From the book “Diets Don’ Work You Do” by author Linda Louise Martin you can find incredible information on how to recover from an overeating addiction. She herself had a long history of yo-yo dieting and binge eating. She is now a petite, vibrant and energetic sixty something year old that will dress up a pair of jeans as good if not better than a twenty year old model. How did she do it? With a program of recovery that had little to do with dieting but instead included emotional, physical, and spiritual recovery. Once she had some of these issues resolved and some principals of living under her belt she could begin the actual food recovery.
We reference obesity as a body image issue because I believe most over eaters have totally lost touch with their bodies from their neck down. When you “take your body back” we ask to stand in front of a full length mirror and make notes about what they see. Most are totally resistant to doing this exercise because the denial is more comforting than facing the truth.
In order to be successful at food addiction recovery a lot of emotional work has to be done before the physical food management and exercise can be effective over the long term. The whole idea of dieting is a ridiculous one to begin with because of its restrictive nature. If I only restrict my intake and do not work on my emotional self I am destined to fail. I know if I deprive the needy child within me long enough she will have to act out and binge!
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We need to focus on the early messages we received about our bodies, how early we remember feeling shame about it and what we told ourselves about it. Questions to ask are: Was there constant focus on body image by a parent, especially the physical attributes and/or how much they ate or weighed? Was there a lot of family ritual around food? Was how they looked more important than who they were? Was a particularly needy parent always leaning on them for emotional support? Does obesity and/or food issues run the family?
This begins to help the over weight client to get in touch with the truth about how they feel about their physical self. It is generally a vicious cycle of I don’t like myself therefore I eat and I don’t like how I look when I gain weight so it effects how I don’t like myself. To break this cycle and the cycle of dieting is incredibly challenging. This is why we initially we are addressing the addiction to food and working to build the resiliency needed to tackle, really tackle the weight problem by make a lasting lifestyle change.