How I MANAGE THE EMOTIONAL FALLOUT of stopping binge-eating. Part 3

SPEAKER_00: Hi, this is Shelley Treacher from the Binge and Overeating Recovery Podcast. This is my third podcast about giving up sugar for the month. This week I delve into the emotional side a bit further. This is day eight. Today I talk about allowing yourself to feel and to cry and to honour how you feel behind the need for comfort. I also talk about the physical addiction and the craving. Today I do have a lot to say because it's been a whole weekend, and the weekend was the first weekend that I've had since the beginning of lockdown, possibly a little bit before. That I didn't actually have a glass of wine on a Friday night, didn't have any sugar over the weekend. Those have become really fast habits for me. And I didn't do it. So that's the first thing I want to report to you, but I also want to, of course, tell you how I did it and what it was like for me. To identify with what you might go through if you even think about giving up a comfort food, because I know that that's a really difficult task. So the Friday evening, last week I told you that I would be thinking about my goddaughter and wanting to make a connection with her rather than being slightly inebriated, which I always feel slightly ashamed about afterwards and doesn't feel right. This time I didn't have the wine, and I was so glad that I didn't, because later in the night I put my goddaughter to bed and she told me all about what's going on for her, and she cried for the first time with me, and apparently that is extremely unusual for her to cry with anybody else except her mother. So I feel so honoured, and um, and I don't know if I would have been as present if I had had that glass of wine. Who knows? She might even have sensed that and not cried. And I fingers crossed, I believe that her crying helped her. So that's kind of like one of the most important things in my life at all, is to help this beautiful darling girl that I'm completely adore. Um, so the fact that I managed to do that is something I'm really pleased with. So that's the first tip that I have for you is all about connecting with your bigger goal, your bigger value, and things that are more important to you than squashing the feelings that you might have with the comfort food or comfort substance. Um, having said that, I know how difficult that can be. It's not as easy as that to just say that you're going to resist because you've got a higher goal. So the next thing that happened to me on Saturday morning, I usually have tons of chocolate. Not tons, I say tons, but for me it's tons now. Um, I'd probably get through a bar of chocolate in the morning, like a proper bar, you know, not just a little 79 pence bar, it's a proper chocolate bar. And I didn't do that, I did miss it, and I was miserable. And the thoughts of wanting that chocolate bar came to me very often on Saturday because it's such a different day. I am just pottering around doing whatever I want to, so I have time to think. So I was thinking quite often, I really would like that chocolate right now, and this is the time I would have it, and I would usually just satisfy that without even thinking about it. So, obviously, with all the tools and skills that I told you about last week, I was thinking about it this time and thinking, why do I want this? What's behind this? How do I feel? What's making me feel like I need comfort? And it was quite easy for me to identify that the biggest thing that I'm feeling right now. My mother died about 11 years ago, and every single time, the every single year at this time, she died at the weekend, not this weekend, but the next weekend. It gets me, it gets me every time. And I started looking through my emails from my mother and connecting with her, and I don't need to tell you how difficult relationships can be with your mother. It's a lifelong challenge. My mother and I were extremely close, and we had our difficulties, and it all showed up in these emails, and it all showed up in my feelings on Saturday. And I did allow myself to have a bit of a cry, having identified that that's what's behind my comfort eating for that particular day. And that I honestly felt so much better. I would definitely recommend a cry. Um, but it was good to have that and to let it pass and to honour how I feel about my mother and what happened with my mother, and to work through any feelings of guilt, any feelings of regret, and any feelings of love that I want to reconnect with. It was wonderful to work through it all. Um, I forgot my point. I was gonna say something really important about how I know it's not easy to connect with how you feel sometimes. I've been feeling this one for 11 years. I've been trying to get in touch with how I feel for a lot longer. So I know it takes time sometimes. I'm not saying you're gonna find it easy just by suddenly thinking, right, I don't want chocolate. Okay, what's the feeling? Sometimes it takes a bit longer than that to dig a bit deeper and find out what's underneath the urge for chocolate, especially if you're not used to being in touch with how you feel. Um, but ultimately the healing seems to come through allowing the feeling to pass through, which may take time. So you I'm not saying that you can expect to go through this that that quickly and painlessly, but sometimes it does happen quickly and painlessly. And being realistic about the fact that the chocolate wasn't really going to help me with anything that I was feeling. I felt proud of myself for saying no in the first place, for questioning the validity of the chocolate and what it actually would do for me in the second place, third place, allowing myself to feel and to honour my mother and my relationship with my mother. I kind of forgot what number we're on, but fourthly, I think, um uh honouring how I feel and uh respecting myself. And then finally, after Saturday, on Sunday, I really got a payoff because I started to taste sugar in everything and it felt too sweet. And I can only assume that the physical addiction part of the sugar is now over for me. Um, I only think it lasts a few days. I think it only lasts four days for me. I think it might be personal for each person, but um, some say two days, some say a week, some say for the rest of your life. I don't think that's the physical part of the addiction, I think that's the emotional part and the psychological habits and associations with the sugar. But so I'm over the physical part, which is great. And so now all foods taste too sweet to me, so I'm not over eating them by choice, which is my point. This is kind of how I want to where I want you to get to. Um and I went to bed really early on Saturday night. I was just tired. Another acknowledgement of tiredness. Ah, that's the thing that I wanted to say. Making uh a deal out of this, you going on a diet is the same, or going on a some kind of cutting something out of your diet that you usually use for comfort is a big deal. This is an addiction. And if you were going to a rehab center, this would be a made a massive deal of. You'd be given all kinds of different self-help treatments and therapy and care from different avenues and different aspects. And why should it be any less when you give up a comfort food? So I've been treating myself like something's happening and I need care. So I've spent lots of time on looking after myself, went to bed early, I've been eating really nice foods that sustain me and feel good and enjoyable, and I've been writing in my journal about how I feel. I've been allowing myself to do whatever I want the rest of the time that I'm not working or doing something that I need to do. And just ultimately treating yourself like you need care, I think is my next uh piece of advice to you. Um, so Sunday, physical addiction gone, sweet things tasted sweet, and I started to want to be more healthy and more mindful about everything I was eating, so I stopped eating a lot of the things that I'd been relying on. Not entirely, I'm still not a saint, I'm still not perfect. We may still come to Coffee Friday on next Friday, I'll see. But I suspect I'll be less into it because I'm being so conscious of enjoying what's going on in my life, physically, emotionally, spiritually. This is day 12. Today I talk about creating a new habit of self-regulation. Again, I explore the emotion behind comfort eating, managing pain, tiredness, and feeling unhappy. And I talk about surrendering to the emotion or to the discomfort, learning to bear discomfort. I also talk about what's happening to my body as a result of not eating refined sugar. This week has not been too bad. I 12 days, so nearly two weeks. Apparently, the tipping point, the difficult point is two weeks, so we'll see what happens next week. But this week I honestly found it fairly alright because I'm now getting into the habit of doing all the things that I'm telling you I'm doing. Um so this week was really all about self-regulation for me. And I noticed the chocolate still wants to be eaten. It's not so much a physical craving, you know that feeling you get in your throat, in your mouth, in your body somewhere that says, I want this thing. Um, I haven't really had that physically so much, but I have had it emotionally. Um, and in habit and memory, there's just been times in the day when something has been difficult for me, even slightly difficult, and the chocolate has been in my mind, and I've really wanted it. I've several times a day, every day, I still really want the chocolate. But it isn't so strong because of the physical thing that's gone. And every single time what I've had to do is to think, okay, so there's some emotion behind this, there's something that's prompted me to want comfort. What is that? And each time it was something different, sometimes it was tiredness. Today, for example, I've kind of done my back in a little bit, it's all right now, thankfully. But it was really hurting me this morning, and it made me really miserable. I said something about breaking my toe the other day. I have learnt through this experience that physical illness and not being up to full speed with my body really makes me miserable. I don't like it at all, and I think that's probably quite normal. So I was quite miserable this morning when my back hurt and I couldn't reach for anything or bend or twist, and it's just really limited what I could do, so everything was a bit slower, and I just felt like miserable. So I just went with it. I just thought, oh, what happens if I just allow myself to acknowledge that and to just think, okay, so you're miserable? Fine, just maybe be kind and look after that, and but but most of all, just let it be there. And it really worked and helped me every single time. Every time I did that this week, and literally it must have been about a hundred times. I just thought, okay, I'm feeling tired. What if I just let myself feel tired? There's a message in it, right? I'm tired, I probably need to do something about that. Or if I'm in pain, there might be something I could do about that. Or if I'm miserable, maybe there's some way I could cheer myself up, or something that I actually want and need, so I can try and go for that thing. And I did that all week, and it was it was good. It was like riding a wave. I felt like, uh there's the chocolate, really, really want the chocolate. Okay, what's the emotion? Ah, I'm tired. Okay, so I'm just tired. That's just a reality. And then I would relax a little bit more. So I'd recommend this. This is probably the backbone of what I would teach you is to learn, it's all about learning to bear discomfort. What is comfort eating? But trying to get away from the discomfort that you might feel. So you might as well learn to bear it in order to be able to give up the eating and to get back to the body that you know you really uh feel more at home in. On that subject, I will tell you what's happening to my body, but just to caveat that this by saying this is not about weight for me, and nothing about what I work with is about weight for me in my mind. It's all about how to deal with emotional management and what we might be using, you might be using food to manage. Um, weight and worrying about weight, I often find is just the surface issue and the presenting issue, uh, and there's usually a lot more behind it. So, but I will just tell you that I am also losing weight. I didn't intend to lose weight, but I am. I've lost about five pounds weirdly. Um, and this is just really through mindful, being a bit more mindful about what I'm eating, which I have to be because I'm having to ask myself what I want comfort for all the time. Um, so there's a bonus that you might like the sound of. Um what else can I tell you? There's no way of putting this delicately, but I feel like my digestive system also cleaned out at some point, and that made me feel really good just to get it out. And that's not something I was expecting. That's never happened to me before. Um, but it happens, and I'm guessing it's because I didn't eat sugar and didn't drink alcohol at the weekend. It's like my body relaxed and let go and went to creating some kind of equilibrium, which I'm still doing, I believe. I feel I still feel like I'm my body is working out what to do with this new relaxation and maybe less inflammation or uh less tense tension around and stress around needing a comfort food. It's it's like I'm looking after myself a lot more, so my body is relaxing and coming out of some kind of stimulation, I guess. Um yeah, I think that's still happening, and I think that may be why I'm a little bit tired as well. So maybe I'm detoxing, I don't know. Um, I had one really good win this week, which I'll tell you about because it might be useful to you. On Wednesday, I went out with a friend who I associate with drinking alcohol. I can't remember the last time that we didn't drink together. And I've got to be honest, it's not usually just one glass of wine either. It's uh it's a letting go process for both of us, and we have a lot of fun. Um, and you know, obviously, it don't feel so good the next day, and sometimes regret it. So, what I did this week, I didn't know how it was going to go. I was a little bit nervous about it, but I was determined not to drink that night. And so, what happened is I didn't drink and he did drink, and it was enlightening because it was fine. I had just as much fun as I normally would with alcohol with him. And I'm not lying when I say that, because we have a good friendship, because I can talk to this person, and and I know we share the same sense of humour. I can be really honest about what's going on for me, and uh it was just fun, it was fine. I did feel a little bit tired to begin with, and there was this voice in my head that said, You know, if you had a drink right now, you would perk right up. And but because I've been challenging those thoughts this week, which is the other thing that I've needed really to get through this week, um, I just thought, well, it yeah, you might be right, but you might be wrong. It might not perk me up, it might actually numb me out and make me go to sleep a bit more, um, which it probably would have done. And so I thought, what happens? What happens if I just don't have it? Is it possible that I'll wake up? And I did. I did wake up because his company was great. And I don't remember, don't know if you remember me saying that I need to get the habit of doing something nice for myself on Wednesday nights. Well, I did that this week and it was good. So that's another thing. Okay, I'm not sure if I have anything else to say, just to reiterate that really this week was all about allowing and bearing discomfort and working out what it what it actually needs and what it really wants, and just surrendering to it, really. Knowing that I could cope. To sum up, these are the tips in this week's podcast. Keep on connecting with your values and your reasons for not eating this substance. Explore what's behind the comfort eating. Honour and surrender to how you feel without this substance. Make a big deal out of your rehabilitation from the substance that you're giving up, including self-care in every step possible. Enjoy life, create new habits, learn self-regulation, learn to bear discomfort, and challenge thought habits. That's it for this week. Please keep your questions and comments coming in. I'm absolutely loving them, and they are of use to somebody, if not a lot of people. So please just say anything that you feel is on your mind, even if you think it might not be useful. And if you want more help, please sign up for my mailing list. This way you'll get a quiz, you'll get some more quick tips, and you'll get everything that I have to offer every week. Thank you so much for listening. Next week I'll be talking about the final stages of my journey. If you listened to my habits podcast, you'll remember that the two-week point is the most difficult point. So let's see how I did. Join me next Wednesday.