The First Thing I Did To Recover From Bulimia

And what you can do today to stop emotional and binge eating...

The First Thing I Did To Recover From Bulimia

 

In my last post I told you how important it is to feel satisfied by the food you eat if you want to recover from bulimia and / or stop binge eating for good.

And if this means eating chocolate every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a while, who cares?… If it can help you change your relationship with food for the rest of your life, just do it baby!

Another thing that’s pretty important to do in order to recover fully from bulimia and binge eating – and it’s also the first thing I did that started to erase my own binge urges – was to start eating regularly.

 

What my typical day looked like before recovery…

You see, before starting recovery, I used to rush through life as fast as I could. I was waking up at 6.30am and never had breakfast before leaving home for heaps of different reasons. One of them was because I hated feeling full to start my day. More generally, I just hated feeling full any time of the day. So, I just grabbed some coffee on my way to work, like I always did.

Something I didn’t know at that time is that not eating regularly was decreasing my metabolism and drinking caffeine on an empty stomach was sending my cortisol levels through the roof, messing with my hormonal balance and general health (hello crazy sugar cravings in the afternoon).

If I was lucky not having too many meetings, the first bite of food I was putting into my mouth was around 11am, after replying to all the “urgent” and often stressful clients’ emails.

Of course, I was never really hungry for lunch, so I usually had a smoothie as ‘late lunch’ (that was probably around 2.30pm). After all, I had a late breakfast, so it was a very good thing to eat lightly, right? It goes without saying that I always ate healthy stuffs. So when it was not a nice smoothie, it was a salad from the healthiest salad bar around my work place.

But as soon as I was out of work (usually around 6pm), a kind of strong force I couldn’t explain (hello binge urges) was pushing me to the grocery store to buy crazy stuffs like snickers bars, chocolate barks, muffins, cookies, M&M’s… you name it! I probably would have died on the spot if someone saw me buying these stuffs. Gosh, I was THE healthy gal and I couldn’t possibly eat this crap…

I just want to pause for a minute here and do some maths. I am not sure if you’ve noticed but in 12 hours time, quite busy and often loaded with stress, I had eaten a breakfast and a smoothie – or a salad. You bet I could have killed someone to get my sugar fix at that stage.

 

Another important thing to note is what I had during the day. The kind of breakfast or smoothie I had didn’t contain any healthy fats. However healthy fats are exactly what you want to stabilise your hormones and sugar cravings.

Healthy means balance. I had indeed many things but balance.

So what was this first thing that helped me shift things around you’d ask me. Well, it was super simple; I started to eat regularly.

Most of the time, the women who experience these crazy sugar cravings in the afternoon don’t understand that what sets them up for failure when it comes to bulimia and / or binge eating recovery is what happens earlier in their day (before the crazy binge urges arise). I am sure you’ll agree that most of the time, when you’re feeling the urge to binge, it’s already too late, right?

 

So what can you do?

 

The answer is twofold and very simple:

1. Just eat something regularly, which means about every 3 hours, starting within 40 minutes max of waking-up, even if you don’t feel like it at the beginning.

2. Focus on getting healthy fats and proteins at every single meal. Avoid sugars and refined carbs.

 

Why?

There are many different reasons to start doing so but here are the main ones:

  • Stabilise your blood sugar levels
  • Balance your hormones
  • Increase your metabolism
  • Re-nourish your body and re-learn to digest food on a regular basis
  • Reconnect with your subtle hunger and satiety sensations
  • Stop performing out of stress (and caffeine if it’s your case too)

 

In fact, this simple tip is so powerful that if you do it properly for the next couple of weeks, I guarantee you you’ll start to notice improvements in your eating patterns. In my in-depth online program, I take women from A to Z, so they can stop binge eating (and purging) once and for all. And this simple but powerful technique plays a very important role at the very beginning to set up strong foundations.

It’s called structured eating and I even did a video blog about this topic years ago. If you resonate with this, I strongly recommend you to check it out here. It’s probably the best investment you can make with the next 5 minutes of your time!

Before you switch to something else, watch this video and try this new technique for yourself. It might just be the beginning of your new life.

But before I leave you, I just want to be clear on something: this WILL NOT make you put on weight (unless you’re seriously underweight). AND you won’t have to eat like that for the rest of your life. BUT you DO need to do this as long as necessary in order to to reset your system and metabolism, which might take up to 9 months for some people.

I know the sound of it might scare the hell out of you but believe me, get over it! This is the foundation of a healthy relationship with food!

Now I’d love to hear from you!

What do YOU think? Is it something you can relate to? Have you tried structured eating before, and if yes, have you got any results?

Share your experience in the comments below… It’s maybe the exact thing someone else needs to read!

 

Pauline

 

Make Peace With Food

A powerful program to heal your relationship with food and stop binge eating once and for all.

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