Change Your Eating?

Then Change Your Thinking!

Valentina Zelvaeva

Characteristics of Disordered Eaters

Don’t trust their bodies/Lack healthy internal controls around food.

View food as something other than fuel and pleasure.

Generally feel helpless and anxious around food.

Have questions about what is enough..

Give food a much larger place in life than “normal” eaters do. Are disconnected from their body’s natural mechanisms for feeling comfortable around and enjoying food. Suffer shame when then don’t eat according to how they feel they should. Focus on Food and use food to manage uncomfortable feelings. Lack a repertoire of healthy self-care behaviors

What are Normal Eaters?

Eat when they’re hungry or have a craving.

Choose foods that they believe will satisfy them.

Stay connected with their bodies and eat with awareness and enjoyment.

Stop eating when they’re full or satisfied.

Beliefs

Feelings Behaviors

Categories of beliefs

It Doesn’t Matter If I Don’t Know

If I eat standing up, it doesn’t count.

I need to stuff myself before I notice what I’m doing or I’ll have to quit.

If I don’t think about what I’m eating, it can’t hurt me.

Food is scarce

It’s bad to waste food. Food should never, never, never be wasted.

If I don’t have this dessert now, who knows when I’ll ever get it again.

I have to eat fast or someone else will get more than I do.

I can never get enough food.

Foods are either good or bad

I can eat: no carbs, only good carbs, no fats, only protein, only fruits and vegetables, no sugar in any form, …

Food is the enemy (either overeaters or restrictors); It’ll make me fat.

I should only eat “nutritious” foods.

I should never eat “fattening” foods.

Eating will always make me feel better (or worse) Food takes care of me.

If I’m feeling bad (good), I deserve to eat.

Food is love and comfort.

Food is my best friend. Food is a good reward.

Eating is my only pleasure in life.

Eating fills the emptiness inside me.

Food is scary

Eating will make me fat

I need to be in tight control around food.

Eating is a painful process I wish I could do without.

I can’t think about eating without becoming anxious.

Eating is better than emotional pain or discomfort.

If I give up dieting, my weight will balloon.

If I can just control what I eat, & lose weight, then everything else will be better.

I need to change my eating/size now. I can’t stand to wait. It’ll be a disaster if I don’t lose weight by/for ________.

Feeling good or bad about myself depends on what I eat or don’t eat.

I’ll be a happier, stronger, sexier, more successful, more loveable person if I’m thinner.

What I Eat or What I Look Like Determine My Character

Overeating is always a bad thing, and “normal” eaters never overeat. I can’t stand eating around other people I’m ashamed of how eat.

Denying myself food shows I’m in control of my eating and therefore, deprivation and restriction equal emotional strength.

My eating behaviors are so shameful, I can’t let anyone see them.

Thin is always better.

Thin equals a happy successful, perfect life.

Fat equals miserable, unhappy, and not deserving of or enjoying a good life.

I won’t be happy unless I’m thinner.

Thin people are lucky and can eat whatever they want.

I should weigh what the magazines and weight charts say I should.

Being fat gets in the way of all the good things I want in life.

Because people only see my body, I don’t need to bother with what I look like.

Looking good is more important than what I am on the inside.

I can only love myself when I’m thin.

No one will ever love me if I’m fat.

What others think of my body is more important than what I think about it.

I can’t trust myself around food

If I start eating something I like, I’ll never stop.

Eating low-cal food has to rule my life or I’ll be as big as a horse.

I should eat what others want me to eat or what others are eating.

I’ll never learn to feel satisfied with food.

I never know what to eat.

Unrealistic Beliefs About Change

It shouldn’t have to be hard

It shouldn’t have to take a long time

If I’m having trouble with change, something must be wrong with me.

If I decide to change, I should be able to do it.

I can’t stand it if change makes me uncomfortable.

The Truth About Change:

Change is incremental and it is slow.

Change requires awareness!

Discomfort + awareness = change

Change is simple—but not easy.

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Personal Qualities That Facilitate Change

Curiosity Compassion for self

Caring for Self

Practice/Persistence/Patience

Realistic expectations

Stay in the moment!