Did I Really Eat That?: How to Quickly Recover From a Binge

At one time or another, we have all awakened to the sight of
empty soda bottles, pizza boxes, candy bar wrappers, or ice
cream containers strewn about our bedroom, den or kitchen and
asked ourselves: “Did I really eat all that?” Rather than
accepting binges as temporary relapses, we tend to react by
beating ourselves up for falling off the wagon and failing to
follow through our healthy eating plan. Here are a few concrete
actions you can take after a binge to successfully coach
yourself from relapse to recovery in as little time as possible:

Go Ahead and Vent!

Give yourself 10 minutes to vent about your setback. Set a
timer to make certain you don’t get carried away, and then use
this time to whine about why you can’t eat whatever you want.
Complain about how much you hate to exercise. Blame your mother
and rave on about why it is not your fault that you like ice
cream. Give voice to everything you are feeling and thinking -
expressing anything that might be contaminating your brain. But
when the 10 minutes are up and the timer goes off, stop venting
and move on.

Focus on Facts, Not Faults

Writing a clear and objective description of what you ate
during a binge can help you put an end to the blame game. Try to
focus only on what you ate and not how you felt about what you
ate. Focusing too intently on our feelings can sometimes
interfere with out ability to move forward, because they can
distort our objectivity. A written description can serve as a
window through which we can assess our behavior without making
judgments about ourselves. When we can begin to make
distinctions between who we are and what and how much we eat,
binges will lose their power to derail our weight loss and
healthy living goals.

Reframe Your Binge

Reframing or putting a positive spin on your overeating
incident doesn’t mean that you don’t accept responsibility for
your actions. It means that you look at the experience with a
positive, constructive attitude. For instance, rather than
telling yourself that you have lost your way, reframe the
incident by telling yourself that you merely took a detour.
Remind yourself that no matter how much you ate, your binge did
not cause the world to stop spinning. Life will go on, and so
will your journey toward weight loss and healthy living.

1. Prev:Recordkeeping: The Key to the Weight Control Kingdom
2. Next:Close Kept Secrets to Weight Loss Lesson #36