How To Stop Self-Sabotage

by Ana | April 19, 2023 | Healthy Eating, Psychology, Stress Management | Comments are off for this post.

If you are an emotional or binge eater you know that there have been times when you didn’t binge for a few days or weeks but then suddenly something happened and you gave in to your cravings and the binges started all over again.

Here are some steps to take into account when it comes to self-sabotage.

1. Awareness

You need to be aware of the sabotaging behaviour first. You can’t go passively through it, you need to acknowledge it. By being aware of it, you are using your brain to participate and understand what just happened.

Your task is to first acknowledge your self-sabotaging behaviour.

2. Identify your triggers

Write down all your potential triggers when you are more likely to binge. When you identify your triggers you can be better prepared either by avoiding these triggers in the future or by being aware what you can spiral at any moment. What are your triggers? TV in the evening and an innocent snack that turns into a binge? Friday drinks and dinner with friends that turn into a weekend feast…?

3. Alternative path

If you know what triggers you, make an alternative path what can you do instead.

When you are stressed, overwhelmed and all you want to do it eat your feelings, you can breathe for a moment and ask yourself:” What is actually going on? If I am not hungry, will food solve my problems or will I just eat so much that I can’t breathe, feel awfully full and still stressed out?”. Write down all the possible ways you can do things differently in the moment when the urge comes. Your urge won’t last more than 5-10 minutes, you can for sure control your cravings that long can you?

4. Be gentle with yourself

This is a learning curve and there will be setbacks. Never feel guilty for something that you ate. Why? Because guilt means you did something bad and therefore you need to be punished to rectify the mistake. Most people will overexercise or restrict their food intake but that eventually will lead to overeating so there is no point really. It’s important to maintain self-compassion. Tomorrow is a new day and you can always take notes from the past behaviour.