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Stop Binging Once and for All. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of FABulously Fit
Friday. And today we're going to be talking about my favorite topics. How to Stop Binging
Once and for All. Binging is when we start a new lifestyle of clean eating and regular
exercise and then all of a sudden we sabotage ourselves. This is when we reach for the sugar
uncontrollably and eat and eat and eat until we can't eat anymore. Our stomachs are even
hurting because we've eaten so much sugar. And sometimes people even make themselves
sick. And what's interesting about binging is that inside your brain may be telling you
stop, just quit this, what are you doing? But your emotions are telling you to come
on you need to eat that sugar, eat that sugar, come on you need more sugar. Maybe you're
not a binger but you're a sneaky snacker. Were in the middle of the night you're sneaking
snacks You go downstairs, you get some Oreo cookies, next thing you know an entire box
of Oreo cookies is gone. I talk about that in this episode of fabulously fit Friday here.
And you somewhat stay in denial of your sneaky snacking. Maybe you've been on a diet program
for a couple of weeks and you've been sneaking snacks here and there but denying yourself
that truth. Lying to yourself about it. and then two weeks into the program you're frustrated
because you haven't lost the weight that you had thought you would. And then you give up
all together. You haven't given yourself, your body, your emotions a chance to get into
this new lifestyle and let it work. So what in the world is going on here? Because we
know after looking at that, that it's not the diet. It's not the lifestyle. Right? Because
you have the tools. If you've gotten the diet plan, if you've used FAB University, if you've
used any other diet plan. You know, the tools work. It's this self sabotaging thing that
we have going on that doesn't allow the tools to work. So what in the world is going on
here? What's really happening? Over the year I saw my mother experience this phenomenon
and growing up I wanted to make sure that that didn't happen to me. So I've done a whole
lot of studying on this subject and we're going to dive into it and show you what it's
all about, why we do that to ourselves and how you can conquer it. So first, lets look
at how behaviors are shaped by pleasure and pain. The biggest thing for you to understand
first is that there is a payoff for every behavior that you have. Whether it enhances
your life or takes away from your life. Every single behavior that you have, that you do,
there is some sort of pleasure or payoff for doing that behavior. This is really important
when you're going to be looking at why you binge the way you do. Because that's the first
thing that I want you to focus on. You gotta to figure out why. So what do I mean about
payoff? because you're probably saying to yourself right now, Kristen, you've got to
be kidding me. I'm getting a payoff from binging and feeling crappy afterwards? Yep, that's
exactly what I'm saying. Think about the many classic behaviors that people have that they
want to stop doing but there really is a payoff there, they may not just be recognizing it.
So say you have a whole lot of responsibilities to take care of but instead you're watching
hours and hours of TV or you're mindlessly surfing the Internet. Well obviously this
is not an enhancing behavior to your lifestyle, but the payoff is you get to avoid your responsibilities
for a while. People that gossip a lot but want to stop. What's the payoff they're getting?
Gossiping makes individuals feel better about themselves. By speaking poorly of other people
the perception is that they lift their own self esteem up. Also by focusing on other
people's lives they don't have to focus on their own issues. And so until they recognize
that payoff that they're getting, they're not going to be able to stop that behavior.
And until the pain threshold becomes high enough to be associated with that behavior
you're going to continue to do it. So what does that really mean? What that means is
until an unwanted behavior becomes painful enough, you're likely to continue it. The
key is to associate very painful consequences to the behavior that you want to get rid of.
So focusing on sugar binges. The payoff of sugar binges is instant highs, instant feel
good. The payoff could be the learned behavior that you had as a child, like me. When my
mom was upset she reached for the sugar. So that's what I learned as a child, I learned
how to sooth myself through sugar. Maybe the payoff is gaining weight. I wrote a very important
and sensitive article just the other day about adult children of *** abuse and how potentially
if that's you, if you're struggling with getting weight off and keeping weight off, then it
might be due to the *** abuse you have encountered. Often times adult children of
*** abuse are trying to ward off any advances or attention from the opposite sex because
they associate all sorts of painful sort of feelings, and shame and blame on themselves.
So by adding weight to their body it's sort of a mask and it's a protection that they
learned to do to ward off those advances. So what's happening with your binging behavior
is that you're actually getting a payoff from that binge behavior. You are associating it
with pleasure, not pain, or at least not enough pain from that binging behavior in order for
you to change it. So the key is whenever you want to change any unwanted behavior is you
have to create new associations with the old behavior and then create new associations
with your new behavior. Painful outcomes to the old behaviors and positive pleasurable
outcomes to the new behaviors. That new pathways are formed in our brain that reinforce those
new behaviors and over time. What is first a very difficult and conscious behavior to
reinforce, becomes automatic. This is proven in many of our every day occurrences. Think
about the times that you've moved into a new home. At first when you're driving to that
new home you have to think about, OK, I need to take a right here. I need to take a left
here. I'm gonna come up to a stop sign here. You have to really think about that drive
home to make sure that you're getting in and pulling into your own driveway. At first it's
not automatic but overtime it becomes automatic. When you're driving home from work you don't
even think about that drive. You don't think about the rights, the lefts, the stops, all
of that stuff. And it actually might be alarming at times the fact that you drove all the way
home and you realized at some point, Oh my gosh, I didn't even think about driving home
at all. It was sort of a subconscious activity. When you get a new cell phone is it really
hard to operate it at first? You have to think about the buttons you're pushing and kind
of search around and look for things. And then over time isn't it true that if your
cell phone rings or you get a text message you just reach for it and you hit that button
not even thinking about it? Those are the new pathways that have been formed in your
brain and have been reinforced over time. So when it comes to unwanted behaviors such
as binging you need to do the same thing. You need to create those new pathways that
are reinforced in a positive way, and then over time they become very automatic. With
unwanted behaviors even though you want to quit it, you want to stop it. That positive
reinforcement, that payoff that you're getting is continually reinforcing that behavior in
a positive way. And you will not quit that behavior until you make some serious changes.
So, fortunately that change can happen immediately, and it's not as hard as you might think. Five
Steps to Stop Binging First I want you to think about and recognize the reasons that
you are performing that behavior. There is something that likely goes back to your childhood
that compels you to this unwanted behavior. This is the why we're doing what we're doing.
And I really want you to dig deep on this one. You have to be critically honest about
why you think you're doing this. It could be that you just love sugar.You just love
to eat and you love sugar. we all know that sugar is highly addictive. It could be a learned
behavior that possibly one of your role-models showed you when you were young. It could be
that you are putting on what I call a fat mask. You are hiding behind fat for some reason.
It could be that you associate being fit and trim and healthy and fit and sexy as potentially
being a negative thing. Maybe there was a role model in your life that reinforced that
being sexy is a bad thing, not a good thing. Whatever it is, you gotta figure out what
that payoff is that you're getting from binging. Because it's there, I guarantee you it's there
and until you figure out what the payoff is, you will continue this unwanted behavior.
Second, now that you've identified why you're doing what you're doing I want you to identify
what the triggers are that send you off onto this unwanted behavior. What do you feel just
before you go on a binge or just before you sabotage your effort? What's happening inside
you? That's what's critically important to think about, OK, what am I feeling just before
I reach for the sugar? So what I want you to do for this second exercise is i really
want you to visualize and feel what it feels like just before you reach for the sugar.
What happens? Does your stomach tighten up? Are you anxious? Are you angry? Are you feeling
anxiety? What is it? What's going on inside of you? I want you to visualize that. I want
you to close your eyes and really think about that. It's very, very important. Third, I
want you to identify what is your true motivation for wanting this change. What is your true
motivation for wanting a healthy, fit sexy body. And I want you to do this on two fronts.
I want you to think about it form a pleasure standpoint, and then I want you to think about
it from a pain standpoint. Now what I mean there is I want you to think about all the
pleasurable things. I want you to write this down.You know, cause writing things down really
reinforces them, it creates those new connections in our brain. So I want you to write down
all of the great things that you think are going to happen to you or the way that you're
going to feel when have this sexy, healthy fit body. For instance, you might write down
that you'll have more energy or self-confidence. clothes will fit loosely and more comfortably
on you. There's all sorts of positive reinforcements for being fit and healthy. So write those
down. Then I want you think about all the pain associated with not achieving your goal.
Could it be that you'll get diabetes? That you'll have a heart-attack prematurely? That
you'll live your life with less energy, less enthusiasm? That you will never increase your
self-esteem? Write down all those associations of pain if you don't achieve your goal. So
now that you've done all that, the fourth thing that I want you to do is I want you
to come up with a new strategy to handle those feelings when they come up that trigger your
wanted behavior. That's because if you just try to take away an unwanted behavior and
you don't replace it with another behavior, you're likely going to fail. The first new
connection that we're going to make in the brain is that this old behavior that we have,
this unwanted behavior we're going to associate it with all those painful things, that painful
list that you just wrote out. The diabetes, the not having energy, the embarrassment of
having all sorts of unwanted fat pounds. The feeling lethargic and no energy and low self
esteem. We want to create new associations in the brain with carrying those unwanted
fat pounds and binging on that sugar that creates that. And again I want you to visualize
this. I really want you to think about it in your head. Close your eyes and think about
how sugar creates all this pain, all of these unwanted consequences. All these horrible,
horrible outcomes. Because the more you think about it the more those pathways in the brain
will be reinforced in a painful way with the unwanted behavior. Because like we said, until
something is really super painful, we're likely to repeat the behavior. So we need to create
the association. Now, we need to create pleasurable association with a new behavior that's going
to replace the unwanted behavior. This is because studies have shown that if you just
take away the unwanted behavior, if you just stop what you're doing, the you're more likely
to fail than if you replace that behavior with something that's a very positive pleasurable
reinforcement for what you're trying to achieve. So, you happen to be in luck because I have
a whole list of things that you can do when you feel yourself reaching for that sugar.
and when you decide of what you're going to do in replacement of this old behavior, the
binging and self sabotage. I want you to visualize that in your head over and over and over.
feel those feelings coming up just before that unwanted behavior happens, and then see
yourself doing whatever the replacement behavior is. I know it sounds kind of silly and I know
it sounds a little ridiculous, but it works. Really, think about it for a second. Everything
that happens in life is all in your head. It's all your perceptions of what happens.
It's not what really happens because we're not unbiased about the things that are going
on around us. We make all these assumption and associations in our head about whatever
it is that's happening. So if you can visualize that over and over and over in your head.
The new behavior with a pleasurable feeling, the old behavior with a painful feeling. you
will create these new associations and over tie starting immediately, over time, you will
create new pathways. neuroscience has proven it. So let's take a look at some of these
behaviors that you can replace for that unwanted behavior of binging. [Music] Crank up that
music as loud as you can and dance to your hearts content. Go for a walk. Meditate. Jump
on a trampoline. Sing. Stand on your head. jog in place. Chew sugar free gum but watch
out for those unintended consequences. Drink coffee, not too much. My favorite of course,
head to the gym. So, as you can see there are a whole bunch of new behaviors that you
can put into place for your unwanted old behavior and create new pathways in the brains that
associate pleasure with this new lifestyle that you have started. And the fifth and last
thing that you need to do is immediately reinforce that new positive and pleasurable behavior
when you actually do it. So if you're reaching for that sugar and you go off and bounce on
a trampoline. I want you to say in your head, you know what Kristen, great job! You did
it! Awesome! Again, I know this sounds silly but think about coaches. Coaches of a football
team or basketball team or soccer team or a volleyball team. What do those coaches do?
They immediately reinforce the behaviors that they want, and they also immediately reinforce
in a negative way the behaviors they don't want. Studies have shown that delayed reinforcements
either positive or negative is not as effective as immediate reinforcement. So as soon as
you push away that sugar and replace it with another behavior. As soon as you say no to
the cake that they're offering you at the office. In your head I want you to congratulate
yourself and reinforce that positive pleasurable behavior. And if you start to slip, you start
to slide and you're really thinking about going for that sugar. I want you to in your
head think about all that pain, that significant pain that happens when you do reach for that
sugar and you give up on your goals. So step number five is to reinforce, reinforce, reinforce
until it becomes automatic. And here is where I differ with an awful lot of well meaning
trainers that are out there. There's an awful lot of trainers and dietitians that will tell
you that if you if you've gone a certain period on your diet and you've been successful then
go ahead and have a cheat meal or go ahead and have a cheat day. And this is where I
feel for bingers and self sabotagers that having a cheat meal or a cheat day is a recipe
for disaster. And it's precisely for the reason that we're talking about, because of this
reinforcement. If you're associating a cheat meal for a positive reinforcement for your
active, healthy lifestyle, you're mixing up the messages and your brain doesn't know what
to associate with what. And the likelihood that you're going to continue to binge, and
continue to sabotage your efforts is extremely high. So if you want to reward yourself for
two weeks of clean eating, and I highly encourage you do reward yourself. Do it with something
that's going to be a pleasurable, positive reinforcement for this new lifestyle. So,
in closing, what I want to say is that if you have failed to strip the weight off and
keep it off, it's not your fault. It's that wiring that has been made in your head over
all those associations that have taken place year after year after year. The key is to
change that wiring, make new associations, both pleasurable and painful, and you will
succeed at changing this binging behavior, and you will succeed at achieving your goals.
So, I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Fabulously Fit Friday. If you like it please
subscribe. Hit that subscribe button because when you do hit that subscribe button you
will get notification of each video as it's released. I'm Kristin Shaffer, founder
of Figure and Bikini. And I hope to see you at the next Fabulously Fit Friday. [Music]
Hey girls FAB University is open. Head to FigureAndBikini.org to check it out.