Books for Compulsive Eaters
Reprinted from Eating Disorders Recovery Today
Summer 2009 Volume 7, Number 3
©2009 Gürze Books
Disordered eating habits take many forms; at worst, they become eating disorders with debilitating physical and emotional consequences that require medical and psychological interventions. But not everyone has access to therapy for these problems, nor does everyone want it. That’s where books and workbooks can be amazing resources, catalysts for change, and recovery aides.
Two of these are Joanna Kortink’s Breaking the Spell of Binge-Eating and Eat, Drink, and Be Mindful by Susan Albers, Psy.d. Both can be used as an addenda to or independent of therapy.
These books are very similar in focus and intent: each is based upon cognitive behavioral and mindfulness therapy techniques. Each borrows familiar strategies, tweaks them, and makes them their own (Albers relies heavily on Prochaska’s explanation of the stages of “readiness for change”; Kortink derives a lot from the work of Peggy Claude-Pierre, Deepak Chopra, and Clarissa Pinkola Estes). But there they diverge. Of the two, Kortink’s book is more “readable,” in that it has fewer suggestions, activities, and directives than Albers’—which, in fairness, is a workbook.
That said, Kortink’s reader is less apt to be intimidated by the material at the outset. This matters because many people with compulsive overeating issues are easily overwhelmed and have difficulty making choices, attending to their immediate needs and wants, prioritizing how to accomplish things, and setting reasonable goals. Thus, when a self-help book initially presents too many challenges, a reader is apt to say, “I can’t,” “I won’t,” “I didn’t do it right,” and stops using it. People who enjoy an esoteric, philosophical tone will prefer Kortink; those who are pragmatic, focused, and task-oriented will prefer Albers.
Breaking the Spell of Binge-Eating A Road to Balance in Your Life |
Kortink, who is recovered from anorexia and bulimia, strives for “balance” to engender and sustain physical and emotional change. She compares the transformation from disordered eating to “living in full” as a “…labyrinth [that] consists of only one path that finds the way to itself, leads to the centre, and then makes its turns to the exit. Unlike a maze, there are no paths with a dead end. In a maze we direct our attention outward to find the way, while in a labyrinth it is the inner experience that is important.”
The tone of the book builds upon this conceit: you must look inward for answers. You have a “limited self” who suffers and a “true self” who can recognize and challenge your various “limited selves” or “partial personalities” (i.e. the perfectionist, the well-meaning one, the image-sensitive one, etc.) Anyone familiar with CBT will see that she is talking about cognitive distortions at work here; later, she explains the distortions and challenges the reader to confront and change the irrational thoughts that create the need to binge eat.
What is particularly good about Kortink is how simply she phrases difficult concepts and tough challenges: “Describe briefly a recent event where you had an unsatisfied and unwanted feeling. What were your expectations?” She follows this with prompts that take the reader through the process of cognitive change. Slow, simple, straightforward—you enter your own labyrinth, no need for performance anxiety. She is a proponent of meditation, visualization, physical exercise, realizing that many of her readers have a difficult time slowing down enough to find fulfillment (both literal and figurative) So, she offers tips for finding the “positive energy” needed for that fulfillment.
She also offers a very readable explanation of the binge cycle, stressing the need for patience, “A process of transformation goes together with falling and getting up again,” and her explanation of physical/biochemical hunger and how hunger-satiety cues are knocked out of whack by dieting and binge eating is excellent. So, too, are her simple questions regarding the symbolic meaning of one’s favorite food. Making peace with your body, forgiving yourself, emotional detoxing, living outside the labyrinth—this book will appeal to readers who are willing to let their right brains play with the concepts.
Eat, Drink, and Be Mindful How to end your struggle with mindless eating and start savoring food with intention and joy |
Albers wrote her workbook for readers, clients and colleagues who responded to her prior book, Eating Mindfully. She offers this new book as a journal “for anyone who is seriously committed to being in charge of his or her eating habits and relationship with food.” The key here is “commitment.” Without that, the workbook, which is an excellent resource with lots of information, suggestions, and self-assessments, could present a bit of stimulus overload and therefore be intimidating.
Albers asks, “What stands in the way of doing what you know is best for your body?” and teaches you to use the seven skills of a mindful eater in order to help you respond, so that “Eat, drink, and be mindful” will become your motto. She provides various self-assessments for both under- and over-eating and makes a clear distinction between process and outcome goals. Throughout the book, she offers a wealth of techniques for change, such as ways to let go of your “magic number,” handle the scale mindfully, and use the acronym TASTE (temperature, aroma, speed, texture, experience) to remember while practicing various food awareness techniques.
One chapter is devoted to self-observation, “The goal of mindful observation is to see your experience from a distance…to avoid getting caught up in the chatter in your head.” Again, there are many exercises here for determining when you are just the “right” degree of fullness, portion sizes, nutritional content, etc. There are also techniques to avoid becoming distracted while eating, as well as a challenge to contemplate “mindless food rules” that sabotage you.
In another chapter, Albers also offers a “mindfulness of emotions scale” to help you understand the range of your feelings, and provides pages of stress management checklists and stress-reducing techniques such as mindful belly breathing. She suggests ways to create a mindful eating environment, discusses trigger foods, a mindful table, mindful shopping, mindfully eating ‘green,’ mindful speech, etc. The chapter on non-judgment of self has much discussion of the “mindless inner critic,” which is familiar to people with eating problems. Particularly interesting is a chapter about acceptance, including “mindfully feeling fat”: “You watch the feeling come, you watch its intensity, and then you watch it grow fainter until it is gone.”
All in all, I think that anyone who buys Albers’ book needs to understand it could take a year or more to work it thoroughly, until the insights gleaned become habits of thought and the behavior changes become second nature. If you don’t have the time and energy, try Kortink’s book.
