Hello there!
So here's the scoop.
Last I wrote, I was planning on going back to OHI (www.optimumhealth.org) in December for another 6-8 months to lose weight and stop binge eating again, by getting back on a 100% raw vegan diet, in the intensely structured environment of this most wonderful raw retreat.My father had offered to send me. Thank you, Dad!
I filled out the online application, sent the required essay (which unbeknownst to me needed to be under a certain number of words and had to be rewritten, ahem, SEVERAL times), sent the required photo, recommendation letters, etc..., only to hear nothing back from OHI after a week. I called and left a message.
After another week, I called again. And again.
On my third try, finally, someone answered in the missionary office. "Who is calling?," Darlene, the head of missionaries asked, perplexed, not recognizing my name. "I don't have your application. Are you sure you sent it?"
"Uh.......it took me almost an entire DAY to get that application together. Of course I am sure I sent it." I gave some attitude.
Well. They never got it.
Must have been a computer glitch.
By then, with the application snafu, I was already feeling like God was just not WANTING this 2nd long term trip to OHI to happen, when my father began complaining, in ernest, about pretty hefty money problems ($6,000 dental bill and a $3,000 repair bill from the car which would no longer drive in reverse).
"Honey, I think you'll have to find something LOCAL," he admitted.
Sensing how the tide was turning, I knew it was time for me to seek out more answers, on my own.
I mourned the loss of the dream of running away to OHI for a while, and then one day, soon afterwards, searching for a cure for my incessantly continual binge eating, I found this video on youtube on HOW TO STOP BINGE EATING.
HOW TO STOP BINGE EATING
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFuOEA0oKWY
The video is of a young teenager who was bulimic, and who is no longer bulimic, after following a book called "Brain Over Binge." True, she was only in the beginning honeymoon stage of recovery, but I had to admit, it sounded interesting.
Really curious, I ordered the book that had made such an impact on her, "Brain Over Binge," by Kathryn Hansen, from Amazon. (My local Barnes and Noble did not have it, nor could they order it, as it was a limited printing, I was told.) I bought the book easily on amazon.com, here:
BRAIN OVER BINGE BY KATHRYN HANSEN - AMAZON.COM
The book arrived about a week later.
The book....is beyond brilliant.
Way beyond.
I know...........this blog is NO stranger to the excited, "I found the cure!" posts.
But I did. I FOUND THE CURE!
And this is where you will find it. In this book:
And it is so simple, you will kick yourself.
Now, granted it is only DAY 8 of NO BINGE EATING AND NO DIETING following the book..., but I KNOW with such confidence now that as long as I continue to follow the simple steps (by the way, ridiculously simple) to end binge eating outlined in Hansen's book, (as I HAVE been over these last 8 days),
I will NEVER binge again.
I know for a certainty, that if this is what I want to happen, never to binge, ever again, (and I do, never want to binge again), then I KNOW I will never binge again.
How many of you could say that....with certainty?
Now, if I WANT to binge again, I will.
But if I don't want to, how do I know this with such certainty?
I'll be explaining in the coming days. You just gotta hold on, there is so much to tell!
What is also interesting to note, is that over these last 8 days, I have positively increased in my desire to get back to eating more raw food, rather than the opposite, which you might think would happen, giving up dieting.
Funny. Now that I can finally HAVE EVERYTHING I WANT (to eat), instead of wanting it all, I am left asking, "Yes, but now, what do you really CHOOSE?"
I think this time away from binge eating has served to heighten my awareness of just how BAD I feel. And I just felt so good on raw, and want to feel good again, despite the fact that raw food eating does NOT STOP binge eating, as I proved during my frequent raw food binges over the 3.5 years I was raw.
Now, I am coming to it from a place of CHOICE rather than NEED.
And I don't think I will do 100% raw. And I really have no fear about it. Because I now know that stopping binge eating has NOTHING to do with food choices.
It has everything to do with the brain.
Much much more coming on that.
In conclusion, I just want to THANK GOD for leading me to this miraculous book.
(If it is right for me, God will clear a path back to OHI. But I have an inkling that God knows that I can do this now, by myself. How empowering.) (And now that binge eating is out of the way, I can really do whatever I want to with my diet. So freeing!)
I am SO grateful to Kathryn Hansen for her amazing insight, for documenting her experience, and for sharing what she learned so effectively, so that other suffering binge eaters, could learn they TOO could STOP binge eating!
I look forward to sharing with you more about my experience, and more about this simple technique described in this incredibly well-written, intensely logical, amazingly practical, and most persuasive book, "Brain Over Binge."
If you are a binge eater, and you want to stop, I urge you to get the book. You will NOT regret it.
In the meantime, you can look over Kathryn's website, www.brainoverbinge.com
KATHRYN HANSENAUTHOR OF "BRAIN OVER BINGE"
I thank you for your support, look forward to better days again, and as always, ask God to bless you!
xoxo michelle joy
