One of the greatest wastes of your time…is ALL the time spent asking yourself WHY? WHY? do I do this? WHY do I binge? The answer is simple. It’s in your brain. It’s become a habit. That’s all. It’s NOT a symptom of some fundamental flaw in your persona. So “let it go” and let’s get busy replacing that ugly ‘practiced‘ habit — with a new one.
I found this online as I was researching and reading a book called “Brain Over Binge“. It’s a book by a woman named Kathryn Hansen who lost an amazing amount of weight, and recovered from binge behavior. Her story interested me for this reason. She spent many hours (and likely mucho dinero) in therapy — trying to find the cause, and then to eradicate it – to cure her binge behavior. For her, the process did not work. To paraphrase her, she found the extra intense scrutiny on the problem…to be part of the problem. She found (for herself) that the best way to minimize and then eliminate the binge behavior – was to give it less time and attention.
Kathryn goes on to explain alot about the brain. She holds a view that there are two brains: an animal brain and a rational brain. The animal brain controls all those behaviors that drive things we need for survival. So binge behavior and the cravings to do it — come from an overactive, perhaps confused animal brain. But guess what — that animal brain is not YOU. Nope. YOU (and I) – we live in the rational brain. This is where our conscious lives and our center for decision-making. Understanding this difference was of huge importance because…when you get caught in that loop of WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF?? The answer is — You didn’t. It’s your animal brain producing these urges that she calls neurological junk.
Hmmm.
I like it.
I listened to Kathryn describe this on a podcast, and slept on the idea. I woke up the next day feeling reinvigorated. I don’t have to figure out what is wrong with me to rid myself of these behaviors. I just have to give the urges less of my attention and work on not acting on them. GAME ON.
This was a plan worth getting excited about. Kathryn also went on to talk about habits. And how the brain works to embed habits deep into your brain while we sleep. While we sleep the brain is working. It’s organizing and reorganizing all the “stuff” we know and do. You remember the old phrase…whatever you don;t use, you lose? Well, habits are the things we use ALOT. Daily, likely. So reacting to urges and bingeing is a habit too. So if we work on doing it less…..the habit can be forgotten as well.
Last golden nugget I took away from Kathryn was…..when you feel the urge to binge coming on — take a nap.
Huh?
Yea. Take a nap. I did this on Tuesday. Tuesday, Peter, my sister and the girls went to Universal I stayed home to rest my knee. Already — I was nervous. #1 condition to set up binge behavior for me….Being ALONE! So around 3:30p, I could feel the urges building. Instead of acting on them, I got a blanket and cuddled up on the couch and took a nap. I slept for 30 minutes. When I woke up, I felt refreshed, bright-eyed, energetic…and all the whispers of the urges were nowhere to be found. I had an apple at 5:00p and easily made it to 6:30p for dinner when my family came home with Chipotle for dinner.
Amazed and happy — I am sold. I’m going to work on this for the rest of the month and see how much success I have. Look, all of this is going to be in addition to the teachings of Weight Watchers (proteins, fruits and veg). But I like it! And I’m happy. #ChooseHappiness365 (202/365)
Ciao for now….Diane