Overcoming Overeating

Some Dangerous Ideas

Normal Eating used to use the term "legalizing" to describe Stage 1, but I discovered through a discussion in the Support Group that Normal Eating's use of the term "legalizing" was widely misunderstood, because the same term is used very differently in Overcoming Overeating. For this reason Stage 1 is now called "Reframing" rather than "Legalizing". The Normal Eating viewpoint and advice on this is different in some very important ways from that of Overcoming Overeating.

In Overcoming Overeating, "legalizing" means eating lots of "formerly forbidden" foods on the theory that this will remove the compulsive urges for them. I think the basic theory is wrong, since eating lots of something only removes feelings of deprivation, and this is usually only a small aspect of why someone eats compulsively. If you eat lots and lots of something, you may get so sick of it that you no longer want to eat that particular food, but you will just substitute some other food to eat compulsively. Your compulsive urges will still be there until you address the real motivations for the compulsive urges, which usually run a lot deeper than deprivation. The OO advice to eat lots of formerly forbidden foods without any attempt at mindfulness or self-control leads to very significant weight gain that is never lost.

Normal Eating's Stage 1, called "Reframing" now rather than "Legalizing", is about changing how you think about food - learning you have the right to eat whatever you want, and becoming able to do this without guilt. The work is in changing how you think; the act of eating a particular food is not required and is besides the point. I can know I'm free to eat potato chips without having to eat them. Conversely, I can eat potato chips every day for a year, and if I feel totally guilty and disgusting every time I do it, I've accomplished nothing.

Stage 1 is not something you eat your way through; it's something you think your way through. You can eat whatever you want, but eating particular foods is not part of the process per se. Normal Eating does not advise people to eat every food they've ever eaten compulsively (as Overcoming Overeating does) because Normal Eating's Stage 1 is not about removing compulsion. It's the emotional work in Stages 2 and 3 that removes the compulsion. If you try to get rid of compulsion by eating more of whatever food you crave, you will gain weight without limit.

Telling a compulsive eater that she can solve her food cravings by unlimited compulsive eating makes about as much sense as telling an alcoholic that he can overcome his craving for alcohol by unlimited drinking.

In Normal Eating, Stage 1 is short - three weeks is usually plenty. You just need to get to the point where you can keep the eating log (the main tool in Stage 2) without feeling totally guilty and triggered. You may still need to remind yourself that you can eat whatever you want, but it's very important to move onto the emotional work quickly.

Don't rush through the emotional work, though. Stages 2 and 3 take most people the better part of a year. Compulsive overeating is a complicated problem and very difficult to fix. If it were easy, we wouldn't be here - no one would have the problem!