Let’s face it, you are human, and along your path, you will inevitably have slips. One of the most important things is to LET GO OF THE EXPECTATION OF PERFECTION. If you've binged before and then expect yourself to never binge again, you’re putting pressure on yourself, which can be compared to someone who's dieting and swearing off certain foods.

 

Instead, it’s much more freeing to accept the fact that you’re human and will mostly likely binge again since it’s a fall-back coping method. I’m not advocating complacency in your fight. Rather, I believe that accepting your humanness will lead to greater self-love and forgiveness, which, in the event that you find yourself in the middle of a binge or series of binges, will help you to soften toward yourself and pull yourself out of the hole much more swiftly.

 

1. Using food is a way of trying to comfort yourself – a binge is your attempt to take care of yourself in the way that seems best to you in the moment
2. It’s in the past now – the future is fully open for you to make whatever choices you want
3. You’re human and no human makes decisions that are 100% healthy, 100% of the time
4. Your body is an intelligent system that knows how to process the extra food and make the most of the energy
5. Binges are great teachers – they show you that you’re not addressing something in your life (stress, anxiety, sadness, disappointment, boredom, relationship strain, poor self-esteem, etc…)
6. You can do things differently next time
7. Every time you binge you learn something about what triggers you or what you need to do to take better care of yourself, so, if you choose to learn from each binge, you’re actually getting stronger
8. You wouldn’t hate your friend if she confided in you about a binge, so why hate yourself?
9. A binge is just one action in one short moment in time – it doesn’t define who you are
10. Once you figure out what triggered the binge, you’ll be better equipped to handle similar situations/feelings in the future
11. Feeling negative about any situation never makes it better, so why wallow? Get back up and dust yourself off
12. Now is the best and most important time to practice self-love and forgiveness
13. The effects of a binge are temporary – over time you’ll feel better physically, mentally, and emotionally
14. Hating yourself is choosing to listen to the voice in your head instead of your wise self who loves you unconditionally
15. Guilt is a choice – you can just as easily choose forgiveness
16. Compassion is freedom from suffering
17. Although your body feels like a balloon, it’s physically impossible to permanently change the shape of your body from one binge
18. Binges help you get in touch with your emotional world, if you allow yourself to evaluate whatever it is you wanted to numb
19. You’re worth loving and treating with respect
20. You are on a path towards a better you every single minute of every single day and that means falling sometimes – just like a child learning to walk, you are learning how to navigate life’s ups and downs without abusing food – freedom from this cycle comes with time, not overnight – you are heading in the right direction with each decision to practice self-love, forgiveness, and compassion

Here's the biggest tip I can offer. The absolute most important thing that healthy-minded girls need to remember, regardless of their goals.

 

Maybe not today, but sometime this week, unless you have an actual mental eating disorder (which I will not even begin to cover because there are very few out there that actually have unbalanced chemicals in their brain making them feel this way) you will fail. If you're hungry, it's because your body is telling you it needs nutrients to make energy. Think about it, if you're tired, ignoring it will just make you more tired, and more tired, until you involuntarily fall asleep. So what do you do usually, if you're tired in the middle of the day? You take a nap. You don't fall asleep for 8 hours, you just take a nice little 15 minute nap. If you don't your body will eventually force you into sleep.

 

What about breathing? If you're constantly breathing in and out, you don't even think about breathing, you don't "crave" breath. But if you start holding your breath, the more you want to breathe. The longer you hold it, the harder it gets, until all of a sudden you burst out with big, gasping breaths you would never take if you had been breathing normally in the first place. Usually we quit because it's too uncomfortable but if you don't, you will pass out and your body will take the air it wants whether you want it or not.

 

Not eating is exactly the same. I have never fasted. I don't condemn those who do, but I personally cannot do it, I like food way too much. If I go all day without eating, almost guaranteed, I will stop through McDonald's and get a burger, or eat all the cookies in the cupboard, or an entire pizza. If I get hungry, I eat. Your body will make you eat if it gets hungry enough.

 

I'm not saying abandon all caution and eat whatever you want - that will have the opposite effect. Maybe you set a calorie limit for yourself. Great. But make it a calorie range. Your body is not going to start functioning great on 345 calories a day just because you told it to. Who are you to say how many calories your body needs to run up a flight of stairs?

And then, when you do get hungry (like you should and you will), fill up on healthy food. Stop thinking of 'pigging out' on apples and salad or cereal or whatever else as 'binging'. Eat whole wheat pita and hummus, all the vegetable and fruits you can, fish, old-fashioned oatmeal, whatever you want, eat it, as long as it's healthy. It is NOT binging if it's good for you. It's eating. Because your body needs ENERGY and that's what it's been screaming at you all day. Give it energy and it will quiet down instead of making you eat a cheeseburger. And it will, it's trying to protect you, and when you get really hungry, it wants you to eat whatever will give you the most carbs, fat and protein as quickly as possible. And that's why you crave such unhealthy food when you're very, very hungry.

 

Usually, I do, I fill up. I can feel my stomach stretched with healthy food, and I don't like feeling very full, but I do. And I'm so full I can't eat another bite. I don't want cake or cookies or fries anymore. The max you can fill up on healthy food is like, 600 calories, vs. a 3000 calorie unhealthy food freak-out, which will invariably set you back. You can eat way more food while keeping the fat and calories as low as possible. Please, please stop thinking you're binging when you're really just giving your body what it needs. 

 

Now here's the other part you need to remember. You're not even doing anything wrong, binging on healthy foods, and if you slip up and eat unhealthy foods, you have GOT to stop being so hard on yourself. Not for your mental health, not because it's okay to overeat sometimes, not because 'everybody slips up' but because it's NEGATIVE and negativity = STRESS and feeling bad. Those are the number one causes of overeating. Number one. You are making it one trillion times harder on yourself by beating yourself up over a binge. I exercise the most and eat the least when I am happy and feeling good. The more I exercise and better I eat, the happier I am, which makes me exercise and eat better, so I’m even happier. I used to not eat, and then binge like 5000 calories at a time and feel terrible about myself and cry and watch movies and eat more for a few days before I got my act together. That is going to keep happening until you listen to your body and give it what its asking for. Breathing, sleeping, eating. Remember and listen to this. Please.