Risking fullness

Once you are able to wait for hunger, you can choose how you want to eat in response to hunger. Bingeing is a mechanical and unconscious reaction. Eating to fuel your body is a deliberate and conscious response. But even eating in an effort to give your body nutritious food is unhelpful if you don’t let yourself get hungry first.

This aspect of healing from bingeing is about bringing conscious awareness to your eating. This may be challenging at first. Much of binge eating involves a lot of discomfort around food, whether bingeing follows yet another deprivation-based diet or whether we’re imposing deprivation after a binge. Even when we do eat, the feeling of shame at how fast we eat, at how much we eat, at what the eating has done to our bodies can make it difficult to actually pay attention to and enjoy what we think we desire so greatly. So let’s pay more attention, and see what’s actually going on for us.

When you respond to hunger, ask yourself what is the kindest way that you can respond to your hunger. What kinds of food does your body like? What foods make you feel sluggish after a few hours? Do any foods make you feel bloated? What foods make you feel satisfied?

When you eat, slow down and pay attention to the food—the texture, the sight, the smell the taste, the sound it makes in your mouth. Notice any signals that you are starting to feel satisfied. This helps us to stay in the moment, to stay in the experience of eating the food while we are actually eating.

Begin to notice the different levels of fullness that you eat to. On a scale from 0 (feeling neither hungry nor full) to +10 (stuffed), notice how different degrees along the fullness scale feel for you. Just as there can be a struggle to get to hunger, people who binge eat can struggle to adjust to a new kind of fullness—a deeply nourishing fullness in place of a smothering, numbing fullness.

No matter what you eat or how much you eat, notice. Give yourself permission to experience the food and the act of eating itself.

What is the kindest way you could respond the next time you get hungry? Please feel free to email me your reflections.

Would you like someone by your side on your path to recovering from binge eating? Book me for a free mini-session, and let’s explore what lies ahead.