Effects of Disordered Eating

Eating disorders can lead to substance abuse problems, obsessive-compulsive disorders, relationship, learning, spiritual and financial difficulties. It can affect every part of our life.

Physically, eating disorders can cause infertility, heart irregularities, osteoporosis, chemical imbalances in the brain & body, swelling of face, abnormal hair growth on the body or hair loss, rupture of the stomach or oesophagus, malnutrition, mental  disturbances and death.

The primary thing that keeps a person in the illness is FEAR . . . fear of being fat, fear of sharing the secret, fear of abandonment and fear of feeling. By concentrating on our body size, our weight or diet we avoid this fear and numb the feelings.

What we are looking at is a battle between the mind and food with the body being the battleground.

 Disconnection from our Appetite

Some of us are so disconnected from our appetite, our ‘Self’ and feelings that we are getting caught up in mindless habitual eating or yo-yo dieting. Some of us don’t know when we are hungry or full. We may confuse an emotion or feeling with being hungry. We may use food to comfort ourselves or as a way of relieving stress. We may feel hungry when we are actually bored or lonely. We zone-out on food or compulsive thoughts about food, weight or body image. We push all this down with a mountain of food. We don’t pay attention to our appetite.

We don’t access that internal control—our appetite. We just want to eat. It’s not about physical hunger. Food becomes our best friend, our companion and our comfort. We reach for food to fill that empty hole that food cannot touch.

We have to learn to identify the feeling, thought or trigger behind the reaching for food. Many of us mistake hunger for many other feelings. We cannot fix something we are not aware of. If we do not know what we are feeling, we can not take appropriate action to deal with that feeling. Food does not work for emotional reasons.

For example, a lot of eating is triggered by stress. Food does not fix stress. A few quiet moments to relax; meditation, connecting with a Higher Power or observing nature are tools that can help. Food has become a substitute for dealing with the stress in our life, but it creates more problems - health and self-esteem issues and more stress.

Let’s take a look at what happens when we use food for reasons other than physical hunger. I call this the Binge Cycle.

The Binge Cycle

Something happens in our environment, a situation or even a thought. We immediately reach for food. It’s like we are hard-wired to reach for food. We don’t even ask our self if we are hungry. We just want to eat.

In the vain attempt to feel better, we use obsessive thinking and eating to block our pain. We focus on the food, the taste, what else to eat, etc. Some times we block out thoughts about our body size, our inadequacies, our negative self-talk, or what we are going to eat after we leave work. We’re not in the here and now.

Then we start beating our self up. “Why did I do that? I’ll never lose this weight. I am so fat.” So now we are focused on the negative self talk. We need to connect back to ourselves and become a friend with ourselves, instead of battling this internal dialog. This internal battle actually perpetuates the disordered eating.

We don’t even know what triggered this binge because we automatically reach for something to eat. Our focus is the food and our body image. We never learn what sent us to the food in the first place. So we stay in this vicious cycle.

Food becomes the solution to our problems. Food can be distorted into becoming our best friend, our support, our escape, and our obsession. Dieting or thinking about what to eat or not eat and body image can become our focus in life. It takes away our energy and prevents us from becoming the people we were meant to be. We are really looking for relief and peace, but food does not provide relief or peace in the long run.

How to Get out of the Cycle:

It helps to recognize that there could be a relationship between our emotions, feelings, thoughts, etc. and our eating behaviors. Our feelings are there for a reason. They point towards our next step on our learning journey. We know we feel bad about certain actions, so we learn that those actions are to be avoided in the future. But what if we block that out with food or other things? After awhile we are not in touch with that learning mechanism. We may become addicted to our method of pushing our feelings down. We may overreact to situations that trigger the unrecognized pain from the past.

The triggers are our way of saying to self. “STOP! I need your attention here; something is wrong. I need healing in this area”. That healing does not come from food or outside distractions. It comes from being aware that we need help, ask for it and allow our self to receive it.

All behavior starts with a thought – whether we are aware of it or not. Let’s examine our thoughts for a moment. What are we telling our self throughout the day? Are we thinking thoughts that are beneficial to our self and the people around us?

What percentages of our thoughts are about how we look, what we should eat or not eat, diet plans, etc?  Are these thoughts building us up or tearing us down? Does our negativity spill out onto others? Are these thoughts blocking us from becoming all we can so we can be of maximum use to God and our fellows?

Some people with eating disorders do not want to be alone with their thoughts or self-talk, so they drown them out with food. Crunchy foods seem to work best here.

Journey Back to our Appetite and Self

It is a worthwhile endeavor to make the long journey back to you and your appetite. Our real Self can be our best friend.

How can we have self-control if we are not connected to our Self? We don’t know what we need, feel, or want. We are disconnected from our body, our feelings and appetite. We know what we should feel, want and need or we think we know what other people need. These external controls running our life set us up for disaster.

How do we best move toward our goals? Does criticism, sarcasm and belittling help us? Or does encouragement, respect, patience and compassion work better?

We lose a lot of energy with negative self-talk. Imagine an athlete running a race. Can you imagine how much harder it would be if they were battling negative self-talk. How could they stay focused on achieving the goal of winning?

We come into this world and we leave this world with only one being—our Self, the real, spiritual Self. If we don’t have this connection, life can be so hard and lonely. No other person or substance can provide what this connection can. They may seem to temporarily fix it, but after awhile, we are left alone again. If we don’t have our Self, we are really alone.

As we become more self aware, we start to notice the effects some foods have on our body and mind. Many of us see a link between sugar and binge cravings. We may notice we have a harder time with controlling our food intake after we have white flour. Once we make these connections we can think it through and we may decide not to eat that today.

The eating disorder has often pushed aside the person’s various interests and social activities. Helping them to reconnect and develop these interests is a necessary part of the recovery process. When we let go of the obsessive thoughts and actions associated with the eating disorder, we need to replace that with enhancing rewarding alternatives.

 Summary

Awareness is the key. We can’t change something we’re not aware of. We need to learn how to CONNECT back to our SELF, FEELINGS, THOUGHTS and APPETITE. Pay attention to your appetite. Eat when physically hungry and stop when full. We can always have more food when we are hungry again. If you are not physically hungry and you want to eat, ask yourself what do you really need at this time?

Get rid of the things you are pushing down with food. When you are reaching for food and you are not hungry, this is your red flag, your alarm system. Pay attention. Notice what you really need when you want to eat (rest or just some down time). Allow good nutrition to supply your body and mind. Feed your spiritual self on a continual basis. Freedom is thinking about food only when hungry or preparing for a meal.

Rebecca Cooper is the author of Diets Don’t Work^® and the Diets Don’t Work^® Workbook. This is a structured method to heal disordered eating. She holds a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology. She is a licensed therapist in California, Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. You can find more information her by going to the website, www.DietsDontWork.org or www.RebeccasHouse.org or by calling us at 800-711-6336.