It’s a struggle that’s so common for so many people. But it’s not openly talked about because it’s steeped in guilt and shame.

Binge eating at night.

Today I want to help you understand what could be driving binge eating at night and give you a few tools to help you move through it.

Because if 70% of women are already engaging in eating patterns and behaviors that are negatively impacting their emotional well being, masquerading weight loss as self-love is actually manipulating them into believing that it’ll work this time around.

That if they self-love themselves hard enough by skipping meals on the regular, living by a number that My Fitness Pal prescribes, only getting off the treadmill when they hit x number of calories, eating within a 5 hour window that they’ll come into their own and finally feel worthy.

Because #selflove.

Right?

Did you know that there are 13 million people in the world who are perpetually dieting?

Doing everyyyything in their power to lose their muffin top. Amongst other things.

And this time of year articles and blogs promoting ways to do just that in 30, 60, 90 days or less are a dime a dozen.

Because of the hardwired belief that to fit the societal beauty standard that we shouldn’t have one.

According to society thinness = beauty = happiness

But let’s flip this on its head for a minute.

You want to retrain your brain and acknowledge that society has influenced you to view cellulite as “ugly” or your round stomach as “terrible” or your jiggly arms as “disgusting”.

Do you see the power that these types of words carry?

Get really clear on the fact that you weren’t born with these judgements. You were conditioned into believing them. And, if you can back off on that just a little bit and get really clear, really basic, really descriptive and specific things can just be what they are. Without the weight of judgment.

The parties, the temptations, the triggers, the purchasing of holiday outfits.

All of it. 

If only the warm, fuzzy feelings of the holidays outweighed food and body stress!

Instead the season can bring on all the feels.

And often times we turn to our go-to way of soothing those feels- by emotionally overeating to to cope with the stress and discomfort. 

To start let’s loosely define “normal” eating. I want you to think of a person (if you can!) in your life that eats what they want. Without guilt. Without shame. Without hiding in the pantry or burning the evidence. Without beating themselves up or compensating with cutting calories or with exercise the next day. The person who eats when they’re hungry, stops when they’re full and fully allows themselves to indulge their cravings when it will serve their mind, mouth and body.

That’s normal eating.

We exert so much energy trying to control our food and trying to control the way our bodies appear. 

Because we’ve been taught to think that this kind of control will be the antidote to the parts of our lives, the parts of ourselves, that we feel most vulnerable about.

→Our bodies.

→Our self-worth.

→Our ability to make things look easy. Like we’ve got our shit together.

Control in its basic form is a response to feeling powerless in some way.

So when we look at the staggering number of women engaging in disordered eating patterns, it makes so much sense.

We feel powerless. We feel ashamed. We feel self-doubt.

How do you want to feel in your body?

No, not how do you want to feel once your body is the size you’ve been dreaming about.

In this current moment, what are the feelings that you want to feel, and truly experience, in your body 🙆🏻?

→Yes, even if you feel uncomfortable in it!

Let’s talk about willpower real quick.

Around this time of year food and body comments run rampant.

“It can't believe I’m eating these ____. It’s like I can’t stop!”
“You have so much self control! I can’t be around _____ without losing my sh*t.”
“Don’t judge me, but I’m going to eat ____.”
“If I can just make through these 30 days without ______ I’ll be golden.”

We rely on the idea of willpower, hoping it’ll help us follow restrictive diets. That it’ll help up control ourselves around food and lose those last ____ pounds this new year.

Although Thanksgiving has become a day for overindulgence and many times a built in day to get your eat on, I want to encourage you to take a macro view. Zoom way out to see your entire day. Yes, the appetizers and food will be aplenty, but what else will be going on? What is really important to you on this particular Holiday? How do you want to feel before, during and after your day?

The organizing, the prepping, the cooking, the entertaining, the perfecting (🙋🏻 ) and even the cleanup can be exhausting and so stressful. 

Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t forget about other serious sources of stress…

THE EATING. Potential weight gain. The pies taunting you from the back room. The diet talk, comments on your body size and fear of judgement about what you are/aren’t eating.

At the pits of the disorder I found myself in the all too similar place of I where I had been when I carried more physical weight- the anxiety and depression were still there. I was still hyper-focused on the way my body appeared, which continued to fuel the feelings of shame, worry of not being good enough and steepened the spiral and isolation of depression.

I was using the disorder to cope, and escape, to comfort and soothe.

Hello darkness, my old friend!

Let’s break down the word emotion real quick.

This is a great tool to call to mind when you feel like you just can’t deal with those tough feelings… those emotions that can be so overwhelming that you want to hide under the covers and never come out.

Emotion → E-motion → Energy in motion