The Gift of Overeating

Letting Overeating (or Drinking) Be Your Teacher Instead of Your Warden

Whether you overeat (or over-drink) at your meals, in between meals, at night, weekends or even if you have a full on bender anytime, if you want to end this ‘overdoing it’ urge behavior and create a different result, it’s time to turn this insanity on it’s head.

Instead of reverting to the “shame spiral” which usually entails beating yourself up and creating a story about how you’ll never change – about how hopeless you are; I want you to practice being a curious observer – just like a Scientist.

A Scientist’s work has to include more failures than successes. That’s the Scientific Method!

Hypothesis > Test > Fail > Assess > Try Again > Repeat

This is the process.

The failures are really the only way to show the Scientist what’s working and what’s not.

She doesn’t blow up her experiment and make her failures mean that she’s a terrible Scientist who’s destined to fail forever.

She also doesn’t repeat what she did in the previous experiments over and over again. That’s a waste of time and resources. It’s the definition of insanity (at least according to Einstein).

She learns from all her failures.

A really smart Scientist will even look forward to what her failures reveal. And then she’ll try something different. She never gives up when she fails. She’s patient with the process.

Because the failures are her most valuable teachers.

When you look at your struggle with food, alcohol, hormones, dieting, weight or life – I want you to practice shifting away from feeling imprisoned by the cycle and start letting each and every failure become your teacher.

Let go of the self-judgement and the story about how you ‘blew it’. Let go of the victim mentality and the drama around how you’re struggling and you’ll never get there. These are all self-indulgent distractions and perfectionistic, rigid, all-or-nothing thoughts that will never ever serve you.

Also, don’t be in denial. That’s like a really bad Scientist – like the ones who work for Big Pharma. The ones that twist, cherry-pick, rationalize and pretend the failed experiment didn’t happen. This is the equivalent of fudging the data or sticking your head in the sand (or up your arse!).

All of these lines of thinking get you nowhere – except stuck.

Drop all the excuses about your past, your conditions, your life circumstances and accept that overeating/drinking – if that’s your struggle – is a problem to be studied and solved through trial and error. It’s not your destiny.

Accept that as you make the choice to respond to the urges to unintentionally overeat/drink that your progress will be slower when you do…

This is the empowered mind taking full responsibility and trusting the process.

She doesn’t unintentionally overeat/drink (or live out of balance) and step on the scale or look in the mirror and ask:

How’d that happen? Huh? Why?

She knows exactly why and accepts her results in a curious, loving, honest way.

Want a different result? Experiment with different behavior.

First analyze what is your unintentional behavior (overeating/overdrinking in this case) teaching you?

Are you overeating/drinking to compensate for a life out of balance or a mind out of balance?

What feelings are you not allowing yourself to experience?

Are you using this unintentional behavior to mask, numb, avoid or relieve these uncomfortable feelings? What are these feelings exactly? What thoughts create those feelings? Are these thoughts true? Are they serving you?

Are you so rigid with your eating ‘and rules’ – all that restriction – that’s it’s leading to compensatory boomerang eating/drinking? – like that pressure cooker I wrote about recently.

These are great hypothesis. Test them out. But do so in a way with the end results – your goals – in mind.

Is this choice and pattern moving you toward your goal – or away from it?

Do you want slower progress or faster progress? What is this pattern showing you? Where is it rooted? Can you start to curiously – lovingly – start to dissect the tangle?

This is the part of the brain that helps you decide:

Do I want to feel great in my bathing suit and live a long and healthy life – or would I rather have the pizza, nachos and beer every weekend – or drink wine every night – or overeat chips, chocolate, candy, cake, bread, cheese or nuts? (<insert your go-to’s here) 

How to Think About Urges and the Aftermath

Unintentional eating/drinking is always preceded by urges (which are derived from thoughts) that are not just ‘happening’ to you. You create them.

You’re choosing to respond to them versus allowing them to be felt and passed by.

Often this can happen within a  split second – almost like you’re bypassing your brain entirely, but if you just slow down, breathe and take a teensy second in that moment, you’ll realize you’re allowing this choice to happen because it’s too much effort and pain to stop and allow the urge feelings to be experienced.

(This is totally normal and physiologically advantageous in survival situations, but you’re likely not in a real survival situation – so you have to switch off the auto-pilot if you want to evolve and have a different outcome.)

When you make conscious decisions – even if that decision is to respond to the urge – versus impulsive, mindless, distracted, numbing, relief-seeking, hedonistic or pleasure seeking decisions, you’re completely empowered.

You’re choosing what you really want and you own it – without beating yourself up – without making it mean anything more – without overcompensating – without jumping around to another diet, opinion, expert or program – and most of all – without giving up.  

You are present and accepting of your decisions and you let your choices – and your results be your teacher.

Ideally – eventually – you’ll also practice choosing to allow the Urge to be experienced without answering it. Allow it. Feel it. That’s the ultimate approach when it comes to faster/better results — but having balance and going at whatever pace is necessary for you is even more important.

My goal for the people I work with is to live a life – not of perfection – and definitely not of restriction…It’s all about empowered choices, curiosity and honesty.

So this doesn’t mean you can’t ever have the things you ‘love’ or really enjoy. You just have to recognize that what, why, how and how much you’re having is likely effecting your results. 

Decide if having these things all the time, as often, or at certain doses – is working for you – or not.

You have to discern if these things in the amounts you’re choosing are “worth it”. Maybe they actually are “worth it” – maybe it’s less of it – or less often. You can own that too, just do so with total acceptance, honesty and alignment.

Your body and symptoms (biofeedback) will tell you what’s working and what’s not and then you find the balance that’s right for you.

This isn’t deprivation – it’s aligned constraint – always with the end goal in mind…act as committed as Elon Musk is with SpaceX heading to Mars. 

You won’t get there if you’re not committed to your goal, patient with the process and willing to learn without judging your failures.