This short YouTube monologue by Jim Katsoulis explains how to use the moments immediately after a binge to change future behavior. He recommends (1) turning inward and connecting to bodily sensations to reinforce the unpleasant experience, (2) replaying the binge to identify triggers (e.g., over-restriction, emotional triggers), and (3) replacing shame with calm, detached inquiry so you can develop targeted strategies that address the core cause rather than relying on willpower.
Chapters
What to do immediately after you binge eat. You know, ironically, right after you binge eat is one of the most useful times there is to actually change your behavior. But what most people do is they kind of go into this shame or denial cycle and never really utilize that time effectively. So the first thing you want to do after you're done eating is as soon as possible, take a moment and turn your attention inwards and connect to your body. Notice how it feels to eat that much food, to eat that way. And it's not a judgment thing. It's an awareness that I don't like feeling this way. I don't like feeling this way physically, mentally, or, or emotionally. I don't like it. Now, I know you say, of course I don't like it, but I keep forgetting that before I binge. But the more you reinforce this real experience by connecting to it, the more powerful it becomes. And it becomes easier to remember this ahead of the next binge. Now, the next thing you want to do is you want to replay that binge and learn from it. You want to understand what triggered the binge. Was it that you were over restricting food and you were so hungry you couldn't control yourself? Was it that some emotional thing came up and you didn't know how to deal with it and you turned towards the food? There's almost always reasons why we do things. And instead of just trying to stop yourself from binging, I would suggest that you first seek to understand what is triggering it in the first place. What is the real core reason why you're doing it? Because the more you understand it now, the more you can start to resolve it and find an antidote to it instead of just trying to use willpower to stop yourself. That doesn't really fix the core problem. And the truth is, you may not even know what the core problem is at this point. Then once you do, it becomes much easier to actually change it. So start to let go of the shame and the guilt around bing and start to approach it in a more detached, calm way so that you can really connect to that feeling afterwards and realize that it doesn't feel good. And to learn from it so that you can start to come up with strategies that help you genuinely resolve the binge eating once and for all.
