You're alone in the house. And you know he's coming. You know he'll show up. A monster. It makes you do strange things. Makes you do things that make you feel terrible. You feel remorse. Things that make you sick to your stomach and make you want to throw up. But you can't help but keep doing it anyway.

At first, he acted like a friend. "You'll feel better," he said. And you believed him. You went to the store together and bought all this stuff. And then you hurried home. You'd like to run. You're so excited to get home and use up all your stuff.

You want to stop. But he won't let you. "You're not gonna leave it here," he says. "You can't." So you listen to him and you keep going until it all goes away. And then you get sick.

You are beginning to see his true form more and more clearly. You notice that he has huge forks for hands and wonder how it's possible you didn't see that before. Suddenly, you finally get a better look at him. He's a slimeball. He's a man of substance. There's barely a hair left on his head. He's wearing a tank top that's perpetually greasy from eating. Huge claws that impale everything they can. And his wicked smile. That smile. That's the worst. 

You can finally see it clearly in all its glory. And you don't want to live with him anymore. But it's hard, he keeps coming back. You have no idea how to get rid of it.

It's not a horror story. Although it may be horror to us. The monster's name is (Seizure) Overeating. "Seizure" is in parentheses because it doesn't have to be just that. The term binge eating refers to an eating disorder. I lived with it myself for several years and felt similar to what I described above.

One has an uncontrollable urge to buy a lot of food. Salty food, sweet food, all food. And then he's incredibly excited to hide somewhere and eat his food. Because these escapades are always fundamentally self-initiated. He won't admit it to anyone. It's not gourmet eating, it's devouring. It's as if it were life. Often the person in question doesn't even have a taste for food, but feels an overwhelming need to eat it all. And it's really a huge amount. Naturally, after such an act, no one can feel good either physically or mentally.

But it doesn't have to be just an eating disorder (ED). This is the most advanced stage. Binge eating and emotional eating in some form has certainly been and is experienced by a great many of us. It may not be as regular as PPP. Maybe not as extreme. But it still bothers you and you don't know what to do about it. Maybe you're trying to lose weight, but as soon as something upsets you, you have an extra helping of cake. That's what we're talking about here, too.

Na internetu neustále přibývají návody na to, jak se stravovat, jak zhubnout, co jsou dobré a zlé potraviny. Jaká je nejnovější dieta a čeho se držet, aby se vaše postava konečně změnila do té vysněné podoby, kterou nosíte v hlavě. Některé návody nejsou zlé, dokonce mohou být velmi užitečné. Ale já mám pocit, že celý fitness průmysl toto bere za špatný konec. Klíčem totiž není přesně vědět, jak se stravovat. 

Emoční jedení totiž netkví v jídle samotném. Skrývá se za ním mnohem hlubší příčina. A ani to, když budeme expert na výživu, nám nepomůže (věřte mi, přesně to jsem doslova zkoušela).

Nakonec jsem však našla řešení. Začala jsem se věnovat myšlenkovým vzorcům. Zjistila jsem, co je třeba k tomu, abychom monstrum porazili. Je třeba pracovat s myslí. Přestat být jejím otrokem a stát se jejím pánem. 

Sama jsem si emoční jedení prožila (vlastně jsem si to prožila v té nejhorší formě záchvatovitého přejídání) a ráda bych s tím teď pomohla právě Tobě! Napsala jsem tedy na toto téma knihu, kterou si můžeš zakoupit v elektronické podobě.

I've already said goodbye to my monster. And so, after many years together, I decided to introduce him to the world. So now I'm writing an article called "Compulsive Overeating and Me".

It is generally not easy to write about these things. But I am really trying my best to help you, so you need to know about my own experiences as well. Because this "friend" has been with me for maybe TEN YEARS. Which is really not OK and it hasn't done my health much good.

It was indeed as I wrote above. The compulsive need to consume food. For we often fill the lack with food. Unfortunately, not just food deprivation, but emotional deprivation. We try to stuff that huge hole and feel like food will help. Unfortunately, because of this, we then just spin in a vicious circle that we can't see a way out of. It's not just a matter of will. Often the need is really VERY urgent. It must be satisfied immediately.

To date, I have not found any relevant material anywhere concerning this phenomenon. The word "relevant" is important, because there is plenty of material as such. But most of them give advice along the lines of "stress less". Haha, thanks, Sherlock, that's exactly what I needed to know. It's more or less true, but did it help me? No, it didn't. Another one offers a "trick to get rid of emotional eating instantly". There is no trick, of course.

It has to be taken one step at a time. Replace key thought patterns. Get rid of emotional blocks. Build key habits. Find stability. Build a healthy relationship with food. Lots of work.

For the vast majority of my ten years "with a friend" I didn't realize what was going on. I just wanted to eat. It was fine. I also spent a lot of years with "buddies" named Antidepressants. It went hand in hand. I was a kid and I couldn't fight it. I couldn't walk that crazy long road alone and get rid of it. A lot of people, unfortunately, can't even do that in adulthood.

Každou noc mi bylo špatně. I tehdy, kdy se žádná „eskapáda“ nekonala. Můj organismus samozřejmě trpěl. Neměla jsem ani příliš energie, jelikož jsem sice prijímala spoustu kalorií, ale velmi málo hodnotných živin. A antidepresiva mě také unavila, otupila.

(Poznámka: Antidepresiva jsou v mnoha případech přesně tou správnou volbou! Rozhodně není mým záměrem od nich kohokoliv odrazovat. Často jsou to opravdoví zachránci! S lékařem samozřejmě vyberete taková, která vám vyhovují. To, co píšu zde, je pouze má vlastní zkušenost. Já konkrétně jsem totiž nepotřebovala antidepresiva, ale jiné řešení.)

Getting up was a real horror. Of course, my hormones were out of whack, too. Very simply put, the hormone that helps you get up is cortisol. Or the "stress hormone". Its levels should be highest in the morning, it wakes you up. But of course, I had it the other way around. Plus, not only did I get sick at night, I got sick in the morning. I forced myself into breakfast, ate it with great reluctance. But back then it was still believed that breakfast was the basis of the day and that you couldn't exist without it. And so I just had to eat it.

Asi v polovině mého „sedánku s kámošem“ jsem se vydala na určitou…fitness cestu. Vždycky jsem byla aktivní člověk, ale tehdy jsem se tomu začala opravdu věnovat. Chodit do posilovny, počítat každou kalorii… Kdybych o tom psala článek, mohl by se klidně jmenovat například „Jak jsem si ničila zdraví vol. 2“. Co je pro nás teď ale důležité, tak to, že občas jsem opravdu dokázala svůj příjem krotit, když jsem si vážila každé sousto, co jsem snědla. Kdybychom spolu teď mluvili, zeptala bych se vás „myslíte, že to bylo dlouhodobé?“. Určitě byste odpověděli „ne“. A měli byste naprostou pravdu.

My character changed a lot during this period. From the outside, it seemed to be for the better. I lost weight rapidly. And I had a great ass. What more do you want? Maybe just to be healthy. And I really wasn't. There were some unscheduled cheat days in between watching my intake. On those days, there was usually some sort of problem. More stress than usual. But since my intake on those days was lower than it should have been, it didn't thwart my weight loss efforts. It worked for a while. As long as I lived in some kind of... bubble of my own.

But one day the bubble burst. And life brought more problems. Stress. And my "friend", who I was seeing a little less of, moved back in with me. I think that was the beginning of one of the worst periods of my life so far. And my "friend" had a lot to do with it. I felt like staying in bed forever. With my food. Never to come out. Not to talk to anyone, not to go anywhere. Among other things, of course, I had a problem with the way I looked. I didn't want to show my face in public. But I've always been a fairly strong person, and despite all that, I've actually lived a seemingly "normal" life. But normal it certainly wasn't. I felt best at home in bed surrounded by food. The worst I felt was about thirty minutes after that. At home in bed surrounded by food wrappers. When I felt like throwing up and crying at the same time.

How does it feel to eat a huge amount of food at once? Unpleasant. More or less, you don't even like the food you're eating. But you simply HAVE to eat it. Not even a bite. Normally, that much would last me maybe two days. So you can probably imagine how that might make you feel. He's sick. Really sick. Mentally, but mostly physically at the moment. He's stuffed. And the only "activity" that can be considered at that moment is lying down.

That's when it all went a bit extreme. I've always been a positive and confident person. She got through it all, and it was fine. But then? Not then. Eating disorder, depression, zero selfesteem, and of course, health problems as a result of it all. I'm going to add an even more depressing touch to the article now, because I'll mention that I thought at the time that it would have been much better if I hadn't been there at all.

And now you may be wondering why I didn't seek professional help. But if you go back a few paragraphs, you'll notice I mentioned antidepressants. I sought professional help. Years before this fiasco. A psychiatrist and a psychologist. Several, even. I don't know if I just had bad luck with doctors, but working with them was completely misguided, irrelevant, and did absolutely nothing to address the situation.

However, yes, there is a happy ending coming. I've learned to judge my life with distance. Objectively determine what's going on and what to do about it. Eliminate the depression, the anxiety and the damn eating disorder. I learned to be a very happy person every single day, really, without exaggeration. But it's been a long road.

Postupně jsem došla k velké mentální transformaci. A dnes jsem úplně jiná. Stabilní. Uvědomuji si, že mého “jádra” se ve skutečnosti nedotýká nic, co mysl řeší. Netrpím žádnými emočními hlady. Jsem kompletní. Samozřejmě jsou momenty, kdy začnu být nějakým způsobem uvnitř sebe reaktivní. Kdy se mnou cloumají emoce. Kdy jsem třeba i nešťastná. Ale pod tím je vždy uvědomění, že je to v pořádku. Že je to iluze. A že se nic neděje. 

Life is even more beautiful because of our senses, our thoughts and emotions. If we realize that nothing can threaten us and we are fully stable, we learn to enjoy the "ups and downs" of our mind.

Believe it or not, you'll actually start to enjoy making you unhappy at times. Because you'll know it's no big deal. And then you'll enjoy the high. You'll know you're alive. You'll want to openly love, laugh, scream, swear and cry. You'll want to make different relationships with other people. And you won't be upset if they don't work out the way you want.

You will be able to give your "all" because you will know that your supply is infinite. That you don't have a limited amount of love or anything else. And the more of it that flows through you, the more enjoyable it is for you. You won't be afraid to hold your heart in the palm of your hand. You won't be afraid to stand up to others. You won't be afraid of being hurt. You will not be offended and you will not be touched. You will not be deprived or starved. You will not be afraid. Because you will know that everything is all right. 

But I would like to add that binge eating is a similar bugger to anorexia. It's just less talked about because it's less visible. When a person's "unnatural decline" is suspicious. When a person is getting fatter, they're just a sloth/ glutton. And these people don't talk about it themselves, they are ashamed. But if any of you readers are suffering from this disorder, know that you are really not alone in this and that there is no need to throw in the towel. Everything is manageable!

But the important thing is to take things one step at a time. And take care of your health first and foremost. Mental and physical. And then you start to deal with appearance or whatever. It won't work the other way around.

Pokud máš pocit, že nevíš, co s tím, tak zkrátka mrkni na to, co jsem vytvořila pro Tebe.