How do I never binge eat again?

[elizabethh]

Usually when you binge eat, it is for numbing some discomfort or pain. A lot of people eat unhealthy when times of stress or depression. I find that I'm able to eat healthy when I'm able to maintain high satisfaction levels so I don't need junk food to lift my mood. In other words, I rely on other healthy coping mechanisms (such as meditation, yoga, having a life purpose) than unhealthy ones, like food for comfort to sustain a happy and healthy lifestyle.

[kag101]

On 22/03/2022 at 0:58 PM, Mada_ said:

Is anyone on here at least 2 year sober from junk food? 

this simply does not work. it will either backfire really bad, or you'll lose pleasure in the eating experience.

and you'll become one of those people who lose a bunch of weight, and it seems like they lost their soul in the process as well. lol.

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by kag101

[flowboy]

On 22/03/2022 at 4:58 PM, Mada_ said:

Does anyone actually have a concrete answer to this?

Is anyone on here at least 2 year sober from junk food? 

@Mada_ How to never binge eat again... binge eating, just like anything pleasureable-but-destructive, is an escape into pleasure FROM something else.

So to quit, you need a better way of dealing with that something else.

Let me paint you a picture.

From a calm and 'full' state, where everything is okay, you feel loved, safe and serene, and not worried about a thing, extremely pleasurable activities with a self destructive edge, such as binge eating junk food, or even bingeing Netflix or video games, don't seem that attractive.

From that state, all you want to eat is what is healthy, and no more than you need.

High-dopamine activities would just disturb your peace. You may consider getting into an excited state for something that truly excites you, a passion of yours, knowing it's not self destructive. You may feel the desire to move your body, work out, or be productive.

But anything with destructive side effects just doesn't seem worth it.

Because you're perfectly fine where you are.

You don't need anything.

 

You may be thinking "Yeah, sounds great Erik, but who can ever achieve that living in society? I'm not a Tibetan Monk."

The point I'm making is not that you should be in this state always.

Just that you can always get back to it.

You can probably remember moments like this, perhaps after exercise, after sex, after breathing exercises, or out in nature with the sun on your face.

Now when you are doing the self destructive habit, solve for X.

X = the difference between the serene state I just described, and how you actually feel.

That's what needs to be dealt with.

The simplest way to start doing that, is to just focus on how it feels in your body.

Inspect all of the sensations that are there, and let them be there.

If you feel very tense or a tinge of sadness, fully accept and be okay with feeling tense and sad.

If you're okay with feeling it, then no need for binge eating or anything else.

After 5 minutes of focusing on that feeling itself, it will probably start to reveal itself to you what needs to be healed.

Is it pain from the past? Then you can heal it through shadow work.

Are you feeling worthless, not listened to, ignored, guilty for existing? Could very well be from the past, you can do inner child work and after a couple sessions you will start having a different response to the same situation.

Are you feeling stressed and worried about the future? Devise a plan, write down the steps of what you are going to do about it, and put them on your calendar. You'll probably feel different after that.

Are you feeling frustrated because you didn't communicate something that you should have? Someone crossed your boundaries, you said yes to something you shouldn't have, or held back a criticism that you should have expressed?

Communicate it to that person.

Are you simply too excited about something, and you're bottling the excitement up, it has nowhere to go? (this is what made me binge eat sometimes) Then do a wild happy dance and move until the energy dissipates.

And so, the reason for escaping can be identified with just a few minutes of full undivided attention, and then the issue can be taken care of. Removing the need for the escapism.

[Vision]

1 hour ago, flowboy said:

You may be thinking "Yeah, sounds great Erik, but who can ever achieve that living in society? I'm not a Tibetan Monk."

The point I'm making is not that you should be in this state always.

But, ideally, one would always be in that state, right? 

And consciousness work is the best way to get to the point where you are always in that state? 

1 hour ago, flowboy said:

Are you feeling stressed and worried about the future? Devise a plan, write down the steps of what you are going to do about it, and put them on your calendar. You'll probably feel different after that.

This is good. I will do this right now. 

Why am I feeling stress and worried about the future? 
Because I am dealing with debilitating health problems that are already destroying my quality of life, and if they go on for longer at this rate, they will destroy my life. 

What is my plan? What are the steps I'm going to take? 
I will continue researching and experimenting with courses of action that could potentially help me.

Right now I am experimenting with treating Candida overgrowth as I match a lot of the symptoms. I haven't lost all hope as there are a few more things I haven't tried yet. 

3 hours ago, flowboy said:

If you feel very tense or a tinge of sadness, fully accept and be okay with feeling tense and sad.

If you're okay with feeling it, then no need for binge eating or anything else.

How can you fully accept and be okay with feeling these emotions? I don't fully understand. The way you're saying it makes it seem like I can "just do it". How? 

[flowboy]

59 minutes ago, Vision said:

How can you fully accept and be okay with feeling these emotions? I don't fully understand. The way you're saying it makes it seem like I can "just do it". How? 

Make a decision that you'd rather feel this, than (binge eat / whatever pattern you're trying to break) and the negativity that follows that. Knowing that if you choose to feel it fully, it will get resolved, but if you escape it, you'll never be free.

Also being aware that whatever you're feeling, is there for a reason: it needs to be felt. Your subconscious needs you to pay attention to this and fully feel it. If you do not, it will just keep coming back stronger.

 

59 minutes ago, Vision said:

But, ideally, one would always be in that state, right? 

And consciousness work is the best way to get to the point where you are always in that state? 

I mean, "often", or "on a daily basis" is good to shoot for. Always is aiming very high, and I personally believe it would get perfectly boring. As long as we're alive, we'll occasionally invent things to feel negative about and want to change. It keeps life interesting. Though I can relate to wanting to always feel serene after a rough period, it's a perfectly natural desire.

I don't know if you include shadow work and emotional healing work in your definition of consciousness work, but they're important.

I see two categories:

• Work to make the ego healthy.
  Includes shadow work, inner child work, trauma release, different forms of therapy.
• Work to transcend the ego.
  Meditation, yoga, enlightenment work, psychedelics.

I believe both categories are needed to experience the aforementioned state on a daily basis, feeling serenity and inner peace, bliss, and joy.

Transcending an unhealthy ego creates very unbalanced humans. Think of the neo-advaita type that always wants to point out that "there is no I" and that's an answer to all your problems, and is kind of an unempathetic asshole about it.

Just doing shadow work and healing can also be a trap, because there's always more to heal, you're never completely done. And so people who are too much on that side are always busy healing, their heads up their own ass so to speak, and never get ready to actually live their lives.

But both are important.

Edited April 22, 2022 by flowboy

[AndylizedAAY]

I have a problem with binging on videogames which is not quite the same thing but the context can be the same.

[Vision]

2 hours ago, flowboy said:

Make a decision that you'd rather feel this, than (binge eat / whatever pattern you're trying to break) and the negativity that follows that. Knowing that if you choose to feel it fully, it will get resolved, but if you escape it, you'll never be free.

The pattern I want to break is masturbating. I've started doing it again and I do it every week or two. 

Quote

Also being aware that whatever you're feeling, is there for a reason: it needs to be felt. Your subconscious needs you to pay attention to this and fully feel it. If you do not, it will just keep coming back stronger.

Why does my subconscious need me to pay attention to this and fully feel it? 

2 hours ago, flowboy said:

I mean, "often", or "on a daily basis" is good to shoot for. Always is aiming very high, and I personally believe it would get perfectly boring. As long as we're alive, we'll occasionally invent things to feel negative about and want to change. It keeps life interesting. Though I can relate to wanting to always feel serene after a rough period, it's a perfectly natural desire.

Is it sort of like video games?

E.g. in a game like GTA V, when you're already rich and have everything, then there's nothing left to do and you get bored. But what makes the game enjoyable is the challenge from making as much money as possible? 

Or another example is having cheats or hacking in video games. When you can do anything and everything, you become too overpowered and that takes the fun out of the game. If it was fun to have cheats in video games, then video game developers would have developed them that way, but instead they make it so that the players are challenged. So the challenge is what is stimulating and puts one into the flow state, not having everything and sitting at the top of the mountain. 

Quote

I don't know if you include shadow work and emotional healing work in your definition of consciousness work, but they're important.

They are

 

2 hours ago, flowboy said:

I see two categories:

• Work to make the ego healthy.
  Includes shadow work, inner child work, trauma release, different forms of therapy.
• Work to transcend the ego.
  Meditation, yoga, enlightenment work, psychedelics.

I believe both categories are needed to experience the aforementioned state on a daily basis, feeling serenity and inner peace, bliss, and joy.

Transcending an unhealthy ego creates very unbalanced humans. Think of the neo-advaita type that always wants to point out that "there is no I" and that's an answer to all your problems, and is kind of an unempathetic asshole about it.

Just doing shadow work and healing can also be a trap, because there's always more to heal, you're never completely done. And so people who are too much on that side are always busy healing, their heads up their own ass so to speak, and never get ready to actually live their lives.

But both are important.

Thanks for your input. What would the best resources be for these things? 

Quote

Just doing shadow work and healing can also be a trap, because there's always more to heal, you're never completely done. And so people who are too much on that side are always busy healing, their heads up their own ass so to speak, and never get ready to actually live their lives.

How does healing take you away from living your life? What type of work does healing entail anyway? 

[Vido]

On 3/22/2022 at 11:58 AM, Mada_ said:

Does anyone actually have a concrete answer to this?

Is anyone on here at least 2 year sober from junk food? 

I gotch

I used this method and I not only quit smoking but also stopped binge eating. I was 86 kgs but now I'm 73 or something.

So Here's what you do.
The game is simple, to notice yourself going through the self-destruct mode rather than being the character who's going through self-destruct mode.

How do you do this? Okay this is how I executed this
I actually liked pizza a lot, but eating it always made me feel bad because I used to stuff it down my throat like farmers feed corn to ducks to make the fancy liver thing.
THE TRICK: Over indulge, so when I have a craving, I order a big pizza, I eat. I keep eating. My stomach would feel full, BUT THEN you contunue to eat. Throughout this process, notice the sensations in your body, notice the taste, notice the pain, notice the pleasure, notice your ego becoming the living manifestation of gluttony. Notice everything repulsive about it but don't judge yourself. Just notice. You will automatically let go once you realise that the craving that you had, does not get full filled with the indulgence of pizza.

 

I did the same with cig. I usually buy a pack, pleasurable is 2 cig, but then I over indulge, I would feel like puking, I would still smoke, noticing the taste, noticing how it didn't give me the high anymore, noticing how disgusting it was.

After a couple of time, you will know first hand that this doesn't serve you

This is the goal. Making your ego realise that this thing that you are doing, doesn't serve you anymore. The way to do that is to notice the aspects of it that doesn't serve you.

I'm in a hurry so I'm not making this edit pretty, but if you were confused in any part of the process, let me know

[ZenAlex]

My advice - Try to make your meals balanced with carbs, fat and protein.

 

It usually gives you the carb energy, and the satiating feeling due to the fat and protein.

If people were eating healthy whole food from birth, I highly doubt anyone would be obese, or at least not many.

Junk food has little to no nutritional value, so it doesn't fill you up.

I could eat a 2000 cal mcdonalds meal and be hungry within 3 hours lol.