girl to girl - What to know about binging and how to STOP!

    Fellow teen girls, nutrition is SO much more about mental health than we tend to believe! We often think nutrition is just about eating what you're supposed to eat and that is it, so why is it so hard again? Ever correlate the fact that you're more likely to eat unhealthy on a bad day than on a good day? To eat well you must keep psychologically well which can be hard.

    This is no longer a phenomenon, many studies show this and it makes sense! Take me as an example, when my mental health had deteriorated I had gained 10 pounds. I would try to eat healthy but then truthfully think ‘I hate myself why do I deserve healthy food’. I somehow also thought that eating all the junk food would take away the pain. It was never, ‘I could really go for another chipwich about now’. I was mentally sick and making myself physically sick as well.

    Sometimes the most important thing to do is take a step back. Take care of yourself, stop yourself from these bad habits, know it is hard. It is so important to take time to just think; you could take a nice long shower, walk, go on a run, or literally whatever sounds appealing to you! And know that you can eat dessert, you can eat chips, they are all ok in moderation. Hopefully like me you will find that after a cookie, you wait a minute, you might actually not want another one.

    When you focus on other things, nutrition will fall into place. It is usually just as simple as eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, a few snacks, and maybe a dessert in there. Often, trying to restrict is not actually about your physical health, it is about control. You want to have control over something, something society has normalized. Diets promoting a quick fix and eating disorders are romanticized. It was never about what we ate, it was about trying to control aspects of our lives. For both binging and starving yourself, it is done to hopefully satisfy a desire for an instant fix in your life. Unfortunately I do have to warn you, it will NOT fix everything in your life and is really a smaller fraction of life. Being in a different body isn't everything, we just like to believe it is. 

    So now you're probably thinking ‘yeah yeah but what do I do with this information?’ Here’s your answer, don’t do that much. Taking time for yourself is my best advice for you. Have a little spa night, go play your favorite sport, read a book you're interested in. Eventually it will get better and know it is not nearly as much about your eating habits as how you view yourself. Do take note that if you're in a really bad physical and or mental state, it wouldn't hurt to talk to somebody. It seems intimidating but if you think you need it, you need it and it could be helpful, it is not embarrassing to ask for help!