How familiar are you with the “normalising” process in binge eating recovery?

It’s the practice of not only allowing yourself the foods you tend to restrict (and later binge on) but repeatedly having them in your home and incorporating them into your meals and snacks.

The normalising process is all about creating a feeling of safety and peace around these foods, and a deep knowing that if you truly want them, you can have them. When you trust this, binge urges (linked to food restrictions) no longer have a reason to exist and so naturally drop away.

Although I stopped binge eating about 3 years ago now (🙌), I’m still in the process of normalising some foods, or at least making sure that I really, truly feel no tension around certain types.

(You don’t tend to unravel years and years of disordered eating patterns overnight - though I do believe it can happen!)

And I’ve noticed some things shift for me over the last couple of months or so…

Firstly, pizza (which I held a lot of judgements around) used to be a big binge food for me. I’d try really hard to eat “healthily”, tirelessly making all my food from scratch, but a few days later, I’d find myself compulsively ordering Pizza Hut takeaway on my way home from work. It became a somewhat expensive habit!

Instant noodles were a similar one. Now I LOVE noodles but again they weren’t something I’d allow myself to have at home and enjoy when I wanted. And so they became another of my “go-to” savoury binge foods and I’d often end up down the noodle aisle in Tesco of an evening.

So to make sure that I feel completely at ease in my relationships with pizza and noodles (and don’t find myself slipping back into old habits), about a year ago I decided to have a pizza night and a noodle night every week!

And it worked incredibly well… I’d buy a frozen pizza in my weekly food shop to enjoy after work and before heading out to the roller disco as my “fun Friday treat”. And the noodles I’d have on an evening when I knew I’d be tired and grateful not to have to cook properly, although I’d almost always made a side of greens to go with them.

This continued most weeks until recently when I was writing my shopping list and noticed that I had no desire for noodles that week. There was no want, but also no “but I have to have it” tension. And so I simply planned something else to eat for that evening.

Then a couple of weeks ago I was eating my Friday night pizza and halfway through thought “nah, I’m done with this” and just stopped eating it. I noticed that I was going through the motions and was actually bored of pizza. Again there was no desire, but also no deeper, underlying pull.

I know right now that these two foods are truly “normalised” for me. They no longer have a hold over me because I know and trust that I can eat them whenever I want and that I will again eat them whenever I want (which I doubt will be before too long)!

I wanted to share this little story to show you that no matter how crazy you feel around certain foods and no matter how much you binge on them, you can gradually, with compassion and awareness find peace with them.

If you recognise that at least some of your binges are driven by diets and other food restrictions but have no idea where to start with normalising these foods, my mini-course Breaking the Cycle might be for you.

During the course, you’ll get clear on the ways you’ve been restricting foods, identify the foods that have the greatest hold over you and begin this normalising process in a way that is created to help you feel safe and supported throughout.

All the information about Breaking the Cycle is here, including options with 1-1 support if you feel you need that too. And if you have any questions about the mini-course, feel free to email me lucy@bingefreeandworthy.com