Starving to Binging - The Spaces Between

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I’m in the zone: my stomach is empty, my mind is racing. I’m hungry, I’m starving. But I won’t eat. I’m stronger. I’m better. I win.

I’m in the zone: rice, ice-cream, fried chicken, toast with butter, cookies and on and on and on. I don’t taste a bite, I don’t feel a thing. All I know is I need more, want more and take more. I eat until I can’t breathe anymore, until I feel sick, ashamed, guilty, but not satisfied. I go to bed falling into a deep, heavy coma. I lost.

I wrote these words a few years ago when I was slightly relapsing into old behaviors and habits.

Eating issues have shaped my life since I can remember. And I’m not alone. Most of us torture ourselves with self-created problems of eating, dieting, binging, starving, gaining and losing. Eating issues are there, constantly, ruining weddings, birthdays, Christmases and the magical moments of everyday life.

Surveys suggest that 3 out of 4 American women struggle with disordered eating. I believe the numbers are higher than that. We’ve all been through diets that only led to us obsessing over food and either being terribly unhappy or freakishly high.

By depriving ourselves of food, we create a deep and ravenous longing for everything that’s even remotely eatable. We create an issue with something that should be enjoyed, cherished and also, bloody easy.

We’re running in circles that slowly but effectively suffocate us. We’re chasing food and pushing it away. And all the while, we drive ourselves nuts.

How can we come back to a place of sanity? How can we break the circle of starving only to binge or binging only to starve?

It’s one of those questions that is super hard to answer and often seems elusive, doesn’t it?

There are the few who claim to have figured it out, only to fall right back on their cute little booty. There are the personalities who say they eat everything and clearly are underweight, presenting a twisted and sometimes deathly example for girls and women around the globe. And then there is the rest of us who struggle quietly every day trying to come to a place of peace of mind.

In this episode of Escape Diet Prison, I share tips helping you to begin your journey towards achieving your dream.

Surrender

If you get the urge to eat, then surrender to it. Don’t push it away, don’t let it go too far. Just surrender to the gnawing feeling in your stomach. If you crave a candy bar, then eat it. If you crave two, then do that. If you keep training your “I can eat what I want whenever I want it” muscle, you’ll soon stop craving everything all the time and you’ll begin to eat more balanced. Now, I know that doing this takes a lot of courage. After all, you don’t trust yourself or your body anymore, right? Walking into the unknown is frightening and most of us resist it for years or decades. But, just look at your reality right now. Are you having a balanced relationship with food or not? Have you tried every diet on this planet or not? Do you want to finally be free? Yes? Then, take a leap of faith and surrender.

Explore

When you’re in a phase of constant binging, try to dig deeper and explore what is going on beneath the surface. This is often painful, but revealing and refreshing at the same time. Sometimes changing things about your physical world can help you calm your inner storms.

I had to leave my husband to come back to myself. The relationship with him was literally drowning me and I needed to come up for air to let go of the starving-binging circle. Being at war with food doesn’t have to be the result of such a deep-rooted problem for you. Sometimes it’s just the daily stresses of your life that cause you to binge or starve.

Imagine

What would it feel like to be free of all your food-related thoughts? How would you live your life if you didn’t begin every week with a new weight loss program? How would you wake up in the morning without the fear of ruining your diet on that day? How would you go to bed if your stomach was not bloating or grumbling? How about you? Would you be more self-confident, happy, free?

Imagine your life without all the hellish things you put yourself through. Write it down and go through it over and over again. This’ll help you to realize the prison you’re living in. This’ll give you a chance to explore how your life could look like and how you could change.

Accept

I find that life runs in circles. There are times when we’re going strong and there are times when life is ridiculously crazy. If you’re struggling hard for a few weeks, remind yourself that it’s OK and that it will get better if you surrender and keep surrendering until there’s nothing more to surrender to.

The space between starving and binging, the spaces most of us crave to live in, are worth fighting for and believing in.

Taking one step a time is the way to go. It’s often a delicate, slippery road, so be cautious and don’t overdo it.

I’m in the zone: I’m free. I’m healthy. I’m allowing life to flow. I’m good. I’m eating when I’m hungry. I stop when I’m full. I survive. I live. I breathe.