If You Binge, You Are Powerful Beyond Measure!

If you gorged yourself on chocolate during Halloween or suspect you might find yourself eating too much on Thanksgiving, you know what it feels like to overeat. It's not unusual to overeat from time to time, most people do.

Binging is quite different in that it is more immediate and intense.

In order to understand binging, we must acknowledge its power. Often binging is described as “a trance in which a force takes over.”  A similar thing can be said about a woman’s child birth experience, a dancer on stage, or a act of life threatening self defese.

All these examples, whether we may think of some as more positive than others, point to inner power. Power is a good quality to maintain and binge eating is a powerful force being unleashed. Somewhere within we are sitting on our power, unable to unleash our expression or emotional flow. Binging points to a need to unleash.

Binging is an out of control behavior which helps balance other areas in our lives where we over control. We may intensely control our diet through calorie restriction. Such restrictions guaranty  a future binge because the body’s natural impulse is appetite rather than restriction. We may overly control our emotions: harnessing anger, sexual energy, desires; or perhaps we are overly controlling with others such as our partners, coworkers or kids. The balancing laws of nature dictate that the more we act as a control freak; the more we will lose control in another aspect of our lives.

In order for the body to binge, the body has to be in a deep state of stress. Stress will accumulate with our daily anxieties or fears that we try to push away in order to “survive” the day. We may feel we don’t have the time, the tools or the willingness to deal with these stresses and we put them aside. The nervous system doesn’t unwind.

If we binge, the body will need to relax the nervous system in order to digest such large amounts of food. To enhance digestion, the body sedates all our emotional processing and the mind goes a little numb. We feel like we got a break.

This is a response to the ego’s fear of discomfort. It comes from the same drive we all share to occasionally withdraw when life is uncomfortable and there is too much emotion in the system.

Nutritional Reasons That Can Cause Us to Binge (or Overeat):
The body isn’t always smart enough to let you know what you specifically need. Regardless of what the body lacks , whether it be fat, protein, or any of the micronutrients, it will simply call in hunger. Keep in mind that we don’t always crave what we need. We may crave carbohydrates when the body wants fat or protein (sometimes we crave things that meet an immediate need but do not fulfill what the body needs for healing.)

If we are dealing with binging or overeating, we need to evaluate if our body is really getting enough food, if our foods are providing all the needed nutrients, and if our diet is too strict that there is no pleasure in our meals. It is a common belief that emotional eating is a “bad” thing. We are emotional creatures; it is natural to crave pleasure from our food!

Going Beyond Nutrition: 
The body doesn’t do anything without reason. A binge can be a placeholder to digest past experience. We may put things out of our minds, but nothing gets swept under the rug within the body. Sometimes we have to find a place to metabolize our experiences and if we haven't learned healthier methods, a binge might be that place. To unleash such an uncontrollable power that would lead us to binge, there is clearly a message to which the binge is pointing towards.

Begin exploring for yourself:
1.  Where do you sense you are you a control freak? Where would those close to you like to see you less controlling?
2.  Are you really engaging in things that give you pleasure? In what great pleasures are you not engaged?
3.  Which "wilder" aspects of you are you restraining? Binging can be a release of power that we are holding back from releasing in another realm of life.
4.  Where is life asking you to relax more? (Work, money, relationships, sexuality?)

A binge is not a lack of power. You are too powerful to be contained. Power is the ability to act. The more tools we learn to decompress, relax the nervous system, and metabolize our life experiences, the more we are able to channel our powers into health and conscious living.

* Regarding the picture above: Yogis believe that each finger has a different energy, and there are hundreds if not thousands of mudras or hand positions with different meanings and healing capacities. Jnana Mudra is one of the simplest and most common mudras in yoga. Jnana means wisdom or knowledge. Its root is similar to the Germanic root for the word 'know.' Mudra means seal or gesture. Jnana Mudra is the seal of wisdom.

A Tool Bag for Dealing With Sugar Cravings

Halloween is approaching. Come November 1^st, either your home is filled with candy or your work place is overflowing with everyone’s Halloween leftovers brought in by your co-workers in the hope that someone else (you!) eats it instead of them.

If you are concerned about how to moderate your sugar intake, here are some steps to help:

Evaluating Diet:

Incorporate more complex carbohydrates into your diet: Craving something sweet is natural. The sugars that give us the sweet flavor also provide us with energy. Complex carbohydrates will provide the sugars needed for the body without an extreme drop in blood sugar levels. By preventing our blood sugar dipping too low, we can reduce or eliminate the cravings for simple sugars. Beans, grains, nuts, vegetables and fruits can all contain sugars as well as being rich in other nutrients.

Eat Sweet Vegetables: Sweet vegetables in our diet are one of the most helpful tools in eliminating sweet cravings. Incorporating the sweet flavor into our nutritious meals, will lessen the urge for additional  sweetness when the meal is done. Furthermore, if you think about a root vegetable, the direction in which it grows is downward, deeper into the earth. Energetically, roots are very grounding. While sugar can often leave us feeling spacey, sweet vegetables provide the body with sweetness while still maintaining ground.

Vegetables with a deep sweet flavor: corn, carrots, onions, beets, winter squash, sweet potatoes and yams.  Some semi sweet veggies include turnips, parsnips and rutabagas. These are very easy to boil or bake until desired tenderness- the softer these vegetables get, the sweeter they become.

Fruits: They are sweet, healthy, and delicious. If you suffer from yeast infections or high triglyceride levels, sugar and fruits should be avoided.

Incorporate mostly whole foods into your diet: Remember that processed carbohydrates will affect blood sugar levels just as simple sugars do and can cause sugar cravings. Enjoy brown rice instead of white and have an orange instead of Tropicana.

Drink water!!! Sweet cravings are often a sign of dehydration. If experiencing a craving, have a glass of water and wait a few minutes to see what happens.

Caution: soft drinks are now America’s number one source of added sugar.

Reduce or eliminate caffeine: If sugar is a craving you tend to always have, consider that the ups and downs of caffeine include dehydration and blood sugar swings, causing sugar cravings to be more frequent.

Use gentle sweets: Forget about the chemical artificial sweeteners. These are the worst sweetener for your health. Use gentle sweeteners like maple syrup, brown rice syrup, raw honey, dried fruit, stevia, or raw agave nectar.

Forget about sugar in your tea and use a natural sweetener instead. If you enjoy baked goods, substitute the sugar in your baking recipes with natural sweeteners. If shopping for cookies, look for ones made from whole grain flours and sweetened with fruit juice or other natural sweeteners. 

Evaluate your protein intake: Eating too much or too little protein can lead to cravings for sweets. Figuring out the right amount as well as the right type of protein for you will depend on your individual body and lifestyle.

Read the labels on fat-free or low-fat foods: These foods most often contain high quantities of sugar that are sure to spike your blood sugar levels.  

Get the highest quality: If it is chocolate you crave, get yourself a high quality dark chocolate and take a moment to savor the experience of its flavor. It is quite a different experience in comparison to half consciously consuming an entire packet of Hershey’s. Dark chocolate contains a high percent of cocoa and will take a much smaller amount to satisfy your craving. Common chocolates contain little cocoa and more sweeteners and artificial flavors.

Products always list ingredients beginning with the highest amount and working down to the lowest. If sugar is listed before cocoa, it is not really a dark chocolate. There should be at least 51% cocoa in a dark chocolate bar. 

Knock out the sweet tooth: Sometimes you can eliminate a sugar craving by eating the opposite flavor to what you are craving. Try something sour like sauerkraut...

It works!

Evaluating Lifestyle:

Move your body: Physical activity will help balance your blood sugar levels and reduce tension. Start with simple activities, to be sure that you don’t overwhelm yourself. Add some walking into your day or incorporate simple stretching. Soon enough the body will wake up and crave more movement.

If you fight with yourself to go to the gym, it is time to think of other activities you might cenjoy. Try yoga, dancing, martial arts, sports, rock climbing or anything that will be fun for you. Rather than thinking of it as exercise, find an activity that feels therapeutic in movement.  

Get more sleep and relaxation: When you are tired or stressed, your body will crave energy. Since sugar is the quickest form of energy, the body will crave it.  Find ten minutes to close your eyes at the end of the work day, stop your “to do” list at a reasonable hour, and shut off the TV earlier at night. 

Sweeten your days: If you are reaching for sugar in search of comfort, temporarily sedating the craving with sugar will only make things more uncomfortable in the long run. Spend time with friends, enjoy the outdoors and treat yourself to regular acupuncture or massage treatments. When life is as sweet as sugar, no substitutes are needed.

Make a Nourishment List: If sugar is your way of soothing or energizing yourself and you are experiencing a craving, it is difficult to think of a healthier choice that will meet your needs. Take some time to write all the activities you can think of that energize and sooth you. This way, you have access to a list of ideas for you to choose from at a time of need. Keep adding things to the list over time: A walk outside, 10 deep breaths, a few stretches, a few minutes of rest with elevated legs, calling a friend, a bubble bath, etc.

Manage Your “To Do” List: Make  a point of first addressing the bigger tasks that you want to avoid  so that you don’t expend your time and energy on the smaller tasks, ending the day feeling less accomplished. List all the things that zap your energy and all the things that give you energy; then balance out your ‘To Do’s with both.