By the time most people enter eating disorder treatment, they are out of control with food. They can write volumes about nutrition, diets, how they should be eating and how they should not. They know the calories and carbohydrates in almost every food. The problem is they just cannot put that knowledge into practice. They are locked into an uncontrollable cycle with food where obsessive thoughts about weight, body image, diets, and food consume their lives.
A reputable eating disorder treatment program connects people back to an internal form of control, making it possible to eat when hungry, make healthy food choices, and stop eating when full. People learn to identify the thoughts, feelings, and situations that trigger using food or thinking excessively about food. At some point in the eating disorder program patients learn to substitute healthy methods of caring for themselves.
An eating disorder treatment program should be a structured individualized treatment program based on cognitive-behavioral therapy, experiential therapy, solution-focused theory, and educational awareness. It is complemented with guided imagery, hypnotherapy, family therapy, affirmations, and meditation techniques. Remember, this is not just about loosing weight is you are a compulsive overeater or binge eating. The key is keeping it off and being happy with you.
We may not know why we overeat. We may be eating when we are lonely, angry, sad, anxious or bored. We may be using food to cope with stress. But in time, food stops working and our unhealthy eating patterns or extra pounds don't offer comfort.
We are not using food for physical hunger. We may not even know if we are hungry or not. As soon as the thought of food comes to our minds, we are hard-wired to reach for it. It becomes automatic. In essence, eating becomes a habitual coping mechanism. Repeating this behavior over and over forms a predictable habit pattern. We gain weight, go on another diet, rebel and start the cycle over again.
All diets work temporarily. However, when we diet, we set ourselves up to overeat because we subconsciously rebel over restricting our food. Some proceed to develop eating disorders. Binge eating often starts as a direct result of dieting. Also, when we diet, what about the issues of body image, self esteem and in some cases, sexual / physical trauma, drug addiction or alcoholism, if they are not dealt with the likelihood of returning to compulsive eating is almost guaranteed.
Lastly, many people require structure when trying to manage eating compulsively. Diets provide absolutely no structure or care. An eating disorder treatment program provides the structure many people need to "break the cycle" of binging or binging and purging. The structure and comfort of an eating disorder treatment program makes recovery so much easier and fulfilling.
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