Binge Eating: How to Stop Binge Eating and Get Back in the Driver's Seat

Binge eating is eating "gone wrong." Binge eating is eating gone on automatic pilot, eating disconnected from physical body sensations like fullness and hunger. After a binge you may experience a glazed feeling and a "coming back to awareness." "What happened here?" and "I wish I could undo that" are common thoughts.

Mindful eating is the opposite of bingeing. Mindful eating, conscious eating, and intuitive eating are all terms to describe eating that occurs when the mind and the body are in full communication.

When this process is happening, we eat in response to our body cues and our body's needs. We eat what we are hungry for and we eat until we are full (not stuffed). We are conscious of how we are feeling while we are eating and how we are likely to feel afterwards. Conscious eating does not leave us stuffed to the gills, sick to our stomachs and collapsed on the couch, too uncomfortable to move.

Conscious eating fuels us and gives us energy. The food we eat consciously gives our bodies and our minds pleasure. It is a nice experience.

To stop binge eating, the first requirement is to turn off the automatic pilot and get back into the driver's seat. This takes practice and won't be easy the first or second time you try it. Like using a muscle though, your ability to stop a binge will grow stronger.

Try these tips:

Slow down. Don't try to stop the binge at first, but communicate to yourself what you are doing. This means you are not on auto-pilot. Say to yourself out loud or in your head "I feel a binge coming on" or "Here we go" or "I'm starting to feel out of control with my eating." Make the process conscious.

Put your food on a plate. You've heard this before because it's important. To be mindfully eating you need to be experiencing the food and how much of it you are choosing to eat.

Practice being a nonjudgmental observer. Try to notice what both your head and your body are doing--from a curious nonjudgmental standpoint.

What's the dialogue going on in your brain? Is it silent, are you numb, are you criticizing yourself or already planning how you'll do it differently tomorrow? Don't try to change your thoughts, just be curious and collect data about what your mind is doing. Now put your hand on your stomach. Take a deep breath. Try to pay attention to how your body is feeling. Feel your hand on your stomach. Feel it move as you breath. Try to take note--nonjudgmentally of how your body feels. Is there tension anywhere, muscle tightness, are you holding your breath or breathing deeply? Does your stomach feel full or empty? How full? How empty?

If you feel courageous, put your other hand on your heart. Feel your heart beat. Keep breathing. Ask yourself what you are REALLY hungry for. Ask yourself what you could feed your self and your spirit IN ADDITION TO food. Sit for a minute and listen. Don't worry or be afraid if you don't know the answer this time. It's asking the question that is important.

Afterwards, if you can do it, try to write down what you noticed about the whole experience. Work very hard not to be critical but to write from the standpoint of a curious observer. As you think about what happened, can you identify anything that brought you to that binge? What was going on before? When did you decide to do it? Can you identify how you were feeling--both in your mind (bored, lonely, happy, sad) and in your body (tired, tense, hungry)?

Practice doing one small, nice, compassionate thing for your body and soul every day that has nothing to do with food. It doesn't have to be earth shattering. Put your feet up and sit for fifteen minutes before you tackle the laundry, take a bubble bath instead of a shower, wear something that you feel lovely in, put music on that you love, kick off your shoes and wiggle your toes.