Rebroadcast: Binges While Recovering

Welcome to episode 284 of Real Health Radio. You can find the show notes and the links talked about as part of this episode at 7, so the word all spelled out, seven-health.com forward slash 284. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Real Health Radio. I'm your host Chris Sandal. I'm a nutritionist and a coach and I help clients to fully recover. So it's been a while since I've put out an episode and I feel like the podcast for a lot of this year has been more haphazard than I would like it to have been. There's been more rebroadcast episodes and less new content and really the reason for that is so much of my focus this year has been on creating a program, so creating the fundamentals of full recovery and it's been a really monumental undertaking. There's that thing of when you think you're almost done, you're sort of 50% of the way there and it just felt like that has constantly been what's happened this year, that everything has taken longer for me to create and for me to learn and yeah, it's been a really big undertaking, but it is now all created and it's awesome to see the community that is being created as part of this and I'm really, really proud of what's been created and to be able to see the participants as part of this community supporting one another and recovering together and yeah, I'm happy that the podcast has had a little bit of a dip because it has allowed me to be able to put my focus on creating this program and so the doors for the program are going to be opening again in the February time. What I'll do is I'll put a link in the show notes for how to get onto the waiting list. So if you're interested in becoming part of that program, then you can go on the waiting list and you'll be the first to be notified when the doors are opening for it again. But really that is where my focus is going to be for all of 2024 is really building up this program and building up the community and really putting my focus in this area because it's one of those things where I've had this realization of the real importance of community and the real importance of recovering in community and the importance of connection and it's a big part of the program and it's where I wanted to be put my focus and yeah, that's what's going to be going on for 2024 and where I'm going to be putting all of my focus. I also want to just mention I've been ill. I recently got back from a business event in LA. So I went out to LA for a business live event or for a conference. I signed up for a business program in the June time, which has been fantastic. I've been able to do a lot of fantastic. And as part of that program, there was a live component and I went out for the event and it was great. Apart from the fact that on the morning of the second day, I started to feel ill and then kind of progressively got worse and then didn't make it to the day three of the conference and then had to get home from LA to Aberdeen while feeling pretty horrendous. And then had quite a number of days in bed once back home. And it's just been a, a real slow burn in terms of getting back to health. Like today I'm feeling better than I have since I've been ill, but it really is taken a lot out of me. I've been very exhausted. It's really affected my capacity to be able to think clearly and just really being wiped out and had pretty much a week in bed. And then it's been kind of slow recovery since then. So I'm finally feeling like my mind's not just filled, that does a positive. Yeah. That's another thing that's just most recently gone in the way of these podcast episodes going out. But really I'm wanting to get back into the routine with this and have this be a weekly show because I know how valuable it is. I get such lovely messages from people saying how useful particular episodes are. And I know with recovery that it's important to have this bubble, to have, content or to have information coming in regularly that helps you to remember that you are on the right path and to help support you in having certain messages that are reinforcing why you're doing what you're doing, because this can be very different to what you're hearing in your everyday life and what is going on in the media or what you're seeing in your social media feed. And so, yeah, I recognize how important my podcast or lots of other people's podcasts can be. And I really want to get back into that rhythm of putting things out on a really regular basis so that people can be depending on this information and using it to support recovery. And so what I want to do today is I want to talk about something that comes up a lot with clients and a lot in different messages and things that I see. And this is the idea or the situation of binges in recovery. Having binges start to occur during recovery. And this creates a lot of fear and it creates a lot of worry. And it can actually be the thing that brings someone to the point of wanting to start to recover or seeing things as a problem. What often happens is that people are able to keep up restriction for some length of time. And that length of time could be a number of months. It could be a number of years. It could be a number of decades. And then at some point, binges can start to occur. And it's amazing how despite someone can be restricting for a really long time, while that is going on, it's not seen as a problem. It's only when the binges start to occur that an issue then is seen and that it's seen that, okay, now, now there's something wrong that is, that is occurring. And this is often a common thing. And when people then start to look for support or look to recover, what I want to do, I just want to go through some different aspects connected to binges and binges in, in recovery and different things that come up connected to this. And so just as a, as a starting place, even thinking about a general definition for a binge, and there are lots of different definitions as, as part of this, but a binge is uncontrolled eating in which a person rapidly consumes an excessive quantity of food. When I think about that definition, the word that jumps out most for me is the word excessive. And the reason why that sticks out the most for me is because I think this word is highly subjective and that excessive for one person may not feel excessive for another person. And when we're thinking about excessive, what timescale are we looking at this over? And so, for example, there can be times where with clients, what they talk about as being excessive is generally a pretty small amount of food is what someone else may have for a snack or what someone else might have for a meal. To them, it feels like a really big amount of food because in relative terms compared to what is going on on a regular basis, it is more than, than usual, but in absolute terms, it's actually not a huge amount of food in the whole scheme of things. The other thing I would say connected to excessive is we need to look at the timescale connected to this. Like, yes, it may be an excessive amount of food if we're looking at it across a number of hours, but if we're reflecting on the fact that there's been restriction that's been going on for the last week or the last month or the last year, this amount of food isn't particularly excessive. In the whole scheme of things, it's a drop in the ocean in comparison to what the body has truly needed. And so I think it's always useful to really think about, okay, what does excessive mean when we're thinking about a pitch? From my perspective, binges are always in response to restriction. I cannot think of a client that I've worked with where when we've looked at what's going on in terms of binges, that there isn't some form of restriction that is occurring. And I've done the podcast on restriction and I will link to that in the show notes, but there are different types of restriction. You can have physical restriction where you are physically not eating the particular food that you're eating. And I think that's a or you're physically restricting the amount of calories you have coming in. You can have impending physical restriction. And so this is where you're telling yourself that this is going to happen. And so, okay, when I have my lunch today or when I have my dinner today, I'm not going to be eating X, Y, and Z food, or I'm going to be keeping it to this small amount or starting tomorrow, we're going on a new diet or we're restricting. And so it's this impending restriction that is just on the horizon and then there is mental restriction. And mental restriction is the fact that I'm eating this particular food, but I'm not allowing myself to have it mentally. So I'm chastising myself for the fact that I'm eating this chocolate or this muffin or this serving of rice or whatever it may be. So yeah, the food is coming in, but it's coming in while at the same time, I'm telling myself that I shouldn't be doing this and I shouldn't be consuming this and that's too much food, etc. And all of these restrictions are typically occurring at the same time. So there's some physical restriction, there's some impending physical restriction, and there's some mental restriction that's going on. And all of these are typically occurring prior to a binge. And so there's restriction and then the binge is then the result of that restriction. I think it's also useful to reflect on what you're doing and what you're not doing. So I think it's also useful to reflect on what are the foods that start to be consumed as part of the binge. For some people, this will be just more of whatever they were eating at that particular meal, while for others, there is certain foods that are off limits. And it's only when I'm having a binge that I'm allowing myself to have these particular types of foods. And so again, this can be very much connected to physical restriction to mental restriction, but I think it's useful and instructive to look at, okay, what are the foods that I'm eating when I'm having a binge? Am I allowing myself to have these foods as part of my general everyday eating? Because one of the ways when working with clients that I help them to overcome binges and for the binges to start to stop is to have more food allowance. And typically this means, okay, let's look at the foods that you're ending up binging on and how do we bring these into your regular day-to-day? How do we have these in your house on a regular basis? And I know that can be very terrifying for people. And it feels like if I do that, there's just going to be more and more binges that are occurring. And that may be true in the very short term, but the problem is because of the restriction and making these foods off limits, it works until it doesn't. And so the way that you truly get past that is allowing more of these foods to come in. And so for example, if you're finding that chocolate is the thing that you always end up binging on, how do you start to bring chocolate into your day-to-day? How does it become part of your snack and part of your main meals? And so you're really normalizing this thing as opposed to it being this food that is either put up on a floor or this food that is feared. I think it's also worth looking at when this is starting to occur in terms of the binges with recovery is differentiating between intentional binges and unintentional binges. The way I think about this, an intentional binge is where you intentionally go out and buy certain foods in advance of that binge. So there's almost like a decision of I'm going to do this thing and to do this thing, I need particular foods. And so I'm going to go and get that in advance and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to have this binge. And so it's pre-planned, predetermined. You go into the experience knowing this is what I'm going to do. This does obviously occur as part of recovery and does occur as part of binges. What I tend to find is that this is less of the problem for most people. What tends to be more of the issue, especially if binges are starting to occur more in the recovery process. So I hadn't really been binging before recovery and now it feels like this has started to happen. It's more of what I consider an unintentional binge. And an unintentional binge is where I was eating my regular meal or I was snack and then something started to change. And it could be that I noticed my eating started to get quicker than it was before. Or I started to notice that I was nearing the end of what I had set out for myself and I really wasn't full. And I was feeling like, if anything, I'm now hungrier than when I started. Or I'm nearing the end of what I had planned for myself and I'm just not feeling particularly satisfied. Like the food just doesn't feel like it's scratched the itch in the way that I wanted it to. And I'm now noticing I'm starting to think of other foods and other things that we have in the house. And so there is this shift that occurs while eating a snack or a meal that then results in a binge occurring. And I think that this is much more common as part of binges that occur in recovery. I think what is interesting and useful to notice as part of this unintentional binge is often there is this psychological component connected to it. And there is this feeling of I have crossed some kind of line. I've crossed some kind of line because I've eaten too much or I've started to eat the wrong types of food or I'm starting to notice I'm eating too quickly. And there's this feeling of I'm recognizing that I've done something wrong and that I'm doing something wrong. Often what happens is part of that there is then some arbitrary line that is crossed where it's something like I've now done this so far and I've already gone to this place like what the hell. And so I'm now going to just continue on with this. I think it's really useful to start to notice where that arbitrary line is or what you feel like you did wrong or how you cross that line because it is arbitrary. Like this is very much about I'm creating some story or some meaning connected to a particular event. I often reflect on myself that there are times where I will finish, a meal and I'm still hungry and I may be over the stove eating more food using the ladle of whatever I'd served the food with and I could be standing there for five minutes kind of continuing to shovel food into my mouth. If I was so inclined, I could really start to judge this experience and I could start to create meaning from this experience and I could tell myself I'm going down a particular path or I've crossed some particular line. It could go in a particular way. But when this is happening, I don't have those stories connected to that situation. I'm not telling myself that I've done something wrong. I'm not judging myself. But it's the exact same experience that many people have that for them means that they have crossed some line and for what the hell mode and it then turns into more of a binge. I think it's important and useful to just start to reflect on this. And I'll talk about this a little more later on because I think one of the things that can be useful after a binge has occurred is to do some reflection connected to it. But just being aware of, okay, what happened? How did things go from I'm having a regular meal to I'm now finding myself in this situation? What I also think, part of why I think this happens so much in recovery is that the body, because of the restriction, is really desperate for food. We have this diet culture, we have this obsession on the obesity epidemic, we have all of this focus and worry about weight gain and all of this stuff. We really forget that the body needs food. Our bodies need energy to be able to do the multitude of functions that it needs to do. It is an endless list of things that the body is constantly doing. I think it's really fascinating when you start to think about all of the things that your body is doing and all of the things your immune system and your various cells and your thyroid and all of these things. It is incredible what the body is able to do when you are able to just have your normal human experience. Those processes, all of those processes require energy. And so when the body is not getting the energy that it needs, one, it starts to turn things down and turn things off and really starts to try to make do with what is coming in. But two, it starts to nudge you towards having more energy come in. And what typically happens is when more energy starts to come in, it's like the body senses like, oh, now is our opportunity. And so I think what can often feel counterintuitive to people is that I wasn't getting these urges towards binges, or I wasn't getting this level of hunger when I was eating less. But now I've started to eat more, it started to increase, and this just doesn't make sense to me. The reason that this is occurring, as I said, is finally your body's like, wow, there is food available. Let's make the most of it while this is happening. The body is finally, it's like, okay, great. This is finally on the horizon. We can get food in. And so it then drives you more towards food because it feels like it makes sense to do this. It feels like there is food available. So let's produce all of these different hormones that drive you more towards eating. And so I just want to say that, increased hunger is a really normal part of recovery. And it is your body trying to heal. And really, this shouldn't be demonized. And I think maybe coming up with ways of being able to think about this that are either neutral or is very much supportive and in service of recovery. So thinking about recovery eating, or thinking about nutritional rehabilitation, or thinking about healing eating. Whatever is the phrase or descriptor that works well for you to really remind you that your body needs this energy. And it's really important for you to be able to function and for the repair to take place. This isn't you doing something wrong. This isn't your body being broken or anything along those lines. It's actually that your body is truly now wanting to repair. It sees that there is food available. To help make that so. One of the other things that I see can be quite connected to this is with restriction and with an eating disorder, there can be such a disconnection from hunger signals. If you have restricted and you have got into times when you have been so hungry, where you have this gnawing sensation in your stomach, maybe you're double over in pain because of hunger, or there's just this intensity because you've pushed it so far. What can happen is that then gets registered as that's what hunger is. And then anything less than that is just white noise. It just does not get registered as being hunger. And so what this means is there's this real disconnection between hunger going on. And so you can get into a situation where I really didn't feel like I was very hungry. And then I started to eat and wow, it kind of came out of nowhere. And it really hit me how hungry I was, or I wasn't hungry before I started the snack or before I started the meal. But it was like eating woke up this thing in me. What I would say is it's not that that wasn't there, that that hunger wasn't there. It's just that you're not registering it. Feedback. And so it's really then when the food comes in, and it's really there in front of you, that now you get this really obvious sensation of like, oh, wow, I really truly am hungry. And it's often at that point, that what you thought you would need for that meal is a lot less than actually what your body needs in that in that moment. And then you find yourself in that place of having a binge. And so the final thing I just want to mention connected to this is what to do after a binge has occurred. And I think this is a really important topic or an important area, because I think this is a time after this has occurred, where there can be a lot of strong emotions, there can be a lot of physical sensations, there can be a lot of negative thoughts, there can be a lot of uncomfortable emotions that arise. This can mean that there can be a tendency towards trying to do things to compensate. So it could be, okay, now I need to go and do exercise, or now I need to find some way of getting rid of this, or some form of purging, or it could be, okay, because this is happening from tomorrow, we're going to be reducing what we're eating even more, or all of these different ways that compensation can start to arise, or thoughts of compensation. can start to arise. So I think the very first thing to do after a binge is really to scrap the plans to compensate. Because what this will do, if you do go down the compensation route, is it is just perpetuating this cycle. It's just creating a situation where you are going to get back into a place of restricting and being in a low energy stay. And it's then going to make it more likely that the next time you have a meal, or the next time you come in contact with particular foods, that this thing is going to happen again. And so if the goal is, how do I truly have these binges stop? The first part of it is that it needs to have the compensation piece end. And that you need to be able to say, okay, this happened, there was more food that came in, and I'm not going to do something to compensate for this. So the next thing that you can do connected to this is you can journal. Journaling can be a really useful way of being able to deal with what has happened and deal with the different thoughts and feelings that are arising. You can journal simply about what happened, how you're feeling and get all of that down. But you can also use certain journaling prompts to start to change where your thoughts are going and where you're putting your focus. And so you can use journaling prompts like, right now, I'm at least grateful for dot, dot, dot. And you can talk about what you are grateful for. Or right now, I'm at least happy for dot, dot, dot. And you can write what it is. Or right now, I can at least feel secure in knowing that. Or right now, I am proud to at least fill in the blank. And just taking this time to sit with your feelings. But also, are there ways that you can start to look at, okay, despite this thing that has just occurred, what am I feeling grateful for? How do I feel secure? How can I feel happy, etc. And the more that you're able to focus in, that way, there will be things that start to come up that you can hold on to and be in contact with. The next one is showing yourself compassion and self-compassion. This is a really big area that I focus a lot on when working with clients and is a big part of the fundamentals of a recovery program. Because I think self-compassion is necessary as part of recovery. I really don't think that someone can recover if self-compassion isn't there, just because recovery is so challenging. And it is difficult if when those difficulties arise, you're then beating yourself up and. Are treating yourself unkindly, it just adds fuel to the fire. And so really being able to show yourself self-compassion by being able to say that, look, suffering is part and parcel of being a human. What I'm going through is a universal experience. And some of the details may be different from person to person, but it makes sense. And we all make mistakes. We all have our challenges. And this is not that I'm a flawed human being. This is what it means to be a human. And so bringing in that compassion and being able to be mindful, connected to this. So how can I not blow this out of proportion? How can I not completely minimize this? But how can I meet this for at the level that it is really at? The next one I would say is differentiating between the physical pain and the psychological pain. And I think this is a really important thing when clients can really understand this. And so after a binge, there can be physical pain connected to it. So there can be, I'm feeling bloated, or there is this distension within my stomach, or I'm feeling the food that is sitting really heavy. There can be these physical characteristics and being able to notice those physical characteristics. And then there is all of the psychological pain that gets added on top of that. And so this could be all of the different thoughts of like, why did I do this again? I'm such a failure. What if this keeps happening? What's going to happen in terms of my weight? What would happen if my partner was here when this happened? Like all of these different thoughts. And they're typically thoughts connected to the future, connected to the past. They can be about expectations. But there's all of this extra pain that gets added on top of this. And typically, when we start to look into this, when I'm working on this with clients, is what they notice is that the physical sensation is probably about 10% of it. And the rest of it is all of the psychological stuff that's added on top. That is the thing that is the most challenging part to deal with. And so what the focus then becomes is like, how do we come back to staying with the physical sensations? If we're looking at the psychological pain, staying more with the emotion, the sensations again connected to that emotion. So there is shame. Okay, let's stay with the emotion of shame, not all of the different stories that are connected to this. And there are different ways of doing this. I really like acceptance commitment therapy. I think there's many different techniques connected to it. But this is one of the things I think is really important to be able to differentiate. Between. So differentiating between the physical pain, which is often pretty temporary. So I can notice that within an hour, that physical pain is reduced. And by two hours, it's completely gone away. And your timescale numbers may be different, but being able to recognize that these things start to shift and start to shift in a fairly quick amount of time in the whole scheme of things. The next piece with this would be doing things to genuinely support your nervous system. And so rather than doing compensation, which I think is really counterproductive, because it makes it more likely that it's just going to happen again, doing things to support your nervous system. And again, this is stuff that I will work on with clients where we start to really understand, okay, what are the different ways that you can be supporting your nervous system? What are the things that tend to help you with this? But I can go through just a general list of things that could be helpful. And this is obviously a non-exhaustive list, but just some ideas of things that you could do in that moment. It could be to call someone or be with someone so that you're able to get co-regulation and you're able to get support from someone. And this could be a partner. It could be a family member. It could be a friend. You could call the Samaritans, but calling someone or having a human connection can be really useful. It doesn't even have to be a human connection. It could be that you have a dog or a cat that you are able to spend time with and you're able to co-regulate with that animal. You can write down your thoughts in a journal. You can allow yourself to cry and not try and stop that, but just allow the tears to come. You could write a poem or an essay or a story. You can write down things that you are grateful for. You could write a postcard to someone. You could practice different breathing techniques. And this is one of the ones where it's quite helpful to practice these kinds of things in advance. So you're not picking the point where you are most stressed to start to do breathing exercises, but getting into a habit of using breathing as a way of regulating your nervous system. It could be doing some kind of creative hobby. So that could be drawing or painting or coloring or knitting or crochet or cross-stitch. You could play an instrument, lying down, having a nap, doing some gentle stretching or yoga, having a bath or a shower. And I know for some people doing a cold shower or using temperature as a way of regulating the nervous system, listening to some kind of guided meditation or doing a meta. Or love and kindness meditation could be helpful. Watching some TV or a specific movie or maybe something that's comedy based. So some kind of light or funny that can then help listening to particular music. So music that you know is supportive of your nervous system and supportive of shifting your state. Singing can be one of those things that can help. Dancing around your bedroom or your living room, putting on an audio book or reading a book, focusing on someone else. So doing something nice for someone else to shift your focus. It could be getting outside and just being in nature or getting some sunshine if there's any of that available. So these are just some ways that you can be supporting your nervous system. I know in the beginning, the pull towards these may be a lot less than the pull towards compensation. And it may feel like compensation is a much more immediate way of being able to deal with this. And that may be true. The more that you're able to use these other ways of supporting your nervous system and getting more used to thinking about things in this manner, the better it will be for your long-term habits connected to the binges. And the final thing I want to mention and thing that you can do with this is starting to do a bit of a review connected to this. And you can do this immediately after it happens, or it might be this is something I want to do the next day. But just doing some reflecting on this. I often find that you're wanting to look for, okay, where is the chain or the weak link or the first chain of event that led to the binge? And so I'll use something called a behavior awareness worksheet. And what you can start to do and you can pick whatever you want as the starting point, whatever feels most relevant. So it could be, I want to go back two hours before the binge started, or actually I want to go back 24 hours before the binge started. And just starting to notice, okay, what are some different things that were occurring during that time? And you can then pick different time intervals. So it might be, okay, I'm going to start 12 hours before it happened, then six hours before it happened, then two hours before it happened, then 10 minutes before it happened. And at each of those steps, looking at, okay, what was going on? Are there any particular events that occurred? Are there anything that stands out for you? What was going on in terms of your emotional state? What was going on in terms of your level of hunger? What was going on in terms of the kinds of thoughts and feelings that were coming up? And really starting to just analyze these things. And with clients, what they'll discover is, oh yeah, yesterday I didn't sleep particularly well. And so when I woke up this morning, I was already feeling a little bit off. And that was kind of the first chain in this link. Or actually when I reflect, this last week, I've been a lot more restrictive with my eating. I had been including more of these foods and now I stopped including those foods because I was becoming a little bit more restricted with my eating. And so I've been more fearful. And that was what started to go down this route. And so really using this, not in a judgmental way, not in a way that is meant to be shaming yourself for like, why did I do this again? But more just let's look at this scientifically or let's look at this objectively and start to notice, okay, what are the patterns that lead to this? Because the more that you do this, the more that you can start to recognize, okay, these are the things that tend to make this event. More likely to occur. And so that is it in terms of what I wanted to cover as part of this episode. As I said, I know binges are a really common thing that occur as part of recovery. And I really want to take the stigma away from this. I don't think that it is bad that a binge is occurring. This is telling you that you need more energy and that your body trying to get you to have more food come in to support yourself. So I really want to highlight the fact that I want to take the stigma away from the fact that this is happening. And also look at how you can be doing things in your day-to-day meals so that actually you don't find yourself having this situation occur. Or when it does start to occur in terms of I'm noticing I'm hungry or I'm noticing I'm eating more, that there's an allowance. Because as I said, what people think of as a binge is very subjective. And so being able to get to a stage where rather than thinking, oh my gosh, I had a binge, it was like, wow, I was really hungry at that meal. And I ate quite a lot of food at that meal. And that was what my body needed. And so that there is a lot more neutrality connected to this as opposed to this being seen as a bad thing or because some arbitrary line was created. that I started to behave differently around food, or that was the point where I suddenly allowed myself to have these off-limit foods. I think that the more that the acceptance piece can come in, the more that the allowance piece that can come in, the more that either the binges don't happen, or when you're eating more food, you characterize them and think about them them differently. So I hope that this episode was helpful for you. As I mentioned at the top, so much of my focus now is on the fundamentals of a full recovery program and And if that is something that you're interested in finding out more about, then I'll put a link in the show notes and you can go into the waiting list. And when I open the doors for that, you'll be the first to be notified. So take care and I will catch you in another episode shortly.