Builmia Breakthrough the 90 day challenge

CHASING HUNGER - 90 day bulimia breakthrough challenge, by author Kathy Welter-Nichols,

Introduction:

The technology of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides an opportunity to consider that behind every behavior there is a positive intention. While bulimia might seem strange or even abhorrent to some, on some level bulimia has not just been keeping you busy and filling your empty time, I believe it has been doing something far more profound for you. I believe it has actually been saving your life.

Excessively restricting food as a weight loss method with no clear “exit strategy” for this diet continuing to restrict until one day during the starvation induced frenzy, you lost control and consumed what seemed the whole of the kitchen’s contents. In panic mode and severe pain you ran for the bathroom empting the contents of your stomach into the toilette. Relieving the abdominal pain through vomiting it occurred to you, “this works I can have my cake and get rid of it too”. So began your relationship with bulimia. In the midst of this something else showed up at the same time.

If done just right, the excessive restricting also gave you a chemically induced “high”. You may not have known it was a result of the excessive insulin spike and brain chemistry released during the binge. The body’s’ own internal pharmacy began releasing chemicals that flooded the cells and resulted in free floating similar to any drug induced state. This created the addictive component of bulimia and makes it almost impossible to stop.

Bulimia was the exit strategy for the diet gone wrong, “I can eat my cake, and get rid of it too”, however, it brought with many more problems than solutions and very soon it was no longer about weight loss.

Now it seems like it’s impossible to leave bulimia behind, it seems so overwhelming and you just end up back at the toilette. It’s a behavior you no longer control, it’s damaging to your body and your life.

Bulimia showed up interrupting the starvation pattern and you relaxed and started eating again. Like any addiction will over time, it demands and commands behaviors, and you no longer have a say in what you do. You can hardly think straight anymore, and bulimia is there to rescue you from that too.

You may not believe that any treatment can restore you to sanity around food or get rid of the cravings for sugar, carbohydrates and binging. You may not even want to believe it’s possible.

You might find my challenge that you can help yourself recover from this debilitating world you currently live in, a wild claim.

“I realized one day, this was just a waste of time. My life was totally centered on this behavior and it was not offering me anything anymore. In fact I was sick of being sick. I wanted to go back to school, to get my nursing degree, and I just didn’t have time for bulimia anymore. It takes up your whole life. At first I realized this was really a teenage disorder, it wasn’t “in” to still be doing bulimia every day, and be in my mid-twenties. I felt ridiculous continuing this into my thirties. I had to carve out a lot of time for this and it just made no sense to me anymore. Gradually I found I just didn’t have as much time for it, and I found eating daily and regularly was not a problem for me anymore. In fact, I’d been eating regularly for many years, I just continued with bulimia out of habit. So one day I was going to do it, and I just stopped and that was it. I decided enough was enough and I was done with this. It just didn’t make any sense to me anymore; bulimia just made no sense at all”.

This woman changed her beliefs and feelings around using bulimia and it changed in her forever. She couldn’t see going back to something that just made no sense at all.
One of the best things about NLP is the idea of “modeling behavior” to create similar outcomes. For example you didn’t know how to do this until you observed the behavior. Dr. Richard Bandler, one of the co-founders of NLP, has suggested that if one human can do something and do it very well, then we can replicate their behavior. If we follow the steps creating the exact same process, or as close as we can we should be able to achieve similar outcomes ourselves.

Isn’t that how you learned how to do bulimia in the first place? Observing someone else, and then trying it out. This behavior dates back to the Roman times with their ‘vomitorium’ and even further back to Egyptian times.
Often a bigger question a client would ask: How will I manage my life, my ups and downs, my feelings and emotions, without bulimia? Using an addictive behavior like bulimia to numb our feelings and manage our life experiences and anxiety, we essentially delayed maturing.

Arguments, anger, sleepless nights, failed exams, or lost relationships; anything and everything is handled by bulimia. Instead you avoid the risk of challenging yourself in critical moments, and never develop the internal resources to know you are safe and can protect yourself. Bulimia took care of it all for you. As we grow up, experience teaches us that it’s ok to say no. It’s ok to take care of yourself first; in fact it’s your job to eventually become your own primary caregiver.

It’s ok to respect and honor your feelings, your body and your life. Following these nine challenges, while stopping bulimia for just 90 days, you can reframe experience in a new way, and then you can decide: do I want that old life back, or is this new one worth fighting for? Over the 90 days you will encounter some emotional stress and will have to work through your issues, while refraining from bulimic behaviors.

Restricting, planning, binging and purging are the behaviors that drive bulimia. Yes, you have to eat again, and I know that sounds frightening to someone that is so out of control around food, almost laughable, because you do eat every day and huge amounts of food. But wait, there is a way to do this and it’s all here for you to follow.

You already have “good days” and bulimia days.

The strategies you are using for bulimia are powerfully successful for you. They are well developed and compel you to this behavior even though it takes a lot of effort and planning; often using behavior that isn’t in alignment with your beliefs at all. Like lying or stealing or manipulating others. This strategy gives you a “high” from using food in this way too, and it distracts you from your life and life challenges you avoid. Bulimia takes care of it all.

Bulimia has also been controlling your personal relationships, altering your personal values and morals, using your money, your time, your friend’s lives, your family and trust in yourself too.

I appreciate you might be a little skeptical of another program that offers a “breakthrough”; however, this is a challenge and I know you like challenges possibly even more than you like bulimia! Imagine, there are others out there, recovering from bulimia themselves, and they don’t gain weight either.

Are you ready to do this? Yes, right now, ready to stop using bulimia now for the next 90 days. Sounds like a challenge to me.

How to use this book: The 90 day Challenge:

First, read the book completely and keep notes if you like. Each Challenge has its own set of exercises for you to work through. I suggest you do them all in sequence, as they are designed to build on each other.

Download the MP3’s from my web site. They are easy to access and simple to use.
www.waysofthewisewoman.com and www.chasinghunger.com

The information given here is designed to help you make informed decisions about your body and health; the suggestions for specific foods, nutritional supplements, and exercise in the program are not intended to replace appropriate or necessary medical care. Before starting any new program always see your physician. If you have specific medical symptoms consult your physician immediately. If any recommendations given in this program contradict your physicians’ advice, be sure to consult him or her before proceeding.