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ОглавлениеTo some degree everyone is a prisoner of the past.
— Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery
One thing most emotional eaters have in common is that their childhoods didn’t feel particularly nurturing. Even if their parents or caregivers were loving, supportive, and kind, often there just wasn’t enough quality attention, listening, good attunement, understanding, empathy, soothing, comfort, and consistent nurturance for optimal development of the brain’s self-regulation circuitry.
You may be thinking, “Hold on, this doesn’t fit my situation — my parents were very loving and caring, and I didn’t experience any traumatic events in my childhood. My problem is that I just love food and eating.” I understand. And I believe you. I also believe that if you’re having trouble managing your eating habits and maintaining your weight in an optimum range, there’s a good chance that your brain’s self-regulation circuits could use some strengthening, and your self-soothing and self-comforting skills could use some sharpening. There’s some reason you’re having difficulty consistently regulating your behaviors and meeting your needs without turning to your favorite foods.
Even well-meaning caregivers can unintentionally neglect their children’s emotional needs at critical points in terms of brain development. Sometimes caregivers are unskilled at handling their children’s routine emotional challenges, including disappointments and losses, and they offer food as a source of comfort. Perhaps your parents baked cookies for you or took you out for ice cream when you were upset. “I’m sorry those kids were so mean. Come on, let’s go get a chocolate shake.” Maybe they unintentionally dismissed or denied your feelings in an attempt to calm you: “The shot at the doctor’s office will only hurt for a second. Then we’ll have pizza for lunch.” Or “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll do fine on the spelling bee; you always do. When you get home, I’ll bake your favorite cupcakes.”
Perhaps they were skilled enough to inquire how you were feeling, but once you shared your feelings, they quickly attempted to distract you or to solve the problem. “I know you’re sad today about saying goodbye to Fluffy. Let’s go to the movies and take your mind off of it.” Or “I can understand your being upset that you weren’t picked for the team. Maybe there’s another sport you could try.” No doubt they loved and cared about you, but you were left with uncomfortable and confusing emotions, and without the skills for exploring and processing your inner world of feelings and worrisome thoughts, calming yourself down, and learning from these experiences.
If your caregivers missed out on the right kind of emotional nurturance in their own infancy and childhood, they may have failed to learn critical self-and-other care skills somewhere along the way. Or challenging situations may have taxed their coping abilities: even the most loving caregivers can be overwhelmed by a death in the family, a needy or difficult relative coming to stay, caring for a family member suffering from a mental or physical illness, or a devastating relationship breakup.
Emotional challenges and skill deficits resulting from unmet developmental needs often become more apparent after we address any physical imbalances that may contribute to overeating. Most overeaters have some body and brain imbalances, such as hormonal irregularities, food allergies, and brain-chemical deficiencies, that contribute to cravings and overeating. These imbalances may be caused by both genetic and lifestyle factors. The easy availability of nutrient-deficient, addictive processed foods, foods of animal origin, and caffeinated and alcoholic beverages also plays a role, for sure, in wayward cravings and imbalanced eating. Most of us are stressed out, sitting for too many hours and sleeping for too few. And our increased exposure to endocrine disruptors, including the toxic chemicals in plastics, perfumes, and pesticides that are ubiquitous in our environment, is wreaking havoc on our bodies and brains.
Teasing Out the Pieces of the Overeating Puzzle
Lenny, a thirty-four-year-old art director for a large advertising firm, approached me at the end of a seminar I was giving on emotional eating. Looking tense and exasperated, he said:
I sure hope you can help me. I’m really frustrated. I’ve been bingeing ever since the holidays, and I’ve gained a lot of weight. I’m stuck in a pattern of avoiding the things I need to get done and doing everything other than what I need to do. I’m depressed, sleeping long hours, and most mornings I don’t want to get out of bed. I have a ton of clutter at home and at work, and I cannot get myself to start back exercising. I’m sure I eat emotionally, especially when I’m lonely. I’m single, I work long hours, and I don’t have much of a social life. Or much of a sex drive, for that matter. Truthfully, I’m disgusted with myself and my life, and I’m embarrassed sharing this. I just don’t know what to do. I can never stick to any eating plan, so I don’t want to go on another diet.
When I suggested to Lenny that, in addition to emotional eating, he might be struggling with body and brain imbalances that were contributing to his overeating, he felt relieved.
LENNY: So maybe it’s not all emotional? That’s a relief. You know, I love to eat, and I have little willpower to resist my favorite foods. And I’m kind of lazy and don’t like exercising that much. But it’s never been this bad before. I’m not sure what’s changed, but I feel totally out of control. What kind of imbalances do you think I might have?
JULIE: Well, your body may be hormonally challenged — adrenal, thyroid, insulin, and sex hormone imbalances can cause sweet and carbohydrate cravings, low energy and fatigue, blood-sugar fluctuations, overeating, and weight gain. You may be struggling with food allergies and possibly food addiction. Your brain chemicals may also be out of balance, and in addition to overeating, this may be contributing to sleeping long hours, procrastinating, and feeling depressed.
LENNY: Wow, this feels so hopeful. It does feel like I’m addicted to certain foods, and that’s why I can’t stop eating them. One of my sisters has celiac disease, and she steers clear of wheat products. I wonder if I might be suffering from this as well, although I don’t have the same symptoms. And thyroid problems, weight issues, and depression run in my family, so it’s probably all related, right? [Speaking with his shoulders erect and chin up, sounding more hopeful.]
JULIE: Yes, there may be a genetic component, and in addition to body and brain imbalances, your early childhood experiences might play a role in your binge eating, depression, clutter, procrastination, and difficulty consistently exercising.
Lenny stopped me at this point and asked, “How could that be? I had a great childhood. My parents were very loving and committed, and they were always there for me and my siblings.”
Addressing Body and Brain Chemistry Imbalances
Lenny’s twelve-hour-plus days at the advertising firm were stressful. Most mornings he stopped for coffee and a muffin on his way to work. If he didn’t have a client meeting, he would skip lunch, getting by all day on more coffee, diet soda, and energy bars. At least a couple of nights a week, he dined with clients, and these dinners usually involved heavy meals and bottles of wine. On the other evenings, when he was ravenous and drained from work, his nighttime meals turned into large, unwind-from-the-day binges. He exercised infrequently because of time constraints, low energy, and a lack of motivation.
Lenny is representative of the many clients who come to see me for help with their eating challenges. Most believe their overeating is emotionally driven. They label themselves as lazy, weak-willed and undisciplined, primarily when it comes to eating and exercise, and they feel ashamed and guilty. Like Lenny, many have an intuitive sense that their overeating may be partly due to cravings triggered by body and brain chemistry imbalances.
It’s often helpful to start addressing overeating challenges by looking at these imbalances, because it can be difficult to work on emotional issues when you’re feeling fatigued and depressed and struggling with food cravings. Most diet books and weight-loss programs fail to address the body and brain chemistry imbalances that fuel overeating. Even the most balanced eating plans can inadvertently trigger body and brain imbalances in sensitive individuals.
Overeating may seem like a simple act, but it’s actually a complex behavior. All overeating behaviors are the result of complex interactions among emotional, cognitive, biological, neurological, social, and spiritual factors. Temperament and constitution, genetically inherited brain and body imbalances, insufficient or traumatic early childhood experiences, chronic stress (including loneliness), chronic dieting, and the easy availability of food all play a role. When we regularly eat in the absence of physical hunger cues, choose unhealthy comfort foods, or eat when we are already full, something is out of balance somewhere. Most overeaters have some body and brain imbalances that need to be resolved, and most are missing or have poorly developed self-regulation skills — especially the ability to connect to, or attune to and be mindful of, their internal world, and to regulate their feelings, moods, impulses, and behaviors.
It is beyond the scope of this book to address the symptoms and resolution of body and brain chemistry imbalances that underlie overeating behaviors. If, like Lenny, you believe your imbalanced eating behaviors may be, in part, due to body and brain chemistry imbalances, the first step is to pay attention to your symptoms. Some symptoms may represent underlying conditions that require the assistance of a qualified health care provider. You might also want to consider looking at part 2 of The Emotional Eater’s Repair Manual, where I discuss the symptoms of and possible treatments for body and brain chemistry imbalances that may contribute to overeating.
There are steps that you can take right away, such as reducing your intake of processed foods and adding more fiber-rich, unprocessed, plant-based foods to your eating plan. Make sure any animal products you are eating are organic and hormone- and pesticide-free. Reducing your use of stimulants like caffeine and nicotine will help rebalance your chemistry, as will reducing or eliminating your use of alcohol. Getting your vitamin D levels checked is important, as is making sure you’re getting enough essential fatty acids, especially the omega-3s.
Increasing movement during the day, such as through walking and gentle stretching, is helpful. And allowing time for adequate sleep and rest gives your body the downtime it needs to heal and repair itself.
“It’s Almost Like There Are Two Versions of Me”
I suspected that Lenny might be struggling with a mood disorder — an inherited brain chemistry imbalance — because depression ran in his family and he had experienced low moods for as long as he could remember. I also suspected brain imbalances of contributing to his difficulties with focus, procrastination, and clutter. His low sex drive and history of dieting suggested hormonal imbalances might be at play as well.
Although Lenny came from a loving family, he was the fourth of five children with parents who had a lot on their plates. His early needs for attunement, comfort, and soothing might have unintentionally gone unmet at critical points in his childhood, leading to developmental skill deficits. And those unmet emotional needs could also be playing a role in his workaholic tendencies and the chronic emptiness and loneliness he experienced.
Lenny’s blood tests did, in fact, show a number of hormonal imbalances. His adrenal and thyroid glands were taxed, and his testosterone levels were very low, contributing to his low moods and lack of sex drive. His integrative health-care practitioner prescribed bioidentical hormones and a supplement regimen that included vitamins, minerals, glandular support, and essential fatty acids.
He and I worked on his depression and focus issues by adding specific amino acids and herbs to his supplement regimen. We also addressed his food allergies and food addiction by slowly adding whole, unprocessed plant foods he enjoyed, like sweet potatoes and sugar snap peas, to his eating plan. This made it easier for him to reduce his consumption of potential allergens, like wheat and dairy products. And he significantly reduced his intake of caffeine and alcohol.
A few months into our work together, Lenny was feeling much better. He was waking up rested and getting out of bed easily. He wasn’t feeling depressed, and his focus was better. He was finding it easier to clear his clutter. His libido was perking up, and he was feeling more energetic. He joined a gym near work and hired a personal trainer.
Once Lenny’s body and brain chemistry were in better balance, it was easier for us to determine to what extent his overeating was due to emotional imbalances. Even though he was losing weight and had stopped bingeing, he was still snacking mindlessly and overeating at meals.
LENNY: I’m eating something healthy for breakfast and lunch, so I’m fine there. I get into trouble if I’m under stress and there are unhealthy snack foods at work — I’ll grab them without thinking. But the most challenging times are when I’m out with clients for lunch or dinner, or when I get home after work and I’m all alone. It’s almost like there are two versions of me. One is paying attention and is excited about all the healthy habits I’m practicing and the prospect of losing more weight. The other doesn’t seem to care. That part of me rebels and uses food either for pleasure or to numb out. Or even to punish myself. I told you, I think there is this lazy part of me that sabotages my progress. [He looks somewhat dejected, as his shoulders drop and his body sinks into the chair.]
JULIE: I don’t think it’s about laziness, Lenny — you’re very motivated, driven, and disciplined in many areas of your life. You have quite a few internal resources that you are able to access and rely on: you’re hardworking, dedicated, determined, and ambitious. You’re very friendly and personable. You’re excited about learning and growing, and when you set your mind to something, nothing stops you. I’m wondering if there might be a very young part of you that feels invisible and is clamoring for attention and acting out with food.
LENNY: Somehow, that feels right on, but I don’t really know what that’s all about. [He sits up with his eyes wide open.]
Unintentional Neglect and Self-Abandonment
Lenny grew up in a small, idyllic New England town, the son of a successful orthopedic surgeon and a stay-at-home mom he described as “sweet, loving, artistic, and creative.” He couldn’t remember any problematic experiences in his early years: no one had abused him or his siblings, and there was no violence in the family. His parents weren’t alcoholics; no one raged or even raised their voice in his house. His parents were always engaged and involved in their children’s lives. I explained to Lenny that emotional imbalances are not always the result of something horrific or terrible happening in the past, but rather, in the words of the British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott, they may be caused by “nothing happening when something might profitably have happened.”
