Quote:
Originally Posted by Wannabeskinny
I've suffered with disordered eating most of my life. For a long time I was a binge eater and a compulsive over eater. I never purged. There was a time in my life when I ate to suppress my emotions. Since then I've learned to work through those emotions and gain an understanding of my eating. But there came a point when there was no excuse anymore for "emotional eating." It was true at one point but it is no longer true. My disordered eating took on the form of reacting to triggers and dealing with my bad habits. I strongly believe that what we eat has an effect on us. Easy to prove - when I eat wheat I'm hungry all day long. When I don't eat wheat I feel normal and happy and able to control myself. Same goes for artificial sweeteners, sugar, highly processed foods, and junk food.
I don't think there is a cure for disordered eating. But you can pinpoint your behaviors, and the triggers that bring them on. Only by abstaining from certain foods do I feel it's possible that I can get better. It's an uphill battle for sure - when you're used to eating burger king 3x/week for 20yrs it's a hard habit to break, especially when it provides a sense of normalcy and satiety. But the more you eat clean foods the easier it becomes, like any addiction to food.
Thank you for your explanation. I can see where you are coming from. Do you think though that it must be an uphill battle for you?
I know when I was restricting to "clean foods" (yeah, I've tried practically all sorts of diet styles out there!), my binge urges were very strong and yes, it was a real uphill battle for me too. Now that I'm NOT restricting and eating what I want, I don't really have anymore urges to eat junk. I'm fine with eating it once a day e.g. couple of bickies and no more urges to eat the whole packet!
When i was analyzing the stages i went through from non restricting to IE (thanks to Veggiedaze and really grateful to her for this thread), I've wondered whether, if I was a different person, totally letting go of my restrictions (eating what I wanted when I wanted) would have resulted in me becoming MORE addicted to junk food, much like an addiction to cocaine for example. From what you are saying, it sounds as if you feel that you would only eat more crap the more you eat it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wannabeskinny
I am not cured, I'm not an expert, I just know that my mind and body feel better when I don't indulge myself in all the things I want. My intuition is to go through a drive thru, always has been, that's my true self. I have to go against my intuition, IE is a pipe dream for me.
To me, IE advocates eating only when hungry, rather than eating restrictively. That's the intuition part of IE and I think some of us do not know how to eat only when hungry intuitively. We have to learn how to do it.
What you mentioned about intuitively wanting junk/crap food, that i believe is something else, a craving/addiction. I had that too which I resolved (hopefully on a permanent basis) by not restricting the types of food I wanted (per the first part of my post).