Stop Focusing On Your Food if You Really Want To Heal Patterns of Binge Eating, Emotional Eating, and Chronic Dieting

Drowning. Overwhelming. Blue. Red. Hot. Heavy. Frantic. This is what feeling stuck in patterns of binge eating, emotional eating, and chronic dieting can feel like. And, it can feel all consuming. You're either trying to heal from the food patterns, immersed in the food patterns, or recovering from a recent episode of the food patterns.

I know when my binge eating was at its worst I felt like I had tunnel vision. All I could focus on was trying to stop the binge eating. There was little space for curiosity to explore why the binge eating was happening in the first place.

The thing is no longer binging, emotionally eating, or dieting is NOT the final step to your healing. Once you stop reaching for food to support you in feeling safe, that will be the FIRST step on your healing adventure. You will then have space to explore why food came in to support you.

I get that you want the confusion on food, the agonizing over what to eat and how it will affect how your body looks, and the food coping mechanisms to end ASAP. This intensity though is giving you information that your body has moved into a fight or flight response, which is the state in which these food behaviors often occur. I know it will feel counter-intuitive to not focus on your food behaviors, but engaging in them and then judging them and shaming yourself afterward keeps your body stuck in the sympathetic nervous system where you continue to lean on food to help you feel safe. 

As you're listening to this, I want you to take out a pen and paper or open a new note on your phone. I want you to reflect on when these food behaviors first started. For myself, it started after my parents got divorced when I was 13 years old. I can imagine my 13 year old self and I feel so much compassion for her. For you, it may have started earlier or later in your life.

There is often something that occurred in your world that felt too much, too fast, and no one was there to help you regulate.

Food came in to support you in feeling safe, but food can never leave you feeling safe long term. You would need to keep eating and eating and eating to try to hold on to that sense of safety. This often backfires though because the more you eat, the fuller you feel, and the more dysregulated you can become.

It has never really been about the food. I know it feels uncomfortable to eat the quantity and perhaps kinds of foods that don't resonate with your body. Continuing to focus on something that feels dysregulating in your body can perpetuate the fight or flight response your body is already in. So you might take some time to get curious about what your food behaviors are trying to support you with and what part of you believes that food is the answer. I've had to spend a lot of time with my inner 13 year old and with my body that has always just been trying to support me in feeling safe and secure in the world. That is what your food behaviors are trying to do for you as well.

Instead of seeing what's playing out with food as the problem, start to see it as the answer.

It was the answer to a part of you that needed something to feel in control. It was the answer for your body to find something quick to feel like you were going to survive. It was the answer for your mind when it recalled memories of the last time you ate that food and felt loved and connected. Eating has been a brilliant way for you to support yourself AND your body is still needing you. Your inner parts of you are needing you to know they aren't going to re-live that past experience again. If you keep focusing on the food behavior, the deeper healing never gets to occur.

And I want to add that you can focus on the food for as long as you need to. If someone had told me in my darkest times with food to just stop focusing on it, I might have just gone and eaten more. I hope that this just offered you a new perspective that there is nothing wrong with you. You aren't broken. You don't need to be fixed. You have been doing the best you can and you will continue to do the best you can. When you feel ready, there is more to be explored beyond what's going on in your relationship with food and I'll be here for you every step of the way.