Compulsive Overeating: Spotting Signs and Symptoms

Eating Disorders are usually associated with Anorexia and Bulimia. When someone says "eating disorders", it usually makes one think of skinny girls with hollow faces and protruding ribs. But there is another group of people who also suffer from another kind of eating disorder and they do not necessarily try to starve themselves. In fact, they do quite the opposite and it's a condition that they wish they didn't have to live with.

Compulsive overeating is an "addiction" to food. The common thread between this type of disorder and Anorexia/Bulimia is that the behavior is rooted in feelings of low self - esteem. Compulsive overeaters rely on food to help them cope with stress and anxiety, or as a way to make up for the things that they feel are missing in their lives.

Compulsive eaters are usually overweight and aware that they have an eating disorder, but find it difficult to change since the problem lies in their inability to properly cope with emotional issues.

Men and Women who suffer from this disorder are at high risk for high blood pressure and cholesterol, kidney failure, arthritis, bone deterioration, stroke and most especially heart attack.

Here are some symptoms experienced by individuals suffering from compulsive overeating:

. Difficulty in maintaining a healthy weight

. Not being able to control eating

. Prefers to eat alone because they are ashamed of eating habits

. Resulting weight gain can lead to other problems like high blood pressure, cholesterol and leg and joint pain.

. Tries to lose weight by trying popular diet fads but this often results in eventual failure

. Perspires easily and experiences shortness of breath even when physical activity is relatively light

. Has a significantly increased appetite when stressed or anxious

. Has the tendency to blame their "being fat" whenever they fail in their social or professional life - also thinks that losing weight will greatly improve their happiness and sense of fulfillment

. Tends to feel that food is their only friend

. Stores food in odd places for their convenience (usually inside their bedrooms, so that they wouldn't have to walk to the kitchen if ever they feel like eating.)

Compulsive overeating is accompanied with much guilt and shame. People with this condition often feel that they are not good enough and are ashamed that they could not control their eating habits. This only makes it worse because their negative feelings only lead them to more compulsive overeating. Food is how compulsive overeaters deal with their craving for acceptance and appreciation. Some use their overweight appearance to keep people away because they subconsciously feel undeserving of love, while others use it as punishment whenever they feel bad about themselves. One does not become successful in overcoming this condition unless they gather up the courage to face the real emotions they are afraid to feel and unless they can honestly admit the issues that cause them to be stuck in this destructive behavior. All this of course, would be a difficult accomplishment without professional help and the support of friends and loved ones.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Eating Disorders

Using Mindfulness to Reduce Compulsive Eating

If you eat compulsively, hunger can mean many things. In addition to ?normal? hunger ? the signal your body sends when your blood-sugar is low ? you also feel compelled to eat when you?re not hungry or beyond feeling full. Many overeaters have lost the ability to sense hunger and fullness. Fortunately, it is possible to regain this ability with the practice of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is key to regaining awareness of physical hunger and fullness. It is also the key to recognizing when you are eating compulsively. If you choose to practice this technique, it?s important to also practice letting go of judgment. For now, let go of the idea that it?s ?bad? to eat when you?re not hungry. Instead, think of yourself as a scientist, objectively watching to learn what makes you eat when you?re not hungry.

Pick a day when your stress is lower like a weekend or day off. When you wake up, notice any signs of hunger. These might include stomach sensations like grumbling, a slight ache or pang, or a feeling of emptiness. Some people notice a slight headache or feel light headed. If you are not hungry, wait a little while. Go about your day. Check in every half-hour and notice if you are hungry yet.

When you feel hungry, see if you can identify what you would like to eat. Again, try to suspend judgment. You may find you want ice cream. Or you might want broccoli. For this experiment, there are no ?good? or ?bad? foods. You are just noticing what you would like to eat. If at all possible, feed yourself exactly what you are craving.

Notice what happens to your body as you buy and/or prepare the food. What thoughts go through your head? What emotions are present? Don?t be surprised if you discover something unexpected. Some people feel a sense of relief to feed themselves exactly what they want. Others feel guilt or shame. There is no right or wrong. It is all just information you can use to understand yourself better.

Eat slowly. Notice the smell of the food. Notice the mouth feel with the first bite. Is this a food that dissipates quickly? Or does it take time to chew and swallow. Notice the texture, temperature, and flavors. Is it sweet? Salty? Savory? Spicy? Notice how your body responds after the first bite or two. Does it make you want more? Do you start to feel relief from hunger yet?

As you eat, see if you can identify the point where the hunger is relieved. This can be difficult, so go slow. It may take several meals to develop this sense. As you become aware of feeling satisfied, ask yourself if you would like to stop now or keep eating. If you stop now, remind yourself you will be able to eat again the moment you feel hungry. If you choose to eat beyond satisfied, or even past fullness, don?t judge. Notice how long it takes to get hungry after you eat to different levels of fullness. Notice what it?s like to feel satisfied, full, and stuffed. Notice thoughts and feelings that arise as you experiment with hunger and fullness.

See if you can spend an entire date feeding yourself whenever you get hungry and feeding yourself exactly what you are hungry for. Notice during this day if you have the desire to eat when you are NOT hungry. If this desire appears, use mindfulness to learn more about it. Is there a feeling or a thought that goes with the desire?

Often we want to eat when we have thoughts or feelings that are ?illegal.? In some cases, it may not be ?nice? to be angry. But anger is part of being human. In other cases, you may find yourself worrying about something, or feeling another strong emotion. A lot of people eat when they are worried about getting fat! I?ve had people tell me they thought they ate when they felt sad, but discovered they ate when they were excited. It is fascinating to discover the things we ?eat over? when we overeat.

As you discover more about your compulsion to eat, you may want to learn skills to soothe the thoughts and feelings you eat over. In this way, you can gradually reduce the frequency and intensity of your compulsive eating. Soothing skills include meditation, distraction, suspending self-judgment, talking with an understanding person, setting limits or being assertive with someone who is being rude or thoughtless.

As you learn to ?eavesdrop? on your thoughts, you?ll discover what?s bothering you. With that information, you?ll have the option to choose how you want to take care of yourself. At times you may want to take care of yourself with food. But it?s nice to have the choice!

Julie Levin is a Marriage and Family Therapist with a practice in Pleasant Hill, CA (near San Francisco). She specializes in treatment of compulsive eating, as well as other addictions and compulsions, by helping clients learn to take care of the underlying feelings like anxiety, stress and depression. Julie also works with couples, helping them form stronger and more loving relationships. She offers counseling and therapy via phone and web-based video conferencing. For more information she can be reached at 925-518-4072 or http://www.julielevin.com.

 

Compulsive Overeating and the Dangers It May Bring

One of the eating disorders prevalent among both males and females is compulsive overeating. This malady is characterized by a lack of control over an individual's eating patterns resulting in a dramatic increase in body weight.

Compulsive overeating is usually developed during the childhood years when a person's eating habits are being formed. People who never learned how to deal satisfactorily with stressful situations are observed to be more prone to acquire this malady than those who have the ability to face their problems head-on. Recent studies show that affected individuals make use of food to thwart negative feelings and emotions. In other cases, food may also serve as an avenue for a person to deal and cope up with everyday stress, personal problems and emotional distress.

Some affected individuals feel that the more body fat they acquire, the more they can be protected from the personal evil, which haunts them. This is especially true in the case of those who suffered from sexual abuse. They might feel that the bigger and fatter they are, the less attractive they will be. Hence, an increase in weight might prevent abuse of the same nature from happening again.

Compulsive overeaters suffer from alternating episodes of overeating followed by feelings of guilt and depression. Among the warning signs that might tip off whether a person is suffering from this condition are the following:

. Eating a large amount of food even when a person does not feel physically hungry
. Eating at a faster pace than usual
. A person may already feel uncomfortably full but lacks the willpower to stop eating voluntarily
. Unusual preference of eating alone to hide his/her excessive eating habits from others
. Feels depressed or disgusted after each bingeing episode
. Has a history of marked weight fluctuations
. Usually withdraws from group activities due to embarrassment with his or her own weight
. Blames personal failures on weight
. Tries many different diets in an effort to control weight gain
. Weight and dieting becomes a central figure in the person's life

Compulsive overeating may trigger several health complications. It can prompt the onset of hypertension or high blood pressure, heart abnormalities, high cholesterol levels, diabetes, arthritis, sciatica, embolism and hiatal hernia (an abnormality wherein a part of the stomach sticks out through the esophagus and up to the chest). It may even cause toxemia or preeclampsia during pregnancy, which might endanger the lives of both the expectant mother and her unborn baby.

There are several other complications associated with this condition. The consequent weight gain resulting from this condition might aggravate the formation of varicose veins. It might also cause mobility problems. Overweight people are known to tire very easily and experience shortness of breath after even moderate physical activities. At worst, compulsive overeating may lead to cardiac arrest and death.

Like bulimics, compulsive overeaters are often aware of the abnormality of their eating habits. However, since the condition is not taken seriously at present, most sufferers are either directed to health spas and diet centers instead of being treated properly.

Compulsive overeating is more than a problem with food and the individual's eating habits. Rather, it is an indication of a more serious problem which may be hidden beneath layers and layers of false symptoms.

People suffering from compulsive overeating need help. They desperately need our support. So if you, or anyone you know, are showing signs typical of this malady, please seek professional counseling today. Do not wait for tomorrow. It may then be too late.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Eating Disorders

Ending Compulsive Eating: Quick & Easy Way

End Compulsive Eating

You're minding your business when suddenly a delicious looking cake, muffins, or some other yummy treat appears. You weren't hungry but now that you've seen food you're suddenly ravenous. You jump up and rush to get some before it's all gone. A few minutes go by and then visions of muffins start dancing in your head. Your stomach is complaining, you're checking the time, "Isn't it lunch yet?" You see muffins, you want muffins. The see food eat food cycle begins:

"I want another muffin." "No, I shouldn't, everyone will think I'm a pig." "But I really want one, they tasted great. No one will notice if I visit the lunchroom on my way to the copier. I better hurry or they'll be gone."

"What about my diet?"

"I don't care. I'm getting another muffin, I'll start my diet tomorrow."

And off you go. Frustrating, yet so familiar. Since you know this is going to happen from time to time it's best to have a plan. The cycle begins when you see food, want it, eat it, then become angry with yourself for eating it, so you want something to make yourself feel better, and you see food, you want it ... and so it goes, round and round. Wouldn't you like to stop this cycle? You can. Read on ...

Stop the Compulsive Eating Cycle

The following approach works in forestalling the immediate see food/want food response when you jump up and rush to get some, before it's too late. It's something else to do just long enough to give a moment to think, then decide. Realizing you want a treat is okay, deciding to have a treat is fine, but if you want to lose a few pounds, stopping the "I see food, I must eat food" pattern is a good first step.

Changing the See Food/Eat Food Response

When the urge to eat first hits, do a quick round of EFT (see resource box below to learn EFT). Use the desire itself, "I want to eat" or the specific food, "I want chocolate" to form your statement. Keep in mind, the words you use don't matter, so don't get hung up on needing to say the right words. Think of the problem, and the EFT will do it's magic.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started. State first the issue, "Even though ..., and end with a positive such as "I deeply and completely accept myself."

Even though seeing those muffins made me hungry, I deeply and completely accept myself." OR "Even though I'm suddenly starving, ..."

"Even though I want some ________ (fill in the blank), ..." "Even though I know once I start eating I'll never stop eating, ..." "Even though that muffin is going to taste great, ..." "Even though I'll wreck my diet by eating that cake, ..."

EFT is not Positive Affirmations

Before you decide EFT is not for you because this seems to fly in the face of all the positive affirmations you've been doing, stop worrying. EFT is not positive affirmations and has nothing whatsoever to do with affirming your desire for a goal. EFT is different than any other approach you may have tried. It is something to address the electrical impulses firing in your brain when you think a thought. Thought impulses can be changed easily with EFT.

Use this technique directly on whatever it is that's first and foremost on your mind which means your desire to eat the cookies, or whatever it is you are wanting. Focus on what you want, make it as big as possible. Bring it to an even higher level of desire, if possible. Think of how great it's going to taste, how much you want it, how smooth it'll be, crunchy ,whatever. EFT will address and change that desire if you really think about it while you do the EFT exercise.

When you think of how much you want the cookies, your brain is linking up all the other times you enjoyed cookies, all the good feelings, memories, it's all linked up. That's how the brain works; it makes connections and associations. So while you think about your issue, the EFT process is simply knocking the signal off it's familiar path, effectively changing it.

Analysis Paralysis or Just Drive

I don't know how my car's engine works, but I can drive. I get where I want to go, and I don't need to analyze how that happens. Do the same thing with EFT. You don't have to understand or analyze every nuance of EFT or why it works. Just use it and see if it's helpful for you. (For info on learning EFT see resource box).

After one round, think again about what you wanted to eat and see whether your desire is the same. Is it higher, lower? Don't try to make the desire different, just figure out whether you think it has changed. If it has lessened, but not by much, then do a second round, stating "Even though I still want to eat ..., I deeply and completely accept myself." EFT only takes a moment to do, so do it as often as you need, until you get that desire reduced.

Sometimes it happens so quickly people can't believe it was the EFT. "I just changed my mind," they'll say. "I didn't really want the cookies after all." We tend to need to rationalize everything that happens, and it's no different with EFT. When something works so easily to simply change your desire from wanting something very much to suddenly not wanting it at all, there's no way you aren't going to try to from some reasonable explanation. Go ahead and decide that it wasn't the EFT, but because you said you didn't want to eat the cookies. Then just smile and know you can have the cookies later, if you want, but for now, you just don't want them.

 Kathryn Martyn Smith, Master NLP Practitioner, EFT counselor, Weight Loss Coach and owner of One More Bite Weight Loss is the author of "Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight Loss."

Learn to use Kathryn's One More Bite Approach with The Daily Bites: Mini lessons in using EFT for weight loss http://www.OneMoreBite-WeightLoss.com/getnews.html

Compulsive Overeating Eating Disorder

Compulsive overeating is an eating disorder whereby you have a strong addiction to food. Just like all other types of addictions, when you suffer from compulsive overeating, you constantly crave for food even though you do not need to consume all that much. You end up stuffing yourself and not realising that you should stop as you are already full.

Compulsive overeating is often confused with binge eating, which is a similar, but more serious eating disorder. Binge eating is also characterized by uncontrollable acts of overeating. However, binge eating has a more emotional and psychological impact compared to compulsive overeating.

One major difference is if you suffer from compulsive overeating, you generally feel joyful after a meal. You feel that your craving is satisfied although you may have exaggerated the amount that you ate. However, if you suffer from binge eating, you do not feel joyful after the meal but a sense of guilt, depression and disgust that you have not been able to control yourself with regards to the portions that you ate.

As depression is largely absent in the case of compulsive eating, it is considered less dangerous than binge eating, since it has a reduced chance of turning into bulimia. However, compulsive overeating can gradually turn into a binge eating disorder if you become affected emotionally and psychologically about your body shape and weight.

The causes for both forms of eating disorders are similar, however, Both are emotional or psychological in nature. Just like smoking, it is not the body that craves the cigarette, but the mind.

In the case of compulsive overeating, you may eat because you are feeling stressed or depressed over some problems. The danger is when this habit turns into an addiction that you find that you have no control over.

At the first sign of compulsive overeating, you should get yourself treated. Do not wait till it escalates to binge eating before you take action. By then, you will have a bigger problem to deal with and may take a longer recovery period.

Do you have a distorted self-body image? Learn more about the dangers of eating disorders here on this site www.eating-disorder-research.com