Thin From Within has highlighted the paths of some who've been able to get a grip on their eating after sorting out relationship issues, or feelings about the self. In these cases, uncovering the emotional role of the overeating helped. Maybe eating kept feelings at bay or patterns in place. Awareness cleared the way for new choices. Elsewhere, however, I often comment on how foods themselves, in our modern world, can trigger cravings and gorging. And in response to "Stories of Stopping Binging" (in this blog), I received thoughtful responses about brain chemistry, processed foods, and other very real biological factors that complicate the question of how to stop out-of-control eating.
So if you overeat, must you examine your emotional life? After all, it makes sense that self-defeating behavior has some psychological underpinnings. Or are you better off treating the problem as primarily a chemical one? Your behavior might then seem less mysterious. But does that make you an "addict" if you can't manage the chemicals in question? And can you really avoid all "trigger" foods forever, anyway?
In reality, eating issues are too complicated for any one explanation--emotional, chemical, spiritual, or otherwise--to apply universally. For every person who finds it easier to eat moderately after learning to set boundaries, there are those who simply can't stop binging until they quit sugar for good. For every binger who finds sanity in a 12-step group, there are those who learn to eat reasonable portions through traditional behavior change techniques. Some will indeed find spiritual paths helpful in gaining control, and some will even find their way to health through diets you or I might find strange.
If anything can be said universally, it's that disordered eating is usually multidetermined and often overdetermined, too. Maybe you've got some unlucky biological loading-a family history of obesity or diabetes, perhaps, that predisposes your body to readily save calories as fat. The foods available these days, sugar-enhanced as they often are, worsen your body's fat-storing tendency. At the same time, they trigger the "more, more!" brain signals.
You could short-circuit this particular problem by limiting refined carbohydrates pretty strictly and emphasizing protein. Whether or not you'll actually be able to do this, though, depends on some additional factors. Our brains differ in how strongly they react to certain substances-some of us will crave more of, say, sugar, than others, even if just about everyone has a pull toward it. Some are much more challenged to "Just say ‘no'", in other words.
And then, of course, emotions enter in. Have you learned to soothe yourself with food? Did you grow up in a family where strong emotions weren't allowed and "stuffing" them was necessary? Does guilt lead you to undo your best efforts? Food can interact powerfully with such emotions. And once linked, the unlinking gets physically and psychologically uncomfortable.
Addiction, like blood sugar metabolism, has genetic components as well. So if your family has struggled with substance abuse, you may have addictive tendencies yourself for that reason. A substance abusing family, at the same time, often does not provide the stability and care children need to grow up emotionally well-equipped. Enter again our poor food environment. The chemical and the emotional tangle together once more.
It's good to think about which factors might contribute to your own overeating if you struggle. However, this won't necessarily point to a surefire solution. Here things get "multidetermined", and complicated, again. The idea of saying "I just can't stop" and relinquishing sugar forever simply horrifies some people. Others find the idea comforting-"I'm not to blame, something gets triggered in my brain"-and the absolute restrictions stabilizing. Some find it too hard, or simple too baffling, to search for motivations and feelings that lie beyond awareness. For others this makes perfect sense and gives them understandings with which to ground themselves in the work of change.
In the next blog, I'll share vignettes that illustrate different paths people have taken toward similar goals. For now, it's fair to say that overeating almost always involves some combination of physical and psychological factors. If you struggle, figuring out what kind of dietary regime makes you feel your best-physically and psychologically--may be your first challenge. If you start eating that way, feel good, and simply keep it up-well, great. If you find it hard to do so, that's where your own personal search for solutions begins. And you may do well to search both "without" and "within".
