Bulimia Anorexia Blog
bulimia-cure.com
admin Info

Name: irina webster

Website Role: administrator

Personal Website: http://www.bulimia-cure.com

Profile: Dr Irina Webster MD is the 39 years old Director of Women Health Issues one of the Australia leading suppliers of information on women health and especially on eating disorders. She is creator of Women health Site and Eating Disorder Home Treatment Program which she developed based on her personal experience with an eating disorder. Also she has experience working with eating disorder sufferers for 9 years. Her personal eating disorder story is available for you to read just click here. Dr Irina Webster is one of the Expert Authors featured in Ezine Articles writing about eating disorder. She has also been published in many others magazines and Ezines. She is also an Internationally met published author and creator of many women’s health related books on different topics such as: “Pregnancy from A to Z!” “You Can Overcome Infertility” “Mom Please Help” adults’ version on how to stop anorexia-bulimia. "Cure Your eating Disorder, 5 Step Program to change your Brain: The Neuroplasticity Approach" Dr Irina Webster graduated medical school in 1993 in St. Petersburg (Russia). She worked in the Women and Children Hospital from 1993-2000 doing a lot of research on Women and Children Health mainly on eating disorder and infertility areas and how these two can be connected. Her patient were eating disorder sufferers especially those who had different complications from eating disorder like infertility and other women health problems. Dr Irina uses a holistic approach to medicine and treats her patients from a whole person point of view. She takes into consideration not only the medical problems of a person, but also the personal circumstances of each patient, their upbringing, developmental issues as well as racial, educational and social issues. From 2003 – 2007 Dr Irina Webster worked in The Canberra Hospital (Australia) where she continued her research about the development of eating disorders: why they occur, who is more likely to be affected, what are the developmental stages of the disease, how it is more likely to be stopped, the methods and techniques that help to prevent and stop eating disorders. Dr Irina has just finished developing her revolutionary Eating Disorder Home Treatment Program and has started offering it to sufferers, their families and loved ones to help beat their problems. She has completed a number of medical, psychological and holistic medicine courses regarding eating disorder treatment including: - “Advanced Strategies for Eating Disorders Treatment” (October1998 - May 1999) - “Distorted Body Image: Broken Eye Syndrome” (November 2000) - “Adolescence is dangerous time for developing an eating disorder”.(January 2001) - “Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Eating Disorders Treatment”. (April 2002) - “Physiology and Psychology of Eating Disorders.” ( November 2003) - “Family Therapy for Eating Disorder Patients.” (June 2004) Dr Irina Webster has also attended many self-improvement seminars including seminar by Anthony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Dr Denis Whitley, Zig Ziglar and Stuart Wilde. She has personally spoken to and has taken interviews with famous people like: - Hollywood Hypnotherapist Mr Steve G Johns (who works with actors and directors in Hollywood and helps them to stop their Eating Disorders), - Dr Allan Strong – doctor of Psychology specializing in Transformational Change Psychology in UK (the author of Visual Kinesthetic Technique for Eating Disorder sufferers), - Mr Chris Payne – a famous personal development coach in UK, Managing Director of LifeTools and mentor to people like Anthony Robbins, the actors and crew of the famous British soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale. - Mr Justin Herald – a famous personal development coach and author of many books in Australia and who is featured daily on Sydney radio 106.5 Mix FM. He is in great demand from the corporate world. Other information... Dr Irina Webster has been married to William for 9 years. She has one daughter Natasha (aged 16). They all live in Canberra (the capital of Australia). Now she is doing a lot of on-line counseling for eating disorder suffers. Every day she counsels 10 -15 eating disorder sufferers from all over the world. She owns... More than 500 books on personal development and eating disorder subject, plus educational CD and video set filling two bookcases. Dr Irina’s main hobby is traveling. She enjoys learning about different people, history and different cultures. She has also done much research on how different people from different cultures are affected by eating disorders and what is the link between eating disorders and cultural differences. She travels to 2-3 countries every year. And all the time she is away in another country, she talks to people and continues her research about people’s eating habits and how these habits affect their mental state.

RSS Feed: Feed URL

Posts by admin:

7 Motivational Triggers That Keep You on Truck When You’re Fighting Bulimia or Binge Eating

Written on August 11, 2010 – 5:06 am by admin

Anyone who is fighting their eating disorder can fall into a slump.

Negative emotions, feelings and subconscious voices to binge, purge or starve yourself can become so strong
that the person can succumb to them again and again.
It often seems like there is nowhere to turn for help; but there is and that is where the use of motivational triggers come in handy.

Motivational triggers inspire mentally and spiritually. They also push away the past and help you focus on the present.

There are many motivational triggers that can be used every day.

You may already use your own personal motivational triggers but here is a list of the most common ones that work on most of us.

1. Listening to particular songs or music.
This is a really strong trigger to lift up your spirit and keep your desire to stop your bulimia or binge eating alive.
Although you have to be careful in choosing the right songs though, because some songs may bring on feelings that make
you perform your eating disorder behaviour.

Some song can be associated with something negative in your life or just switch on negative senses.
But with the variety of music that is around I am sure you will find music that motivates you to act your best.

Please refrain from music that has negative language, or bad language, or that is demeaning to others, this kind of music will
only make you worse.

2. Looking at art (pictures, sculptures etc.) that inspires you t is a great motivational trigger for art lovers.
When you look at art and get inspirational feelings from it you actually divert your attention away from food,
weight and body image worries towards the divine.

It can be very powerful for many people and can even make them create a piece of art. When you free your attention and focus from the eating disorder influence you will start to create things easier and faster.

3. Going to a special room (or place) in your house to think, meditate or connect with inner self.
Connection with your internal self is a powerful tool to motivate yourself to becoming free from your eating disorder.
Knowing your internal self can be difficult for eating disorder sufferers because their internal self is affected by the eating disorder.

The ability to separate yourself from your eating disorder and the ability to separate thoughts (those that come from you and those which come from your eating disorder) is important for your full recovery. Until sufferers learn to do this properly they can’t recover because the subconscious eating disorder voices will always overpower your logical reasoning.

Specialised eating disorder meditation can be an incredible tool to help you to control the voices and overpower them.

4. Going to a scenic area in your city or town to get away from the eating disorder distractions. This trigger can also be related to meditation and relaxation but using nature to help. A connection to nature can be one of the ways of connecting to the divine.
 Meditating on your health and freedom from your disorder can be helpful while out in a natural setting.

5. Going for a walk/ jog outside. This can be just a quick fixer when you need urgently to change your mental state and stop
those overwhelming subconscious voices that tell you to binge. Don’t keep yourself hungry though because hunger will definitely make you binge sooner or later. Eat often (6-7 times a day) but small amounts. This way of eating stimulates your metabolism and stops the feelings of hunger.

But do not use exercise as a way to feed your obsession, do not use it as a substitute for controlling your weight or body image problem.
Going for a walk or jog is only to break the moment and stop the feelings that make you binge.

6. Do any other activity that helps you clear your mind from negativity and to remain motivated.
Doing an activity which is pleasurable is important for breaking bulimia/binge eating cycle. Finding this kind of activity can be difficult for people with eating disorders because their negative food thoughts over-ride all the positivity in them.

To stop it you need to clear your mind first with meditation. Than in a meditative state ask your inner self what you really love to do.
The answer will follow if your mind is clear from eating disorder thoughts.

7. Write a diary. Writing a diary helps thousands of people to feel better. Initially you should just record your thoughts; any thoughts that come into your mind. Then when you get a hang of it, try to direct your thoughts in the direction you need.

That means diverting your attention away from food and weight, towards other activities which are positive and constructive.
Who knows – some people have become writers that way. Just keep trying!

If you use these triggers to stay motivated there is no way that you can continue with the bad behaviours that you want to eliminate from your life. If you learn to change focus you will be definitely on the way to a full recovery.

Dr Irina Webster MD is an expert in eating disorders, author and public speaker.

To read more about specialized meditation for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Categories: eating disorder | Trackback URL

How to Stay Motivated When You Are Fighting Bulimia Or Binge Eating

Written on August 4, 2010 – 5:05 am by admin

Motivation is important for overcoming any eating disorder.

People with bulimia/binge eating often lack of motivation because of the nature of their illness.
They often feel that the only things they like to do are related to food. But this in most cases is an illusion.

Many bulimics feel good when they cook or prepare food but this often leads them to binge the food.
This problem can be overcome if sufferers learn to motivate themselves using other motivational methods which are not related to food.

Motivational triggers for bulimics/binge eaters are similar to what normal people use to motivate themselves.
The only thing to remember is to keep your motivational triggers away from the thoughts of food, especially in the beginning.

There are many things that can be your motivational triggers. The best motivational triggers are the ones which affect your
emotions the most. Some people know the specific things that motivate them.
If you haven’t found any yet things that specifically motivate you try the ones which are considered to be the most common
motivational triggers.

They are:

- Motivational/inspirational music and songs
- Going to a nice peaceful environment where you can connect with nature.
- Looking at the art (paintings, sculptures, ikebana etc.)
- Doing sport like activities outside (walking, jogging etc)
- Going into a meditative state and feeling your own vibrations.
- Doing positive affirmation when in a meditative state.
- Writing a diary.
- Any other activities that you LOVE to do.

The list can go on and on and it can be different for everyone.

The main thing is to find an activity (other than food) which you LOVE to do.

Discovering your LOVE, following your heart and knowing your inner self is the best way to stop your eating disorder.
When you learn to drive your attention away from the food, weight and body image issues to something positive and constructive is
when recovery starts to happen.

To discover your LOVE and things that motivate you, you should clear your mind first. The mind of people with eating disorders is filled with negative conditioning.
This conditioning stops them from seeing what they really are as people and what they LOVE to do.

The best way to clear the negative conditioning is to meditate.
A meditational state is when your mind becomes clear and you feel a connection to your inner self.
This has to be your true inner self not the one you may think you have at the moment.

A Bulimics inner self is often mixed with their bulimia and they often identify bulimia as being a part of them or a part of their inner self.

This is completely false, bulimic thoughts have no place in your true self. You can find and change the bulimic thoughts by doing regular meditation.

To really know your inner self you need to have a clear mind, one without the bulimia thoughts and then ask yourself “Who you are and what you want?”
The true answer will follow if your mind is clear, but if your mind tells you it is food and binging then this is false and just the old bulimic thought pattern.

So you have to keep trying to get a clear picture.

Specialised meditation can be the first most important thing you can do towards your recovery.

Specialized meditation will also keep you motivated because it can clear your mind from the negative bulimic thoughts and help you to find
your true self (not the mixed up bulimia/binge eating self). So, meditate regularly and love it, this is the best advice you can give to someone
with eating disorder. A clear mind with a clear set of goals and focus is a healthy mind. A mixed up food orientated mind is a unhealthy one.

Dr Irina Webster MD is a recognised authority on the subject of women health with a special interest in eating disorders.
She is the author of many books and a public speaker.

To read more about mindfulness training for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Categories: Binge Eating, Bulimia | Trackback URL

4 Steps On How to Do Dynamic Meditation For Eating Disorder.

Written on June 17, 2010 – 12:59 pm by admin

You can do two different kinds of meditation, Passive or Dynamic. Passive meditation is when you put yourself into a meditative state (an Alpha state) using just relaxation techniques.

Passive meditation is very helpful for stopping your obsessive thoughts, eliminate worry, guilt and anger. But once you have reached a meditative level to just wait for constant improvement is not enough because you are likely to relapse in the mean time.

What I suggest you should do is to go beyond passive meditation and train your mind for organized dynamic activities.

By dynamic activities I mean to add on to your meditative practice a healing visualisation technique. This technique requires you to visualize yourself as a healthy, happy and vibrant person while you are on a meditative level in your mind.

There are four steps involved in this:

1step. Go into a meditative level, the alpha state like you do in normal passive meditation. You can do counting or just sit quietly and focus on your breath or other parts of your body. Do this for at least 5-6 minutes or as long as it takes for you know that you achieve a passive meditation level.

2 step. Imagine there is a screen in front of you like when you’re at the movies. Imagine on the screen yourself in your current condition – whatever you are like now: stressed from an eating disorder, binging and purging, starving yourself, overexercising or taking laxatives. See what you really look like now. Relive these feelings for the moment.

3 step. Stop thinking of this scene and imagine gently pushing it off the screen to the right hand side. Now, on the empty screen imagine another scene where you are healthy, vibrant, radiant, confident and happy. No signs of illnesses or any conditions should be on the scene. Visualize every detail of your ideal “you”. Visualize it vividly and feel the feelings of what your ideal “you” should feel like happiness, joy, pride, confidence etc.

Now play with this image, put colour into it, action and pictures. What do the clothes you are wearing look like, they should invoke good feelings, imagine yourself doing something useful and positive, visualize people around you, see yourself sharing a meal with these people chatting happily, enjoying yourself. Do this for at least 10-15 minutes.

4 step. Finish visualization by counting from 1 to 10 and open your eyes.
Now you can be confident that you have just put forces in motion through visualisation that will make you healthy, free and happy. As you gradually increase your skills doing this, you will notice that you will be able to believe in your progress towards curing your eating disorder more and more. In time and with practice the results you achieve doing this kind of dynamic meditation will astound you more and more.

I recommend you repeat these dynamic meditation techniques at least twice a day: in the morning after getting up from your bed, and at night just before going to bed. If follow these techniques and do it regularly and correctly for at least one month, you will be surprised at how good you will feel.

You will become more confident, your belief system will change for the better and you will see yourself as a much more powerful person than you use to be before beginning to do these dynamic meditation techniques.

To read more about mindfulness training for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Categories: Anorexia, Bulimia, eating disorder | Trackback URL

How To Meditate For Eating Disorders.

Written on June 10, 2010 – 1:58 pm by admin

In this article I am going to help you learn how to meditate with the aim of stopping your eating disorder. After you learn to do this, you will attain a level in your mind where you will be able to spark your imagination into letting go your eating disorder.

Amazing things happen while doing meditation and the peace you find in calming and freeing your body and mind is awesome. The more you meditate, the deeper you go within yourself and the easier it will be for you to separate the eating disorder from your own self.

One of the major problems with eating disorder sufferers are that people can’t separate themselves from their ED and believe that the thoughts the eating disorder is sending them are their own thoughts: which they are not.

By realizing “your own self” you will know which thoughts come from you and which come from the eating disorder. Your body and mind will benefit also. At first, you will find that worries, anger and the feelings of guilt are absent while you are meditating. As time goes on, they stay away for longer, until one day they are gone for good.

Feelings of being obsessed with food and body weight will gradually fade too. If your food obsession returns in a few weeks after starting your meditation, then by increasing the time and deepening the regular meditation will neutralize the feelings that make your body sick. Here is all you have to do to begin to meditate.

When you awaken in the morning sit on the edge of the bed and set the alarm clock for fifteen minutes in advance in case you drift off to sleep during the exercise. Close your eyes and look upward at a 20-degree angle. This position of the eyes alone is a proven trigger to produce a meditative state in the brain.

Then, slowly, start counting backwards from one hundred to one. You should focus just on counting and not on anything else. If you keep your mind totally on counting only you will soon be in meditation state.

Do this counting technique at least twice a day in the morning after waking up and at night just before go to bed.

If you stick with this technique and do it for at least 10 days without break you will notice that your obsessive thoughts that make you binge-purge, starve yourself or over-exercise will not bother you as much. You will soon realize that a meditation state is incompatible with your obsession, anger, worries and guilt.

For some of you who find this technique too difficult to do, there are other methods to meditate available that may suit you better, so don’t dismiss it. Guided meditation methods for eating disorders are readily available and you can certainly try them out and get great results and success with your health and happiness.

To read more about meditation for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Categories: eating disorder | Trackback URL

A Mother’s Secret for Treating Anorexia.

Written on March 27, 2010 – 2:13 pm by admin

A sufferer’s mother is the most important person in helping a daughter or son to beat anorexia. A Mothers connection to her child is a sacred connection.
 
Most mothers can not only see but they can feel what is happening to their child.
 
Nowadays we know that the anorexia lives in the subconscious level of the mind. The subconscious is a level where our feelings and emotions live. It is also a level where people keep their deepest beliefs about themselves and their world.

The content of our subconscious mind depends a lot on what our parents put in there. Parents are our first teachers and role models. Because of this our parents can do a lot to affect the subconscious mind of their child (especially mothers).

Anorexia takes a lot of space in your child’s mind and wrong beliefs can take over the big part of a sufferer’s subconscious mind.

So, what can a mother do to help?

1. Never give up on inspiring your child to learn new things. This will help take her/his attention away from the anorexics beliefs.  Remember: The less space you leave for the anorexia the better.

2. Show unconditional LOVE to the child.  Love appears to be the most powerful emotion that can stimulate and inspire people. Nothing heals better emotionally, biochemically, physically and mentally than love.

Love is a positive high frequency emotion which can heal and help us overcome many obstacles in our life.

3. Maintain close intimate connections “mother-daughter/ son”.  Often these intimate connections do overpower the disease.

4.Watch what kind of words you use when you talk to the sufferer.  One wrong word from someone, like “why can’t you just eat” can undo months of good work. 

5. Constantly focus on increasing the sufferer’s self-esteem and enjoyment in life.

6. Understand that the first priority for underweight people is gaining weight.  A starving brain cannot process things logically, so do not think that just saying things will make changes.

Anorexics should be encouraged to achieve a certain weight appropriate for their height and age. This should be done in small steps, like getting her to aim for a pound (kilo) then another pound (kilos), if you tell a sufferer they have to put on 20 pounds (10kg) they will completely freak-out.

7.Sugar consumption is important for the brain because the brain works on glucose so try to get them to take sugary foods, even if you have to camouflage them.

A high consumption of proteins and calcium is also necessary for anorexics because of their bone density problems. We have had people use the high protein drinks weightlifters use with great results. But you can’t tell the sufferer what it is or they will not take it. We have had mothers substitute diet powders with protein powders so the sufferer will take it: because all anorexics read the labels on everything.

There is no substitute for mothers love and a mother’s involvement in treating anorexia. One mother who was very successful in helping her daughter to beat anorexia said that anorexia should be healed, not just treated. 

Karen used a process of healing and took her daughter through it step by step using special methods she devised herself.  Healing was the process that saved her daughter from the grips of anorexia and brought her back from deaths door.

Read More About Karen mom please help go to http://www.mom-please-help.com

Categories: Anorexia | Trackback URL

Anorexia : How to Change Wrong Beliefs .

Written on March 21, 2010 – 2:11 pm by admin

Anorexia starts from special beliefs: beliefs about themselves, body image, control and perception of beauty. These beliefs are tightly connected to strong emotions – both negative and positive.

These “Beliefs+ Emotions+ action” form the long-term memory in the brain.

So, why do these memories get so ingrained in a person’s brain that nothing seems to change them?

This happens because these “Beliefs + Emotions+ action” actually change the structure of a person brain. Experiments have shown that for short-term memories to become long-term ones, a new protein has to be made in brain cell (neuron).

The experiments also show that short-term memory becomes a long-term one when a chemical in the neuron called protein kinase A, moves from the body of the neuron into its nucleus, where our genes are stored. The protein then turns on a gene to make another protein that alters the structure of the nerve endings, so that it grows new connections between the neurons (brain cells).

Why I am telling you this scientific stuff – is to show you that Beliefs are not just something intangible, Beliefs can actually change the structure of the brain (brain cells and connections between the brain cells).

It seems reasonable to me that the real cure for anorexia is to change the sufferers Beliefs about themself, body image, control and perception of beauty. These new Beliefs should also be emotionalized: this is important. These new “beliefs + emotions+ action “will form new long-term memories and new chemicals will form in the brain cells changing the brain structure in a new positive way.

The same process occurs in learning. We learn something, we believe it is factual, we emotionalise it, and we use in over and over (action). Why nothing seems to be of help for many anorexics?

This is because nothing so far has evoked strong emotions in them. Nothing has inspired them to change their mind or stop their anorexic ways. They can find nothing to believe in more than they can believe in the anorexia: it is all powerful.

Anorexia just can’t be taken away from them; anorexia can only be replaced with something they believe in more than their disorder. Changing the person’s beliefs is the real cure for anorexia.

 Changing beliefs for the anorexic can only happen on the subconscious level: the level where our feelings and emotions live. This can only be done with beliefs+ emotions+ action the same way they got their anorexia in the first place.

The best people who can help a sufferer with this are people who are close, like a mother, father, spouse, sibling or a very close friend. People who are close to the sufferer can affect the subconscious mind of a person much deeper and easier than anyone else (including therapists, doctors and psychiatrists).

Anorexics need family support much more than anyone else. But they also need a process to affect the subconscious mind and without this it is doubtful they will recover.

This process must contain Beliefs+ Emotions+ Actions the same as they used before only positive ones not the negative anorexic ones. Luckily there are such processes available to help today they are call neuroplasticity treatments.

Read More About Karen mom please help go to http://www.mom-please-help.com

Categories: Anorexia | Trackback URL

7 Key Steps to Kick Binge Eating Addiction out of Your Head.

Written on March 9, 2010 – 3:45 pm by admin

Binge eating / overeating is mainly emotional problem. The good news is that you will be able to stop binge eating if you start to feel more confident, more powerful, more energised and more loved and loving. I guarantee that if you start feeling more positive about yourself it will be easier for you to stop this addiction.

To make things easier and more practical here are 7 Important Steps to kick binge eating out of your head.

Step 1. Make your S.M.A.R.T. goals that is Specific, Meaningful, Attainable, Realistic and Timed.  For example, goals like “lose weight”, “eat healthy”, or ‘have less stress’ are far too vague and unspecific to help to create a positive change.  On the other hand, goals like ”eat only 5 small meals a day and only water in between” , “ exercise 30 minutes a day every day”  or “meditate 15 min a day every day” sound like much more specific, meaningful and realistic.  

Step 2. Decide your final moment of success.

How would you know when you finally achieved your goal? For this reason you should create a picture in your head of “ideal you”. For instance, you may see a picture of yourself as a slim, happy and radiant lady who eats 5 small meals a day, exercises 30 min a day and mediate at least 15 minutes a day.  She does it all with ease and enthusiasm.

Keeping this picture in your head will always remain you of you are going to be. When you achieve what you imagined – that will be your final moment of success.

Step 3.  Identify your friends and enemies. Take a piece of paper and draw a vertical line on the middle of page from the top to the bottom of the page. On the very top of the page on the left half write FRIENDS  and ENEMIES on the other half. Then think creatively what are they. For example, your friends could be exercise, meditation, eating fruits and vegetables, drinking water, feelings of excitement etc. Your enemies could be deep fried food, rich cakes, loneliness, boredom, sitting on the sofa, laying in bed too long, watching TV too much, negative attitude and stress.

Constantly remain yourself of who they are (friends and enemies) and decide who you are going to be with: with your friends or with your enemies.

Step 4.  Chew your food longer and start the meal with a mouthful of protein. When you start every meal with a mouthful of protein this reduces the cravings. This also reduces the amount of insulin released by your pancreas.

Make affirmation for yourself like: “The more I chew my food the healthier I become”. Repeat it as often as possible.

Step 5. Drink more water while you eat. Before you start eating – have a glass of water. Water fills the stomach and can reduce the cravings.

Step 6. Meditate every day to get in tune with your body. Binge eating means that you are not in tune with your body and eat emotionally instead of eating when you are hungry. Binge eating means you use food as a tranquiliser and pain reliever.   To stop doing that you must know when your body is hungry and when you just have cravings and urges.  Meditation is the best tool to focus your attention on your body’s vibrations and be able to identify your body’s needs.

Step 7. Exercise at least   30 minutes a day. Regular exercises will speed up  your metabolism and correct the damage binge eating may have done to your body. Regular exercises will also make your body to produce special chemicals – endorphins which make you happier, beautiful, radiant and confident.  When you become happy, beautiful, confident and healthy – binge eating will stop. Guarantee!!!

Can you put yourself in this picture?

Now, to make things even easier you can re-program your subconscious mind with specially design for binge eating meditation. Specially designed meditation will put you in tune with your body much faster and with less effort. Meditation is  a great tool to change your mind to the best.

To read more about mindfulness training for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Categories: Binge Eating | Trackback URL

How to Turn Binge Eating into Healthy Eating?

Written on March 6, 2010 – 3:42 pm by admin

If you want to turn your binge eating habit into healthy eating habit, first of all you must BELIEVE that you can do it.  This is the first and most important step in the road to recovery from binge eating.

Put it this way: if you believe you can eat healthy without overeating – that means you will be able to eat healthy sooner or later. If you don’t believe it – you will not be able to eat healthy does not matter what kind of therapy you undergo, unless you start believing.

“But how can I believe in my ability to eat healthy if I always get overwhelmed with these unbearable urges to binge?” – you may ask.

Yes, urges to binge are strong but nevertheless it is possible to overcome them. Many people did and you can too.

You see, urges are just thoughts and feelings you get before starting to binge. Fortunately, these binging thoughts normally get weaker  if you do some changes in your daily routine.  

Here’re the important points:

  1. Start imagining yourself  slim (or have a slim picture of yourself  in your mind)
  2. Draw a schematic picture of yourself on a piece of paper where you are slim and happy.
  3. Set 30 min a day to sit quietly, close your eyes and visualise a slim, healthy you. Attach happy feelings to this picture of yourself.
  4. If you have a special time when you binge (for instance, some people binge eat after  work, or after school) – meditate every time after work, school or any time close to your binge eating time.
  5. Never eat alone. Get a friend or relative to share dinner with you.
  6. When you eat look at yourself from the distance – that mean observe yourself from the 3 d person perspective.  Mentally comment what’s happening while you  eat,  for example “ She is now eating her Caesar salad delicately and calmly because she is a lady. She is chewing slowly because she is enjoying the taste of it. She is talking to her friend about what happened during the day.” 
  7. Learn to observe your own behaviour and make regular mental comment of your own behaviour during the day. From the time you wake up – do mental commenting on your behaviour as if you observe yourself from the distance.
  8. Don’t keep too much food you can binge on in fridge. Put more fruits and vegetables in the fridge to in case you get hungry.
  9. Regular exercise changes the feelings from negative to more positive because of endorphins release. So, start regular physical activity – this will reduce your urges to binge (gradually).
  10. Always remain yourself that you don’t need so much food to keep you healthy. Only moderation in food consumption will make you happy and healthy.

Now, I’ve saved the best for last.

 If it looks to you like too much to do , than – wouldn’t it be easier for you if all the information will be installed into your subconscious mind by someone else – just by listening a hypnotic voice and putting you in a meditational state?  You can do that by using special Mindfulness Training for binge eating / overeating. It is easy and very effective.

To read more about mindfulness training for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Categories: Binge Eating | Trackback URL

How to Resolve Self – Conflicts in Eating Disorder Sufferers.

Written on January 12, 2010 – 2:55 pm by admin

Eating disorders are rooted in emotional struggles. These struggles are deep emotional conflicts within the sufferer, these are called self-conflicts.

How the conflicts started in the first place?

This process begins by fantasizing at a very early age. People fantasize a script, for example like a Hollywood production focusing on TV stars or other celebrities. Then they start rehearsing their part. As they go, they either give up on their initial part and take up a new one, or they practice the first part and role -play that script out until it becomes who they think they are. Practising the script automates their behaviour and it becomes fixed.

For example, a young girl perceived that she is overweight. By looking through magazines, watching TV and movies she finds herself a role- model that is slim, polished and glamorous and play out this picture in her mind. From the same source she gets a script to follow to achieve this kind of unattainable look. She rehearses it until it becomes automatic and turns into an eating disorder, anorexia or bulimia.

Her imprinting environment plays a significant role in the alternative scripts available to her. If her parents happen to be too strict or uncaring, she would be unable to develop a positive coping strategy to counteract her developing problems. In some problematic families being warm and friendly is seen as an embarrassment, so the child becomes cold and aloof to compensate.

Self-conflict is a conflict between different “selfs” inside one person. There are 4 different “selfs”:

1. The actual self.
It is the private self. This self consist of thoughts we wish we didn’t have and actions we wish we haven’t done. It also contains our self-esteem, our attractiveness, and our secret ambitions. Eating disorders sufferers may dream of looking like a slim movie star, or a sport champion etc. Her/his self-esteem is really proportional to a degree of how alike she/he looks compared to their famous role-model they are trying to emulate.

2. The ideal self.
This self is built by culture and society. Ideal self is about living a perfect life, without any mistakes and therefore without room for growth.

3. The ought-to-be self.
This self is about our “should” and “oughts” which have been learned from our culture and our society but they are not ours. For example, when a swimming coach tells a young girl: ” You should lose weight immediately in order to fit the criteria for the swimming completion.” Initially the girl was probably OK with the way she was and didn’t think she needs to lose weight immediately. Her swimming coach installs the “ought-to-be self” in her. Her “ought-to-be self” may go into conflict with her “actual self” after the coach’s comments and if she is vulnerable she will develop an eating disorder in order to comply with the losing weight rules that have been set in her mind.

4. The desired self.
This is a self we believe we could be and desire to be. This self is especially obvious in young people when they plan for the future. Later in life this self can be a source of discontent if the desires have not been fulfilled. For example, a woman after 30 suddenly develops an eating disorder. This eating disorder is very likely to be a consequence of discontentment due to her unfulfilled desires of an earlier time (or the “desired self”).

What is a solution for solving this self-conflicts? Emotional healing would be the answer and you can put it into 5 steps:

1. Realize that one has emotional conflicts and they are probably the cause of the eating disorder.
2. Believe that one should and can solve these self- conflicts.
3. Accept that emotional healing is the only way to solve these internal conflicts.
4. Go through the emotional healing process.
5. Follow the emotional healing strategies as a way of living your life.

Emotional healing is the only answer to resolve self-conflicts in eating disorder sufferers. If emotional healing does not occur during a particular treatment – there is little hope for this kind of treatment being helpful.

Maybe in this case the person ought to look for different alternatives. Mindfulness training seems to prove itself as a great emotional healer for these kinds of ED sufferers. It has been proven that if one is mindful and aware, one can experience true freedom and liberation from all their self conflicts.

Dr Irina Webster MD is a Director of Women Health Issues Program. She is an author and a public speaker. To read more about mindfulness for eating disorders go to http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Categories: Anorexia, Bulimia, eating disorder | Trackback URL

Bulimia effects on the brain: The simple steps to reverse it.

Written on November 27, 2009 – 3:07 pm by admin

Bulimia can affect the brain in several ways. First, it enslaves the attention system. The longer one has bulimia the more his/her attention system suffers. In some cases people even drop out of school, universities, give up on good jobs – all due to their inability to maintain attention and concentrate on their work.

In bulimics, food over-stimulates the attention centers represented through the central nervous system. The abnormal activation creates a state of emergency which brings forth the manifestation of the sympathetic nervous system (fight and flight response) when people think about binging food. 

As a result, the nervous system has to liberate more energy. The additional flow of energy into the human nervous system gives a feeling of relaxation or a floating feeling called a “high” during the binge.

 When the binge finishes, the sufferer is soon drained out of energy and this causes a kind of a hangover and total depression of their attention factors this is the state between binges.  The oscillation from over-flow to depression takes their attention fully and registers a shock on the central nervous system. That is why bulimics have difficulty maintaining attention on anything else except of food and binging.

Such repeated experiences create enslavement of their attention and destroys their brain cells at the same time.

Secondly on a physiological level, brain function may be impaired as the sufferer doesn’t have enough glucose, lipids or other molecules that can be broken down for energy. Sometimes, in severe cases the brain even starts to consume its own tissue to get the energy. That’s why in chronic sufferers the brain may shrink as a result of lipids in the brain being broken down for energy. This can result in serious brain damage.

These people feel lethargic, confused, powerless and helpless. They can experience headaches, neck pains, back pains and other uncomfortable sensation in their bodies. Often, their aches and pains are of a psycho-somatic origin and not physical.
 
The brain can also suffer because of the effects caused by electrolyte imbalances. When people purge they lose enormous amount of important chemicals (electrolytes) which makes brain function slow or even impossible depending on the total loss.

Third, on a psychological level the brain is damaged by abnormal thinking patterns as the individual believes that they are overweight when they are clearly severely underweight or normal. Bulimics also have a fear of putting on weight. These abnormal thinking patterns are so strong that they overpower all other thinking processes. That’s why bulimics get so preoccupied with food, weight and body image.

To conclude, bulimia definitely changes the brain structure to an unhealthy level. It makes the brain think, differently, work differently, function and process information differently.
The process of changing the brain is called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity can be bad, but can be good it depends how the sufferer chooses to use it.
 
If bulimics start using neuroplasticity in a positive way they can reverse the damage which has been done by the bulimia and return their brain to a healthy level. And not just that: they can make their brain work like the brain of a genius if they use neuroplasticity correctly.

You can read more about changing your brain patterns for eating disorders at http://www.meditation-sensation.com

Categories: Bulimia | Trackback URL