words tell me is that the only way they know to feel better and move forward is by bullying themselves...

As an overeater or undereater struggling to become a “normal” eater, you’re in for a bumpy ride. Things are going to get worse before they get better. Oh, no, I can hear you say, Things are already terrible. How could they get worse? Here’s how. By stopping old behaviors and ways of thinking and trying on new ones, you’re entering unchartered territory which is scary and strange. Plan on feeling frightened, frustrated, hopeless, overwhelmed, helpless, and impatient. Plan on wanting to give up and go back to your old ways. Plan on feeling like a stranger to yourself and thinking and acting in unpredictable ways. There is no way to achieve “normal” eating without going through this process. It is impossible. Everyone who has worked through their eating problems has felt similar to the way you do. No one had a good time, no one was thrilled with the process. But...

Too often dysregulated eaters miss the point when the fight to change their eating habits. I hear them say they know they “must battle with their urges,” and “should be ashamed if they fail.” I note the high standards they set for themselves and the do-or-die way they attack the subject. What if you didn’t have to think in terms of battling and fighting with food and, instead, could view it as a process that was opening yourself to new possibilities? Because of the dysfunctional way you learned to view the world—in black-and-white or all-or-nothing terms—you often get things backward. I don’t mean this as a criticism, but as an observation. One example is your approach to change. This is what I often hear. “I don’t struggle enough in the moment. I should struggle more. What’s wrong with me? I ought to be ashamed of myself.” From the outset, the goal...

Okay, you made it through the big holiday meal. Now it’s time to use your curiosity and compassion to review how you did. Because this essential dual mindset is one which disregulated eaters sorely lack, engaging in it will help you grow healthier emotionally even if you’re unhappy with how you ate. No matter what happened between you and food on Christmas day, being objective and kind to yourself will teach you new lessons. So, how’d it go? Take a minute to think about what you did well around food. Generally disregulated eaters focus exclusively on what they did wrong, so I’m asking you to do the opposite: what did you do right? I don’t care how small and insignificant the behavior seems to you. Check it off in your head and congratulate yourself for whatever it was. Now, specifically, what didn’t go so well? Without judgment, consider, did you…eat too...

There’s a voice in you that knows what’s best for you all the time—all the time! You may not seek it out or it may get drowned out by negative or faulty thinking, but it’s there. In working with disregulated eaters for over 30 years, I’ve yet to find one who doesn’t have a sense of what’s best for her or him given a little time. If you listen—really listen—to this voice, you will do what’s in your best interest with food and in all of life. Most of you are overly familiar with the wild child’s voice which wants what it wants when it wants it, rebels against rationality, and insists that you can live without consequences. You’re perhaps aware of, but are less well familiar with, the voice within who knows what’s best for you in the long run. Maybe it whispers so softly that you can barely hear...

There’s no better way to detach from unwanted thoughts and feelings than by using the practice of mindfulness. I recently watched a 12-minute YouTube video, Befriending Your Mind, Befriending Your Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn, that nicely sums up the essence and uses of mindfulness. I also recommend two of Kabat-Zinn’s books, WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE and FULL CATASTROPHE LIVING—USING THE WISDOM OF YOUR BODY AND MIND TO FACE STRESS, PAIN, AND ILLNESS. Here’s my major take-away message from Kabat-Zinn’s video: mindfulness is a practice. As he says, we usually think of a practice as a rehearsal for a finished or final product. However, mindfulness is an end in itself, not the means to an end. It’s the doing of it that makes all the difference, the goal of which is not simply being, but the simplest kind of being—not thinking or feeling but experiencing the moment. Kabat-Zinn describes a...

There’s a big difference between pushing ourselves forward and being pulled toward the future, our goals, or our passions. Can you sense the difference? I’m known among my clients for pestering them about their use of words like “should,” “shouldn’t,” and “need to” in making choices and I’ve written about these external motivators in articles, books and blogs. When we use these words, we’re generating an outside pressure on ourselves to do something. When we tell ourselves, “I have to do the laundry,” “I’ve got to lose weight,” or “I need to finish college,” it’s as if a finger is jabbing at our backs and prodding us forward. Think of the times you’ve been on the receiving end of a push—on line for a concert, getting on a bus, or being crowded by the person behind you at the supermarket checkout. How did it feel being pushed forward by them? I’m...

A client who’s recovering from alcoholism mentioned in a session that when she was anxious, she really, really, really craved a drink. We talked about how having a drink would affect her afterward—the shame and remorse she’d feel—and how, by drinking, she’d really, really, really be missing an opportunity to practice crucial life skills. Addictions do that: they not only make you wish you hadn’t engaged in certain behaviors, but they prevent you from learning and practicing effective skills. And when you don’t have life skills, you’re at a loss to manage, well, life which makes it more likely that you’ll turn to behaviors which harm you and don’t teach you anything useful. Life skills are strategies and behaviors which we all needed to learn in childhood, but didn’t because our parents were teaching us from their own often dysfunctional histories, distorted perspectives, limited knowledge base, and imperfect abilities. Specifically, the...

Ever wonder why beliefs—even ones that you know are wildly irrational—are so hard to change? If they don’t make sense, you might think, why the heck do I hold on to them? I’m smart, I want to take care of myself, so why would I let some wacky ideas dictate my behavior and hold me back from eating “normally” and living my best life? I came across an answer to this question in a Center for Inquiry summary of a 2008 study done by neuroscientist Sam Harris at the University of California Los Angeles. He was trying to answer the question, “How is the brain activated differently during a state of belief compared to a state of disbelief” and asked participants in an MRI scanner questions about their beliefs on numerous subjects. He found that “Brain activation, overall, was much greater and persisted longer during states of disbelief. This is important...

The fact that it’s National Eating Disorders Awareness week means different things to each of us. It might be a reminder that you’re not alone and that millions of other women and men also struggle with food and weight issues. It might bring to mind loved ones battling with or lost to anorexia or bulimia. It might finally help you break your denial and admit that you have a dysfunctional relationship with food. This week is a good time to focus on and rethink your goals regarding eating and your body. What attitudes and behaviors are you working on that will bring you closer to “normal” eating? Are you making progress? If not, why not? If you’ve been coasting along, hoping magically for transformation, what prevents you from making a commitment to buckle down and make changes? If you’re still caught between dieting and acknowledging how it can promote food problems,...

Perhaps because we’re heading deeper into an election year, I keep hearing the word “sheep,” as in “we need to stop thinking like sheep and start thinking for ourselves.” Sadly, many people possess a sheep mentality and don’t even know it. The only way to wake up and realize that you’re making choices like someone who’s brain dead is to pause and reflect on why you think and act the way you do. But how many of us put in the time or make the effort? Self-reflection is an essential part of good mental health. In fact, without it, there’s no way you will achieve it. Kicking back and thinking about the why’s and wherefores of your behavior gives you breathing space to make objective assessments as in Boy, I really didn’t think that through very well or I can’t believe I just went along with the gang and now I’m...

In this culture, it’s hard not to get fixated on food (never mind weight), from ongoing bombardment of TV advertisements, supermarkets circulars, magazine recipes, and doctors’ advice. What really can get you hooked is how we seem to be talking food all the time (I know it really isn’t all the time, but it sometimes feels that way). Recently, I’ve started to pay extra attention to how often the subject comes up. Please don’t take this blog the wrong way. Some of you have had secrets about eating issues for decades and have finally come out of the closet and begun to talk about bingeing, starving, purging, and night eating. Please continue to share and learn from one another other. But I do think we’re influenced by culture and, to become healthy, we must be careful not to fall into the trap of spending our lives focused on food and eating.Think...

One of the things you must do to recover from an eating problem or disorder is to establish or take back power over your body. It is yours and no one else’s—not your mother’s, father’s, or spouse’s, and you need to understand this on a very deep level before you can move toward physical and emotional health. A book I read recently might help you reclaim what is rightfully yours. Written by Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism (Seal Press, CA, 2007) is aimed at assuring women that being a Feminist is a good thing for their own health and well-being. As I read it, I realized how being a Feminist could help women overcome eating and weight problems. Feminism is defined as “belief in the social, political, and economic quality of the sexes.” Although that sounds like an abstract definition and is perhaps hard to connect to eating, think about it....

When you’re caught up in the heat of the moment and feel desperate to eat (not out of hunger), you may not realize that it’s not food you crave. Food can be the answer to every question, the solution to every problem, the response to every impulse. You eat because you believe you can’t have what you want that isn’t food. Food is accessible, so it’s not surprising that you reach for it automatically thinking it will meet your needs. For example, say you want your spouse or partner to stop being critical of you, give you more attention, do more around the house, or that you even want him/her out of your life. Every time you connect to that desire, you may feel frightened, hopeless, overwhelmed, and conflicted. Rather than experience and deal with these authentic, uncomfortable feelings, your mind clicks on food. Maybe you’re single and want a companion,...

Sometimes as a dysregulated eater you just have to have a good laugh at what goes on in your mind. Maybe listening closely also will give you a new perspective on your irrational thinking. Here’s some stinkin’ thinkin’ I hear from clients and students—and friends and family—which seems logical on first hearing, but should give you a chuckle when you realize how truly illogical it is. I hear binge-eaters insist that they had to eat the whole whatever (fill in the food item) because they didn’t want to keep it in the house. What you’re really saying is that you felt compelled to eat the food at that moment so that you wouldn’t eat it later. Now, sad to say, any disordered eater would totally understand that logic, right? But I doubt it would make much sense to a “normal” eater who might innocently ask, “What’s the difference if you eat...

Going against the grain of trying to change too many things at once, how about doing things differently this year and picking one thing about yourself to work on. I can hear the groans already—only one?…but I have so many…one won’t make a difference… etc. The problem with making a number of changes at once is that it can spread your energy too thin. Moreover, overdoing often contributes to an all-or-nothing mentality. You know, you have to change everything, but if you can’t, you won’t change anything. This year pick one behavior to work on. Maybe not even an action, but a particular thought which prevents you from getting healthy around food—or getting healthy period. We only change when we do the new behavior (thinking is a behavior) more than the old one and when that happens often enough, we create new neurobiological pathways which causes us to act differently. Remember,...

If you’re convinced you won’t amount to anything, will never finish what you start, and are doomed to have the same crummy struggles throughout your life, you may be programmed for failure. Believing you’ll never become a “normal” eater is a sure fire way not to. Whether you’re battling under- or overeating (or a yo-yo combo), you have to think you can succeed in order to beat your demons. Stop and answer these questions: Do you whole-heartedly believe you can become a “normal” eater? Is your belief only half-hearted? Or are you certain you’ll never reach this goal? Belief doesn’t mean not having moments of frustration and doubt. It’s natural to wonder if major change is possible and occasionally to feel hopeless. The problem arises when you distrust yourself due the core belief that you’re basically a failure, will never accomplish much in life, and that there’s something defective or wrong...

Whether you view eating problems as a disease or not may determine your ability to recover. When we think of diseases, we often believe we have to wait until they’ve run their course or that we need to find an external cure. Couple this attitude with the standard model used to heal from addictions--that once you have severe drug, sex, alcohol, or gambling problems, you’ll have them for life--and a condition can feel like destiny. Excesses used to be viewed as moral failures: if you couldn’t get better you were weak, and lacked self-control, self-discipline, and motivation. Now we understand the substantial part that biology plays in addictions and recovery. Moreover, we recognize that depression and anxiety often underlie chemical addiction and that there may be a biological component with food abuse as well. Additionally, there’s an inherited component to dependence/abuse problems that predisposes us toward them. We do not all...

Try reframing for changing your attitude toward almost anything. Reframing is like putting a new frame around a picture—it can entirely change the look of something. Changing a belief goes like this: making, “I can’t bear feeling uncomfortable,” “I can manage discomfort without abusing food,” or “I have to exercise more if I overeat,” “I can exercise my regular amount even if I overeat.” By now, those of you who’ve read my books probably know a lot about reframing beliefs. You can reframe emotions and view them in a new, healthier light. Instead of considering feeling frightened of new people as childish, think of it as a way of protecting yourself from getting hurt. Rather than look at feeling helpless when someone yells at you as being oversensitive or weak, take the attitude that you’re trying to avoid pain. When you get angry at yourself for letting guilt maneuver you into...

I’ve noticed over decades of treating compulsive, emotional, and restrictive eaters that many of you do not take care of your bodies very well. Dysregulated eating is only one symptom of poor self-care which includes many ways you don’t keep your body healthy and in good working order. Effective self-care means doing whatever you need to do to improve the quality of your life in the long run. Much of it falls under the realm of prevention in terms of life style choices. Preventive self-care involves everything from wearing warm enough clothing when you are out in the cold and using an umbrella in the rain to getting regular dental and medical check-ups. One way to work on staying healthy is by reading about what is good for your health and what is not. You can do this online or through books. Websites of the American Heart Association (http://www.americanheart.org/) and cancer...

At a lecture on aging last month, two approaches for rehabilitating stroke victims—restitutive versus substitutive—were mentioned. Restitutive therapy was described as strengthening the limb/s which are paralyzed, while substitutive therapy helps build up the limb/s that have not been affected. The more I thought about them, the more I realized that these approaches also could be used by people recovering from eating problems. Distracting yourself when you have the urge to eat when you’re not hungry or when you can’t wait to rush off to the gym or purge after you’ve eaten is a substitutive behavior. It compensates for or takes you away from impulsive behavior. Sitting with feelings and not acting on harmful eating behaviors is restitutive behavior because these actions make you stronger emotionally. Some people will lean more toward one kind of technique than the other, but both are necessary to change destructive eating patterns. Stop and assess...

A client caught my attention recently when I asked how her purging was going and she replied, “I don’t do that any more.” I asked what she meant and she said she simply decided that she was no longer going to engage in bulimic behavior. Sure, she admitted, she’d been tempted, but she kept telling herself that the part of her life when she would binge and purge was over. She described how she’d handled the urge to purge by telling herself she’d just have to quit bingeing if she didn’t want to throw up and that she wasn’t’ going to die if she ate “too much.” She sounded different than she had in the months we’d worked together—more adult, tougher, more confident and certain. I felt as if, looking into her mind, I would see that something had shifted. Will she continue not purging? Can’t say; that’s up to her....

One of the ways to view human programming is that we each have default settings, ones we return to over and over unless we are able to override them. Overriding takes a great deal of effort and can only happen when we realize that we’ve slipped back into default and that functioning in this mode is not in our best interest. The good news is that when we recognize and reprogram automatic responses, the sky’s the limit. We all have to pay attention to our reactions 24/7 (yeah, it’s a drag, but it’s a must do) in order to identify what our default settings are, to assess whether they enhance our lives or we need to change them. For example, say you generally don’t have faith in people helping you with distressing feelings because your parents weren’t exactly there for you and you pretty much had to lick your own emotional...

The more I read about eating and weight, the more it appears that genetic loading and biology heavily predispose folks to overeat or be fat. When I talk with clients about genetic tendencies and biochemical imbalances, some are relieved that there’s a cause for decades of food struggle and others are bummed out, feeling branded for life. Whatever the cause of food problems, everyone can change their thinking, which ultimately produces healthier attitudes and more constructive behavior around food. There are a host of factors that may predispose you to overeating and overweight: hormone deficiencies (e.g., ghrelin and leptin) regarding hunger and fullness, early biochemical damage due to trauma and stress, genetic abnormalities (e.g., possessing a gene variant that messes with the brain’s reward signal or one that helps you store fat more efficiently), or an imbalance of the right kind of gut microbes. You can take in this information and...

Sometimes you think you’re ready to change your eating behavior, but there’s so much else going on in your life that takes precedence. Frequently you need to get other parts straightened out to free up energy to put into resolving food problems. If you’re struggling with difficult situations or they’re contributing to food abuse, you may have to step back from eating work until you resolve them effectively. For example, maybe you’re really unhappy in your job. Day after day you dread going into work because you’re overworked and undervalued or bored silly. Or your boss is an ogre and belittles you at every opportunity. Or you don’t feel accepted and liked by your co-workers. Yes, you can change your thinking about these situations to relieve some of the pressure, but you’re still going to be consumed by work problems until you make changes. Make them and it may be easier...

It’s scary how easily we can fool ourselves. Take people who consume a great many unhealthy foods while insisting that they’d rather eat whatever they want than feel condemned to deny themselves pleasurable, high-fat, high-calorie foods in order to tack a few extra years onto life. Can you hear the faux wisdom in this distorted thinking which we often use to justify doing what we want in spite of real consequences? Although the above remark may be comforting, it’s irrational and self-destructive because it’s based on the false assumption that we control our destiny. For who can foresee the spectrum of consequences of chronic, unhealthy eating which may cause debilitating, lingering disease or conditions that cut life short prematurely? The faulty assumption is that a person will die peacefully and painlessly, albeit a few years “before their time.” But might they not equally develop colon cancer, diabetes, or suffer a stroke...

This blog is for you dysregulated eaters who aren’t doing all you can to help yourself overcome your eating problems. My purpose is to help you learn what stops you, especially why you have difficulty taking advice and following through on reasonable suggestions that will help you recover. Until and unless you’re able to take the steps that are recommended, you’ll be saddled with unhealthy eating and emotional problems that prevent you from reaching your eating—and other—goals. I’ve learned through my professional experience that clients who succeed follow through on most, if not all, my suggestions. They may not be convinced at the outset that an idea will help them, but they trust that my decades of experience in the field in general and knowledge of them in particular will move them in the right direction. Many are ambivalent at best and scared at worst, yet take a deep breath and...

I write a lot about feeling helpless around food and lacking inner conviction that says, “I can do this. I can change my eating.” At the core of this problem is that many of you feel powerless to change much of your life—partners, jobs, friends, etc. Well, yesterday I went to a spirited political rally where people were about nothing but change. By rallying, these folks were not only fighting to make things better, but were empowering themselves. What does politics have to do with healing food problems? Lots. Self-empowerment is contagious. Start in one area and it will spread to another, maybe even to your eating. Being with people who whole-heartedly believe they can create change rubs off on you. Hang around them long enough and you gain faith in yourself. Too many people who feel like victims pal around with like-minded folks who bring each other down. But spend...

Ever wonder why some people succeed in overcoming their eating problems and others don’t? Ever question why people you know have changed their behavior around food while you’re still struggling? Thanks to a posting on Linda Moran’s Diet Survivors message board at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dietsurvivors, there’s evidence which points to at least one major key to success: the concept of effortful study. In a July 2006 Scientific American article entitled “The Expert Mind,” Philip E. Ross writes about effortful study—“tackling challenges that lie just beyond one’s competence”—and explains what has been learned about achievement through the study of chess masters: success comes from motivation and practice. Contrary to general opinion, it is not due primarily to native ability or luck, although they may play a part in any endeavor. Instead, Ross concludes that, “Motivation appears to be a more important factor than innate ability in the development of expertise,” pointing out that “success...

How stressed you are now and, more importantly, how stressed you were growing up, may be at the root of your eating difficulties. By stress I mean the affective recognition of feeling internal pressure along with its physical manifestations in your body. If your childhood included chronic neglect or abuse—sexual, physical, or emotional harming such as shaming, degrading, living with constant fighting, witnessing abuse, and feeling scared and helpless much of the time—you may have a compromised stress response. Stress generates a two-part response to physical or emotional threat to self. The perception of or an actual threat triggers part one, an alert in midbrain that signals the release of chemicals such as norepinephrine and adrenaline and in your adrenal glands that elevates heart rate, blood pressure and breathing to prepare you for action. Other body-readiness activities also occur, including the release of glucose and fatty acids as fuel for fight...

I’ve been noodling about why we call the act of self-transformation “work” and whether giving it this label may not bias us against it. After all, most of us think about work not as something we love to do, but as something we have to do, like it or not. You know—yard work, homework, housework. Perhaps calling the journey toward “normal” eating work does a disservice to it and makes change more difficult. Maybe it’s time to reframe the process into something more positive and enticing. To begin with, “work” implies a beginning and an end. We start and we finish, but do we ever really fully achieve human potential? Can we coast or rest when work is complete if what we’re working on is our imperfect selves? If learning is work, does that mean we stop learning when work is done? A more helpful approach might be to think of...

Through my decades of experience with dysregulated eaters, I’ve concluded that the #1 problem in a stalled or slow recovery is that you don’t struggle hard enough with your food demons. You make efforts here and there to not eat when you’re not hungry or to stop when you’re full, but more often than not, you’re sporadic in your thrusts, give in to food abuse urges too easily, then wonder why you’re still stuck in unhealthy behaviors. In my March 9 and June 1, 2007 blogs, I wrote about the value of struggle, the process which, along with insight, curiosity, and self-compassion, is essential in developing skills for “normal” eating. When you’re trying to overcome a longstanding eating disorder, you can’t just tilt at recovery half-heartedly. Any and all encounters which might lead to food have to be a pitched battle. If you want to learn to eat sanely, each time...

There’s a saying I once heard that goes something like this: We can’t fully evaluate the meaning of life events in the present, but must wait until its end to understand them. I vaguely recall that the concept had something to do with Western versus Eastern philosophy. The idea is that we get so caught up with what’s wrong with us and how to fix it right now, that we become engulfed by hopelessness and despair rather than take the long view of self-transformation to see where it will lead us. Who would have thought in my worst binge-eating days that I’d become an expert on the subject—an international author and therapist, no less? Not me. But it is my misadventures with food that gave me the experience to become who I am today professionally (and personally). How bizarre that all that dieting and gorging led to something positive. I was...

As many of you already realize, one of the reasons you don’t consistently engage in behavior which will help you reach your eating or weight goals is that you don’t follow through with intentions—activities you want to do, successes you wish to achieve, goals you desire to reach. Some of you have difficulty establishing intentions, while others set, then forget, about them or allow themselves to be derailed. Perhaps you don’t know how to set an intention. Start by reflecting on what you’d like to change about your eating, including thoughts or behaviors. Would you like to stop grazing when you’re not hungry, clear your head of negative chatter, be kinder to yourself after a binge or a purge? It doesn’t matter what your intention is. Just make sure it’s clear, doable, realistic, and measurable (that is, you know when it happens or doesn’t). After identifying an intention, say it aloud...

In the recovery process, there are markers—psychological shifts—that indicate making progress towards “normal” eating. Just as children must achieve development milestones, so must eaters who are journeying from dysfunction to function. If you’re wondering how you need to change to recover, here are some markers to look for. The first marker is true acceptance that your way of eating is unsound and unhealthy. If you’re ambivalent about how unhealthy your eating is, your internal conflicts will play out in your behavior. If you whole-heartedly believe that learning to eat “normally” is exactly what you need to do to get over your food problems, then you’ll be able to put 100% of your psychic energy into the process (though the journey will still be long and arduous). A second marker is accepting that diets and restriction are not the answer to disordered eating. Some problem eaters have known this for years and...

Clients and class members often say they can’t believe they’ll ever eat “normally.” Sometimes they sound sorrowful and others times their words are accompanied by a chuckle; either way, I know that hopelessness is breaking their heart. Although it’s perfectly understandable that someone who’s been a dysregulated eater for decades would doubt their capacity to go the distance and become a functional eater, being convinced only ensures failure. Most people don’t examine why they’re sure they can’t recover, but remain stuck in hopelessness as if it were absolute truth. The only way you’ll fail to achieve your eating goals is if you give up pursuing them. The question is what would stop you—or anyone—from going from disturbed eating to “normal” eating. When you say, “Oh, I’ll never get there,” what exactly do you mean? Why won’t you? What will prevent it? Maybe you believe that the effort will be too hard...