Part 3: Exercises to Stop Overeating

Exercise 1 - 4

1. General Situation - anxiety: Any time you overeat, you are trying to soothe yourself. Often overeating works, numbing your emotions. You may even think you feel safe or calm as you approach emotional oblivion.

Exercise: Ask yourself:

• Where do I need to feel safe or calm in my life?
• Where do I need to accept my powerlessness?
• Where do I need to develop and exercise my power?

For example, are you trying to change people or events which are beyond your control? This may be where you need to accept your powerlessness.

Are you neglecting yourself and activities which you can effect? This may be where you need to develop and exercise your power.

Make a list of three areas you would like to be different in your life. Think of what you can and cannot influence on this list. Let go of what you cannot change. Add to this list at any time.

By reading and thinking about these Exercises to Stop Overeating you have already begun to exercise your personal power.

2. Situation -- unfinished tasks: Unfinished tasks confront you. You feel depressed and overwhelmed. You eat rather than begin your work.

Exercise: Pause. List your tasks.

• Complete a small task before you eat. Completing the task will let you experience power more satisfying than that which comes from overeating.
• The tasks may be too many and too complex for you. Break these large tasks into several small activities. Write them down.
• Give yourself freedom to choose. Decide if you will put your effort into one task, working on all the activities until the task is completed. Or decide if you will put effort into several tasks, performing a few activities for each. As you complete an activity, check it off your list.
• You are giving yourself freedom and power. You are giving yourself a reasonable structure. You are giving yourself a way to mobilize your power for your own benefit. You will appreciate your efforts when you see they lead you to fulfillment of your goals.

3. Situation -- verge of a binge: You are on the verge of a binge. You are deciding what and how much you will eat. You promise yourself you will stop at reasonable limits (although you rarely succeed in keeping this promise.)

Exercise: Pause. Write a description of your last hour, the immediate hour you lived just before now. Include:

• What happened.
• What you did.
• What you said.
• What you thought.
• What you felt.

You may have experienced something hurtful or frightening to you. You may have been reminded of something hurtful or frightening. This can be true even if what happened in the hour seems, on the surface, to be simple and ordinary.

Remember, you now know that there is something you don't know. So something innocuous, like hanging up the phone, or misplacing your shoes, or looking at a coffee cup on a shelf might actually trigger a painful feeling in you that you would prefer not to feel.

Think of how you might soothe or comfort yourself. You may need understanding you can't give yourself. You might find that understanding and holding in a book, painting or piece of music. You might listen to an educational or inspirational tape. You might call a friend.

You might continue to journal. Write what you are thinking and feeling now. Read it out loud. Read it out loud a second time in front of a mirror.

Let yourself learn to listen. When you hear your true hunger's voice you can give yourself the nourishment you really need.

4. Situation -- in process of overeating: You are eating more than you need during a meal.

Exercise: Pause. Take a deep breath and close your eyes.

• Breathe normally and pay attention to your breath. Feel the oxygen enter your lungs and nourish your body. Tell yourself there is plenty of food in the world. You can have more at your next meal.
• Imagine your next meal. Commit to what time you will eat a nourishing meal again. Tell yourself you will be kind to yourself during the time between meals, and you will give yourself a good next meal.