Resist Old Habit vs. Create New One

During the years I struggled with bingeing and purging, I often read that resisting the urge to purge would eliminate binges. I could occasionally resist the urge to binge and purge, when I overate and felt painfully full. However, I almost always chose to binge with the understanding that I would purge afterwards. After I had eaten a usual 'binge' amount, food naturally refluxed. I never had to force myself to purge, although I often drank lots of water to facilitate purging.

I eventually learned to resist urges to binge after I overate, so that overeating didn't trigger bingeing and purging. I almost never purged after simple overeating. However, I always paired bingeing with purging. So allowing myself to binge but trying to resist purging seems like putting myself into the well-worn brain rut of my binge/purge habit and expecting not to follow through. (See my previous post "Replacing Old Habits with New Ones".) That relies on 'will power'. I always believed I didn't use will power, but I used 'won't power' to prevent binges. I avoided situations and foods which seemed to trigger binges.

However I couldn't always avoid all my binge/purge triggers. No matter how much I planned to avoid those triggers, I still averaged a once a month binge/purge episode. Usually that occurred after feeling guilty about MANY episodes of overeating (but not bingeing or purging). I got sooo tired of feeling uncomfortably full that I gave in to bingeing on a day when I felt very stressed and overate. I believed that I could resist bingeing in response to a couple of stressful situations. However when I was overwhelmed with physical, emotioinal, relational and situational stressors, I stopped resisting and distracted myself with a binge episode. I often considered that 'rewarding' myself for several months of resisting a binge, because the process of overeating and enduring painful discomfort was not very rewarding.

Only when I changed my focus from resisting my old habit (bingeing) to creating a new habit (eating only to the point of comfort or 'enough') did I finally eliminate binge/purge episodes, because I greatly reduced overeating episodes. Creating a new brain path, by mindfully eating to the point of satisfaction, helped me completely avoid the old brain rut of overeating, bingeing and purging.

For the past almost 7 weeks, I've worked on stopping (eating) at 'just enough', which totally prevents guilt from overeating or digestive discomfort which sometimes motivates me to consider purging. I've also allowed myself to eat freely of any nonallergic foods I wanted, while letting my stomach cues of satisfaction tell me how much I could comfortably eat. Focussing on creating a positive habit (doing something), rather than resisting a negative habit (not doing something) has taken me beyond old cravings, struggles and brain ruts.