Re: Here goes

[Guest guest]

Hi Rish,

I identified a lot with your post. I also consider myself to be in recovery

from a binging, restricting/over exercising eating disorder. I have not been to

counseling for it, so I applaud you first of all for taking such good care of

yourself by getting help and guidance in the recovery process.

Also, like you I have been having some binges lately. I have had no major life

changes and nothing that should, as far as I can tell, cause the desire to

binge. I have been practicing IE for 10 months or so, and this recent return to

binging had me really worried.

Here are a couple of things I realized in the past week or so that have helped

comfort me. First, I believe it is Geneen Roth who says that there is no such

thing as failure in this process. Every binge or overeating episode teaches us

something about ourselves. I have been trying to look at my recent episodes

with gentle curiosity, and I really am learning some of the reasons and false

beliefs that have led me to fall back into old habits. It is so comforting (to

me) to know that overeating at times is part of the learning process for IE, and

that we won't learn about our motivations until we have these " slip-ups " to

examine the uncovered thoughts and fears that have always been behind our

disordered eating.

Second, I felt like my IE practice started to unravel recently, and I couldn't

figure out why until I read the Overfed Head ebook that made the rounds here.

In that book, the author talks about the fact that people who overeat don't do

so because they enjoy food more than normal eaters; they overeat because they

enjoy their food LESS and it takes more to satisfy them.

I realized when I read that I had gotten lazy about really eating what I want

and savoring every bite. I got back into a habit of eating what is convenient,

affordable and what I can get my kids to eat. I hadn't eaten anything that

really blew my socks off in a couple of weeks, and yet I was downing large

quantities of previously forbidden foods. I realized I was enjoying every bite

less than I should, and that was making me feel deprived. And when I feel

deprived, like clockwork I find myself standing in front of the fridge shoving

food in my mouth.

The last thing I noticed is that I had let negative thoughts creep back in to my

head. Instead of stopping negative body talk in its track, I had gotten lazy

about letting myself entertain critical thoughts about my body. At first, it

was more like an observation: " hmmm, it looks like I might have gained weight. "

And within a week, it was a torrent of terrible self-loathing thoughts about my

body.

All in all, what I noticed when the binging returned was that it was a really

good indicator for me that I was trying to do IE on automatic pilot, and I am

just not there yet. Hopefully one day this way of thinking will be second

nature to me, but for now, I have to put in some effort every day to keep up a

healthy IE mentality. I don't know if any of this is true for you, but that's

what I have discovered in the past couple of weeks about my own journey. Keep

working on it, and you will get your IE groove back, so to speak!

>

> Hi everyone, I'm writing to share about a serious personal struggle I'm facing

wit my eating disorder. I consider myself to have EDNOS (eating disorder not

otherwise specified), because I am in recovery for binge eating and for

restricting (nasty cycle to be in), as well as overexercising.

>

> In the past I've had success with intuitive eating. I moved home and started

working on it about a month ago. I haven't restricted what I eat, only

restricted myself to eat when hungry and stop when full. For about a month and a

half, I was not binging or restricting. I had a few days with some compulsive

bites but I recognized it and moved on.

>

> During the last couple weeks, in part due to working at a new job with a

really bad environment, I started binging again. It was terrifying because I was

so aware of it and yet my awareness couldn't help me this time. It was scary. It

happened about four days in the last week. And it didn't necessarily feel like

emotional eating, more like I wanted to fail with my recovery. I didn't feel

like trying, didn't think it was worth it. It was strange.

>

> Now I'm afraid of spinning out of control again. I'm afraid of all letting

food conquer me again, because it's definitely felt like that for the last week.

During times like this I feel really helpless, because my eating disorder seems

so strong and powerful that my best efforts never seem to work. In fact

sometimes I don't even try because I'm afraid if I do and fail, then I'll just

lose faith in the process of recovery.

>

> I'm really scared. I know how to eat intuitively. That doesn't seem like the

problem. I think it's a lot of negative beliefs that are trying to stop me, and

I feel so weak and powerless :-(

>

> If anyone can relate or have some advice about similar experiences, I would

really appreciate it.

>

> Thank you for reading

> Rish

>