How to overcome binging

If you are struggling with binge eating and you want to lose weight, it's very common to feel that every time you open a package of food, you've got to eat everything in that package (and this is a habit loop too). It's also very common to feel some foods are "unacceptable", "bad", "trigger foods", or "binge foods". If you feel these foods are off limits to you, and you're afraid to bring them in the house, you're afraid to buy a whole package, and dieting is stressful or scary for you - all of that thinking is produced by the lower brain, the emotional illogical brain that reacts like an animal not a thinking human. 

How do you change your thinking? You've got to tackle those foods head on and change your relationship with them. Portion some of your "trigger foods" out, put it on a plate, sit down and eat it, and leave the rest in the pantry for the next day. You bring fast food in, you make it part of your normal repertoire. Deliberately eat a little every day. If you're having a treat every day, those foods lose their hold on you and lose their "very special" status because you're exposing yourself to them. 

You might be thinking, this works for other people, not for me. But you're not an exception. You've got to stick with it even when your lower brain says "you ate a little you might as well give up and eat everything, you can't do this, you're broken, you're not capable of moderation so you better restrict tomorrow." Restricting feeds and sets up a binge. If it worked to believe that restricting would solve everything, wouldn't you be where you already want to be today? It's not the first time your lower brain has convinced you to restrict. If restriction led to food freedom and the end of the vicious cycle of binging, wouldn't that have worked the first time? But you've probably done this dozens of times. So it's not working. 

During this process, it's NOT the time to try to lose weight. You've got to fix your relationship with food before you can start losing weight. It's not easy to retrain your brain to new ways of thinking because your lower brain will be fighting against it. And you will fall down sometimes. That's normal. You've got to make mistakes to learn new things. Dust yourself off and keep going, and in time you'll be able to eat like a thin person! 

For more information, check out the podcast and YouTube videos at https://www.halfsizeme.com/