Now I have 17 boxes of cookies in my cupboard. Here is my plan to NOT EAT THEM ALL!

I will donate most of them to the Troops at Hanscom AFB. Every year the Girl Scouts do this amazing cookie drive and donate thousands of cases of cookies to the troops and they then send them overseas and wherever the troops are. Isn’t that wonderful?! So I just have to remember that I am donating them to a very worthy cause and that should take the sting out of me not eating them!

The other hard thing that I will have to deal with is Valentines Day. Hopefully I will NOT get any chocolate candies or heart shapes Hershey Kisses! I love chocolate and for me I am lucky because if I don;t go near it I am fine but if I have one then it’s all over. So I will simply avoid it and be fine.

I love my husband but if he gets me any fattening food for V Day we may not make it to Year 11!

1. Firm up this saggy body using weights.
2. Make a huge amount of money and eliminate debt. (yeah right…)
3. Exercise more.
4. Love more.
5. Spend less money.

Yup that should just about do it. I would love to say that I will keep these resolutions but really it’s just like starting any other goal. I have set it WAY too big and never bother to break it down. Maybe I am just not that serious about it then or I am overwhelmed with it so I discard them and say it’s too difficult.

So let’s do this together and set small goals that we can accomplish. Take my first resolution to “Firm up this saggy body using weights”. I could break this down and set my goal to be “I will do 3 arm curls on each arm today” and do that for 4 days. Now really, how simple is that! I can do THAT.

Then I would make the goal be “I will do 6 arm curls on each arm today”. Easy.

Do this with me friends…take your resolutions and break them down into tiny goals. We might actually have a shot of ACHIEVING them!

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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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.

I’ve been kind of “wrapped up” with my own thoughts lately about women and cancer because two of my friends were just both diagnosed with stage 1 ovarian cancer. Both of them…can you believe that? And it’s within 5 weeks of each other. I have been struggling with how I can help them. I am the type of person that needs to help those around me whom I see struggling. I guess it’s just who I am and I like that about me because it is rewarding when you help someone but there are some things I just can’t fix. And for these two women, I don’t know how to help them.

Sometimes I do too much when I should let them figure it out on their own. For example, my 20 year old daughter and her boyfriend are trying to save their money for a trip we are all taking in February to Las Vegas. Her boyfriend, Chris, came by the house after work one night frustrated beyond frustration! He was hoping to make enough money to go out for dinner but he still hadn’t finished his Christmas shopping so they were disappointed that they had no money. I wanted to go upstairs and get the $25.00 gift certificate I bought to the Olive Garden to put in her Christmas stocking so that they could go out and be happy. I am a fixer. I am EXACTLY like my mom and she drives me nuts sometimes when she tries to fix things! So I withheld my instinct to make everyone happy and let them figure it out themselves. It certainly isn’t going to kill them to have to stay in for a night and eat soup.

I’m not sure what my friends will need but I am always going to be here as a friend for them. I have a feeling if I can just be patient enough, I’ll know what they need from me because they are simply going to tell me and that’s the best thing I can do for them.

I feel the same way about binge eating. When you are ready to get help tell the people around you exactly what you need. Tell them because trust me, they don’t know how to help you. They don’t read minds. They may care so much about you that it may seem like they are trying to “fix” it but I will go out on a limb and say that they truly want to help you but they don’t know how so they are guessing on what you need. It’s the same thing for my friends with cancer. I want so badly to “fix” it so they won’t be unhappy. But I am not in a position TO fix it. I am only in a position to be a friend and do as they ask me.

Well, I’ve put off wrapping long enough! Take care and please say a little blessing for my friends.

So I was thinking also about how we use food to celebrate happiness and sadness. We eat like pigs on holidays and funerals. Obviously we have to eat to sustain life but what if we didn’t bring out all this food and drink? What if we found another way to celebrate? Like play games or go ice skating? There must be something we could do besides eat ourselves into oblivion!

Now think about this too. What if scientists finally come up with a pill that we can take so we don’t have to eat. This magic pill would fill us up and make us feel satisfied. You would never have to eat again! WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH YOUR TIME IF YOU NEVER HAD TO WORRY ABOUT FOOD AGAIN?

Think about that for today!

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

I want to give a ton of credit to Rob, the developer of the new software, for doing such a terrific job at customizing some of the software and helping me get it all installed and working properly. If anyone out there ever needs a membership software program you should check out his site…the URL is http://www.internetmarketingsuccess.biz/easy_membership_web_site_software

So I hope everyone will enjoy the new members area!

Nadine

Here is an update on the members area for the BreakAway Program…we contracted with a company in England and they have been working with us to build the members area the way we want it to look for you guys. We need a journal area, to-do list and goals area so that means it is all custom stuff.

I really hate to open the program back up again without it being finished so please hang in there for a few more days. I am hopeful it will be tomorrow but I also thought we would be done by now! So, I want it to be ready and de-bugged before we reopen.

Thanks again for your patience!
Nadine

We use a third party vendor called Interlogy (which you should run in the other direction from) and it has been difficult from the get go but I really liked the fact that my clients could have an online area to write down their goals and to do lists and stuff so I stayed with them and just gritted my teeth every time there was an issue.

The company is run by one guy who is not very proficient at customer service and will not help solve his own bug problems on his software without a hefty fee and a week turn around time.  I’ve put up with that for 2 years.

Today the software crashed.  And I do mean crashed.  There is basically nothing left. And there is no support this time from him.  I quit.  I give.  My clients mean more to me than having to put up with software that is down and is now kaput.

So I had been looking of course for a new alternative for a members area and I did find one but now it is imperative that I get the new software up and running asap since none of us (that includes me!) can log in.  So I am rebuilding the members area and it will be better than ever.

I want to thank my members for their patience during this time and thank my prospective members for your patience while this is being rebuilt.  I am not offering any additional members until this is finished.

Check back tomorrow for the new login info. P.S. if you are a client you can email me at info@breakawayprogram.com for a new login.

Thank you all so much
Nadine Ann

How I did it: I went to school for nutrition, stress management, psychology and holistic health along with eating disorders and became a specialist.  I wrote a full treatment program from everything I had learned and healed my disorder.

Lessons & tips: The first thing I recommend to my clients is to stop criticizing yourself.  That does absolutely no good and it only makes you feel worse about yourself.  You don’t need to feel badly about yourself because you really are a good and decent person.  Compulsive overeating is NOT who you are.   It’s what you are doing but it is not who you are.  It’s the same thing with your body.  If you are overweight that just means your body is carrying more pounds than it needs to be healthy.  You are not the fat.  You are a person.

Second thing is to understand what is happening to you and your brain when you binge eating.  There is an internal war going on within you and understanding what is happening to you is important.  I’m sure you feel the tug of war with one side of you saying “Stop binge eating right now!” and the other half is saying “I want to eat everything in sight because I am so stressed out”.   Keep a journal so you can write down your thoughts.

Third is to find the root cause of your compulsive overeating.  Do you know why you overeat?  What is happening to you when you overeat?  Can you picture in your mind what is happening to you and what you are feeling when the binge happens?  You need to look for the deep seated reasons as to why you feel the need to binge.

Fourth is to learn about the different types of binges.  There are plenty of them and they can be anything from an Opportunity Binge to a Boredom Binge.

Sometimes you may begin binge eating to mask your issues or cover your feelings and then the next thing you know you are doing it simply because now it is a habit binge.  So I recommend learning more about the types of binges so you can identify what you think your binges are.

Fifth is to reduce your stress.  Stress is a huge contributor to binge eating.  So work on reducing your stress by relaxation or meditation, become organized, face fears, and by using facts to determine the severity of situations instead of using your emotions.

Sixth is to begin setting small goals that you can accomplish in small chunks.  These will be so small that you may laugh at how easy they are to complete but once you finish the first tiny goal in that chunk you can add another tiny goal to it and give yourself another chunk to complete it.

For example, let’s say you want to drink 8 glasses of water a day.  You don’t want to start out drinking 8 glasses of water the next day when all along you’ve been drinking 1/2 glass a day.  You will meet with resistance from your own body and brain.  Instead start small and break it down.  “I will drink 1 glass of water a day”.  Do this for 4 days as your first chunk.  After you complete that goal, make your next goal to be “I will drink 2 glasses of water a day”.  And do that for another 4 days.  Reward yourself at the end of each 4 day chunk so that you can show your brain and body how proud you are.

Seventh recommendation is to continually focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.  Let me explain that a bit more.  Every thought you have creates more thoughts in your mind and they tend to attract “like” thoughts.  You want to make sure the language you are using is always positive in focus.  If I were to say “I don’t want to be a compulsive overeater anymore” your brain is hearing the word “compulsive overeater”.  I am stating what I don’t want to happen.  Instead if I said “I want to eat healthy meals and feel happy” then I am focusing on what I really do want.  I know this may seem so basic but it may be the most powerful thing you can do.

And lastly I want to assure you that compulsive overeating can be fully cured.  You have the power within you to make the changes your brain and body need to make together in order to make life lasting achievements.  You can do it!

Resources: The BreakAway Program for Compulsive Overeating.

I am adding a cute little side widget to this blog that will update my Twitter Posts every so often so I hope you join in, follow me, I’ll follow you and we’ll all have fun with it!

Click the Twitter photo above to go to Twitter and start the action!

I just finished writing a new page for the site about Compulsive Overeating and Bulimia. Bulimia Nervosa means people binge eat and then find a way to purge the food from their bodies and it’s probably more common that you think.

Check out the information on Compulsive Overeating and Bulimia.

Do you fit into this category?

I am so happy that this humongous project is finally complete! The new design of The BreakAway Program is complete and as I mentioned on the homepage today, I wanted the look to feel more intimate and comfortable. Like we were sitting at the table having coffee and chatting as friends.

That’s how I feel about my clients. I take every one of them personally because it is such a personal issue for me to see that others can heal too.

So the new site for stop binge eating is up and running. There are exciting things on the horizon so stay tuned for a new community. And remember…”ITS TIME TO GET OUT OF B.E.D.!!!!!”

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.

But I mean it.

Why don’t you just stop stuffing your face full of garbage and act like a regular human being?

People who don’t binge eat can’t possibly imagine why you would want to eat so piggy that you make yourself sick?  I mean really, where is your self control?

So what’s the big problem and why don’t you just stop binge eating and eat healthy?  Why the heck can’t you get to the gym and work some of the fat off your body?

Do you think you have more problems than the rest of us?  Do you want more attention than the rest of us?  Do you think you get special treatment by binging? Do you really think no one understands you and no one loves you?

Okay, I know you are fuming right now.

Now let me ask you this:

Do you think these questions are insane and completely unjustified?

Do you think society sees overweight people as stupid and lazy beings who should just stop stuffing their faces and go on a diet?

Then that is EXACTLY why we must get the word out to the world about the truth about binge eating disorder.  We must educate society the same way cancer survivors educate others who suddenly find themselves in a world they thought they understood but clearly never did until being diagnosed.  We learn from others who have been through it and who talk about it openly with others.  And society appreciates them doing so because it helps us fulfill our need to know…our quest for the truth.

A wrong belief gets formed when there is judgment and a lack of facts.  It is a misconception that society has about compulsive overeating and it needs to be cleared up.

Binge Eating Disorder is such a “private and silent” disorder because people are simply afraid to talk about it for fear of being judged.

What do you think?  Are you ready to speak out?

—————————-

Causes of Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes is a number of diseases that involve problems with the hormone insulin. While not everyone with type 2 diabetes is overweight, obesity and lack of physical activity are two of the most common causes of this form of diabetes. It is also responsible for nearly 95% of diabetes cases in the United States, according to the CDC.

In a healthy person, the pancreas (an organ behind the stomach) releases insulin to help your body store and use the sugar from the food you eat. Diabetes happens when one of the following occurs:

• When the pancreas does not produce any insulin.
• When the pancreas produces very little insulin.
• When the body does not respond appropriately to insulin, a condition called “insulin resistance.”

Unlike people with type 1 diabetes, people with type 2 diabetes produce insulin; however, the insulin their pancreas secretes is either not enough or the body is unable to recognize the insulin and use it properly. This is called insulin-resistance. When there isn’t enough insulin or the insulin is not used as it should be, glucose (sugar) can’t get into the body’s cells. When glucose builds up in the blood instead of going into cells, the body’s cells are unable to function properly.

The Role of Insulin in the Cause of Type 2 Diabetes

To understand why insulin is important, it helps to know more about how the body uses food for energy. Your body is made up of millions of cells. To make energy, these cells need food in a very simple form. When you eat or drink, much of your food is broken down into a simple sugar called “glucose.” Then, glucose is transported through the bloodstream to the cells of your body where it can be used to provide the energy your body needs for daily activities.

The amount of glucose in your bloodstream is tightly regulated by the hormone insulin. Insulin is always being released in small amounts by the pancreas. When the amount of glucose in your blood rises to a certain level, the pancreas will release more insulin to push more glucose into the cells. This causes the glucose levels in your blood (blood glucose levels) to drop.

To keep your blood glucose levels from getting too low (hypoglycemia or low blood sugar), your body signals you to eat and releases some glucose from the stores kept in the liver.

People with diabetes either don’t make insulin or their body’s cells no longer are able to recognize insulin, leading to high blood sugars. By definition, diabetes is having a blood glucose level of 126 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) or more after an overnight fast (not eating anything).

————————-

Okay – now that we’ve discussed diabetes let’s talk about the correlation between that and binge eating disorder.  People who binge eat consume sometimes thousands of calories per binge which means the body just simply cannot process that amount of sugar.  Things start to fall apart internally. Your pancreas is producing an insane amount of insulin to break down all the food you’ve eaten.  Your body just simply can’t keep up that pace!

My brother has type 2 diabetes and he is in danger of losing his job because he drives huge freight trucks for a living.  You can’t have a job like that and be insulin dependent.  The DOT will not renew his truck license if he does not control his diet and stay on his pills.   Right now he is okay but it could easily change.

My brother-in-law who works for Massport in Boston was put on a supervisors desk job for the exact same reasons except he became insulin dependent and lost his commercial license.

This is real life.  This happens.  This is what happens when the body is abused with food/drink.

So as you can see binge eating disorder can harm your body in different ways.  You may think you are soothing your soul but in reality you would soothe your soul much better by treating your body well and understanding what happens when you binge eat.

You could easily find yourself in a hospital ER with a possible heart attack, kidney stones, gall stones, or be put on insulin for the rest of your life because you just didn’t realize at the time that you were in deed NOT getting the love and support you thought you were getting from food.  Food cannot love you.  Food cannot laugh with you or cry with you or cheer you on.  That you must do with yourself and the ones who are close to you that you feel love from.  If there is no one you can think of that fills this role then it is time to find a friend. It is time to find a caring supportive person and there are plenty of those people, as professionals, waiting to be there for you.

I am one of them.

I used to have binge eating disorder, anorexia, and bulimia so I truly understand what you are feeling.

Today I am living proof that you can absolutely move past this.  It is why I dedicated years to working with people just like you so that you don’t have to continue your life in an unhappy way.

I know you may be trying to find comfort from food or may be using food because you are hurting from something else but please understand that by using food in a way it was not intended (to sustain life) can truly harm your body forever.

And when you do heal your binge eating disorder and are getting on with your life you certainly don’t want to have these horrible lasting side effects of food abuse hanging over your head.  Binge eating is curable but some of the side effects are not.

Get to the root cause of your binge eating disorder so you are not faced with greater disabilities later in your life.

Take this short quiz- Are you a food addict?
To answer this question, ask yourself the following questions and answer them as honestly as you can.

1. Have you ever wanted to stop eating and found you just couldn’t?
2. Do you think about food or your weight constantly?
3. Do you find yourself attempting one diet or food plan after another, with no lasting success?
4. Do you binge and then “get rid of the binge” through vomiting, exercise, laxatives, or other forms of purging?
5. Do you eat differently in private than you do in front of other people on a consistent basis?
6. Has a doctor or family member ever approached you with concern about your eating habits or weight?
7. Do you eat large quantities of food at one time (binge) often?
8. Is your weight problem due to your “nibbling” all day long?
9. Do you eat to escape from your feelings?
10. Do you eat when you’re not hungry?
11. Have you ever discarded food, only to retrieve and eat it later?
12. Do you eat in secret?
13. Do you fast or severely restrict your food intake?
14. Have you ever stolen other people’s food?
15. Have you ever hidden food to make sure you have “enough?”
16. Do you feel driven to exercise excessively to control your weight?
17. Do you obsessively calculate the calories you’ve burned against the calories you’ve eaten?
18. Do you frequently feel guilty or ashamed about what you’ve eaten?
19. Are you waiting for your life to begin “when you lose the weight?”
20. Do you feel hopeless about your relationship with food?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then you may be a food addict and suffering from Binge Eating Disorder.  You couldn’t be further from alone if you tried.  Millions of people in the world have this disorder but please know that you can heal this and stop binge eating.  But you must first want to get help. The second thing you need to do is take action.  Without action, you are standing still and not moving forward on your healing journey.

College is so stressful and it can absolutely start an eating disorder.

It helps to understand that there are different types of binges and they can be caused from stressful situations in your life. Getting married, having a baby, moving to college, divorce and so on. They are all huge stressful events even if some of them are happy events.

There is also the role of alcohol which can be addictive and can also lead to binge eating. You eat drink and be merry right? Wrong!

It’s really difficult to know when it’s becoming a problem because there are usually so many other factors involved. For example, you and your friends are out until the early morning hours and come back with munchies galore. You eat. Your schedule is so different at college than it was at home and the times you eat are completely messed up. You eat more. You are cramming for exams and those snacks help soothe your brain. You eat and eat.

Here is how you can tell if you are just having a college weight gain or having an eating disorder. You just don’t feel right about it. You don’t feel good about how much you are eating. You are gaining weight and feeling depressed about it. You feel like crap!

Get some help before it goes on too long and becomes a habit binge.

photo credit: werkunz1

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

So would it be safe to say that diversion should work for adults who want to stop doing the behavior they are doing because their brains are highly developed?

ABSOLUTELY NOT! It’s why diversion WON’T work.

Diversion is only going to last for so long and then your highly developed brain is going to realize it has some major unsolved issues it needs to deal with but isn’t, and your brain is going to tell your body to go ahead and binge to cover it up.

So forget the cover ups, forget avoiding dealing with crappy situations and stress at home and work and get to the root cause of binging so you can go out and play golf for the fun of it!

-Nadine

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 weird thing is that the day would start out decent like it was going to surprise you and be sunny later on but then this weird Dorothy of Kansas weather would kick in around noon and would literally spiral downward until the kids got off the bus from camp.

One day Jess got off the bus looking like she had seen a ghost. Apparently it isn’t much fun being in a thunderstorm in a mess hall in the woods.

Needless to say, I have been completely stressing about the weather for this week because sure enough she is back at camp!

So I need a mass prayer for my daughter please!!!!!!!

-Nadine Ann

photo credit: Wagner Machado Carlos Lemes

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.
Author of The BreakAway Program for Binge Eating

Give 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 #3

Acknowledge 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 #4

Use 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 #5

Grab 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.
Binge Eating Disorder Help

July 9, 2009
– I like how you can find your “scared moments” in your daily life. I do it all the time. It is absolutely an art worth living.

July 9, 2009
– If only we could get this type of program into schools or at a place where teens could readily have access to it we might be able to reduce eating disorders at an early age.

July 9, 2009
– When you surround yourself with happy people you’ll get more happiness back! ]]> http://www.breakawayprogram.com/blog/uncategorized/top-weekly-posts-worth-sharing-july-10-2009/feed/ 0 http://www.breakawayprogram.com/blog/binge-eating-disorder/industry-news-about-binge-eating-disorder/ http://www.breakawayprogram.com/blog/binge-eating-disorder/industry-news-about-binge-eating-disorder/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:13:05 +0000 Nadine Ann http://www.breakawayprogram.com/blog/?p=22 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.

I talk about dieting all the time and how it doesn’t work but her weight gain of 83 pounds was incredibly fast. She has admitted to binge eating.

I think she was doomed from the start.

Here’s 3 quick reasons why:

• She never dealt with her underlying issues behind her eating disorder which she definitely had for years (just look at her past few years of binging)
• She was in the public eye and felt fear about not reaching the goal which is the ONLY reason why she made it.  Money talks but when the contract was done, so was she.
• She made drastic changes to her diet instead of very slow and tiny changes that her brain could “digest”!

So now she is back to being obese, unhappy and binging more than ever.  She has promised to lose the weight AGAIN!  Shall we watch her journey to self destruction one more time?  Think anyone will ever figure out that if something didn’t work in the past that it won’t work in the future?

Anyone who is a compulsive overeater would probably agree with me that it could be a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I know my depression came from a frustration of not knowing what to do with my emotions therefore I ate and ate and ate!  I actually didn’t realize how much I was eating or what I was doing to myself.  And because I was eating so much I felt guilty and started to hide food so it wouldn’t be so obvious.  I knew at that point I had a problem.

My depression grew from my inability to figure out WHY I was compulsive eating.  I felt like I couldn’t stop.  So I became more depressed.  The more depressed I got the more I ate to comfort myself.

All the depression I felt in my own case, was in part due to the disorder and once I cleared up the disorder the depression was gone.  For good. But that’s my case.

I read in one of the articles I was mentioning earlier that depression is related to an inability to express feelings.  Some other articles say depression can be related to a chemical imbalance in the brain.  I agree with both.

It’s important to not just lump everyone who has depression and binge eating disorder into a category that says if you heal the disorder the depression would go away but I sure would like to do a study to find out just how many people feel this way.

If you are interested (18 years or older)  in doing a short study (probably 3 months) to see how depression and binge eating go together please email me at info@breakawayprogram.com for further details of the trial.

-Nadine Ann, C.N., H.H.P
Founder of The Breakaway Program to heal Binge Eating Disorder.