The 8th thing to give up if you’re ready to stop binge eating is worrying.

I could write one thousand pages about this, but I will keep it short and tailor it to why you need to stop worrying to heal your relationship with food and your body, specifically.

Here are the things we worry most about that impact our behavior with food:

• How to get thin or stay thin
• How many calories are in the food you’re eating
• How “healthy” a particular food is
• What others are thinking of you
• What you are going to eat today, tomorrow, and for the rest of the week
• How you will look at an upcoming social event 
• Whether or not people will post photos on Facebook 
• How to lose 10 lbs in the next 3 weeks
• If your partner will find you less attractive if you gain more weight 
• If your partner will leave you when they find out you’re a binge eater
• If you won’t be able to find a partner if you’re not thin and fit

Sound familiar? Check in with yourself the next time you are having these thoughts. Are these thoughts ones that drive you to take better care of yourself? Unlikely. They are more likely to be the thoughts that drive you right to your favorite binge foods.

As a psychotherapist, I am often talking to clients about their worries and it seems worry is a natural part of life. But if you are a binge and emotional eater, I am asking that you begin to pay very close attention to your worries. In my Binge to Balance Program I teach my clients to explore their triggers and worries throughout the day.

The reason for this is that it will guide you to understand the impact of your thoughts on your behaviors as well as choose adaptive response to triggers and not react self-destructively.

I would bet that if you tracked your worries (not your calories!) for a few days or a week you would start to notice some common themes on the days you binge.

I have a client that binged every single time she had an interaction with her abusive mother. After working together, she now understands how to ride out those urges and do something different. To manage her stress, her anger, and her worry without food.

As I often tell my mindfulness students, each moment conditions the next moment. If you are present for your worries in this moment, you are better equipped to overcome the urge to eat in a dysfunctional way.

We have so many things that we can worry about, both related to our weight and not related to our weight. The world is full of frightening realities. But, guess what? It’s also full of wonder, magic, kindness, joy, excitement, opportunities, love, and passion.

Here are 11 things to do instead of worry:

• Imagine everything working out fine!
• Ask yourself “What doesn’t suck right now?”
• Remember a place you went that was peaceful and fun
• Remember a time you laughed SO hard
• Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude – list everything you’re grateful for – big and small
• Distract yourself with a task – clean out a closet or organize your books
• Read, watch tv, draw, color, paint, sew, knit
• Go for a walk or a drive
• Do something that you enjoy so much that it makes time fly by
• Make a worry jar – dump your worries in there
• Talk to your therapist or a good friend

If this is the article that stands out the most to you, please consider working with a skilled psychotherapist, further exploring your mindfulness skills, or group coaching to really learn how to deal with worry, fear, anxiety, stress, and other powerful emotions that can take over and cause you to go into the auto-pilot mode where we eat just to not feel what we are feeling in that moment.

Easy? Not exactly. Doable? Definitely.

All my love,

Cina