How Do I Know What A Binge Is? How Do I Gain Freedom?

In this episode we discuss how to identify a binge using the sandwich technique (no pun intended). We also discuss how to start gaining freedom from binge eating by facing it as opposed to running away and hiding from it. 

Transcript

Mo Rezk: 0:00

Hello and welcome to another episode of beyond the bench. My name is no amateur dietitian and behavioral change specialist and every episode I'll do my best to help bring you closer to a live free of binge eating so you can live your best life and stop worrying about binge eating, and all the problems that brings into your life. And today, we're going to be talking about what binge eating is, how do you know what a bench is? How do you differentiate it from overeating, and how you can use a bench to to your advantage and in a way that serves you and benefits benefit you and weight to the end when it comes to this one because it is really important and detrimental when it comes to binge eating. Very, super, super important to overcoming it. And I'll be sharing tips and strategies that I use my clients in all my programs that have helped them overcome binge eating as quick as possible as they can. So first of all, let's start with a with what binge eating. So binge eating actually, the first thing to know about binge eating is that it has very little to do with food. I know shocking, right? And everything to do with the state of mind that you're in. So binge eating actually is best defined by the state of mind that you're in while you're going through the experience. And that state of mind is crucial to understand two components of a Dimmick, a bench, a bench, as opposed to overheating. So the first the first thing I'm actually gonna use the sandwich analogy is that what happens before the bench, and what happens after the bench, what's in the middle, which is the food and the eating, we're going to treat that separately. And I'm going to show you how. So first of all, knowing that a bench is the state of mind that we're in, there are two things underneath that state of mind that make a bench a bench. The first is the loss of control. The loss of control is a very important component of binge eating. And it usually involves us losing control of our actions. And what we're doing and it looks like that sometimes we'll be eating and we'll just won't be able to stop. Or we find ourselves driving ourselves somewhere to pick up food when we don't want to, or we find ourselves hiding to eat food because we're afraid to be caught by somebody. Because we are judging ourselves. And we don't want to be called a we're trying to like you know, get it out of the way and do it quickly and and forget about it kind of thing and pretend it's not even happening sometimes. And I actually have heard about this, people sometimes pretend it's not even happening when they're doing it, and downplay it in their mind. So it's a complete loss of control. That is evident by our actions, being completely driven by something that we don't want to do. So we will be literally saying I don't want to be doing this while we are doing it. There is sometimes loss of control that is a result of us kind of like, you know, making excuses mentally, which can quantify only if later after the bench, we say Oh, you know what, like, yes, that's I was totally coming up making up excuses. And that was loss of control. So if you feel like it's a loss of control, that's the first step of what makes it a bench. The second and most important step is what comes after the eating, which is the emotions, if there's negative emotions, if there's guilt, frustration, sadness, depression, anxiety, anything that is negative that is tied to what you just did. The emotions is a very important clue of whether it's a binge or not. Anytime there's food between these two components of loss of control, and negative emotions, you know that it is a bench. This is something really, really important. And with binge eating, actually, it comes in a spectrum as binge eating is a spectrum that starts with very mild binge eating to extreme and very severe, and even life threatening and binge eating. And I'll give you examples. And I've seen this and I've personally struggled with this as well during my journey of binge eating and overcoming binge eating is that at the extreme side, there are people who are thinking of food of binges, and having been just 678, even 10 times a day. And their thoughts and time are completely overwhelmed with food their time goes a lot of time goes towards food, they avoid a lot of actions because of food. They avoid a lot of situations because of because of food. They hide a lot and they have that constant fear going on. And the binges happen very very frequently and that can be life threatening because it takes away from our energy towards doing other important tasks. But also because the frequency can harm our health and put us on a path to ruining our health and messing with it. Mild binge eating is if you're struggling with the binge once every month, couple of months or so that is kind of like you know minor and you don't brush it off a little bit but still a binge is a binge and it doesn't matter if it's severe or if it's extremely sorry if it's extreme or if it's mild. Whatever. Whenever it happens, it is still a bitch. Now obviously the severity of it affects affects your life, situation and it affects your health and mental health 100% but still This action is the same in terms of a binge is a loss of control involves a loss of control over what you're putting in your body, and feelings of shame, and guilt and negative emotions after anytime you have something you have food happening in between these two, like a sandwich, you know that it is a bench over eating is a little bit different. overeating is often when we are mindlessly doing it not really paying attention, or we ate too much. But we don't have negative emotions after we don't have that guilt after. And often we allow ourselves to do it. And we're like, Yeah, I know what I will, right? No big deal, that could be overeating. And that is very normal, and everybody struggles over eating. It's very actually normal to experience overeating as even a healthy and a healthy lifestyle. Because it's your way of understanding what fills you up and what doesn't. And you reflect on it and you use it in a way to learn more about yourself. There's absolutely nothing wrong with binge eating with overeating, with binge eating, also like to say, I mean, there's there's nothing wrong with it. But if most people who struggle with binge eating, know that it is not serving them and draining the energy. So for me, if you think there's something wrong with it, then there is if you don't, then no judgment, no problems at all. Many, many, many people have grown through a hole through a big part of their life struggling with binge eating, but not actually knowing that it's binge eating. And that was me, I spent eight years roughly, I think, even 10 it's hard to count, but eight years struggling with binge eating, not knowing it's a binge, until I realized it in as I was studying to be a dietitian in my third year in school. And I took it, I took lessons in disordered eating. And I was like, Oh my god, this is basically what I do. And I did it. I thought that was normal. I thought that was everybody does that. But the truth is, it's not. And we're not supposed to be doing that. Because with food, we technically should never, ever feel guilty about it. And loss of control in general is something that is difficult to struggle with. Because I mean, you know, as human beings, we try to control things outside our control things that are completely not even within our control. So imagine losing control over our own actions, that's very difficult. So when is taking so much time and effort and energy from us, it usually becomes a problem. And that is when when when we kind of like go and seek help for it. And this is that brings me to the next important part of people who go seek help with it, many would go to their GP and talk about it. And if you've done that, know that there is the GPS or not. Doctors are not equipped in any way whatsoever to understand what binge eating is or disordered eating, or to treat it. But unfortunately, you need a diagnosis for a for it from doctors. And now psychiatrists or psychologists can probably diagnose it pretty well because they have studied it but a GP or a doctor, which many people that I come across who struggle with binge eating, go to in the first place often have very little experience with binge eating, and many of them are binge eating as well for the record, because it is a very, very common problem. And so I've heard horrific stories such as the doctor told me to you know, it's just a small problem. And I'm just stressed and not to just not take a break. And maybe I should go on a diet or cut out the bread or cut out the carbs or maybe I'm just eating too much sweets and or maybe he's they say that it's normal. Everybody eats sweets all the time I eat too much sweets too, a little bit. Sometimes they basically downplay it. And that is not a good thing at all. It is actually a very, very, the like, it's hard for me to put words to it, but it is not, does not do anybody any service when you downplay that problem, because then the person starts to think that this is that they're not legit struggling with a problem and that it's an all in all in their head, which makes that a little bit even worse. So this is this is why if you struggled if you've been to a doctor, if you've been to a GP and they downplayed your binge eating, don't worry about it, don't take it to heart, they're not really equipped for it. They're not trained to do it. I go to a specialist instead who is the who is skilled and trained to understand and recognize disordered eating. So who are these skilled people that mostly registered dieticians, psychiatrists and psychologists, registered dietitians and that might sound biased because I'm a registered dietitian, in case you haven't noticed. But they're actually when they when it comes to disordered eating, they're amongst the top in the field for one main reason is because they have the nutrition side studied and understand it very, very well. But they also have taken the time to become skilled in certain therapy, therapeutic economic and the cognitive part, which is the mental part, and they can deliver a combined both. Specifically with behavioral change. This is really important to find a dietitian who is skilled when it comes to the cognitive and mental component, because binge eating is 80% mental roughly and 20% about food. So a therapist could do pretty well but unfortunately a therapist or a psychologist or a psychiatrist are not trained in nutrition, unless they do extra training on their own or they are licensed in nutrition. Maybe they happen to be one of those rare dietitians and psychologists at the same time, and they can offer both, that would be basically the best combination to have because the nutrition is also important and we are approaching binge eating from a mental and psychological perspective, but also from a physiological perspective, because the body's energy needs and restriction and dieting also play a role in binge eating. It's not just mental. It's just that for many people, both are combined to produce this big, big problem that they're terrified from. And this brings me to the final part of today's podcast is how do we use it? How do we use binge eating for to our benefit, as opposed to being terrified of it and suffering from it. And this is really, really, really important, because many people who struggle with binge eating, live in this massive fear of it, and they're terrified of it. And they think that they cannot overcome it, and it's there to stay forever. And they think that they know that it's cannot be solved. And, and the truth is that there's no such thing as a problem with no solution, there's always a solution to every problem. There's a problem with no solution, it's either you haven't found it yet, or has not been invented yet. But with binge eating, specifically, it has been invented and discovered, it's just that you have not necessarily come across it yet or implemented it to rest assured that there is a solution to binge eating. And many, many, many people overcome it regularly. And I overcame it myself, and I have been been true for the past 56666 years, something like that, and smoking free as well. So keep that in mind, it is possible to overcome any behavior because of one main reason is as human beings, we have the freedom of choice, we always have the freedom of choice, never, never think that you are not free to choose you are free to choose, it's just that your choices right now, are difficult to do, because it involves a loss of control. And that's okay, if you have a loss of control going on, then know that there is mentally, and you're not, there's something that is not aligned there with what you truly want with your goals. And I like to look at this actually, from the body mind spirit perspective is with binge eating and the loss of control. In general, if there's a lack of alignment between the body, the spirit and the mind is that we want certain things for our body, but the body is not there, and the spirit is somehow lost. And we cannot really connect with it, and whatnot. And when we when I talked about spirit, I basically talked about the truth of who we are our capacity and ability to align our body and our mind comes from the Spirit because the body and the mind are separate entities. And this is something that I can call on for ages, because it is huge when it comes to binge eating. And I do this in my programs, certainly. But with binge eating specifically exists on the mental level, like we said psychological and the physiological level, which is the body's energy needs. And working on aligning these two is really, really crucial when it comes to overcoming it. That's why those who try using dice to overcome binge eating are never never going to succeed. Not because I'm wishing they don't, I'd really truly hope nobody struggles with this small term. But the reality is approaching the dietary, not diet only, and forgetting completely ignoring the psychological or the mental component is never going to work. Because as we understood, binge eating is 80% psychological and 20%. Nutrition. If we, if we if we go to the psychological component, and we get that under control, yet we are incapable of getting the nutrition under control, then what happens is we start thinking that we failed, even though we've done well, it's just that we haven't tackled the problem from all directions, we've tackled it from one direction. And that basically makes us think that this problem is unsolvable, which allows us to give up on what we've done psychologically, and then the model doesn't last, the alignment between body mind spirit just collapses. So the key is to understand what the body needs, understand how the mind works, and align them together. And this is what we do in our program. Now let's talk a little bit about binge eating how we can use it as an opportunity to serve you, as opposed to something that destroys you. The first step, the first important thing I do with all my clients is, is share with them that binge eating is something that can be overcome and actually is an opportunity to, to do a lot of work and get to a much much better place. And I'll share with you how if you ever have you ever learned the anatomy of how a diamond is formed, you know, it's formed under pressure and from a volcanic volcano and etc. And actually, I'm not a geologist, I don't might be completely saying stuff that doesn't make sense here. So if you are a geologist, please feel free to email me and correct me what I'm saying right now. But it under the most stressful situations the dominance form. And when it comes to binge eating, a lot of people are at the lowest points of their lives very, very low point. And they take these low points and turn them around and use them as opportunities to learn about themselves so they can grow and become a much much better person. And this is what I've done for myself in the past is I've used my lowest point of being struggling with binge eating and my addiction. To learn more about myself and say enough is enough and discover more how my body works how my mind works. Connected my spirit how to align everything together so that I can master my actions and understand how to cope with my emotions in a way that doesn't sabotage my health. So this is really crucial when it comes to overcoming binge eating is looking at your current situation as an opportunity instead of a prison that you're in. And the more you look at it as a prison or something that is is that cannot be solved or something that is horrible or terrible and, and the more afraid of your of it, the more it will have control over you. And and this brings me to the final component of today is in my programs, with my clients I for making it really important for them to track their binges. Many people in diets do the opposite. They track their calories, they track what they're eating regularly, but ignore their benches. And that doesn't make sense to me at all, for one main reason. If you're trying to cut to cut calories and lose weight, and you're on a 1200 calorie deficit, for example, I'm just using the most common number right now. You're on, you're on a 1200 calorie deficit, and three, four days a week you bench four or five $6,000 not the others, we should be convinced that my economics are not four or five $6,000. As again, I've said it again, okay, so four or five 6000 calories. Let's assume you bet you bench that much that will override the 12 1200 calories that you do daily. And so what's the point of tracking the 1200 calories? If you are if you're benching on the four or five 6000 even sometimes I used to binge on 10,000. Again, nothing wrong with that. But what's the point of tracking now I have clients who do continue to track their calories. There's nothing wrong with that. But I personally ask them to start tracking their binges instead, for one main reason when we track our binges. And we start to learn more about our binge eating. And we start to understand how it works and understand what triggered it and understand our emotions and understand the events that led up to it, then we can start to develop little strategies so we can overcome it. Imagine fighting a monster are having to face off against a monster. If that monster is powerful, and you can't beat that monster in one fight you need like a few skirmishes. Before you can beat that monster, you will take these skirmishes as an opportunity to learn more about the monster and find their weak spots, right? They're weak, they're weak weaknesses. As we do that, we can develop strategies and acquire the appropriate skills to overcome and beat that monster in that final epic fight. And that's what we do with the benches is I tell my clients always as like, Alright, we're starting our journey, I guarantee you there's going to be a few inevitable benches, but be okay with that. Do not judge that be okay with it. And let's use it as an opportunity to learn more about what's going to happen, and how we can strategize so we can defeat that monster once and for all. Unfortunately, what many people do is that they will they once they benched. They start you know, struggling and suffering and coming up with false conclusions such as they can't do it. And they're terrified of it. And they're stuck with it. And basically what they do is they weaken themselves. And they strengthen the monster, they keep giving the monsters more strength, they keep feeding it more strength, and being afraid of it, and they weaken themselves. And they avoid beginning the skills that will allow them to overcome that monster because they are effective, how can they do so when they're saying it's not solvable? I can do it, I'm stuck with it. I am horrible. And they come with these conclusions. And that is how we can stay stuck with binge eating forever is because we personally strengthen the monster and we weaken ourselves in the process. And what we want to do is the opposite is we want to learn how to figure out the monsters weaknesses, and learn how to strategize and acquire skills so that we can finally do the knockout punch and blow in that epic battle where it is completely gone. And from there, you are free from this monster for good. And you have freedom. And you are able to master yourselves under from a point of understanding how your mind works. You're able to align your body mind spirit, you're able to be in control, you're able to be have a lot of energy left to put on other parts of your life, you're able to have that self awareness, and you almost have went to that place where when you come back from it and we came back from it, you've completely changed and there's no going back then. And that is how we can use binge eating as an opportunity to be our best best self. So this is why I want you to keep in mind that it is okay if you're struggling with binge eating, there is nothing wrong at all. I know many people who are successful in many fields of life who still struggle with it. So it has nothing to do with the fact that you are a failure, you are not a failure. You just have been conditioned to not be able to to have a disordered eating because many of us actually have been conditioned because of our families and our environment. And what Besides social media and what we saw in our schools and whatnot, and this is good news, because it means that if you're conditioned, then it means it is not actually something that is personal for you only. It's just that you are stuck in it, it would have happened to anybody else. And what also that means is that this because you were conditioned, that way you can rewire your brain and change and change your reality right now and what is going on by focusing on yourself. And that is what I wanted to share today. I hope you found this helpful. I know, by the way, I've received a lot of this as I know I can tend to talk a lot. Not will talk a lot for sure, but talk faster as well. It is something I am working on. I promise I am doing my best to slow down just what I'm passionate about something tends to just come out quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. So if you have any questions, please email me or put a comment below, I will make sure to get back to it. And if you are ready to overcome binge eating, then please reach out to me@www.mrk.com you can schedule a conversation. It doesn't cost you anything where we can talk about whether you'll be a good fit for the programs that we run and the journeys. And from there, we will do our best to get to that point where we are free of binge eating, and we have went through it and come out much much stronger and better versions of ourselves. Hope you have a wonderful and lovely day and I'll see you next episode.