In this episode we discuss two very important qualities of the mind that work against you when struggling with binge eating.
Binge eating is a battle fought in the mind, but how can we ever win it if we have no idea how the mind works?
After listening to this episode you will have a much better understanding of how your mind works.
In this episode we discuss two very important qualities of the mind that work against you when struggling with binge eating.
Binge eating is a battle fought in the mind, but how can we ever win it if we have no idea how the mind works?
After listening to this episode you will have a much better understanding of how your mind works.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of beyond the bench My name is Mo, I'm registered dietitian and behavioral change specialist. And every episode, I do my best to help bring you closer to a life free of binge eating where you're in control so you can stop worrying about the next time you're going to lose control and all the chronic conditions associated with binge eating long term and mental health problems too. Let's not forget about that. And today, we are going to talk about two important very important qualities of the mind that makes binge eating persistent and difficult to get rid of. We're going to start this one this podcast today by opening up with a story for so for all of you story lovers out there, get ready. And for those of you who don't really like my stories that much Well, you just got to listen to it or potentially maybe jump ahead, but I recommend you listen to it. Today, I'm going to talk about a story of the boy who couldn't say sorry, Riley was a nine year old, who was a very normal boy in every single way, who had very loving parents, his sister called Jenna, who was a year younger than him. But he struggled with one main problem is that he couldn't say sorry, when he did something wrong and actually all started when he was seven years old. And he had a big argument, the first big argument that he remembers with his mother. And he went to his room that night. And he had all these dark, negative thoughts about how he's not welcome at home anymore. And how he needs to plot his escape and run away and get out of the house because nobody wants him and nobody loves him. And these thoughts took over for a whole day and he went to sleep and woke up the next day. And then his mother came to him, asking him to see if he's if he's going to apologize or not. And immediately he said, No, he didn't want to because he didn't think that he was going to be forgiven. And that's when his mother told him Well, it's okay. Don't worry about it, you'll be fine. He didn't listen. And still, he refused to apologize. So she left him again for another day. And then eventually went to him and pretended like nothing happened and life went on from there. And he forgot about that, but his subconscious didn't. Now here's the problem with Riley Riley went on to live his life. From from nine onwards, never apologizing, whether it's in school, or whether it's in his home, or fight against his sister or his friends. He would always be the one who waited the lap till the very last second until somebody came to talk to him initiate contact and apologize. And then he would say okay, fine. I'm sorry, too. But he never initiated apology, he was always the one to say it second. Never, never first. As Riley grew older, and became 13 years old, he went to had to play some sports, and had made some friends. But as he got closer with these friends, they got into arguments inevitably, like every every group of friends do. And he got in a few few fights and arguments with his friends who refused to apologize even a couple times. He was mistaken. Specifically this one time where he pushed his friend refused to apologize and lost a few of his friends. And they wouldn't talk to him again. And it stayed that way. And even though he wanted to talk to them again, he wanted to make peace. He just couldn't do it. Something was blocking him something was holding him back. And then jump ahead a few years later, and he was 18. He started dating and seeing people. He was in a lovely, lovely relationship with a girl. They used to be his very close friends since they were in middle school. He never argued he always listened to him. But when they turn 18 they started taking it there. They took the relationship to the next level. And one day, she got offended that he did not take her side when some people were making fun of her and he thought they were joking. But she got offended. And she blamed him and he didn't think that he was supposed to be blamed for it. And so she expect him to apologize, but he wouldn't and he couldn't do it. And that led to Lucia falling apart. And then Riley went ahead to live his life from not really finding something, a relationship long term that would make him feel fulfilled or make him happy. Because every time an obstacle came up an argument happened he would refuse to apologize. He did have a few friends. Those were the friends that never argued with him at all. They never argued together. But he found it very difficult to apologize until one day something horrible happened. His father what got into an argument with him because of the fact that Riley roost was smoking and his father found out and he was 24 At that age, and his father wasn't happy and really blew up at him, and he blamed him for him for him smoking. He said that it was because of all the stress that he was placed under when he was a kid. And because of how his father constantly felt like he felt like his father was ignoring him. And he put the blame on him. And he blew up at him. And he made his father cry that day, it was very, very difficult for his father. And the next day, his father suffered a heart attack. He was older, and he had a weak heart, and he was so stressed out. And he thought that he did all he could for his for Riley, but he felt at that point felt like a failure that his son didn't appreciate him, they had a heart attack. And in that moment, Riley was overwhelmed with emotion when he found out that his father was in the hospital. And he was overcome with pain. And he rushed to him. For the first time in his life, he apologized. He said, Father, I'm sorry, I don't know why I did this. It's not I don't know why I can't apologize. But I'm here saying I'm sorry, please forgive me. I the idea of you dying. And having heard these last brutal, brutal words from me, were very difficult. And I don't think I could have lived like that I'm so grateful that you're still alive. So please forgive me. And not from that moment on, Riley became a bit a bit more able to say sorry. Now on the other hand, Jenna has sister when she was younger, she had no problems apologizing at all, because every time she apologized, she found that her mother was very welcoming. And her father was very welcoming. And they would make peace and then go off and either go for a walk together or make some food together or grab some grab nice dessert or something for it with each other and just talking to connect more. And so she had no problems apologizing at all. And she grew up with very healthy relationships. She got married to her high school sweetheart early on. And she had a pretty, pretty normal social connection life. And that was pretty much the story of Riley, and Jenna, the boy who couldn't say sorry, and the girl who had no problems apologizing his sister. Now let's talk a little bit about how this what this has to do with overeating, or binge eating. Because at this point, you're probably like, well, this has nothing to do with binge eating at all. Like, what is it? So what is he talking about Riley agenda, and sorry, and not sorry. But actually it has everything to do with binge eating. Because this story has two very important qualities of the mind that allows binge eating to be persistent and consistent at something that is difficult to get rid of in our life. And I'm going to share with you how the first and most important rule about the mind is that the mind seeks pleasure and avoid pain. So I'm going to say it again, the mind seeks pleasure, and avoid pain, it is wired to do that. This is how it goes ahead, creating things that you want to do for you and things that you do not want to do. So whenever you feel like doing something, it is because your mind associates pleasure for it. And whenever you don't feel like doing something, it's because your mind associates pain for it, regardless of others Good for you. So something could be good for you. But your mind just doesn't want to do it. And we can all think of stuff like that exercise, potentially waking up early. Potentially, not sleeping, not not being on our phone at night, saying sorry, like crowded. So specifically for Riley is he associated apologizing with negative experiences and pain, because when he was young, he built this image in his head that apologizing could come could come with being rejected and not being accepted. And meaning that he's a failure or he's wrong. And he had that fear of failure in his head. That was enough pain to cause him to not want to apologize. And that association stayed with him a long, long, long time. It stayed in his mind for a very long time and it caused him to lose people lose friends lose relationships, lose the girl that he was very close with, and almost lose his father at a point where his father was could have potentially died and that was how his mind was keeping him from apologizing so the mind seeks pleasure and avoid pain. Now, here's something equally as important. Jenna, on the other hand, associated apologizing, with reconnecting with being forgiven with going out and having good time with her parents with having a dessert potentially or having something as sweet. And so she created this association in her mind her subconscious that apologizing is good, feels good. There's pleasure associated with that. And that is a very, very healthy behavior. But here's the thing, the mind can also associate certain negative, negative behaviors With pleasure. And I'm sure you can think of a few examples of binge eating is one of them. How come we can binge eat for so long was because the mind associated with pleasure. It's a pleasure in feeling when immediately when we think of ourselves bingeing in the moment and eating all these foods, whether it's chocolate or cake, or whatever it is, the mind is feeling an intense amount of pleasure in the moment. And regardless of the fact that we feel pretty bad after that, whether it's 30 minutes or an hour later, we feel bad. And the mind doesn't think about that. It's completely absorbed with the immediate consequence, what's going to happen immediately, and that from Benjen, is pleasuring. But there's other things that cause pleasure as well, sitting on Instagram the whole night, playing video games, or procrastinating, doing certain certain things that do not serve us potentially sleeping in in the morning, instead of doing things that are as good for us. So those are things that could potentially also are also associated with pleasure, right? That the mind that the mind will want us to do more of. And this is the number one reason why habits such as binge Genie can persist. Because sometimes, it is the pleasure in the midst of a lot of pain or life. And I'll give you an example. What happens when you're so stressed out, let's say you come home, you're so stressed from work, or you come home when you had an argument with your friends, or you didn't perform so while in school, you didn't get the grades that you wanted, or something, they didn't go your way that caused a lot of pain, or you lost someone or someone made you feel bad about yourself by yourself, or someone made fun of you. Or you've been having these negative thoughts in your head that are either comparing you to others or labeling you as a failure. All of these create pain in your life. And so because the mind seeks pleasure and avoid pain, the normal thing for the mind to think of is how can I get away from that pain? While it's by seeking pleasure? So what is pleasuring in my life? Well, for a lot of us eating foods, certain foods is a source of pleasure, even though it does not serve as long time as long term. And so, we bench and this is where bingeing happens is that it is very, very easy for the mind to stay stuck in that cycle, when it is constantly in pain, especially specifically in stressful situations. Or if it's bored or stressed out, when it's experiencing that. That is why we can have these thoughts that food, you know, plan your bench and you start thinking about the bench thinking about the bench and then next thing you know you're making it happen. And this is how the pleasure seeking mind and pain. Avoiding mind allows benching to exist in your life. The second rule of the mind, the second one is that the mind loves the comfort zone. This is really important. The mind loves the comfort zone. So for Riley specifically, he got comfortable without, with never apologizing, and apologizing for him was way out of his comfort zone. And that made him not want to do it because it's normal for the mind to not want to get go outside the comfort zone. For Jenna apologizing for her for her was in her comfort zone. She was comfortable doing it, she had no problems apologizing, so she would do it easily. Now think about what you're comfortable doing right now? Is there a behavior in your life that is within falls within your comfort zone? And if you struggle with binge eating, then the answer is yes. And that was the same for me. I struggle with binge eating for so long, because it was something that was part of my comfort zone, saying on my phone late at night, for example, as part of my comfort zone, sleeping late at night and waking very late in the morning was part of my comfort zone. Eventually smoking became part of my comfort zone. Eventually, certain things like negative self talk became part of my comfort zone. I'm just comfortable doing it. It is something that I've been doing for so long, that it is what the mind calls the comfort zone. And it is the mind is number one way of automating a lot of the things that it sees you doing it regularly. So if your mind sees you doing something over and over again, it says well, must be something that is going to be always always be done. That is the comfort zone, I'm always going to want to do that. And it becomes automatic, which means you no longer have to think about it. Now let's take for a second how Riley got out of his comfort zone. And actually if you able to answer this right now before I give you the answer, then pause and put the answer in the comments below. Because this is going to be a very strong demonstration of analytical skills. How was Riley able to overcome his comfort zone and apologize to his father after not apologizing for years between the ages of seven and 24? He has not apologized to anybody. But at 24 he apologized to his father when he was when he had that almost near death experience. What made him do that? Well, the answer is simple. Remember how we said the mind seeks pleasure and avoid pain? But in that moment, the thought of his father dying, while having heard such negative words from his own son was so painful, it overwhelmed the pain of saying sorry, the pain of seeing his father grow through that was way, way, way higher than the pain of apologizing. And when that pain overwhelmed it, then it was easy to in go and apologize and go out of the comfort zone. And this is the number one reason why people who overcome binge eating finally are able to do it is when they get to a point when they've experienced so much pain from binge eating that they get to their enough is enough moment, and they find the right help. Now, here's the thing, because many, many people once they find the right, right help or the right process, they can sense that it's out of their comfort zone, only the ones who have had enough of the pain and are really ready to let go of that pain that is that comes with binge eating, are able to take that leap and go into something that is out of their comfort zone such as a process or a program that will help them get out get out of it. Because the truth is for Riley, potentially associated his head that if he apologized, he will have to like he'll have to go through the potentially being rejected, or he'd have to like talk about his feelings or justify why he did that. And all these things created pain for him. It's the same for us going through something that can help us overcome anything might might come along with thoughts such as well, I'm going to fail. What if it's not for me? What if I have to talk about things I'm not comfortable talking about? What if I have to do all these things that I'm not really comfortable with that give me pain, and that alleviates the pain more. And so the pain of overcoming and binge eating sometimes becomes less than the pain of overcoming it. And so that's why we persist in binge eating. So what we have to do is make sure that with binge eating, the pain that comes with binge eating is more than any other pain that and pushes us out of our comfort zone. And from there, we will find what works for us then how can we do that? How can we associate so much pain with binge eating? Well, the answer is not really far, you have to just look at the consequences of what bingeing is causing and bringing into your life, the negative feelings, the loss of control, the long term path that you're on the chronic conditions that might happen as a result of you doing this, the amount of energy that goes in wasted into go into this, the amount of time wasted into this amount of money wasted into this. All of these are things that can alleviate and increase the pain associated with benching and that pain. You can use that pain to help you overcome anything and find something that works for you. Right But it's only when the pain of experiencing the binge eating is more than the pain of overcoming it, then that your it's going to push you in that direction. Because remember, by default, the mind seeks pleasure and avoid pain. And when there's too painful things in place, the mind will automatically seek what is least painful, because pain and pleasure are actually opposites of the same spectrum. So you cannot have pain without pleasure and you cannot have pleasure without pain. They're opposite the same spectrum. So something can be less painful than something else. And the mind will want to give him these two options the mind will automatically gravitate towards the thing that is less painful. But it is up to us to stop for a moment and see which of these two is best best for us long term. Is it overcoming bingeing or continuing to struggle with benching long term best for us? What is going to serve us long term? Well, the answer is to overcome the benching. Right? Let's say there's other things that you have to weigh into it. So for example, while potentially I'll I'll, I'll put myself in a risk of failing or Allah potentially put myself in a situation where I have to talk about things I'm not comfortable with where or potentially I'll have to lose on some money. Well, this could be pains as well. But are these pains potentially avoiding at the expense of struggling with benching long term, this is how again, you can alleviate the pain that comes with benching. And as we use this rule of the mind seeks pleasure and avoid pain, we can start to understand why the mind seeks binge eating, why six other habits that are not serving us and why it seeks habits that are do not serve us, such as binge eating, or anything else. So think about this for a moment and ask yourself what are habits that I have in my life that do serve me that I want to do more of, but I just can't do it because it's painful for me whether it's exercising or anything else, and what habits Am I comfortable doing? That I get short term pleasure from that I just can't stop doing and start to change the conversation so that you can associate more pain with the habits that don't serve you and you can start to associate more pleasure with the habits that do serve you This is really a powerful thing to learn that I teach in my programs all the time is how to reframe. reframe that part in our life so that we are able to seek habits to, to, to commit to habits that do that do service long term, but potentially give us pain. So free exercise, for example, just the fact that switching up the narrative and saying, I love exercise, I'd love exercising, it's the best thing ever, or, I love investing in myself, I really do. Every time I invest in myself, it helps me grow, it helps me get better, or I love sleeping early. So I can wake up early and do certain routines, or I love reading about self help or growing on my own. And then you can take the same language and use it towards things that you want to avoid, such as I hate, binge eating a lot, I hate binge eating so much, or I hate struggling with binge eating for so long, right and be very careful what you use. So I never recommend you say I hate food. because food is not not some tech. If you hate food, if you choose to hate certain foods, then you will just contribute to more disordered eating, and a negative relationship with food. So one way, now ask yourself what is one way Riley could have gotten to a point where he improves, where he starts to want to apologize instead of not doing that we can improve his relationships with others. While he could have said started by saying to himself, I love apologizing, it makes me a better person, it makes me more aware and makes me more in control and brings me closer to others. And it's completely okay, if they reject me, it's fine. If it's I'm rejected, it's at least I would have done my part there. But if that part, if that narrative there is left to being automatic, then it will be very easily part of our comfort zone and it will be very difficult to overcome long term. So keep that in mind. The mind loves the comfort zone and wants to keep you in the comfort zone. Because in the comfort zone. It doesn't have to worry about certain things, it knows that you're going to be doing it and you do it. So it just automates it and puts it in the comfort zone. And the second part is the mind seeks pleasure and avoid pain, I want you to challenge yourself to find out what gives you pleasure in your life. And what gives you pain in your life. And ask yourself do these serve you or not. If the pleasures do not serve you, then it's time to change them. And the pains that you're avoiding do serve you that it's time to change the relationship with these things as well. And this is a life changer. This is a very powerful skill set to have, the more you work on it, the better it becomes and the easier it is for you to do that and other elements in your life. And that's when it becomes really life changing. Because everything the battle if there's one thing that I 100% standby is that the battle is always going to be one in the mind. So the battle is one in the mind. And our main tool our main weapon is our communication and our narrative and our thoughts and being in control of that is something as a very powerful skill set to have and a powerful characteristic to have as well. Now if you're struggling with this and you want to go through a process that is carefully designed, then you can get in touch with me through www.mrk.com that's www dot more risk calm and we can have a conversation whether your my programs could be a good fit for you. And these programs we go we go on a small group journey with three to four people of the same age group where we together we go through a process designed to help us overcome bingeing. Starting with our habits and ending with our narrative and the mind and how we can gain control the mind, I currently have three groups starting, this is going to be April 20/30 2021. A group that is below 16 in group that is below 32 and a group that is above 40. And from there we work on how we can overcome benching in the shortest possible amount of time possible while having fun. And if you don't follow any of these age groups or anything like that, then no worries at all. I start new groups all the time. So feel free to reach out we can talk more about it but in the meantime, stay put more awareness on this habits in your life that give you pleasure and give you and the ones that give you pain and ask yourself which of these serves me and which do not. And understand that your mind is going to do a lot of a lot to keep you in your comfort zone. That is why we struggle with binge eating and long term. So it is okay. It is completely fine for the mind to want to be the comfort zone. But the good news is that any zone can be your comfort zone with the right amount of effort and time. I hope you found this episode helpful. I look forward soon next one and please leave any questions below. Have a wonderful day.