Useful Tools
Tracking binges worksheet
Most of you will be familiar with food journals and diaries as a tool to monitor your daily eating patterns.
The concept is the same here for the Binge worksheet, however the aim is to record solely each BINGE episode and certain situation or trigger that led up to the event. Note as much information as possible from the list of 7 questions below.
For many people, during the exact time of a binge episode, their thoughts are quite automatic and their behaviour is reactive more so than proactive. The purpose of recording each of these steps allows us to visibly pinpoint and connect certain events, thoughts and outcomes or behaviours.
This is a very useful exercise if used each time a binge episode is carried out. When we sit back after the binge and see certain patterns and cycles emerging it helps us to improve and make small changes for the next time in order to minimise harm and begin to take control of our recovery.
Record:
1) Situation
2) Length of eating episode ( 20 minutes, I hour etc)
3) Foods/drinks consumed during binge- be specific, 2 bags of crisps, ten chocolates, tub of ice cream- list exact quantities instead of just the food groups
4) Feelings during eating ( try to connect to the feelings you are experiencing at the time- if you cannot do this at the time, try to record them after the binge)- remember back to what you believe you were feeling at the time or just before the binge.
5) Feelings after eating? Happy? Shame? Sadness? Regret?
6) Small or large binge? ( in your honest opinion)
7) Did you feel out of control?
Dani McClafferty
Anorexia and Bulimia Symptoms – Monitor your Eating Disorder thoughts
Many people living with Anorexia and Bulimia eating disorders tend to have a distorted perception of themselves. They are extremely critical of their reflection in the mirror as what they see is not reality…
Examples of distorted thinking during eating disorders include the following:
• All or nothing thinking – black and white thinking- seeing things in absolute terms such as good-bad, right-wrong- no flexibility in thinking
• Minimising the positives – insisting that any compliments or personal achievements are not really important
• Jumping to conclusions – Believing that certain outcomes will be negative without any definite evidence
• Blame – you blame yourself for something you were not responsible for
• Maximisation/minimisation – You over react and blow things out of proportion or you minimise certain important events.
• Over generalisation- for example – I gained 3 pounds last week, so I know no matter what I do I will gain 3 pounds every week. Or, last week I binged on chocolate bars so I can never ever eat them again…
How to monitor your eating disorder thoughts?
When you are feeling a negative emotion, it is helpful to look inward and examine what thoughts are going through your mind.
Step 1: Record your feelings and urges (guilty, frustrated, urge to restrict my eating)
Step 2: Identify the situation you are in/ the triggers (alone, at a party, with work mates)
Step 3: Record your exact thoughts at that time. For example were you thinking in extremes, over generalising, blaming, and jumping to conclusions?
HONESTY IS KEY TO THIS TASK IN ORDER TO HIGHLIGHT THE EXACT DISTORTION IN THOUGHTS!
Are you also suffering from such distorted thinking? You may be suffering from Eating disorders. Get yourself diagnosed for Bulimia or Anorexia at Kildarestreetclinic, Eating disorder clinic in Ireland.
Know more about Eating disorder symptoms online.
How to Recover From Eating Disorders
Eating Disorders are characterised by abnormal eating habits and involve either excessive or insufficient food intake, which eventually becomes detrimental to both physical and psychological health. The exact cause of this disorder is not always clear and the reasons are often quite complex and not always fully understood. Today a significant proportion of the world population suffer from this health problem.
Almost 1 million males and 5-10 million females in the United States alone are estimated to be affected by this irregularity. Some common example being Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Compulsive Overeating and Binge Eating Disorder. Though, among all the others, the last one is the most common one. The most important symptoms that you may observe in such cases are -
* Obsession with weight
* Constant complaining of weight problems
* Dramatic weight loss in a relatively short period of time
* Chronic dieting and visible food restrictions
* Self-starvation and binging or purging
* Vague or irregular eating patterns
* Obsession with calories and fats in food
* Continuous exercise
* Isolation and manifestation of low self-esteem after food consumption
The major physical repercussions of eating disorders are it can in some cases lead to cancer, kidney or liver failure and various other complications. Besides this, it may also lead to depression, mood swings or suicide. Recovering from such health problems requires time, effort, support, determination and courage. So, if you are one of those suffering; then these are some of the best ways through which you can recover:
Consult a physician or visit a clinic: If you suspect you have a problem, it is important that you consult a specialist clinic or physician immediately. A qualified doctor will carryout an assessment and certain tests may be given to determine the level of treatment required.
Consult a nutritionist: You may need to consult to a nutritionist. A consultation with a good nutritionist can help you with the next stage in your treatment. A nutritionist will help you by providing a schedule and chart out lists of foods for you and provide meal plans.
Choose Eating Disorder Treatment Centre: You may also need to consider entering a treatment centre if it is impacting on your physical and mental health. The support system plays a major role in assisting your recovery.
Take a break and detox your life: Let your family and friends help and support you in changing your eating behaviours. Get support and advice from someone who has successfully recovered back from this health problem.
Self Care: Take care of yourself. Learn more about eating disorders through different resources available in books, the media and on the internet. Such knowledge can make you understand your condition and recover faster. It is very important to note that recovery from this habit is completely possible. In order to heal completely physically, psychologically and spiritually, you need to follow the above mentioned tips. These tips can help you recover and let you enjoy your food in a normal manner.
Source URL: http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Recover-From-Eating-Disorders&id=3602311
What is body image ?
Body image is an integral aspect of our experience of being human! We each live in a body that uniquely identifies us, to others and to ourselves. Many people find it hard to accept what they look like and society’s over emphasis on appearance, weight and beauty only make it more difficult for people to accept the skin they are in.
Being unhappy with your body image lowers your overall self-esteem, leading to a negative body image and self-consciousness.
Just for today….
Pick one of these tasks and practice it daily…….
• Focus on the parts of your body you like and less on the parts you don’t like.
• Start to record your body- image experiences in a diary to monitor certain negative body-image thoughts and emotions. What situations and events Trigger your body image vulnerabilities? What Beliefs, thoughts and conclusions fill your mind during these situations? And finally, how do you React emotionally and behaviorally? This short diary will be a useful self-awareness tool and promote change from within!
• Write positive body affirmations affirmations about yourself and stick them up on the wall or on the mirror focusing on the aspects that you like for example,
• “ My eyes are beautiful, My eyes give light to the world, I am thankful for being able to see! Repeating these positive body affirmations daily reinforces positive feelings about our bodies by emphasising things that we like already.
• Body and mind relaxation combines muscle relaxation, visualisation, breathing deeply and positive self-talk. The power to relax physically and mentally is a very powerful coping strategy to deal with challenges related to your body image and also other stressful events.
Today’s helpful tool.
Situation : On the verge of a binge
You are on the verge of a binge and are deciding what to eat and how much you will eat. You promise yourself you will stop at reasonable limits although you rarely succeed in keeping this promise.
Action:
Hold on. Now record your experience of the just concluded hour in your diary. Jot down the activities you performed, how you reacted to those activities and finally your feelings, thoughts or any other expression regarding those activities. Do all this even if you have experienced or are reminded of something frightful or hurting. Daily activities like walking the dog, washing your hair, hanging up the phones or misplacing your shoes may seem to you as ordinary events, but if you think hard you will surely realize that there are some hidden painful feelings that you deliberately prefer not to feel.
• Think of how you might comfort yourself to ease these uncomfortable feelings. What could you do to either delay or distract yourself from bingeing. Write a list of 3- 5 alternatives quickly. For example, you may call a friend, you may repeat out loud a positive affirmation, continue to record your journal or listen to music. The important thing is that you are now safe and moving further away from carrying out a binge.
• Write what you are thinking and feeling now.
• Read it out loud.
• Read it out loud a second time in front of a mirror.
• Smile and praise yourself.
JUST FOR TODAY….
• Accept that recovery is a process and does not happen quickly
Are you over concerned about your body image and have an intense fear of gaining weight?
If YES! Look over this list of warning signs of eating disorders, and if you match the majority of them, there is a good chance that you have an eating disorder.
Kildare Street Clinic is a specialized eating disorder treatment center offering effective Coginitive Behavioural Therapy for treatment of eating disorders.
Source URL: http://ezinearticles.com/?What-is-Body-Image?&id=3724316
5 Myths about Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia Nervosa is a serious eating disorder that is generally identified by the pathological fear of weight gain leading to extreme weight loss. Individuals who suffer from this disorder severely limit their consumption of food, to a point where it is impossible for them to maintain a safe and healthy body weight. In addition to this, sufferers often exhibit behavioural changes in other aspects of their lives that may be detrimental to their well being.
Anorexia Nervosa is a major eating disorder that affects in the order of eleven million people in the United States of America alone. The vast majority of those, approximately 87%, are under 20 years of age and the number of females affected is ten times greater than the number of males, although the number of males affected is on the increase.
Despite awareness campaigns, there are still a number of myths about Anorexia Nervosa that are circulating in popular culture. The main ones are listed below.
Myth: “Anorexia Nervosa is incurable”
Fact: Anorexia Nervosa is curable. As with most illnesses, the earlier the condition is detected the better the prognosis of complete success. Research observations from around the world show that if patients undergo treatment and continue with it for the required time (this time being different for each individual) then there is every possibility of full recovery.
Myth: “People with Anorexia Nervosa do not engage in binge eating”
Fact: This is misconception that many people have. People with anorexia may at times engage in binge eating. These bingeing episodes are followed by purging and the food that has been consumed is got rid of through the use of laxatives, vomiting, or excessive exercise.
Myth: “People with Anorexia Nervosa do not eat”
Fact: This idea is exaggerated, particularly in the earlier stages of the condition. Though individuals who suffer from anorexia are very restrictive about the food they eat and keep to quite drastic diets, they are human beings and therefore, need to eat to survive. Generally, in order to achieve the goal of having a slim body, anorexics stay away from foods that are high or even moderate in calories. As the condition progresses the amount of food ingested does decrease and decrease until the point where it can become life threatening. So it is important not to wait for things to get to that point before help is sought.
Myth: “Only overweight or underweight individuals suffer from Anorexia Nervosa”
Fact: Anorexia Nervosa is not always about food. In most cases it is a physical manifestation of an emotional problem and is an obsessional behaviour. Therefore body shape may not necessarily be an indicator of Anorexia Nervosa and should be utilised as an indicator in conjunction with other physical indicators and behaviours.
Myth: “If a child decides not to eat meat then it’s a sign they are developing Anorexia Nervosa”
Fact: It is important to note that just because a child decides to become a vegetarian it does not mean that he or she is becoming Anorexic. In the vast majority of cases it is simply that the child does not want to eat meat.
Apart from these myths, one common area of confusion is Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Although some of the symptoms of Anorexia may bear a resemblance to those of Bulimia Nervosa, each of these two common types of eating disorder have various distinctive features. The key point that one needs to understand is that people with eating disorders can have oscillatory behaviours and Anorexics can become Bulimics, or vice versa.
It is very important to get remove the various myths associated to any disease or condition. Listening to those myths can make things more difficult for a sufferer to overcome the condition. Having the correct knowledge and information regarding conditions like Anorexia Nervosa can help to make things easier for the patient to recover from disease effectively.
Source URL: http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Myths-About-Anorexia-Nervosa&id=3569588
Binge Eating Disorder
Binge eating disorder typically includes periods of excessive overeating. However, a person with a binge eating disorder does not subsequently induce purging (vomiting), as is the case with bulimia.
Binge eating can occur on its own, or alongside other disorders or conditions, such as Prader-Willi disorder, or a lesion of the hypothalamus gland.
Tags: Binge eating Disorder
Negative Thoughts.
It is important when in recovery to identify negative thoughts. When you start to do this it will help you break the links between dysfunctional attitudes and negative feelings. For example Sophie was in early recovery and was struggling to increase the number of daily calories she was taking. She knew on a conscious level that this would get her closer to her expected weight for her height, but the irrational pat of her mind bombarded her with thoughts such as “I’ve eaten too much”, “I feel so bloated”, I am getting fat now and everyone will see it”, “I look huge in these jeans now”. In her work with her therapist she identified that these thoughts were demotivating her and she was reverting to the old patterns of skipping meals. With the support of her therapist and her boyfriend she began to question the validity of these thoughts and look for healthier ways of dealing with them. This had the added effect of lifting her mood and increasing her motivation for change.
Some typical negative eating disorder thinking:
I was miserable when I was overweight so if I gain weight I will feel horrible again.
I can’t eat carbohydrates; they bloat me and make me fat.
If I gain a pound in weight I will carry on gaining and won’t be able to stop.
I can never eat chocolate again.
I can’t eat in public because people are watching me and will think I am a glutton.
If I eat anything with fat in it, it will turn immediately to fat on my hips.
So what if I lost 2 pounds this week I should have lost six by now.
I weighed myself and I have put on 2 pounds I’m not eating again for 2 days.
I have completely messed up my diet after eating that Chinese; I might as well just forget about it and keep eating now.
Watch out for the “Shoulds”! When you are using the word should it can mean you are being harsh and critical of yourself, it is one of the most common words people with low self esteem use. “I should be keeping to my diet”, “ I should be thinner”, “ I should be doing more exercise”.
Dealing with Negative Thoughts: A good way of learning to deal with negative thoughts is to make a list of the thoughts you are getting in a diary on a daily basis. Put a column in for:
The situation you were in (what, where, with whom);
The automatic thought and the feeling that went with it;
A more reasonable, less harsh response.
The outcome (Did it make a difference? how do you feel now?)
Tags: Recovery
Guidelines / Tips for Family and Friends
Guidelines / Tips for Family Members and Friends:
- It is important to learn and educate yourself as much as possible about eating disorders. Eating disorders are caused and maintained by many complex underlying factors. Therefore it is very difficult to break the cycle of an eating disorder. Don’t be expecting your loved one to overcome her eating disorder overnight, recovery takes time.
- Affirm your loved one on her strengths and abilities that are not related to her eating disorder. This can help your loved one help separate her self worth / esteem from weight, shape.
- Engage in pastimes/ activities together that will not raise their anxieties/worries about food, weight etc. Again this can help your loved one to learn to base their self worth on strengths and abilities that are not related to food, weight and shape.
- Communicate openly and express your worries and fears directly to your loved one. This can prevent you sending mixed messages and will help prevent confusion.
- Don’t demand change or set ultimatums re: change. Respect that your loved one has a difficult road of recovery ahead and being patient can be supportive.
- Don’t take control of their eating disorder and try to fix it yourself as this can cause your loved one to feel inadequate dependent and incompetent. Depending on the severity of the eating disorder, it can be appropriate to intervene. For example, if you ever felt your loved one’s life is at risk it is important seek medical professional help. Encourage her to attend a GP because of the health implications associated with an eating disorder it is important for your loved one to have her bloods, BMI, weight, bone density checked and if necessary monitored throughout her recovery.
- Don’t brush the eating disorder under the carpet. Your loved one will benefit from your support and concerned interest.
- Don’t blame your loved one or yourself for the eating disorder. This will only lead to anger, guilt and conflict. Gaining an understanding about the eating disorder can help both you and your loved one to cope with recovery.
- Encourage your loved one to seek professional help if necessary. If your loved one chooses not to discuss her recovery with you and confides in a source/professional outside of the family, embrace this decision.
- Be aware of your own beliefs/attitudes about weight and shape as your beliefs can be indifferent to the approach your loved one needs.
- Avoid giving your loved one ‘special’ treatment because of the eating disorder. This approach can cause your loved one to feel labeled; and identified with the eating disorder while at the same time reinforcing her eating disorder symptoms. Treat your loved one like any other friend /family member.
- Be aware of your own needs and your family’s needs too. As eating disorders can be very distressing and consuming for the family it is important to take care of yourself and find support that will help you cope. Know your own limitations.
- Allow your loved one to take responsibility for her own recovery by you offering her support, providing a listening ear while at the same time letting her make decisions by herself. This can increase her positive self belief re: recovery.
- Remember recovery can take some time and it is about ‘trial and error’ for your loved one. Slips can happen, it is a normal part of the recovery process but it doesn’t mean that your loved one has ‘failed ‘ or is back to the start. Remember it is important to keep in mind that people do recover.
Bulimia Triggers
Bulimia Triggers: How to cope with urges and impulses.
What is an urge or a craving? These are an intense impulse to perform a behavior which often has negative consequences. When you act on an urge it becomes a symptom i.e. binge, vomit, restriction, laxative use, etc. Urges or cravings can be so intense that it often feels like you have no choice but to act on them and when you do, you may feel an immediate sense of relief , emptiness, or you may feel guilty and disgusted with yourself. When you get an urge, it can intensify as time goes by and this can be very difficult to cope with. However, urges do eventually pass and settle down.
It is very helpful to know what triggers an urge for you and also to develop healthier ways to cope with an urge rather than acting it out. To manage your recovery from an eating disorder it is vital to both understand your triggers, and raise your awareness of your triggers/ urges to binge, vomit or restrict.
To recover it is necessary to develop some coping strategies that help you avoid acting on your urges every time you get one. Applying coping strategies can be very problematic as acting on urges becomes a very automatic response, therefore making it tough to break the pattern. The more times you avoid acting on an urge the easier it becomes to manage them.
Coping Strategies: Here are some examples of coping skills that may help you deal with your cravings.
Coping Strategies are very personal as what might trigger you to binge/purge might not necessary trigger another person. Therefore it is important to develop a ‘TRIAL AND ERROR’ approach and not necessarily give up if one attempt has not worked out while trying a new coping strategy.
1. Delaying Tactics When you get an urge to binge/purge, try delaying it by a specified amount of time. For example, initially, you can make a decision to delay acting on an urge by 10 minutes by doing some other activity in the meantime to distract you while you try sit out the urge. After the ten minutes check to see how strong your urge still is, if you can, try delaying it further. If you do end up acting on the urge after delaying it, try increase the delay time when you get your next urge as this will help you try gain some control over your impulse to act to an urge every time you get one. The more times you try to do this, eventually you will be able to manage your urges without reacting by binging or purging.
2. Distraction This involves doing something that will take your mind off your cravings. This activity needs to be somewhat pleasurable so as to keep your mind occupied. Examples could be phoning a friend, surfing the web, downloading some music, pampering yourself, go for a walk or taking a bath.
3. Self talk coping statements. Repeating a statement sentence or a word that is helpful and motivational to your recovery can be a very useful tool. You can say it out loud or in silence as long as it reinforces your commitment to your recovery. Try and make the statement a positive one and make sure it is not harsh and critical. An example could be; “ I deserve to be healthy”; “This craving will pass”, “Every day I am getting better and better”. “I will be good to myself today”. “I am a good person” “I will succeed”. These are only samples and it is better to tailor your own statements so that they have a special meaning for you.
4. Making your environment safe. A major part of recovery is to become aware of your high risk situations. Some of these are quite obvious however there might be some that you are not aware of. A daily journal is a good way to track situations that are triggering you to binge. Make a list of your thoughts feelings and behavior in these situations and when you have clearly identified your own high risk situations then you can plan to either avoid them completely or put strategies in place to stop you acting on the urges that develop. Some examples of risky situations could be: Spending time with a friend who is critical of you or makes negative comments on your figure. Spending time with family if this brings up overwhelming negative feelings for you. “Chinese take aways” A lot of people with Bulimia find these are a trigger for a binge or laxative use. Try and avoid as much as possible. After shopping for clothes be aware of your harsh critic and try not to purge, restrict, take diet pills or over exercise. As time goes by and you get stronger in your recovery you will find that these situations become more tolerable and you will not need to be as diligent.
Tags: Bulimia Triggers
