Binge Eating Part 1

For the past almost 6 weeks I have been participating in an App called Weilios. It is focused on healthy eating, fitness and weight loss. Needless to say I love it. One thing that anyone who has dieted or attempted to change their eating habits has most likely had to deal with is binge eating. You know the feeling, it is 3 pm and the deadline is looming and you destroy a bag of potato chips. Those poor Funions never saw what hit them!

At Weilos I also see a lot of people beating themselves up stating “I just can’t stop binge eating!” This peaked my interest for two reasons. One as a social worker I am solution based so my thought is “can’t?”. Second because I work a lot with mistaken believe and a cognitive behavioral approach and my clinical skills just kick in. Thus I feel compelled to write this, for whom ever chooses to read it. Note that this is my two cents so you can believe it or not, I have no research to back it up and you won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t agree!

First I personally find the statement “I can’t stop binge eating” to be a mistaken belief, that is something you believe to be true when in fact it is not. In saying you cannot stop you are in essence saying “I am tied to the ground and the food is marching into my mouth against my will.” This is not true. What is true is that we at times have a hard time resisting food as a coping mechanism. A more accurate statement is “I am stressed and I want to eat”.

So what do you do to help stop believing a mistaken belief? Most often I start by helping someone develop a positive affirmation focused on the truth behind the behavior. To do this you must identify what the behavior is and develop a positive affirmation to counter act it to create an alternative behavior as you cannot change a behavior without replacing it.