Could Exposure Therapy Help You?
Exposure therapy is a form of behavioral therapy that tries to assist people with anxiety or fears about a particular situation by putting them in controlled instances of that situation. This is commonly part of treatment for varying types of disorders relative to anxiety, phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It’s also a frequent component of treatment for PTSD. This is something I practiced while healing from over a decade of having an eating disorder myself, particularly bulimia nervosa.
Last week, I had a client come into my coaching practice last week. We were almost done with our session and at the end I asked her if she had any other questions before we closed up our session. She resumed to ask my thoughts on how she could avoid the nighttime Reese’s Peanut Butter cups she’d always end up eating, despite having the best intentions every day to avoid them.
I took a deep breath and remembered a time I was once there. Feeling guilty of anything not on my food guide or plan, and definitely being tired and eating my tiredness and stress away.
She then went to say… “Every day I tell myself not to get them, but on the way home from work, I’m so drained and tired, I end up stopping at the gas station and getting peanut butter cups, eating them and feeling so bad about it. I can’t seem to stop this bad habit!” I told her...
What if instead of avoiding them and trying to anxiously escape your way through, you just gave yourself permission to eat one every single day?
Not only that, but I went on to explain… In this way, having a daily peanut butter cup becomes strategic strategy, instead of the “bad thing” you did. A strategy to help yourself heal your relationship with food. Especially the “bad or forbidden” foods.
For some chronic dieters, this can sound terrifying or counterintuitive. I could hear her despair when I said that, she gasped so loud I had to ask her if she was okay. Her breath was labored, and her eyes were bulging because we’re so used to having certain foods on a do-not-eat list, she couldn’t believe someone who daily gives healthy nutrition advice would recommend peanut butter cups!
But here’s the thing…
I don’t know about you... but when I’m constantly trying to avoid, avoid, avoid, it perpetuates the all-or-nothing way of doing things, makes me want it more and more, where I can't stop thinking about it, which then continues to label all of your food as “bad”, implementing their value and making it a bigger deal than it actually is from a caloric or even health impact standpoint.
When I plan or strategically allow myself nutritional or once "off limits or bad" food passes, it helps me feel less guilty and dissipates the banned from eating a peanut butter cup, which then deflates the scary food pedestal I’ve put it on, and just makes it less of a huge deal.
In my coaching practice, I call this Exposure Therapy, and it’s been shown in research that the more access and familiarity we have with a thing, the less likely we are to be scared of it or put it on a pedestal. It just becomes commonplace or honestly no big deal.
What is the outcome? Well, you had a peanut butter cup which when we really put this into perspective, is only 87 calories which will not completely sabotage your progress or goals.
The best piece of this is the mindset shift around how you look at food and potentially change future behavior. The goal is to experience less urgency and anxiety and overindulging of PB cups in the future.
Let me give you an example of what I did 10 years ago after healing from my eating disorder. I decided to have an “off limit food” or “bad” food for a few weeks, and guess what? After a while, it loses its shiny appearance or luster.
Honestly, you're strategically placing “nutritional or food relief” into your day, versus trying, trying, TRYING to avoid, avoid, AVOID, only to end up face-first into a huge pan of chocolate cake with zero mindfulness. This is exactly why being AWARE of your own thoughts and behaviors is so damn powerful to your inner and outer game!
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