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Finally going to journal about the book I’ve been reading, “Brain over Binge” (BOB) by Kathryn Hansen... but be warned, it's a long one! I’m so curious to hear if anyone else has read it or heard anything about it, as it is an alternative perspective to the normal theories on binge eating & how to stop. I’ve been working hard to sort out why I have strong sugar carvings and urges to binge, & how I can either make them stop or learn to live with them without acting on them. I’ve been looking at my emotional eating & trying to use journaling, praying, breathing, meditating, etc. to stop it from happening. Sometimes I’m successful & sometimes I’m not. While I’ve been happy to be making progress, I still question why sometimes it is still so hard, and why sometimes the urge to binge is so strong even when there isn’t an emotional reason for it.
Somewhere here on FS, someone referenced the success they had in stopping their binging using the advice from BOB. Much of what Hansen writes makes sense to me too & I am enthusiastically trying to use this new info to stop my binging & deal with my cravings also.
Hansen used Addictive Voice Recognition Technique (AVRT) developed by Jack Trimpey’s Rational Recovery program (originally started as a alcohol & drug addiction recovery program as an alternative to AA or NA) to stop her binge eating once and for all after years of traditional therapy. The premise behind AVRT is our brains are made up of an ancient survival brain (flight or fight/animal brain/inner undisciplined child) and the human brain (modern consciousness). The survival brain never wants to feel hunger or pain and has no understanding of the consequences.
The survival brain is very powerful & repetitively trying to convince the human brain to give in & binge or eat sugar, in my case. According to Hansen, this starts as a reaction to dieting, and as binging becomes a habit, it is hard wired into the animal brain. AVRT helps to see this struggle for what it is & gives the human brain the weapons it needs to resist, really ignore, the urges to binge. This becomes the new habit & “normal” eating replaces the binging.
Hansen’s approach to stop binge eating, consists of 5 steps –
1. View urges to binge as neurological junk. (She quit believing that the urges signaled a real need – physical or emotional – and stopped assigning the urges any value or significance.)
2. Separate the highest human brain from the urge to binge. (She realized that the urges weren’t really her, but generated in a brain region inferior to her true self.)
3. Stop reacting to the urges. (She stopped letting the urges affect her emotionally, which made them more tolerable & resistible.)
4. Stop acting on the urges. (This was the cure for her bulimia, made possible by the first 3 steps. She didn’t have to substitute any other behavior or emotionally satisfying activity for binge eating, but instead only had to refrain from binge eating, knowing this was re-programing the brain.)
5. Get excited. (By rejoicing in her success, she sped along the brain changes that erased her bulimia.)
While I’m certainly not suggesting that this approach will work for anyone else, nor do I know if it will help me with what has become periodic but strong urges for sugar, it makes sense to me. I’ve been trying to figure out why I would have urges to binge or overeat sugar knowing that I’ll feel horrible afterwards, it negatively impacts my mood & energy levels, and causes me to gain weight. Thinking of it in terms of a struggle between my higher & lower brains makes sense to me. It also makes sense to me that the act of binging has established that habit & brain pattern, which I now need to change.
When I think back to when my binging & sugar cravings started, it was about 30 years ago after a time where I strictly restricted what I ate. As Hansen discusses, the initial urges to binge were my brain saying I nutritionally needed more food. I was also suffering emotionally from the death of my sister & my lower brain wired the good feelings eating sugar & binging initially brought. My binging was helped only slightly back then by traditional therapy, but instead went away as my sons were born & my focus became eating healthfully while pregnant & as a Mom. I went through a long period then where I was not as focused on what I weighed and ate naturally but healthfully, and my weight stabilized. Recently though, as I aged & menopause hit, my weight started to go up & I again began restricting, probably too intensely trying to fight the aging process & get back my “girlish figure”.
What I’m hoping to do now is to focus on eating mindfully, and recognize the urges & cravings for what they are & ignore them. Sorry this got sooooo long-winded – I’m not in the least bit offended if its too been too much for anyone and/or if you disagree or feel this approach doesn’t make sense to or won’t work for you. It answered some questions that have been lurking in my mind (I guess my human brain portion!), and for now, it’s helping me continue to build my healthy road one building block at a time. And, my writing it all out is helping me understand it all even that much better.
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