Bulimia Help

Obstacles to overcome

What's normal eating?

Many people with bulimia have simply forgotten what a normal eating is. This includes understanding normal portion size, normal eating pace and feelings of hunger and satiety that normal eaters experience.

How do we fix it?

The key is to re-discover your body's natural ability to tell you when you are truly hungry and when you are satisfied. To get this great ability back, you have to start generating awareness and re-learning the art of normal eating.

Zone To Do List

• Read up on Body Intelligence
• Go through how to become Body Intelligent
• Read up on hunger and the importance of listening to your hunger.
• Start to practice generating awareness each time you eat.
• Learn about engaging all your senses every time you eat, including sight, taste, texture, smell and how food feels in your stomach.

Zone Goals

• To get back in touch with our hunger and satiety
• Once we recognize hunger and satiety we can then move on to the "Break free" zone - coming soon.

Before you start...

• Have you started to question your bulimic beliefs?
• Have you completed the Structured Eating Zone?

Ali says...

Learning about eating with awareness is like discovering a key to unlock the secret behind weight management!

I no longer count calories or fat grams. I now fully trust my body and know exactly what it wants and when. If I'm hungry I eat and when I'm satisfied I know when to stop. I never restrict any food because it's fattening or 'bad'. I done away with 'good' and 'bad' food years ago and eat whatever takes my fancy.

Using your intuition is so simple, trust me. Once you get the hang of it you will never again return to using binging and purging or dieting as a means to control your weight.

Simple guidelines to success

• Eat slowly, try eating at half your normal pace
• When you eat, make sure you are only eating by focusing on food and your body and nothing else. Make sure there are no other distractions
• Pay attention to hunger and satiety sensations. Imagine it like building muscle, the more attention you give it the stronger it will become
• Use all your senses when eating, including: taste, smell, touch, feel and sight
• Eat when you feel hungry
• Stop eating when you feel satisfied
• Remind yourself constantly that NO food will make you fat. As long as food is eaten in moderation - eating when you are hungry and stopping before you are uncomfortably full (see the hunger/satiety scale)
• Pause in the middle of a meal or snack and ask yourself, "Am I still hungry"? "Do I feel satisfied yet"? or "is satiety approaching"?
• Satisfying your hunger means that you are no longer hungry. You have eaten the right amount of food to fill your stomach and have taken away any feelings of hunger.