Focus on Belief and Habit Change

I previously believed therapists and eating disorder experts who said that I needed to resolve my psychological problems in order to ‘recover’ from my disordered eating habits. So I read books, went to groups, posted online and talked to therapists about self-esteem, my relationships, professional stress and even my unresolved feelings about my abusive childhood. I believed that insights about myself, my past, my relationship or my lifestyle would magically resolve my eating problems.

However, I continued to binge and purge regularly. Eventually I learned about ‘normal eating’ and attempted occasionally to eat only when I felt hungry and stop eating when I felt full. Then I took a class that convinced me to commit fulltime to normal eating. After that class my binge/purge rate decreased by 50%. However, I still binged and purged, while I worked on those ‘other’ psychological issues.

Then I was diagnosed with celiac disease and 6 additional food allergies. I believed that those allergies caused my disordered eating habits, after reading theories about 'opiate peptides' from undigested food proteins (which caused allergic reactions). I also believed abstaining from my allergy foods would end my binge/purge habits. Then I started bingeing on ‘safe’ foods, which disproved my theory that food allergies made me binge.

Meanwhile, I read 3 books which eventually changed my view of ‘recovery’ from disordered eating.

In “Rules of Normal Eating” Karen Koenig taught me that my BELIEFS influenced my emotions which influenced my habits. She also described exercises by which I could ‘practice’ normal eating.

In the Appetite Awareness workbook, Linda W. Craighead wrote: “Appetite awareness training begins with a model that describes the various reasons an individual starts, continues, and ultimately stops eating … This model does not explain why you developed your current eating patterns; it just helps you figure out why you eat (or don’t eat) and why you stop (or don’t stop). AAT teaches you to analyze what happens each time you eat … You figure out what led you to eat and what led you to stop eating. This is a much easier task than trying to come up with the ‘real’ reason you have an eating problem, or trying to find a ‘simple solution’ to your eating problems. In AAT you tackle one eating decision at a time and you get better and better at making more effective eating decisions.” AAT taught me to change my eating habits by making different decisions.

In “Brief Therapy and Eating Disorders” Barbara McFarland wrote: “the client is doing the best she can and is capable of resolving her specific complaint (problem which) she brings to the therapist ... Nothing always happens. There are always exceptions or nonproblem patterns, and the (therapist’s) task (is to) assist clients to discover these exceptions ... the solutions are already within the client’s repertoire of behaviors and, thus, likely to be repeatable.” That taught me that I could change my eating habits by looking for and repeating exceptions to my problem behaviors. I later realized that those ‘exceptions’ could disprove my irrational beliefs about eating and food.

Ideas from those 3 books convinced me to stop trying to understand my eating habits and begin to focus on replacing counterproductive habits with ‘normal eating’. Like many others with disordered eating habits, ‘trying’ to change my habits really meant circling all around my habits, like a pilot circles the airport before landing. As long as I focused on all my psychological problems, I avoided 'landing' on my eating habits.

When I decided to honestly admit what I believed about food and eating, I began to change those beliefs and more easily change my eating habits. I focused on changing individual disordered habits, by first decreasing binge/purge episodes, then by committing not to purge, which eliminated bingeing, and finally by decreasing overeating episodes. I knew that slips or lapses back into disordered eating were part of my recovery process. However, I also believed that those slips could teach me more about what I needed to change. When I tenaciously clung to irrational beliefs about overeating, I began to look for exceptions to problem habits. Those ‘exceptions’ helped me challenge and replace my problem beliefs. Throughout that recovery process I BELIEVED I had the inner resources to change my beliefs as well as my disordered eating habits.