Overeating on Raw Food

I decided to write about this area in my life that sometimes gives me grief.

Overeating.

However I don’t want to whine and complain about it. I want to be empowered and feel at ease with it. I’m looking for new ways to relate to food that will help me feel better about myself, not worse.

To me, overeating is simply eating when I’m not hungry. It happens in different situations. Sometimes it can be very mild – like finishing everything from my plate although I was already full half way through it. Sometimes it can simply be thirst that disguise itself as a cry for food. Or when I feel cold I want to keep myself warm with food.

And then sometimes it is a huge binge occasion.

That usually happens when I’m trying to push down an emotion that I don’t feel like dealing with at a given moment. I can find myself finishing a huge salad bowl then grabbing a few bananas then some goji berries and dates or dried figs, I’m already completely stuffed and I feel like I need to put more food in me, even if my stomach is aching with pain. I still only eat raw fruit and vegetables, so it's not too easy to feel completely stuffed or bloated (although raw nuts can definitely do the trick!). And I just keep on eating and eating until this heavy painful feeling comes.

Isn’t it amazing to realise that my body screams at me to stop, my mind consciously knows very well there’s no apparent reason for me to eat, and yet something in the subconscious level makes me get up from my chair, grab more food, eat it mechanically without even enjoying its flavour or anything else to that matter, I don’t even recognise that I already finished yet another huge banana, and here I am getting up of my chair to grab another one?

Different to craving, where it is a specific food I need to consume, when I’m binging I tend to just want any food. Whatever is available. I’m eating to stuff myself so I can feel sick and bloated, so I’ll have a very good excuse as to why I’m not flying over the moon.

Because other then that I’m super-duper! I’m the healthiest, fittest that I have ever been in my life. I’m running and walking and dancing, I have the most amazing friends around me, they are all inspiring and I look up to them with admiration. They are active and manifesting their dream lives constantly. Where as for me – I have a very good excuse why things are not working for me. I overeat.

I want to find out how overeating is actually serving me.

What is it contributing to me?

Overeating is providing me this excuse of not being fully 100% responsible for my actions. I was living in a pretty comfortable cocoon for quite some time now. And now I am emerging and growing so rapidly that it’s scary. And some negative emotions are still creeping up on me. And overeating is such a comfortable zone to get into. This familiar awful pain, beating myself up for doing so, this is like crawling back into the cocoon zone.

I’m glad I can get into this cocoon every time I feel I need to protect myself.

I’m glad my cocoon is made of the healthiest food in the world – as opposed to a cocoon made of, say, tobacco, or heroin…

I’m glad I am allowing myself to lose control and be vulnerable and experience pain.

I’m glad I can laugh at myself with the irony of wanting to stop binging while going to the freezer and find some raw ice cream that I devour.

I’m appreciating the fact that I can even indulge myself with this challenge, having the abundance of beautiful food around me all year round.

I’m glad I’m realising this cocoon is actually not really needed anymore and I’m happily shedding it slowly, in my own time, as I realise I’m not binging as often as I once used to.

I’m happy I found yet another subject to write about.

I’m allowing myself to overeat and binge as much as I want – or don’t want!

Through this experience I’m realising that often I DO relate to food in a healthy and constructive way. There are situations when my mind is at ease around food. 

Naturally I’m turning my back to overeating, and happily moving into a life that embraces conscious food choices all the time; I’m now at the stage where I enjoy exploring those ways AWAY from binging.

On my path, I was searching tools and techniques to conquer overeating. I tried some – they worked for a while. Some didn’t feel right to me.

Let me list a few.

Keeping a food diary: in this method you are supposed to write down every little thing you eat. The logic behind it is that you’ll need to face the quantities you eat, on paper. Perhaps you’ll be ashamed so you’ll stop overeating? Personally I’ll be ashamed so I wouldn’t even start.

Positive affirmations all around you: in this method you stick a lot of positive statements, food related, everywhere you can think of. On the fridge, on the bathroom mirror, on the walls, inside your wallet. These affirmations (like: “Everything I eat turns to beauty and love” or “I only eat when I’m hungry”) are designed to recondition your mind subconsciously and slowly shift your eating patterns. I tried this method for a very tiny small amount of time, probably didn’t give it enough time to check how good they work. I think by writing this down I am now deciding to try this method again!

Taking a break before you eat: in this method I am meant to drink some water, or count to 10, or go for a short walk, before I eat anything. To let my conscious mind a chance to “kick in”, sort to speak, and take control again. The reason these methods didn’t work for me, is that usually when I’m detecting I’m about to binge-eat, it’s already way too late. It’s already after my sub-conscious has taken full command and it will not let my logic any chance to take over. And thus I’m not even considering the option of taking a break.

Taking a very long break: I have observed that when I was away for a few days of retreat – a real holiday, like a meditation retreat – my relation to food changes drastically and becomes very natural and loving. No overeating at all. And it usually lasts after I get back from the retreat, but only for a short while.

NLP: I don’t know too much about Neuro-Linguistic-Programming, however it is supposed to be a good tool to re-program the mind. It meant to help get rid of addictions and so when a friend offered to do a session with me, I decided to give it a try. I’m planning to have fun with it! I’ll tell you all about my experience if you’d like…

So there it is.

Overeating served me very well, and now it’s time for me to let go of it.

I enjoy living fully, without the comforting shelter of stuffing my stomach with food.

Next time I overeat it will be a rare opportunity to remind me of long-gone habits.

Comments

[Cat]

I totally understand and sympathise!! This happens to me every day, and every day I tell myself that I'll eat responsibly the next day. Having come from teenage years of eating disorders, it is something that has followed me for almost two decades afterwards. It's incredibly hard to let go of these obsessions and eat "normally". Now, my obsession has crossed over to raw, vegan whole foods and trying to live healthfully, gathering information, recipes and what not in the name of some perfect ideal I may never reach. But as you said, the addictions could be a lot worse! At least we can say we eat pretty healthily and do the best we can for most of the time.. I used to binge on icecream and chocolate- now it's RAW icecream and chocolate!
All the best Maya and congrats on your wonderful food.

[Mandee]

Thank you for sharing this with us, Maya! I totally understand and do exactly the same thing myself.

[cath]

thanks maya..,im sure everyone can relate...i think its a massive shift and step in positive evolution to binge on good stuff!!!! lets celebrate that..... and also remember that integration of change can take time...its a journey.....your honesty is powerful and inspiring

[Lisa]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, emotions, fears and honesty on this topic. I can feel your vulnerability but at the same time the strength you developed out of these situationsI i really think that EVERYONE can relate to that issue of overeating- some more often some just occasionally. but we do have to dig in deeper and see where that "need" of stuffing ourselves comes from. what causes that emptiness and how can we not only fill out physical body but also our emotional needs. i have been doing a lot of soulsearching on this topic for years and i am proud and happy to say that i already moved a big step forward and be able to make more conscious decisions because i feel more connected to my body. raw food was definitely one of the best decisions i have made but it does not automatically erase the roots of the problem. we have to be gentle and patient with ourselves and fill us with even more understanding and support. love heals and will always be the answer to find peace with ourselves and our environment! i only read this post for now so i will definitely check out more of your blog! i am planning to come to sydney this winter (nov/dec/jan) and discover a new (raw food) world there...ALL THE BEST!