Food, Love and Gut Feelings.

January 22, 2012 — admin

We live in a time when many people are obsessed with food, eating and body image. The other thing everyone wants is love: to have love in their life and to be loved.  And the third thing people talk about nowadays is about intuitive connections with yourself and the ability to listen to your gut feelings which will guide you to where you want to go.

How do you think food, love and gut feelings are connected?  Well, the reality is that how you eat is how you live your life. The way you eat affects everything in your life: relationships, love, self-talk, beliefs and your energy level.

For example, chaotic erratic eating, like in case of eating disorders always bring a chaotic and erratic life. Avoiding certain foods means avoiding something else in your life which is bigger than food: feelings, emotions, responsibilities, certain people or certain situations.

Let’s see how food and love are connected? Simply you can put it like this: abusing food is denying self-love and promoting self-hatred.  People with anorexia deny the self (their life and love); they have extreme fears and self -hatred.

People with bulimia and binge eating also hate themselves. They have too much pain and feelings of guilt and shame (which is all opposite to love).

People who are on constant diets also deny some or many aspects of their love which make them feel very sensitive, unstable, moody and unsafe.

People who constantly overeat (binge eaters and compulsive overeaters) – associate their love with food and eating. For most of them love is food and other forms of love for them become non-existent.

Unless people become aware of what and how they eat, they will remain victims of their obsessions and will never know what love is.

Now let’s look at the relationship between eating and gut feelings.  The gut has its own mind with up to 500 million nerve cells and 100 million neurons in the gut. The gut remembers everything, what you ate, when you ate and in connection to what feelings and emotions you ate and how.

An eating disorder can start from you being upset once and wanting to calm yourself down so you ate. The eating gave a temporary emotional relieve. Your gut remembers this episode and since that time you continued to use food to “make yourself feel good”.  Every time you binge, you lose control and just let go.  These feelings are addictive and very soon you find yourself consumed by a food addiction.

Your gut feelings are supposed to protect you by sending you messages (intuitive voices) but your body stop listening or maybe your gut just shut itself down when you started abusing food. Intuitive feelings stop working also.  That’s why people with eating disorders often find themselves in situations which are uncomfortable and chaotic.

Obsessive eaters, anorexics and bulimics stop hearing the voice of their own selves and stop being connected with there own selves. The only voice they can hear is the voice of their food obsession which tells them only about bad things.

To start hearing their own voice again (the voice of their gut and intuition) people should become aware of how they eat and realize that the way they eat affects their intuition. Then they should try to discern the voices: their own intuitive voice from the rotten voice of their eating disorder. In order to return your intuitive voice you should listen and follow just your own intuitive voice and ignore the ED voice.

Here are the steps:

  1. Accept that the way you eat affects your whole life.
  2. Find out what it is that you are trying to avoid by abusing food (are these emotions, feelings, people or situations)?
  3. Ask yourself: what is my true love? What do I really want in life?
  4. Meditate and during meditation ask “Who am I? What do I want?”
  5. Identify your own intuitive voice: it is a soft, kind, gentle and positive voice.  Listen to it.

 Freedom from food obsession comes when you realize who you are. When you realize that you are higher than food and that food is only the sustenance to support your body and your body is the temple for your beautiful soul – then you will see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Loving your soul, listening to your intuitive voice and connecting to your higher self, is the way to recovery and the way to live life. Read more go to http://www.womenhealthsite.com/

Posted in Binge eating, Eating Disorder, Uncategorized, bulimia. Tags: , , , . No Comments »

Turning off the obsession genes at cause eating disorders.

July 2, 2011 — admin

By re-identifying your bad eating behavior you can stop your eating disorder - this has been proven more than once.

Some of you may say, “How will I re-identify my behavior to stop my eating disorder?
I got this disease because I have an obsessive gene from my mother. You can’t eradicate this gene from my genetic makeup.”

No, you can’t eradicate the unwanted gene from your genetic makeup and we are not trying to do this. What we are trying to do here is to change your response to the thoughts and feelings your brain generates.

Our genes have two kinds of fundamental properties. One of them is something that is not in our control. We have a certain set of genes we’re born with that keep replicating themselves. 

But the other aspect of our genes is in our control and it can be turned on and off according to how we live our life. This we can do something about, with the help of neuroplasticity.

Our brains are ever changing over the course of our lives. And your brain’s map is going to be determined by what you do day by day. You can start out doing new things today and in three weeks time your brain’s map will be completely different from what it was when you started.

This is what we call brain plasticity (or neuroplasticity), and the human genetic inheritance includes brain plasticity. This process occurs throughout our whole life. Brain plasticity can be controlled and directed if the person is aware of it and if the person wants to change his/her brain.

 It is interesting to note that our genes get turned on and off all the time. Even when you go to sleep some genes are turned on and others are turned off and when you wake in the morning other genes join the game. Research has shown that our thoughts also influence these switches and this gives us a lot more control over our genes that we realise.

 Now, I have the highest regard for genetics, but now it is certain that some aspects of genes can be controlled by our will, life style and habits. Just the fact that the brain can change itself in accordance to what we do and how we think. This means we have to place a lot of importance in the power of free will over our lives.

So, the notion that an obsession gene (that caused your ED ) is controlling your life appears to be false. It is how you perceive and respond to the messages from the environment that controls your life.

If, in your environment you perceive yourself as fat, ugly, anxious or inappropriate and your response to this kind of perception is to starve or binge, purge, take laxatives or over exercising to feel better, then you are letting the environment control you.

 What you should be doing is working through them trying to overcome the false urge? This will make much more of a difference to your outcome than blaming a genetic predisposition for your eating disorder.

Go to http://www.eating-disorders-books.com for more information.

Dr Irina Webster MD.

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Shame is one of the roots of anorexia and bulimia.

January 11, 2011 — admin

Shame plays an important role in developing eating disorders because shame is a controlling device. Basically all people with anorexia or bulimia can recall being shamed or ashamed several times before their disorder began.

Shame is complex. It extends from small things like parents or teachers saying to someone that she/he is a bit overweight and needs to lose weight, or to something more serious like physical or sexual assault. For a young vulnerable person even a wrong look or an inappropriate comment can be shameful and it can trigger control mechanisms in the brain.

The simplest and most available thing that the shamed person has to exert control over is food. Restrictive eating or binging on food and then purge it all up is an action that only the person who is doing it can control. Plus it gives to the sufferer the intimate sense of achievement and conquering their own body. But there is a catch 22, externally the sufferer keeps it a secret because if it was revealed it will be a shameful action if someone was to discover their secret.

So, feelings of shame start working on the sufferer even before the beginning of their illness. Shame makes the person shrink her/his inner self and avoid others in order to stop interpersonal humiliation. Shame produces resentment, irritability, tendency to blame everyone, suspiciousness and bouts of agitations. Shame also blocks the person’s emotions and makes the person unable to be compassionate to others.

Often family and parents themselves promote shame unknowingly. On different stages of development many children feel inadequate in many tasks. Some parents by criticizing, comparing their children with other kids and controlling them can evoke a lot of shame in their sons and daughters.

Other parental behaviors and styles that provoke shame and body images issues are:
- avoiding children and avoiding to feel and respond to their emotions
- being judgmental
- being constantly angry and disapproving
- expecting children to please
- defensive parental attitude
- being depressed and anxious
- acting as a victim in front of children
- being indirect

Turning to food becomes a substitute for non realized emotions in many children. Their mind is searching for a coping mechanism to ease their emotions and food is an easy outlet to find.

For this reason a big part of eating disorder treatment is working on understanding the impact of shame and how to counteract it. The best antidote for shame is compassion, love and understanding. This has to be understood by the sufferer, family and all the people who interact with the sufferer.

The second step is to change the person’s self-talk from negative feelings towards food, to positive feelings about food. These both are important steps in the sufferer’s recovery and have to be done with the help of the whole family and not just with the sufferer.

This may not be an easy thing to do if the family does not understand exactly what to do to help. But luckily there is help available; find out more go to
http://www.mom-please-help.com

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The most dangerous side effects of bulimia.

December 26, 2010 — admin

Bulimia causes damaging side effects to the body. It can also destroy the brain, heart and the soul of the person suffering from this eating disorder.

There is no one system in the body that does not get affected by long term bulimia.
 
What are the most dangerous side effects? – You may ask.  These are the effects people can die from.  Lets  look at them separately.

1. Heart complications. Many eating disorder sufferers have irregular heartbeat, slow pulse or palpitations. All these abnormalities are extremely dangerous especially if the person continues with binging-purging.  People can suddenly collapse and even die if the heart suddenly stops working going into condition called “heart block”.

2. Electrolyte abnormalities. Electrolytes are the chemicals in the body that help our organs work. When people vomit they lose enormous amount electrolytes this is very bad for the body. The organs that suffer the most are: heart, kidney and brain. An abnormal amount of electrolytes can cause heart block, kidney failure and fainting.  Any of these complications can end up with the sufferer dying.

3. Kidney failure. The kidneys are the organs that balance water and electrolytes in the body.  Vomiting causes both dehydration and electrolyte imbalance problems. The kidneys try to compensate for this but if the vomiting continues the kidneys stop working and go into kidney failure.
 
4. Mental problems. Mental problems in bulimics are especially dangerous because of the high rate of suicide amongst eating disorder sufferers. When people get highly addicted to binging-purging behaviour, they often become unable to cope with everyday life and use suicide as a way to escape from the black circle they find themselves in.
 
5. Drug and alcohol problems are often the next step in for the bulimic.  Bulimics get addicted easier than people who don’t have bulimia. This is the nature of the disorder. Of course, where drugs and alcohol are involved the incidence of accidental death increases enormously.  People die from an accidental overdose of drugs and organs failure.

6. Gullet rapture. Gullet or oesophagus is the tube that connects the mouth and the stomach.   When people vomit they force the food to come up from the stomach, through the gullet and up into the mouth.  If the vomiting becomes severe, gullet rapture can occur.  The sufferer can die from internal bleeding and shock.
 
To sum up, these are the most dangerous side effects of bulimia. There are many more which may not cause the death of the patient but damage the body and make it malfunction. You can prevent all these complications just by looking for help and doing something constructive about your bulimia.

Even learning more about the condition and what you can do to help yourself will push you forward towards recovery. Never stop resisting the disease and never give up fighting for your health and your life.

To read more about dangerous side effects of bulimia go to http://www.Mom-Please-Help.com

Posted in Anorexia, Eating Disorder, bulimia. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »

How does bulimia cause weight loss?

December 14, 2010 — admin

Bulimia and weight loss are two things that interest many people. Nowadays nearly everyone wants to know a fast and easy method to lose extra weight. Bulimia is considered by some people as one of this easy ways to become slim.

But how does it work, if it works at all?
 
When people become bulimic they start to throw up food after eating. Often they binge before vomiting. Most bulimics have a certain time when they binge: dinner time, sometime in the afternoon or at night.

These people believe that by vomiting they get rid of the food they ate. Because of that they think they satisfy their hunger and reduce the amount of calories at the same time.  In fact, it is not exactly true.

First, when bulimics binge, some foods still get absorbed by digestive tract before they throw up. This is especially true for fatty and sugary foods, which are the bulimics favourite foods.  The longer the binge, the more calories get absorbed.
 
Second, after vomiting bulimics have the “empty stomach effect”.  Their appetite increases drastically and this can evoke another binge. Some people can have several binging-purging episodes during the day because of their inability to control the hunger pains after vomiting.

 And again, as a result of this they consume overall much more calories than if they had just had a normal meal.

Vomiting also changes their electrolytes and nutrient balance in the body.  Their Insulin producing system suffers enormously also.  The Insulin system is the system that breaks down sugar in the body.

That’s why during the day bulimics often munch sweets, breads, biscuits, chocolate, cakes and the like. This can push their calorie consumption up through the roof, making them put on weight the exact opposite of what they are trying to achieve.

Of course you may say that some bulimics are slim. But most of these people are slim because they fast during the day and eat only when they are binging-purging.

To say in other words those who alternate between bulimia and anorexia and never eat normally.

So, bulimia on its own will not cause any decrease in weight at all. But complicating bulimia by adding anorexic behaviours will cause severe illness and even death.

If you are thinking of using bulimia as a way to lose weight – than think again: because you are cheating on yourself and putting your life in danger also.

If you have already started on bulimic path of behaviour, you should find help to stop it before the addiction becomes overpowering.  There are lots of help available and you should pick the one which suits you.

To read more about meditation for bulimia go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Posted in Anorexia, Eating Disorder, bulimia. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »

How to Resolve Self – Conflicts in Eating Disorder Sufferers.

January 12, 2010 — admin

Since eating disorders are rooted in emotional conflicts, the solution for the problem can be found in emotional healing. Emotional healing doesn’t happen instantly; it is a process. Many existing treatments nowadays promote only a physical fix while the emotional component is severely underestimated. This could be the reason why some ED treatments failed to make the person better. It is simply because the deep intimate emotions remain unchanged after these kinds of treatments.

To make any eating disorder treatment successful people should concentrate on the emotional healing of the sufferer, foremost.

There are 5 steps to emotional healing:

1. Acknowledgment: One must say” I need emotional healing because my emotions are not in balance at the moment”. They have to believe this is true, not just say the words.

2. Locate the cause of the pain: Emotional pain is located in the subconscious mind so it is basically impossible to find out the true cause of pain by simple thinking or rationalising. One should have access to their subconscious mind to sort out the problems. The best way to do this is through mindfulness training techniques. Mindfulness is a mental and emotional state when the person is fully aware of her/his owns body and brain. It is when communication with the subconscious mind becomes easier.

3. Cleansing the emotional wound: This can only be done on the subconscious level of awareness, so mindfulness techniques are a great help for doing this. Cleansing occurs when the person reassess the old emotional hurts, attaches a new meaning to them and maybe even replaces them with other more constrictive emotions.

4. Receive healing: This means accepting a new positive emotional state which comes with the healing and hanging on to it. When a person becomes more mindful she/he should be grateful even for little positive changes in their emotional state. Feeling grateful for small subtle changes will attract bigger changes and so on. This means receiving and accepting the healing at all levels.

5. Strengthen the weak areas: This means to continue on with a new way of living and maintaining a new level of awareness for the rest of their life. This is the only way to stop an eating disorder from coming back. It is easy for many sufferers to cling to their old programming as the weak areas seem safe and comfortable. It is scary for some to take the next step and face their weaknesses head on, but it has to be done regardless of how hard it may seem.

To accomplish these 5 steps the person should remain non-judgemental and mindful. Mindfulness is a mental state when one becomes an observer of themself and they have the ability to see things without criticism. People’s emotions often make that person sway to one or the other side: too far either way can lead to disorders.

But mindfulness does not take sides, mindfulness does not get obsessed with the good stuff, it does not try to sidestep the bad stuff, it takes a balanced path.

Mindfulness doesn’t cling to the “pleasant” and there is no fleeing from the “unpleasant” either. A person has to learn to face the ED and control their ED demons and mindfulness training will achieve this.
Mindfulness sees all experiences as equal, all thoughts as equal, and all feelings as equal. Nothing is suppressed. Nothing is repressed. Mindfulness does not play favourites.

The beauty of being mindful is it will cause emotional healing in the eating disorder sufferer and it does not matter how long one has had the disorder.

Emotional conflicts will be solved by just being mindful and wounds will be healed. Mindfulness training is also harmless; it has no side effects and is beneficial for the health of the majority of people, even non-ED sufferers.

Dr Irina Webster MD is a Director of Women Health Issues Program. She is an author and a public speaker. To read more about meditation for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Posted in Anorexia, Eating Disorder, bulimia. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »

Mindfulness Training for Eating Disorders.

November 3, 2009 — admin

Mindfulness therapy means teaching people to have a calm awareness of self and the person’s body functions, feelings and content of her/his consciousness. With mindfulness therapy people can reorganize their thinking in response to abnormal eating disorder urges.

Mindfulness can also help people to change their behaviour in response to the negative eating disorder thoughts they have, into something more useful and constructive.

Eventually this will change the person’s brain map. Everyone has a brain map, you have a certain map as you read this, but it changes as you learn new things. Mindfulness can change the Map for the better not the worst.

The techniques of mindfulness are simple.
1. Learn to see yourself from the out side. It is like taking a step out of your own body and watching what you are doing as a third person.
 
It is much more difficult to engage yourself in something bad like binging-purging or starving yourself if you see yourself not from the perspective of  “I’ but a third person view like “She or he”.

Throughout the day, step back and ask yourself: “What is she /he doing?”, “What is she/ he feeling?”, “What is she/ he thinking?”. This process is called self-observation.

2. Another technique is to be able to see your life as a story. In your self-talk use the third person perspective, give yourself a role and observe yourself. In your story give your character (yourself) certain roles you would like to have in real life and follow it.

Think of it like a friend saying to you why do you want to continue starving yourself, or why do you want to binge and purge: do you really want to do that?
 
3. Take mental notes. When you became distracted and feel that you want to binge again. The strategy of taking notes may be very useful when you feel like going for a binge. For example, you  have certain feelings at this particular moment: anger, loneliness, boredom, annoyance, fear, jealousy or other feelings that knock you off balance and takes you down the wrong path. 

Don’t try to fight these feelings but acknowledge these feelings, put a label on them. Labelling your feelings means saying in your own mind or even out loud statements like “ I am bored”, “I am nervous”, “ I am jealous” etc.

You can read about healing meditation for eating disorders CDs at http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Posted in Anorexia, Eating Disorder, bulimia. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »
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