» Compulsive Eating

April Showers

Nadine Ann — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:26:59 +0000

We have had our fair share of rain in March, enough so that we were in a State of Emergency for awhile. Rivers overflowed, hourses were flooded and streets are still closed because of all the water. But one thing for sure is that my flowers and trees are happy.

Spring is such a wonderful time and I am always amazed by how things that appear to be dead somehow come back to life and create these splashes of color that you swear you’ve never experienced before. That is until you think back to last year and remember that you said the same thing.

I have been walking outside now that the good weather is here and I feel like I am at least getting some exercise while enjoying the weather. Plus it helps me to focus on things. When I get out there and start walking I let my mind think whatever it is it wants to think and by the time I get back from my walk I have a new project to do! I am always thinking. Sometimes it is rather annoying though because I can never just “be”. Ahhh…the curse of the creative mind!

Enjoy your good weather, get out there and walk and let your mind take you somewhere wonderful!~

Three ways to stop overeating … for good – The Herald Dispatch

Nadine Ann — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:24:47 +0000

TITLE: Get Healthy Tri-State: Three ways to stop overeating … for good – The Herald Dispatch

NEWS Get Healthy Tri-State: Three ways to stop overeating … for good

December 26, 2009 @ 12:00 AM

The Herald-Dispatch, Huntington WV

Next time you’re obsessing about another holiday eggnog or chocolate bombe cake a la mode, ask yourself this: “Would you shove that stuff into a friend’s body?” Mouth too full to answer? Use these strategies to nix bad habits and eat right:

1. Get lost (in your mind). When you want to eat to feel better, walk around the block (go ahead and put on your boots; we’ll wait) and think about the bad feelings that are driving you to the fridge. Maybe you can start sorting them out instead of hiding them behind three extra inches of abdominal fat. If the walk isn’t enough, try meditation or prayer. In some people, these calming focusers quiet the subconscious drive to eat.

2. Plan. Big decisions about food need to be made in the supermarket, not in your kitchen. Avoid filling your home with junk, and it’s easier to eat right. Shop the edges of the supermarket rather than the middle.

3. Pay it forward. One of the keys to waist-size success is how you balance two competing forces — immediate gratification (those chips) versus delayed gratification (a better body, better sex, fewer wrinkles, not to mention a longer life!). It’s tough, because immediate gratification is hard to resist. So try flipping the immediate gratification into a long-term consequence, and turning the delayed gratification into an immediate, visual picture. Like this: Think hard about the negative consequences of the chips (picture a clogged artery). Now visualize yourself two sizes smaller with all the grandchildren you want (or just Brad Pitt or Megan Fox lying next to you).

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When is it time to stop compulsive overeating?

Nadine Ann — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:12:11 +0000

By the time a person gets to my site and joins they have consciously made the decision that they want to make changes in their lives and PERHAPS stop binge eating. I say perhaps because there are still some people who join that are still not quite ready to give up something, even though it’s harmful, that has been a part of their lives for a very long time. It’s the same with smokers. They desperately want to quit but there is a war going on in their head that wants to keep smoking even though they know it is bad for them. They try the patch, gum, and pills but they fail. Why?

They are resisting. Resisting for what reason though? The mind is tricky enough to start to analyzing why we do the things we do but the fact is we resist things that we feel we aren’t ready for.

So my question is then, when is it time to stop compulsive overeating? I guess when you can decide that it is really YOU that wants to stop, not just because you know it is unhealthy, but because you want to be happier and feel better. You want peace.

The holiday season and binge eating

Nadine Ann — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:03:50 +0000

It’s so tough to be around all this food! Thanksgiving was fantastic but boy did I eat a lot! I treated myself to my mom’s custard pie and it was like Heaven! Good thing its only once a year that she makes it. But what was nice was that instead of binging it was like a treat to me. And now I am good until next year when I will eat it again.

Is that how you feel about the holidays and being a binge eater? Eating compulsively is different than overeating on the holiday so I want to make sure that if you are reading this and wondering if you are a binge eater please check out my page on symptoms and faq’s about compulsive overeating so you can get the facts.

So how are the holidays for you? Are you overwhelmed, sad or lonely, or joyous and celebrating with your family? Believe it or not, any of these scenarios can cause a binge. Take it slowly, understand what is going on with you and see if you can recognize the pattern or the binge. Is it an opportunity binge, a boredom binge, a stress binge?

I truly hope you can enjoy the holidays and look forward to a happy new year.

Nadine

Can One Person Really Make A Difference?

Nadine Ann — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:51:41 +0000

I have a little 8 year old daughter who watches the Disney channel and the other night all the teen stars of their most popular shows did a Save The Earth type of show and of course Hannah Montana was leading the pack. But what she said was really cool and although I can’t quote her because I wasn’t thinking that I would need to it went something like this:

Can just one person make a difference? Absolutely! One person can make a difference because she has friends. And those friends have friends and soon enough 1 million people are now making a difference.

I think we can do that with compulsive overeating.

When I first started looking for help to heal my binge eating disorder I went to my doctor basically because I had no idea where else to start. Unfortunately, she had no idea either!

Then I found OA (Overeaters Anonymous) and gave that a few tries but it wasn’t what I needed. The people who attended the meetings had no idea why others were suffering from compulsive overeating or what to do for it. We just kept talking about the crappy days we had. And to be fair, it wasn’t their fault. They were not trained as eating disorder specialists to know how to help anyone.

So seriously, what else is there? What other way can people get information about the disorder, the causes, the symptoms, the signs and the process to stop?

I’m hoping it is by me talking about it to my friends like you.

The web is very large and powerful (Like Oz!) and we have our voices to start a wave of inspiration.

Is Binge Eating Disorder Going To Ever Go Away?

Nadine Ann — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:52:43 +0000

Well I can say that mine did but I had to work on it. Studies do show that binge eating disorder is a disorder that can affect a person typically for years but that is because they may not know how to seek out help or understand what is happening to them.

It took me a long time to even know what was going on in my own life and to be able to take a step back and realize, hey, yeah, I have a problem that I need to address. After getting over the fact that I was admitting to everyone my “weakness” and my “embarrassment” about my eating habits I had to also realize that I was human, this IS a huge disorder that affects millions of people and that I can heal it. But what a very long and frustrating path it was.

I hope that if you are suffering from binge eating disorder that you can find help here. I hope that you can feel the love and understanding that I offer you now and to take that with you wherever you go. You don’t need to feel badly about this because it is a reality in life just like all sorts of other disorders and diseases and problems. No one is perfect. Especially the ones that think they are.

Please stop being hard on yourself and find a way to bring forgiveness to yourself by not berating yourself. That’s the first step in healing.

-In good health, Nadine

Compulsive Eating at a Funeral?

Nadine Ann — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:39:32 +0000

Compulsive eating at a funeral? Absolutely. This is THE place for a binge to happen if you are stressed out and sad about the person dying…and of course who wouldn’t be. It’s the after party or reception that can be your downfall. There is usually a buffet and plenty of alcohol. The mix of those two components along with grief can be very deadly…no pun intended.

I’ve been to plenty of wakes and funerals and I think the most important thing is to try to limit your alcohol. Drinking intensifies the effect of grief and is actually a depressant. You might start out feeling like it’s an anti-depressant but in reality it will have the reverse effect on you.

Talk about your feelings instead of eating or drinking them when you are in a very sad situation such as a funeral. This is the time when you band together and rely on friends and family to get you through the tough times. Use the people in your life for that…not food.

The Secret Shame of Binge Eating

Nadine Ann — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:05:26 +0000

In Thursday’s post from the study USA Today did on Binge Eating Disorders, there was a sentence that read, “estimates of eating-disorder cases are probably low because people are very ashamed of these and tend to under-report them”. I can only imagine what the true number of cases would be if everyone reported it.

The secret shame the study mentioned is so very real. I had incredible shame and hid my binge eating from everyone including my husband. What’s funny (not in a haha way though) is that I hid my disorder from the people I knew would NOT judge me! But there is this secret feeling a binge eater has inside that tells her to hide because if people saw what she really ate they would be repulsed and lose respect for her instantly.

Now I know if you are reading this and you are a family member of a binge eater you are shaking your head saying, “I would never do that!”

I know.

But if you have never walked in the shoes of a binge eater you simply can’t know the secret shame.

Now I ask you if you are a binge eater why you think we can’t admit this to the people we love? Is it because we are not ready to begin healing? Or that we think they will kick us in the ass instead of help us? Are the relationships we are in that bad for us that we feel we cannot speak of a food disorder that affects millions of people around the world? Are we just not educated enough about the disorder?

I think in the end it is up to each one of us to decide on WHAT we want to feel, WHEN we want to feel it and HOW long we want to feel it for.

Think of what your life would be like if you did not have an eating disorder or secret shame.

-Nadine Ann, C.N., H.H.P.

5 Tips to Stop Binge Eating

Nadine Ann — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:27:53 +0000

Tip #1Give yourself permission to eat when and what you want. There is nothing like saying you “can’t have this” to make you want to have more of it! If you are binge eating you feel shame and guilt on top of all the calories you are consuming which is causing you to binge even more. When you get to the root cause of why you are compulsively over eating you can then work on a healthy eating plan.

Tip #2 Develop positive coping skills to use for managing stress. Stress is a huge concern for binge eaters because negative or bad stress leads to unhappy feelings and emotions which leads to wanting to soothe those feelings which lead to binging. That is a typical binge cycle. Practice assertiveness training if you are having trouble dealing with stressful situations.

Tip #3Acknowledge your feelings and emotions. People who binge eat sooth their feelings with food because they don’t know any other way to deal with their painful emotions that they do not want to face. By dealing with your feelings you can face them head on instead of burying them in the sand. What is it that you are running away from? What is causing you pain? Binge eating has nothing to do with being out-of-control but everything to do with not facing your true feelings.

Tip #4Use the power of your brain to bring about changes. It’s called the Law of Attraction. When you focus on what you want instead of focusing on what you don’t want you will get more of what you want. In other words if I said, “I want to be happy, healthy and confident” versus “I don’t want to binge anymore or feel bad”, what is my brain actually hearing? In the first sentence it hears happy, healthy and confident and in the second sentence all it hears are negatives. Your brain does not hear the word “don’t” so change the way you talk and you change the way you think.

Tip #5Grab a journal and start keeping track of exactly when, where, and why you are binge eating. See if you can determine what feelings you were having so you can deal with those feelings. Were you stressed out? Did the boss tell you he wanted to see you? Did you not make a deadline? Did you get in a fight with your boyfriend? What are you having trouble dealing with? All these things can help you better understand what triggers your binge cycles so you can become more aware of them.

Nadine Ann, C.N., H.H.P.

Industry News About Binge Eating Disorder

Nadine Ann — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:13:05 +0000

Study: Binge eating is No. 1 food disorder in USA

(BINGE, BY DEFINITION
Binge eating disorder “is quite different from the ordinary munching you might do for the Super Bowl,” says Harrison Pope Jr., a researcher who treats people with eating disorders at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. People who have the disorder “can’t stop once they get started even though they feel uncomfortably full.”)

By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY
Binge eating disorder — frequent, uncontrolled bouts of eating without purging — is the most common eating disorder in the USA, more widespread than anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, according to the first large-scale national survey on these conditions.

The binge disorder, which afflicts 3.5% of women and 2% of men and lasts an average of eight years, can lead to severe obesity, says lead researcher James Hudson, director of the Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Program at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass.

Such people eat large amounts of food in short periods of time at least twice weekly. They feel out of control when they are overeating, Hudson says. “Binge eating disorder may explain in part why it’s so difficult for some people to control their weight” and why some become severely obese, he says.

A 5-foot-6 woman is severely obese if she weighs 248 pounds or more; a 5-foot-9 man falls in this category if he weighs 270 pounds or more, he says.

Hudson and colleagues analyzed data from about 3,000 people who were asked about their mental health in face-to-face interviews in a separate national study. Findings in the journal Biological Psychiatry:

• About 0.9% of women and 0.3% of men said that at some point in their lives they have had anorexia nervosa, which is self-starvation. It lasted an average of 1.7 years.

• 1.5% of women and 0.5% of men said they have had bulimia nervosa, the binge-and-purge disorder that often involves self-induced vomiting. It lasted an average of 8.3 years.

• Fewer than half the people with the disorders got treatment.

• People with the eating disorders often have other mental health problems.

Estimates of eating-disorder cases “are probably low because people are very ashamed of these and tend to under-report them,” Hudson says. The disorders have become more prevalent in the past 50 years, he says.