Chocolate Biscuit Therapy

I've said this before - but I used to believe that I was addicted to food, and more specifically sugar. I used to believe this because I used to gorge on large amounts of sugary (and fatty - but interestingly no one talks about fat addiction, in fact lots of people seem to think fat is a superfood these days) foods in one sitting - one or two family blocks of chocolate, whole tubs of ice cream, whole packets of biscuits, eating way beyond the point when I was full, going to bed with a sick stomach and a racing heart, taking medication to control the heartburn that came with eating so much food. It felt like I would go into a trance like state where I wasn't even tasting the food - I just knew I had to have more, I felt out of control and desperate. I felt like I could never have just one or two biscuits - I felt that if I had a block of chocolate in my pantry I would have to gobble it all up in one sitting.

Still it wasn't even the actual food that was the biggest problem for me - it was all the really disordered behaviors that went with it that I felt were even more disturbing - sneaking around trying to make sure no one ever actually saw me eating, hiding the evidence by eating in the car and then stopping on the way home to get rid of the rubbish or not using the bin under my desk to get rid of my wrappers but using the bin in the kitchen, sneaking into the kitchen when no one was around and furiously eating slice after slice of the leftover birthday cake, going to the shops and buying food and hiding it under my jumper for the walk back to my desk so no one could see.

The feelings of shame, the disgust with myself. It's embarrassing to write  about this here but I feel like it's also necessary - it's part of my healing and I hope it will help others as well - I know I can't be the only one who has behaved and felt like this.

Internet diagnosis - Sugar addiction

Internet treatment  - Give up sugar forever and live your life feeling like you can't trust yourself around food.

Actual diagnosis - Binge eating disorder 

Actual treatment (what has worked for me) - Therapy (including choc biscuit therapy which I'll get to soon)! Give up dieting, learn to see all foods as morally neutral, learn to eat a balanced diet, learn to trust yourself around food, stop being afraid of food, learn to love and accept yourself.

I wanted to share with you a little tool I've been using that has helped with my recovery - Chocolate Biscuit Therapy. It's really like exposure therapy that gets used for treatment of other phobias. It's a tool I've been using to help me stop being afraid of my old binge foods, to start trusting myself around those foods and to build a balanced diet that includes some less nutritious foods.

So, most nights, after dinner, I make a cuppa, get 2 chocolate biscuits out of the packet and put them on a plate, and then I sit and enjoy - really enjoy them, eating them mindfully and slowly, while we watch some TV.

I started doing this pretty early on in my recovery and found it was great for teaching myself that I can actually have just a couple of biscuits and that having the packet in the house doesn't mean I have to eat them all at once.

I also learned that the act of getting just two out and putting them on a plate is helpful - it sets a clear boundary in my mind, and helps me to see the biscuits as food, rather than binge food. The times I have eaten more than two have been when I have the packet sitting out in front of me.

I stopped doing it for a while because I thought that maybe I "shouldn't" be getting into the habit of eating sweets after dinner, but I've started again recently because it's actually something I've really come to enjoy and also, funnily enough, it's become like the "full stop" to my eating at the end of a day.

It stops the mindset that to be fit and healthy I have to give up enjoying food.

My eating has become a lot more settled and balanced now that I'm a good six months into recovery and so in that context I'm happy that it fits within my goals of being happy, healthy and "normal" around food.

I have taught myself that It is possible to eat sugar without bingeing on it. It is possible to eat sugar as part of a balanced diet.

Of course this is what has worked for me and what works for you might be different, but I've found it to be quite a powerful tool.

I want to finish by saying this - A lot of people, regardless of if they have an eating disorder or not - believe that they have a "problem" with or are addicted to sugar or even a particular food such as chocolate. I no longer believe that this is due to the chemical properties of that food itself - more so, I believe it's because we think we "shouldn't" be eating those foods, we feel guilt and shame about eating them, and we feel that we should be giving them up - this leads to a perpetual state of "last supper" eating. Something to think about.