"Brain over Binge"
 

Hi, I'm new here!

I read Kathryn Hansen’s “Brain over binge” and got a whole other perspective on my overeating. I REALLY recommend that book for all of you who's struggling with binge eating and have tried therapy without results.

It's an easy-read and you will not regret it!


Have any one of you read it?

Hi Cinderina, I too found that book to resonate. I am a compulsive eater & then experienced some binge eating after I phased off a long stretch of a very restrictive diet. Thanks to the book, my binge eating made sense and I was eventually able to let go of it.

I read it and it really resonated with me. But it left me with a lot of questions on how to put it into use. I didn't start seeing results until I did Intuitive Eating.

This is honestly one of my favorite books ever. It's help shape the current relationship I have with food & eating, and I don't think I'm ever going back to any other philosophy on binge eating & overeating. This one is just "it" for me.

Sounds interesting. Is it just a matter of telling yourself to ignore that urge to go into the kitchen for ice cream or is a substitution thing?

I have just started reading this book as per suggestion of this forum. Wonderful insight. Fluffyfat: from what I read so far the author describes her life as a binge eater. She was a teenager that was anorexic and the restrictiveness (can be compared to someone going on a very restrictive diet 1200 cal a day etc) led to her binge eating. The author claims that the restrictiveness of dieting leads your "animal" brain into going into binge mode. Once you gain all your lost dieting weight back, your brain is still wired to binge and the instinct to binge then turns into a habit to binge. She relates this habit to drugs, alcohol etc from a book she read called rational recovery. The author then goes and explains how she went through "steps" to try and re-wire her brain to understand that her binges aren't a deeply seated emotional disturbance to feed an emptiness (like she was taught in therapy) but that it was a normal biological function of her brain. She claims that without using the so called blaming method of binging that therapists mostly use for eating disorders, that binging can be controlled by understanding its your logical reasoning brain versus your animal brain. did i make sense here? lol!

As your question about the "substitution" thing--no it is FAR from that idea. The author is against all the teachings of conventional eating disorder therapies. She is very adamant about this. She is very angry with herself and the professionals that led her to believe that she had to journal, find "activities" to do instead of binge (i believe thats what you mean by substitutions), re-hashing childhood experiences, and doing relaxation techniques etc etc instead of tackling the habit head on of her binging URGES. Her stance on binge eating is that without URGES to binge you do not binge, so what you really need to do is get rid of the urges, like when you quit smoking or whatever bad habit you can think of.

In my opinion she is pretty much right about that. The thing is I still choose to diet now (I am on medifast) but I will not be as restrictive as some others I hear about. If I want to replace one of my medifast meals with something comparable but not a medifast brand product (i.e. i eat breyers carb smart ice cream pops instead of a medifast meal), and I also will not tell myself that I cannot enjoy a dinner out with a friend--but the choices I make ARE MY CHOICES, just like anybody else--we can make choices. Do not let your habit control you--you hear your habit talking "Eat this, dont you want that, mmm boy I would love to eat 2 boxes of cookies right now" you need to seperate that voice from the real you--and maybe think about why your animal brain is signaling messages like that to you--are you being to restrictive on yourself? are you setting realisitic healthy goals for yourself? This last paragraph is what I gather personally from the book so far. You can get it on your kindle for 8 bucks.

Juicyfruit thank you so much! I just read a long review of the book and then came here and saw your information. This all speaks so clearly to me! I've always liked the idea of mindful eating and this seems to go along with that.

I firmly believe that I began my food issue when I was 15 and went on a diet to lose five pounds, simply because my friends weighed less than I did. (I weighed 115 at the time.) I lost five pounds in five days and then binged for the first time. A few months later a boy I liked "stood me up," for a date and I found out that a box of Graham crackers and a quart of whole milk could be quite comforting. A problem was born.

I've never liked the books like Dr. Phil's Seven Keys because they seem to expect me to change my entire life. Sure, I could be more assertive in my marriage, seek a more challenging job, take up sky diving -- but just thinking about those things makes me nervous.

It makes perfect sense to me that my animal (survival) brain wants me to drop everything and find rich food when it notices that I'm a bit hungry or bored, but what relief it gives me to think that I could possibly just recognize this urge for what it is, and tell it to calm down, we'll have a nice dinner later.

I also read that we could think of this animal brain as a toddler having a tantrum and teach it that it isn't going to work so it might as well give it up.

Thanks again. I'm loving this stuff.

I just bought the book thanks to 3FC recommendations and will start reading it today. I've been hanging on to maintenance (barely), but it's not a sustainable equilibrium, and I'm looking for strategies to help pacify my continuing urges to binge. From what you've all described, I'm pretty sure Hansen's approach will resonate with me.

F.

freelancemomma - Once you've finished the book it would be great to hear back from you a bit of a review/how useful the book was for you. I've considered it based on 3FC recommendations but haven't bothered to pick it up.

i know this is off topic but it drives me insane that the main page for this website has pictures of dried fruit on it

Heh! I know. One cup of dried apricots has 380 calories and 69 grams sugar.

Thanks so much, binge eating is the number 1 reason( only reason) I can't get past my plateaus and its really frustrating, losing out due to binge eating when I'm 15-20 pounds away from my goal and I have to start all over again because of binge eating.

I read the book some time ago and had high expectations for it, but ultimately, it did not resonate with me. I understood her solution, but not how to attain it. "Ignore your urges" is the gist, but the question of how to do that seemed vague. Maybe I missed something. I ended up donating the book to the public library. (FWIW, though, I did realize while reading her book that I don't think I am a "binger" in that I don't eat anything and everything just for the sake of eating. I DO overeat and I'm a disordered eater, but if I am able to eat exactly what I want and in a decent quantity, I will be satisfied and not look for more food).

I've been binge-free for three months and a few days so far. I've read a few books in the past and though I love reading, I'm scared that any new thoughts will upset this precarious balance I've fallen into! If I fall back into old habits I might dig around for suggestions, though when I'm in an unhealthy, binging mood the last thing I want to do is read about being healthy, it just pisses me off. It's like The Biggest Loser, I used to watch that show. When I was eating healthy, I found it interesting, but when I was eating unhealthy it just annoyed the heck out of me!

I enjoyed and "got" the book but struggle to put it into practice. I spent 10 years in OA basically learning that overeating is an incurable disease and I'd never find any relief from it until I became a perfect OAer. I'm still trying to unlearn those teachings and it's difficult. But I think overeating is exactly like smoking in so much as it is a bad habit. Unfortunately you cannot just stop eating.

I've finished the book and agree with virtually everything the author says. In a nutshell, she posits that:

• Binge-eating is nothing more than a bad habit that's become entrenched
• Bingeing does not fulfill a deep-seated psychological need that must be addressed in order to beat the disorder
  • We have more control over our bingeing than we think, but we don't fully "get" that we're in the driver's seat so we don't assert our control
• The only way to stop bingeing is to stop bingeing (circular, I know)
• Once you train your brain to resist the urge to binge, doing so becomes progressively easier.

According to Hansen, white-knuckling is not a good way to begin resisting the urges. A better way is to distance yourself from these urges -- to treat them as neurological junk produced by your lower brain and at odds with your true desires. Once she was able to create this separation in her mind, resisting the urges became a lot easier than before -- and soon became effortless.

I found it refreshing that Hansen identifies binges as pleasurable. In other books and articles, binges are often portrayed as compulsive and joyless events. (I think people are afraid of pointing the gluttony finger; without pleasure, there can't be gluttony.) I beg to differ: there's the pleasure of anticipation, of planning, of preparing food, of eating with abandon, of feeling very full -- and of course, the sensuous pleasure of the food itself. Even if someone eats to the point of intense discomfort, there are many pleasure points along the way. Hansen says she had to face the loss of this pleasure head-on. Realizing she was trading it for even greater pleasures (full engagement with family and friends, pursuit of life goals) helped her stay the course.

So... all in all I heartily endorse the author's philosophy, while acknowledging that it may not click for others as easily it did for her. It's really more an attitude shift than anything else.

There's just one of Hansen's tenets that I disagree with: she maintains that there's no point trying to find substitute activities for a binge, because such activities just won't cut it. If you feel the need to binge, having a hot bath or cup of tea won't do the trick, she says. While this may be true in some cases, I believe that cultivating other pleasurable pursuits can help fill the void created when giving up the pleasure of binging.

Freelance

p.s.: The author had a variant of bulimia called exercise bulimia, which involves "purging" through exercise. It amazed me to learn that she would have a 7,000 calorie binge on one day, and spend 7 hours in the gym the next day to burn it off. So much time! Apparently she tried several times to make herself throw up, but was physically unable to do so.

It's all about changing your mind. There are useful lessons to be learned a long the way and none of us adhere to one method. I tried to do BoB 2yrs ago and found it really hard to put it into practice. At that time though I had no relationship with my own hunger/fullness signals. I had no idea how to nurture myself. I had a good-food-bad-food approach to eating and I was stuck in compulsive cycles of restriction and then binging. At the time, applying the BoB approach felt like restriction and white knuckling. Of course it didn't work. I can imagine though that now that I'm more in touch with my body's needs and all the hard work I've put into intuitive eating that BoB makes a lot more sense to me now. I can now separate between my emotional eating and my habitual eating. At the end of the day we develop habits and how we face our binge is very personal. If it's one thing that IE suggests is to "sit with one's feelings."

To me, BINGE is a feeling. It's a strong urge. So I've been trying to sit with this feeling. I am trying not to judge it, not to question it, not to ignore it or to fight it. I just sit and observe it. I tell myself it's ok to feel this. I tell myself that it will pass and to just observe it as it flows in and out of me. I'm at the start of this right now so I don't know how well I will do with it. I had a strong urge to eat oreos last night and tried this technique and it did pass. So we'll see. One thing I know for sure - eating is a behavior and I have to change my behavior and to do that I have to change my mind.

@freelance how's it going with BOB? Is it working?

So far it hasn't made much difference in my eating, but I've been applying the general philosophy to other areas of my life.

I think my mental block is that I haven't accepted (let alone embraced) the idea of moderation yet. I do it when I have to, but I resent it. Obviously I need an attitude adjustment.

F.

But you've lost a lot of weight and kept it off.

This post is so perfect, you hit the nail on the head with everything and your summary was spot on.

I also agree that it does help sometimes to have alternative behaviors as long as the behavior itself is not your primary means of getting through the binge, but rather a supplemental sort of thing. She even recommends this as an option in her workbook.

I'm just speaking for myself here but I strongly believe that learning how to eat according to physical hunger, getting in touch with those natural physiological satiety signals is so freaking essential to succeeding with the Brain Over Binge method.

Kathryn was "naturally skinny" before her eating disorder began and she had that "when I'm hungry I eat. when I'm not hungry I don't care to" relationship with food, which she remembered clearly even during her ED days. After her recovery, she returned right back to that way of eating and her weight gained from binge eating dropped right off.

I just read in my physiology book that mammals actually have a built-in weight regulation system. If an animal is force fed an excessive amount of food to the point of weight gain, once it's allowed to eat according to it's physiological cues again, it's body actually directs it towards eating less food, so that it can return to it's natural size.

My theory is that the reason we don't see this in humans is because we humans get SO intimately involved with our psychological impulses to eat (binge eating, as well as other compulsive or even moderate-intensity overeating behaviors), ignoring our physical ones almost completely, that we don't even realize that if we WEREN'T gorging ourselves all the time for a million reasons besides actual hunger, we would probably be LOSING weight pretty much effortlessly.

Also I want to target what you said about moderation. I don't like that word because again, it feels artificial to me. Once you start learning to eat according to hunger then of course you'll have to learn when to say, "my body has had enough, it is time to stop eating." But to me, when people say moderation, I feel like they typically mean "portion out x amount of food and make sure you only eat that much".

When you're truly connected with your hunger/fullness signals you don't have to do that. You truly don't. I have had so many experiences when I was hungry (I like to start eating at a 2/3 on my "hunger scale"), started eating literally whatever (my preferred meals range from greek yogurt or grilled chicken wraps to the occasional meat lovers pizza & poptarts), and got to this point where I could just sense in my body that the food was sufficient and I was done. I didn't have to tell myself "don't eat any more pizza, one slice was enough!" - the type of behavior that most people would refer to as moderation. My body could just tell that the food was enough, it was physically satiated, and I obeyed.

Glad you're back yumsoup, I really want to learn more about BOB. I'm rereading the book again. When I did it the first time it didn't work because I was restricting myself pretty severely. I would set out to eat a very light meal and then tell myself that I would push away thoughts of eating and attribute them to my monkey brain. Although it felt ok to push away those thoughts I ultimately ended up binging because my body was truly hungry. Now that I've been practicing IE for over a year I'm familiar with the sensation of real hunger versus head hunger. Real hunger should never be ignored.

I haven't read this book, But I just finished Jon Gabriel's book on visualization that talks a lot about our Leptin resistance and how restrictive dieting mimics a famine. He calls this survival mode the FAT- famine & temperature program our caveman bodies have. Our Hypothalamus (or survival brain) does everything it can to conserve calories and build up fat stores if it believes a severe winter or famine is coming. This part of our brain only perceives that we are in stress and either determines that we are stressed because of famine & weather or determines we are stressed because we are being attacked ( like a bear chasing us). For one case- Our body hangs onto fuel- for the other (being chased) it releases our "fat" fuel so we can "run" fast. The thing is to get our caveman brains to believe we are being chased. Jon Gabriel has a great, fun way of doing this in his book about Visualization (I haven't read his "Gabriel Method" one.
BTW he has lost 202 pounds to goal where he has stayed doing these things. There is a lot of scientific stuff he explains, but I love doing the one where you visualize being chased and really believing it. You can up it by actually running faster, or running in place really fast while you visualize this (he uses crazy dogs-because they really did chase him once- I do the same with wasp- bee's & yellow jacket. Running as fast as I can (in place) but in my mind into my house where I slam the door and say to myself "Whew! Thank you body for releasing all that fat as fuel so I could run fast enough to safety. I'll check Out Brain Over Bing on my nook as soon as I can. Sounds like the same idea.(
http://www.3fatchicks.net/img/tulip-...9/129/211/.png )

I'm going to check out this book. I like the different attitude here... instead of the universally accepted psychological reason for eating. It makes so much more sense to me. I had a delightful childhood and while I've had some difficult times in my adult life, I was fat way before any of that happened so I can't blame those things. I always felt like I was searching for a reason that wasn't there and maybe relying on that too much... "i obviously have something wrong with me, and I can't fix it until I identify it, so I might as well keep eating". Sounds like this book is more likely to tell me something I can use to take control.

I don't like the word "moderation," much either. To me it means I need to be able to eat nice little lady-like servings of my trigger foods and I just can not do that.

Palestrina said:I like this very much. I'm going to try to do that instead of running away from my urges with busy, busy activity, or quickly giving in as though I don't want to give my better self time to offer a rebuttal.

I binged today. After two weeks of controlled sugar-free eating, I simply said to my husband, "Let's go to the Golden Corral!" and we did. I ate some of almost everything on the buffet and two desserts. Why? I really don't know. Yes, I was very hungry at the time but we could have gone to one of our usual lunch places where I could have had a nice salad. We just felt like doing something different and silly, but it is so not worth the regret afterward.

The word moderation does not mean that to me at all, I guess we all have different interpretations of what words mean. Moderation has nothing to do with being lady like. To me it means being able to encounter all foods with the same attitude. It does not mean to censor my eating experiences. Censoring and restricting always leads to binges.

Ahh, I remember the golden corral when I lived in the south. Super fun place. Glad we don't have buffets up here in nyc.

To me, moderation means: be reasonable.

That's the interesting thing about words, and specifically, about books regarding eating (or intuitive type programs). It all depends on your interpretation, your background, and your experience in this world. Also, anything in print lacks the facial nuances and vocal inflections - so these forums can be completely misinterpreted at any given time, not to mention when your brain is tired and simply doesn't read the information correctly!

I read BoB in April (I think), and I still stand by it, although I learned BoB after I learned IE, so it could be that you need IE first to break through all the dieting hype. But, then, once you've loosened the bonds a bit, you can start to moderate. BoB gives you the logical progression - a way of thinking that allows you to take back control. Without BoB, I just ate and ate, rebelliously, or I ate super restrictively. No happy medium. With BoB, I was given a power - to use my prefrontal cortex, to practice moderation and being reasonable.

When I did BoB before I learned IE it was a major disaster and lots of rebound binging. I didn't know how to recognize real hunger so I treated all hunger (even real physical hunger) as something to ignore and push through. Disaster. Now that I have firm IE tools the BoB concepts (most of them) make sense and are easier to implement. With IE I've been able to stop binging. With BoB I'm able to start letting go of residual bad habits.

I purchased this book after reading a recommendation for it here on 3F3 and I read it all in less than a day over the weekend. After reading it, I went back and re-read the chapters on putting her plan into motion.

I have to say, I am completely on board with her approach and, for me, it all makes sense. I purposely went somewhere (Whole Foods) that always creates an urge to binge and practiced the techniques - and it worked. The Whole Foods here has a cookie bar (bulk cookies made at their bakery) - in the past, I have been unable to control myself when I see certain cookies there, even when I am having a great day. It never seemed to matter what mood I was in, or if I was hungry/not hungry - I always want those cookies when I see them. This is something she discusses in the book that really resonated with me - for her, and for me, it isn't about the "mood" I am in, it isn't about my emotions, it isn't even about whether I am hungry - it's really about the habit I've created of getting an urge to binge, obsessing over it and finally giving in to stop the urge. For me, it really is about the food. I have millions of "triggers" - and I've found it exhausting, and ultimately impossible, to talk myself out of them all. I'm realizing now, that's not the point - for me, it's about recognizing that it's not "me" creating that urge to binge, it's my "animal brain" - the neurological junk (as she calls it) that creates the urge to binge, and this is all just a bad habit at this point.

It was uncomfortable, but I listened to my animal brain wanting those cookies. "Just walk by the cookie bar to see if our cookies are there" - "Just get a couple" - "One or two won't hurt, you've been so good this week." - "They are so yummy, you really want one" - I listened, it caused me a lot of anxiety, but in the end, I convinced myself that I don't have to act on those thoughts coming from my lower brain. Not only did I walk by the bar, I didn't even feel the need to look at the cookies to see if "mine" were there. I felt empowered and I quickly forgot about it by the time I was driving away.

I also bought some "trigger" foods - items that have always created an urge to binge in the past - this time it was fresh almond butter and fresh olives from their olive bar. I haven't brought those items into my home for years, because I always just eat them right away, as fast as I can. I've been able to just grab a few olives here and there to stave off hunger until my next meal (just a super light snack) and I've been able to chew them slowly and really enjoy them. Not normal for me!

Oh, and I put the almond butter in the pantry where it has remained, untouched, since Saturday. I see it multiple times per day, and I've listened to my lower brain tell me to take the entire thing into my office with a spoon and eat it all, but I haven't. Each day, it gets easier and less uncomfortable.

Anyway, I'm finding it incredibly helpful. I will say, one complaint I have is that she doesn't really tell you how to recognize that "lower brain voice" and what to do in order to create that chasm and ultimately ignore it. It would've been helpful to have heard her internal dialogue and what she told her animal brain, or what she envisioned, to create the distance and ultimately, to ignore it and move on. Maybe it's good in a way, as I've had to create and employ my own techniques, but it would've been helpful to know exactly how she did it, ya know?

I'm not sure this technique would've worked for me a few years back, before I started my journey. I've already transformed a lot, and I've already lost a bulk of the weight I want to lose, but I still have a lot of binges and they've prevented me from reaching my ultimate goal. I can definitely see a lot of failings in the (many) approaches I tried over the years (including many prescriptions, many therapists, many diets, many self-help books, etc.) - but this book really made sense to me where I am in my journey now - it's a bad habit for me at this point, one that I do not need to "cope" with life and one that isn't serving me - one that my "true self" doesn't want. My lower brain is just doing its job - enforcing a habit, it doesn't distinguish between a good or bad habit, I can't reason with it and I can't argue with it (at least not for long).

I'm hopeful, I really am. I also bought a used copy of Rational Recovery that will arrive in a few days. I think the more I can reinforce these ideas, the better.

Wow I definitely need to check this book out. Just reading through this thread I recognize times right before I give into a binge where I am fighting with myself over the food. I feel like I recognize these two brains already. I have been contemplating therapy but I feel like if this book could help it would save me so much money. The last couple weeks I haven't had a binge until today. I feel so disappointed but determined not to give in again.

This book is amazing, I highly recommend it. I have been a binge eater for the past 3 years after a medical problem caused me to lose a lot of weight, and I tried to maintain the weight loss. I began eating again after my period started coming once every other month, and my hair was brittle and falling out in clumps. I couldn't even see that I had become anorexic, and my body was skin and bones. I started binging for the first time in my life. Peanut butter. I never even liked peanut butter. Jars would disappear. Cereal, chips, i was binging like mad. When I went back to college, I started binging on my roommate's food; eating all her chips, then rebuying it for her, then eating them all by myself again. It was frustrating and shameful. I regained back to my old weight, plus about 7 pounds. I then started working out after binges (which happened about twice a week), spending hours at the gym. The binge, purge cycle had begun. I lost my social life, my relationship fell, and lost sight of myself. I then made the resolution that something needed to change, but it all felt hopeless. Last summer, I became a summer camp counselor. We had this staff lounge with leftover food from camp outs, like chocolate chips, marshmallows, fritos, and potato chips. My binges were at its worst, ranging between 5000-8000 calories per binge, three times a week. I couldn't bring myself to eat the food at the camp, and my mother brought me home-cooked food for every week. My eating disorder at taken a turn to a whole new level. I gained about 15-20 pounds over the summer (I have a naturally thin body) due to binge eating. I just want the binges to be over, I want to stop binging. I found Brain Over Binge, and it has resonated with me. I am still working with my lower animal brain, it isn't easy. I have stopped trying to lose weight, counting calories, stepping on scales. Some days, I do count calories....it's really hard not to. My goal is not to lose weight, but it's so hard not to think of things that way. When those urges do rise, and they will, I will keep telling myself "These thoughts are not my own, they are my animal brain's. All it can do is throw thoughts at me, just thoughts. I have full control of myself".

This book sounds really helpful, I'll have to check it out.

I still haven't read the book, but just the posts on this thread are so inspiring and illuminating -- I wanted to bump it up for the New Year.

Hi, I am fairly new to this site too. I'll take a look at this book, only recently I have felt the need to binge eat and I am concerned that it might be the beginning of something permanent, so I want to nip it in the bud and stop the mental attitude that fuels it!