What has dieting got to do with recovery from compulsive overeating?
Amy Yandel Grabowski, a therapist with extensive experience in disordered eating, writes:
“Weight loss as a goal is incompatible with recovery from an eating disorder” (An Internal Family Systems Guide to Recovery from Eating Disorders).
At first glance, this can feel counterintuitive. If we’re having a problem with overeating and this is causing us to gain weight, surely the answer is to cut down on eating? And cutting down on eating usually means controlling our intake using some type of diet.
It is this train of thought that gets us dieting again and again, only to find that we are unable to “stick” to a diet, or that the weight goes on again sooner or later. In fact, it is frequently reported that the majority of dieters put on the weight they lose, and often more besides, within a few months or years of finishing a diet.
If dieting has been a big part of our lives, this can feel disheartening to say the least. We may wonder: If not a diet, then what?
What lies underneath the drive to overeat?
What if we looked at overeating as a symptom of something deeper, rather than a problem in itself? If we feel compelled to overeat and find ourselves binging, eating larger quantities than we want to, or grazing all day, there may be an underlying unmet need that we’re trying to fill. Often overeating is not about lack of willpower – it is an act of emotional survival.
At an emotional level, overeating can be playing a positive role. For example, it can soothe, distract or numb. It can provide comfort or a sense of safety. And it makes perfect sense, then, that some part of us is unwilling to let go of this coping strategy, even if it is no longer serving us.
Shedding light on overeating to find a way forward
It isn’t always obvious what function compulsive overeating is playing in our lives on a deeper level. This tends to take place outside our everyday consciousness. It is also often unclear how we can release our attachment to this behaviour and meet our needs other non-food ways.
At The Green Velvet Armchair we can work together to illuminate and understand what makes you feel compelled to overeat, find alternative ways of meeting your emotional needs, and move towards a more peaceful relationship with food and eating.