Does it seem to you that the urge to binge comes out of the blue? As a practicing psychiatrist for the last 30 years I can tell you with absolute certainty that there is a specific cause or trigger for every single time you engage in binge eating.
The reason you think your binge eating comes out of the blue is because your mind is playing a trick on you. It doesn't want you to know what's causing you to binge. In fact your mind is so clever it actually gives you the physical feeling of hunger so you will overeat and binge. "But I really want to lose weight," I can hear you saying, "so why am I playing a trick on myself?"
The Two Minds of Every Binge Eater
For the answer to why you can't stop binging, I have to explain a simple psychological principle. It won't take long and it won't hurt, so please bear with me. Every person has a "conscious mind." That's the part we are in complete touch with. It's the thoughts we think, the words we say, the feelings we experience both physical and emotional. It's the part that thinks, "I don't want to binge, I want to lose weight."
Then there is the "unconscious mind." Though normally hidden, it is very real and actually quite useful, making decisions on a second-by-second basis that would completely overload your conscious mind and pretty much shut you down as a functioning person. But there is another part of your unconscious mind that isn't so helpful. That's the part that believes it knows what's best for you and very often causes you to act on that set of beliefs, beliefs that are often out of touch with reality and actually harmful to your well being. It is the unconscious mind, doing what it thinks is good for you that causes you to binge.
How Your Unconscious Mind "Helps" You By Making You Binge.
When something unpleasant happens, your unconscious "protects" you from some pain you might feel by causing a physical hunger that makes you binge. You might binge when you are feeling badly, or someone has criticized you or your mate is inattentive or even too attentive. You might binge when you are stressed or unhappy or lonely or feeling powerless. In each case your unconscious mind figures binging will make you feel better. And of course you do. For a moment. But pretty soon your conscious mind kicks in and you feel badly about binging. It is a vicious cycle of feeling badly, binging and then feeling badly for having binged.
How to Gain Control and Stop Binging
The first step you must take in order to keep your unconscious mind from "helping" is to learn to create a pause between the bad feeling which leads to the urge to binge and the opening of the bag of chips or the pint of ice cream or the box of donuts. I can't tell you in this short article how to do that, but I guarantee that if you use my program, MasteringFood, you can learn to create this Powerful Pause tm before an episode of binge eating. The Powerful Pause tm is only the first step, but my twelve-week online program will give you all the tools you need to control your binges and control your weight. Click below for a free trial to stop binging today.
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