I Suck, Therefore I Eat

One of the places I like to keep people company is that moment when they are about to overeat. I help them scroll out to a wider perspective, where they have choice and the power to make changes. In a recent session, my client and I talked about using metaprocessing (reflecting on changes to make them real) to take charge of the overeating habit.

Deb's "Me" Time

Deb (not her actual name) has been working with me for about a year. She started on a GLP-1 about six months ago. She was eating less overall, but some of the old eating behaviors were sticking around. Deb eats in front of the TV at night after dinner. She is not hungry. She considers this her special treat and "me" time.

We were going over what the cycle usually is with overeating: Self-criticism triggers the nervous system into a heightened state of alert. Then the eating patterns start in reaction to that state. They can be overeating, restricting, urgency to exercise, etc. This cycle is what is going on when there is emotional eating. Was that happening when she ate in front of the TV at night?

"It's Not Emotional Eating. It's Just Automatic."

One thing I love about Deb is that she stands up for her experience. She said, "It's not like that for me. It's not emotional eating. It's just automatic. A habit." When Deb said she was not triggered when she ate, something clicked into place. In my work with people who have eating issues over the decades, what I see is that the inner critic almost always plays a role. (This was also true when I had bulimia.) With Deb, it was still playing a role, but not in the way I thought. It wasn't through a fight-or-flight reaction that she ate when she wasn't hungry. There was no conflict. She was overeating because she was in agreement with her inner critic.

Deb, along with so many clients past and present, has a basic setting inside that she is not good enough. This comes from her inner critic, of course. With Deb, the critic says she is not good enough in many areas, but in particular, she is a failure when it comes to food and her body. The way she feels about herself, in a nutshell, is, "I suck." (When I had my eating issues, the word my inner critic used was "loser", and I fully believed it. What word do you use?)

I Suck, Therefore I Eat

If you believe you're a screwup, then overeating follows (if overeating is something you don't want to do). I suck, therefore I eat. That's why it would feel automatic. The behavior fits your sense of self (identity) so it doesn't even register as a conflict. Your identity and your overeating agree with each other.

This is where your identity affects your behavior. It's an important connection to make. We tend to focus on the behavior and we get mad at the part that eats. But the eater is usually acting in response to other parts of the psyche, particularly the inner critic. The inner critic creates a sense of self that underlies the habits. When you can see the influence of the critic on your identity (or sense of self), you can start to take charge of the habits.

The Shift Deb Almost Missed

Deb had more to say about the automatic part. "They're not strong cravings," she told me, "just kind of mellow cravings, and I just sort of follow them automatically." But something had shifted as well, and she named it herself: she was stopping sooner. "I'll just go, all right, I don't need any more. Whereas I might have just kept eating before."

That's exactly the moment I didn't want her to walk past. When you eat less and don't register it, your brain doesn't catch up to the change. This is where metaprocessing can help a person consolidate the gains made with GLP-1s. (Not weight gains. Changes in behavior and thought patterns.) I asked Deb to reflect on her actions deliberately, to actually notice out loud that something was different, so the changes could become part of her identity outside the disordered eating. That's the difference between "I happened to stop eating" and "I'm someone who eats a little, but not like I used to. It's easier now."

Two Competing Identities

This is the real work underneath all of it: when you start recovering, you can be carrying two competing identities around food at once. One says, I'm a screwup, I lack discipline, therefore I eat. The other is quieter and newer: I don't need that as much as I used to. To synthesize these two conflicting parts, ask yourself: Which one is still true, and to what degree? Is the old one really running the show, or is the new one just getting started?

An Art Activity for Sorting Old Beliefs From New Ones

There is also an art activity to help with that sorting. I shared it with Deb: Get a stack of index cards and just dump everything onto them, one belief per card: every scrap you're carrying about yourself and food, no editing as you go. (If you don't have index cards, you can write and draw directly on the page.) Some of it will sound like the old identity: "I'm self-indulgent. I'm addicted to carbs and sweets. I always want the sweetness." And some of it will be the newer, quieter voice that's just starting to get a word in. "I eat less than I used to. It's easier now." Just get it all down.

You can use shapes, colors, sizes, whatever helps a belief show how loud or old it actually is. Spread the cards out on a large sheet of paper and move them around, noticing which ones cluster together. Once an arrangement feels true, tape the cards down, so everything, the old beliefs and the new ones, is visible on the page at once. Come back to it over time and ask yourself, plainly, which of these are still true. Which ones have quietly stopped being true, even if you haven't said so out loud yet? You get to peel those off, or get rid of them entirely. The point isn't to land on a tidy answer in one sitting. It's to get the whole tangle, the old beliefs, the old habits, and the new ones trying to take root, out of your head and onto the page, where you can actually see the transformation happening instead of just hoping it is.

You May Be Recovering More Than You Realize

You may be recovering more than you realize.