Weight Loss Binge Eating Step Two (Part One)

Congratulations! You’ve made it to Step Two! I, however, had to repeat Step One. I know that it hasn’t been two weeks, but I decided to post Step Two so that everyone knows beforehand what Step Two is all about. I broke this step into two parts. Part one will deal only with Binge Eating, and part two deals only with Weight Loss.

Before moving onto the Step Two, you had to have at least 10 days of successful recording and have gotten at least 12 days of 6-8 hours of sleep. If you haven’t, then you must repeat Step One. We still have a week left in Step One. Finish out the week before moving onto Step Two.

This program builds upon each step, which means you still need to carry on with the Step One Objectives while you work your way through the Step Two Objections. It means you still need to record and you still need to maintain a good sleep pattern. If you stop following the Step One Objectives during Step Two, you CANNOT move onto to Step Three. In fact, you would have to start over at Step One.

Step Two Objectives

Continue with the Step One Objectives

You should have settled into a regular sleeping pattern by now. If you are still unable to sleep, contact your physician right away. Insomnia may be a symptom of something much worse. If your doctor finds that there are no other health issues, you may ask for a prescription for sleeping pills. I personally take melatonin, which you can find in the vitamin aisle at your local drug store. Talk to your doctor first before taking any vitamin or over the counter sleeping pill!

By this time, writing down what you eat, how much you eat, how much you sleep and how you feel should have become a good habit. Keep this up. It's important to keep track, especially if you are seeing a therapist. 

Establish a Pattern of Regular Eating

The purpose of establish a pattern of regular eating is to displace our binges so that they become infrequent. Binging often occurs when we have unstructured time on our hands. For most of use binging doesn’t happen while we are in the middle doing stuff, like work, school, studying or so forth.

At this step, we will not rely upon our bodies to tell us when we are hungry. For binge eaters, the natural biochemical sensations that control sensations of hunger and fullness have been disrupted by our yo-yo dieting and binge eating. Also because we eat in times of stress or for emotional reasons, our bodies cannot differentiate between what is an emotional hunger or a physical hunger. So we have to disregard all of the popular advice that tells us to eat only when we're hungry. That won't work for us. 

For example, I know that I binge eat when I get stressed. When I feel stressed my body tells me that I am hungry. I’ve had this happen an hour after I ate dinner and physically I wasn’t hungry, but emotionally I was.

By us recording what we eat and how we feel, even though it’s difficult, you should start to see a pattern of when you binge. Is it at night? Or in between periods of activity?

You should eat three meals with two or three snacks each day.  Here's an example.

6:30 am	Wake up
7:00 am – 7:30 am	Breakfast
10:30 am	Snack
12:30 pm	Lunch
3:30 pm	Snack
6:30 pm	Dinner
8:00 pm	Snack (optional)

If you have a chaotic schedule and a chaotic eating pattern slowly start to change your eating pattern.

Start eating breakfast within 30 minutes to an hour of waking up. That's the easiest way to introduce a regular eating pattern. Once that has been established, work on a time to have lunch and then eventually dinner.

Do not go more than three or four hours without eating. 

If you know that you won't be able to eat until 10 pm because of work or another obligation, move your snack time further down to accommodate this. 

Do not skip meals or snacks.

Try not to eat between your meals and snacks. 

It won't be the end of the world if you do. The purpose of establish a pattern of regular eating is break up unstructured time. That's when most of us binge eaters, binge. 

If you do binge between meals and snacks, don’t despair!

Eat at your next scheduled time. Do not skip a meal or snack in response. You will probably binge eat. It's going to be okay. Make sure to mark that you did binge eat in your daily journal.

Get rid of "unsafe" food and stock up on "safe" food. 

Unsafe foods are the foods that you are mostly likely to binge on. I binge on food that is readily accessible, so anything like chips, cookies, crackers, ice cream, cake, and so forth, are my "unsafe" foods. "Safe" foods are salads, carrots, celery, protein shakes, smoothies, and so forth. 

Where possible, this pattern of eating should take precedence over any other activities. 

Don't delay a meal or skip a meal because of another activity. Try to plan your meals around your schedule. For example, I had an early morning doctor's apartment during my breakfast time, I decided to make a protein smoothie instead of eating my normal breakfast. 

Do not eat while you are distracted. 

Us binge eaters need to formalize eating. Meaning that we can't read or watch TV while eating. We can't chat with friends on the phone or play around the Internet. Pick one or two places in your house where you can eat without distractions. We need to take back control of eating so that it’s not something that’s automatic and without feeling.

I've decided that in the kitchen at my kitchen table is where I will take all of my meals. Now I have to go and clear off all of the junk on the table.

Plan your meals

Plan your meals based on your schedule. This way you have no excuse to skip a meal or snack.