Hi Jane,

> I have come to the conclusion that I am compulsively
eating long ago, but have yet figured out how to get
myself out of it.  When I first started the paleodiet
2 years ago, I had no trouble sticking to it after the
first few weeks.  I am fairly okay with my actual
weight, telling myself that when I finish grad school,
I can concentrate more on what/how/when I eat as part
of the problem is my classes are from 4 to 8 in the
evening, too early to eat dinner before and eating
after just starts off a binge.  I would be interested
to know what kind of things you are doing to work on
your compulsive eating.

I hvae a whole library of books on this topic.  It's something I have 
struggled with lifelong.  The good news is that I HAVE found a solution that 
works.  I just have a tendency to forget and slip back.  I've had long 
periods--years--where I was not eating compulsively and dropped down to my 
natural weight without any effort.  The key, ironically, it to NOT DIET.  
Dieting for weight loss--food restriction--is what causes compulsive eating.

For this reason, I cannot approach paleo eating as a diet that I have to 
"stick to".  I treat it as general guidelines for health.  If I don't do 
this, then I binge on the foods I "can't have".  Food restriction and the 
feelings of deprivation it brings leads to food cravings and compulsive 
eating.   It has to do with your mind set.  If I view paleo eating as what I 
choose to do for this meal because it makes me feel good, I'm fine.  If I 
tell myself I can never eat another piece of chocolate, I will eat a pound of 
it.

There are two main issues in compulsive eating: (1) reaction against food 
restriction, and (2) ambivalence about being thin.  #1 is a HEALTHY reaction! 
 We berate ourselves for not being able to stick to a diet, but this is 
actually healthy rebellion.  #2 is a woman's issue--the role of women and 
women's bodies in this culture sets us up for this ambivalence.

Both of these are very big topics.  Instead of trying to explain it all here, 
I'll send an annotated reading list:

"Fat Is A Feminist Issue" by Susie Orbach
This was the original book on this topic--written in the late 1970's.  It 
focusses on how being fat is actually functional and protective in some ways 
for women in this culture.  It explores ambivalence about being thin, and how 
to be truly independent of society's pressures by learning healthy 
self-assertion.

"Overcoming Overeating" by Jane Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter
Carol Munter started a women's group for compulsive eaters in 1970.  Susie 
Orbach went to it, and it changed her life.  Susie wrote the book first, but 
the original ideas came from Carol Munter.  This book focusses more on how to 
feed yourself in response to physical hunger, and what to do with food 
cravings when they come up (answer: give into them with FULL PERMISSION and 
NO GUILT).  It's all about learning to be kind to yourself and nurture 
yourself.

"When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies" by Jane Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter
This book was written about 10 years after the original "Overcoming 
Overeating", and focusses more on how women's dislike of their bodies (which 
they call "bad body fever") leads to a cycle of dieting and compulsive 
eating.  A woman has bad body fever so she diets, and dieting leads to 
compulsive eating.  (This connection between dieting and compulsive eating is 
very well documented--you can find many references.)  This book focusses more 
on learning to accept and live with your body--getting rid of the bad body 
fever--though the second half focusses on learning to feed yourself.  I'm 
still reading this one--it's the only one in this list I haven't yet finished.

Geneen Roth's first three books:
"Feeding the Hungry Heart: The Experience of Compulsive Eating"
"Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating"
"When Food Is Love: Exploring the Relationship Between Eating and Intimacy"
Geneen read Susie Orbach's book when it first came out in the late 1970's, 
and took her advice to stop dieting forever.  First she gained some weight 
(this is typical since we first have to react to our previous restrictions), 
then she stopped eating compulsively and made helping other women with this 
problem her life's work.  Her books are especially powerful because they are 
so personal.  It is stunning what she is willing to share with the world at 
large.  I identified very powerfully with these books.  I recommended them to 
a friend who said she cried through them all.  Geneen has other books, but 
these are the best.  She gives workshops all over the country.  Her Web site 
is www.geneenroth.com.  I went to one of her workshops and enjoyed it.  I 
lost 20 pounds after reading her books.

"Diets Don't Work" by Bob Schwartz, Ph.D.
This book is by a man who found out accidentally that diets cause weight 
GAIN, and wrote a book about it that's funny and serious at the same time.  
He talks a lot about the mind set of people who are naturally slim--learn to 
think like a naturally thin person.  As I said before, compulsive eating has 
a great deal to do with one's mind set.  He also talks about some of the 
reasons that people unconsciously choose to be fat, and provides exercises 
for exploring this.

"The Seven Secrets of Slim People" by Vikki Hansen and Shawn Goodman
This book is also about "normal" eating--learning to eat in response to 
physical hunger.  It's good because it's so "to the point".  If you need a 
quick refresher on the basic principles, it's a good, quick read.

All these books have one thing in common.  They say to never EVER diet again, 
and to promise yourself that you never ever will diet again, AND MEAN IT!!!!  
From that starting point, you can learn how to differentiate between 
emotional hunger and physical hunger, learn to deal with the emotional hunger 
in other ways, and become reacquainted with your body's physical signals so 
you can tap into body wisdom about what, when, and how much you should be 
eating.  With diets, you eat based on external cues--what Munter calls 
"escape from freedom".  We need to learn to eat from internal cues.

I have a degree in counseling, and I ran workshops based on these principles 
years ago when I was doing my practicum at the NYU Counseling Center.  I 
ended up going into a different field, but I'm thinking about getting 
licensed as a therapist in the state where I'm currently living and offering 
these groups again.  I have used these principles off and on for 20 years and 
I know they work, but then I "forget" and get off track again.  My compulsive 
eating is much better now.  At one point I'd say 90-100% of my eating was 
compulsive--eating when I wasn't hungry.  At this point, it's reversed--I 
almost always eating out of physical hunger.

Note that I could not do this if I was restricting food!!!!  Most days I am 
completely paleo, but today I bought some handmade chocolate at the food 
coop.  The first time I let myself buy as much chocolate as I wanted, I ate 
so much I gave myself a belly ache.  Now I can choose to have 1-2 pieces and 
that's all I want.  Or sometimes I don't want any at all.  But if I feel I 
CAN'T choose to have chocolate if I want, then I crave it and can't choose to 
have just a little--I will then eat it compulsively.  It's all in how you 
look at it.

Hope this helps--these ideas are hard to describe.

     - Sheryl