Bulimia Nervosa - It Can Be Beaten
We’re all familiar with the aftermath of a good holiday meal. You know the one - the kind where you’ve waited all day for that turkey or ham to come out of the oven, along with all the other goodies for side dishes. By the time you finally sit down, you stuff yourself silly, and then kick back to relax in semi-comatose state. You’re so full that you can’t move for the rest of the night.
If you suffer from Bulimia Nervosa, none of this happens when you overeat. And you overeat every day, sometimes several times a day. But there are no sighs of satisfaction, no feelings of being pleasantly full. There is only self-hatred for your inability to control your eating. You have to get rid of what’s making you despise yourself, so you purge your body of the food by causing yourself to vomit, you abuse laxatives and diuretics, and you exercise frantically to avoid more weight gain. This is the world of the bulimic.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, Version Four, Text Revised (DSM-IV-TR), the following behaviors are the diagnostic features of Bulimia Nervosa, paraphrased: Frequent binges of very large amounts of food; lack of control over food. “Secret” eating; never binging when others are present, hording food to eat alone. After binge eating, the person then proceeds to engage in compensatory behavior by inducing vomiting, chronic abuse of laxatives and diuretics, enemas, and excessive exercising. Binge foods include great quantities of sweets and other carbohydrates. Binges are rapid - food is consumed very quickly. Intense feelings of shame, guilt, and self-disgust about binges are a direct result.
Co-existing symptoms of depression and/or anxiety manifest themselves. Purging by vomiting provides relief from the physical discomfort of binge eating; vomiting is induced with fingers, an instrument such as a spoon, or ingesting Ipecac syrup. After an intense binge-purge episode, there may be total fasting for a day or two, combined with excessive, frantic exercise. The binge and purge cycle begins all over again.
There is a second type of bulimic who is nothing like the one who purges. These bulimics, called “non-purging” bulimics, will binge frequently, but instead of vomiting or using another type of behavior to purge their bodies of food, they will anxiously exercise, and then follow-up with days of fasting to get rid of calories gained during the binge. These people can be overweight and obsessed with losing weight, while others of normal weight have a deep-seated fear of gaining weight.
Beating Bulimia Nervosa isn’t a question of will power or good character. Bulimics don’t enjoy binge eating and purging. The only thing they hate worse than themselves is food. If they knew how to stop, they would. The key to eliminating bulimic behavior is to understand and believe that they do have the power to change.
You can find some excellent nutrition and dieting audio books to help you explore the healthier way to eat at the Audio Book Store.