Do you ever wonder why you eat when you’re not hungry? Do you ever eat in the car because you are embarrassed about eating in front of others? Do you ever feel guilty about eating certain types of food? Do you stress about your weight on a daily basis? So you feel like you need to be on a diet to look like a celebrity? Do you ever wonder why you purge after eating? I am here to help.
As a Marriage and Family Counselor in Heathrow Florida, I have worked with numerous clients with compulsive and disordered eating. Through therapy, I help my clients build awareness about their relationship with food and how this affects their compulsive or disordered eating.
For my clients, the first step to awareness is to follow these 7 guidelines from “Why Weight” by Geneen Roth. Sometimes we eat without noticing how much we eat or overeat, much further past our satisfaction. These guidelines have proven to help clients who struggle with eating disorders and compulsive eating.
1. Eat when you are hungry
2. Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.
3. Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations, and music.
4. Eat only what you want.
5. Eat until you are satisfied.
6. Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others.
7. Eat with enjoyment, pleasure, and gusto.
Other key points that I use with my clients are:
- You must learn to accept your body, even though it is not perfect. Even celebrity’s bodies are not perfect, why should you expect yours to be?
- Diets don’t work because they lead to bingeing. Changing the way you eat is a change in lifestyle, not a diet.
- No Scales! Remove scales from your home. Judge your correct weight by how you feel and not by a number on the scale.
- Eat until you are satisfied. This can help avoid overeating.
- Being satisfied depends not only on when and what (and how much) you eat, but on your feelings about what you eat.
o Your attention must be present. Satisfaction is a result of being in the present moment. If you are reading or watching television, if you are distracting yourself in some way from the taste of the food and from how it feels in your body, you will completely miss the signal of satisfaction that your body gives you. That signal is soft, unlike hunger and unlike fullness, and you must be listening to hear it.- We often feel that people are judging us when in truth we are judging ourselves.
If you have any questions regarding eating disorders, compulsive eating, or when to seek therapy please feel free to contact me a www.heathrowcounselingcenter.org or by calling 407-956-5773.
