One of the most challenging pieces of overeating is how it can seemingly arise out of nowhere. You may feel fine for much of the day, but then something gets activated, you feel frantic, and food becomes a free for all.

A woman in our support group has a beautiful name for this experience – she says her ‘prey drive’ kicks in and food becomes urgent.

I think we all know that feeling! These food experiences can feel alarming, confusing, and leave you looking for answers.

Trying to make sense of the pull for food

That search may have sent you here, trying to make sense of your overeating.

It may also have sent you to nutrition experts, trying to see if there’s some sort of physiological issue going on. For example, you may be wondering if you have an addictive response to ultra processed foods.

You may set limits on these foods, and this may really help. But then you may find that you’re bingeing on other foods. Or that you’re feeling obsessed about not eating ultra processed foods – that this has become it’s own, new fixation.

It may feel like there’s no rest: food may still feel like a landmine of worry and anxiety.

What the heck is going on? And what can help?

Where does the physiological piece fit in?

We’re complex beings, with a physical body, a mind, a whole ocean of emotions, and a spirit.

And we’re made of many interactive systems – for starters, we have a nervous system, digestive system, endocrine system, emotional system, and an attachment system. They all interact with each other.

The physiological piece is important. I don’t write about it much because it’s not my area of expertise. But there are many good people who are trying to understand this component of overeating – and this understanding matters.

If you’ve done any research in trying to make sense of the physiological component of overeating, you may feel relieved, like you have a solution. But you may feel more confused and worried when you receive conflicting advice.

You may be wondering: should I take certain supplements? Should I eliminate certain foods? Should I adopt a certain eating regimen?

Let’s say through trial and error that you discover that your body is very sensitive to ultra processed foods and has a hard time stopping once you start eating them.

So you decide that this is something you want to limit. And this is where the emotional and developmental piece enters the picture.

Where the emotional piece fits in

This is because knowing that foods are hard on our body, or knowing that we can’t stop eating a certain food once we start, or knowing that we need to set a limit isn’t enough to make changes. We have to feel this.

We have to go through the adaptive process, an experience in the emotional brain where we feel the futility of what we’re doing – that what we’re doing isn’t working. Feeling futility is what helps us let go of something that doesn’t work, and this is an emotional process.

It’s also a relational one, because letting go is vulnerable: we feel frustration, futility, sadness, grief, and loss when we let go of something that we’re attached to.

What holds us through this vulnerable process is relationship. Being ‘held’ – being loved, seen, understood, and invited, just as we are, with room for our emotional experience – is what gives us the safety to let go.

This is often a spiritual process, too. Overeating can bring up so much shame and self judgment. We can feel so separate from ourselves when we can’t meet our own expectations.

Being held by something greater than ourselves is what helps us bridge these places where we feel like we’ve fallen short.

The power of and

This is one example where all the pieces – physiological, emotional, relational and spiritual – come together to nurture healing. There are many others.

It’s easy for us to focus on one piece – the relational piece, physiological, or spiritual piece. And we often focus on the piece that’s the easiest for us to do, or the easiest for us to understand.

And when we’re really alarmed – when we feel overwhelmed by danger, fear, worry, panic or anxiety – we tend to fixate on ‘the thing’ that we think will fix whatever’s alarming us.

Of course – sometimes life is really alarming!

That’s why, if I can offer one suggestion for any food struggle – whether it’s bingeing, overeating, undereating, obsessing about eating perfection, or being highly critical or fixated on your body – I’d encourage you to seek out those things that lower your alarm.

Bring in support, and more support. We need safe spaces where we can drain our alarm, where we can cry about what alarms us, and where we can nurture our courage.

When our alarm is lowered, we can expand into the space of ‘and,’ where we weave all the pieces together:

• I may need to set a limit on a food and I need to care for the pain that drives me to eat.
• I may need to care for some nutritional gaps and I need support so I have places other than food meeting my emotional needs.
• I may need some emotional outlets to lower the alarm that feeds my overeating and I need to care for what’s alarming me.

“The arms we can never fall out of”

It’s and, and and, and and. We want to be gentle with ourselves and to take these ‘ands’ one step at a time. The very nature of all the ‘ands’ can overwhelm us! And this is where the ground floor of compassion arises to meet and hold us.

One of my teachers called compassion ‘the arms we can never fall out of.’

And these arms are what hold us no matter what we’re feeling, eating, thinking or experiencing – and no matter how panicked, obsessed, frantic or alarmed we may feel.

These arms understand every iota of our experience. And these arms can and do collect us, over and over again, when we make mistakes, when we can’t meet our own expectations, and when we feel overwhelmed by food and long for rest.

If you want to learn more about this topic, I invite you to join me for the Expert Diabetes Reversal Summit on Tuesday, June 4th. If you want support to manage your blood sugar, reverse diabetes, or to lower your sugar intake, this summit may be for you. During my talk, I’ll talk more about the emotional process of letting go of food. You can learn more and sign up here.