Binge eating is often caused through deprivation. That is, depriving yourself from certain food groups or letting yourself be hungry for WAY too long.
The second cause of storm eating is when you want to avoid what you are feeling. You might be feeling upset, worried, stressed out, elated or anxious. In these cases emotional eaters often turn to food in an attempt to avoid the emotions we are feeling.
Avoiding emotions and depriving ourselves from adequate fuel when we are hungry can create storm eating. Just like an actual storm this kind of eating is wild, feels out of control and often involves eating the first thing you can get your hands on and lots of it.
For me when I storm eat I can eat ALOT of potato chips, ice cream, sweets, muesli bars and my kids school food from the cupboard. It never feels good and always leaves you feeling much worse than before the binge.The key to loosing weight is to avoid binge and storm eating in the first place. You can do this by eating when you are hungry.
When your body first starts whispering that it is hungry you will want to take note, value yourself and take action to fuel yourself adequately. Eating when you are hungry is vital if you want to stop binge or storm eating.
The second thing you can do is feel your emotions. I always find this a challenge but it is far better than the after math and coma result from binge eating. Figure out what is really happening that makes you want to binge eat. What is it you are trying to avoid? For me it is frequently boredom. That is my trigger and my alarm that lets me know its time to get out and do something that I love doing. What is it for you? What feeling makes you turn to food?
What we ultimately need to remember is that it is not foods job to make us feel better. Food is neutral. It can not make us feel happier, peaceful or any other emotion. It is only our thinking that creates our emotions.
If you find yourself in a storm binge eat these steps will help you recover
-Be kind to yourself. NO amount of berating and mean girl talk will get you back on track. What happened has happened and is now in the past. It is done. Negative Nancy talk will not help you and will only put you back on the path to overeating.
-Eat when you are next hungry. Don't tell yourself you are going to go without to 'make up for it' or starve yourself to try and take away what happened. Stop eating when your body feels light and satisfied
-Forgive yourself and move on. Eat when you next feel hungry and FUEL yourself with food that will help you to lose weight, feel healthy and good about yourself.
-If you don't have any suitable fuel food in the house go to the grocer and buy some.
-Drink loads of water and herbal tea. Hydrate yourself to help your body process the storm eat foods and make you feel better about yourself.
-Make the decision to love yourself, no matter what. Treat yourself in loving ways as you would a little child. Be kind. always.
-Say nice things about yourself and acknowledge all the things you do well in your life. If you struggle to do this, use your journal to list at least ten things. Do it now :-)
You can be healthy and slim - I promise - start right now!
Much love, Tina xxxxx