WHAT ARE TRIGGERS?

Your triggers are anything that sends you into your pattern of bingeing and purging. You would either:

Say something to yourself.

Make a picture in your mind.

Have a feeling.

It’s something we don’t usually pay attention to, and it happens in a flash. The thought will be brief, the image will be a quick flash, or the feeling will pop up and then disappear.

For example:

Think now about having your morning coffee or tea, hot water with lemon, or whatever you have. So how you get from not thinking about having your drink to having it? What do you think about just before you decide to have a coffee?

You may say to yourself, “It’s time for my morning coffee!”

You may have a picture in your head of you drinking your coffee.

You may have a feeling you would like your coffee.

What’s the very first thing you would do?

You’ll have your very own specific triggers. So, what you need to do is begin to identify them. What precisely causes you to go from feeling okay to suddenly thinking or feeling about bingeing? Do you have any idea right now?

IT’S TIME TO LISTEN… TO YOU.

By spending more time listening to how you’re talking to yourself, the more chance you have of changing these thoughts to more positive, self-empowering ones.

IT IS NOW TIME TO IDENTIFY YOUR OWN SPECIFIC TRIGGERS

Remember: Your body needs food, and cravings are justified, any sight or smell of food will be a trigger that you can’t ignore. So, the first step is to eat.

Then once you’re following your structured eating program, your triggers would be your next step in your chain of events.

HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR TRIGGERS

So, I want you to begin to identify what your triggers are. Remember, it’s the very first thing you do before you fall into that pattern of bingeing and purging. Finding out what your triggers are is the next most crucial step. Finding the trigger is a huge key to change.

Your triggers could be external, which might be:

•    Something you see, maybe at work someone eating a sandwich? An unhelpful magazine headline, a seductive image of food on the cover, or seeing the calorie counts listed on a restaurant menu. It could be anything you SEE.

•    Something you hear, maybe someone talking about food, or how happy they are, or the sound of someone eating a packet of crisps. It could be anything you HEAR.

•    Something you touch, maybe handing someone some food, or someone gave you that packet of crisps, or you were touching your stomach. It could be anything you TOUCH.

•    Something you taste, maybe having a coffee and how you would love a biscuit to go with that, or someone gave you one crisp from their crisp packet. It could be anything you TASTE.

•    Something you smell, tantalizing aromas wafting as you walk past bakers or the smell of someone cooking. It could be anything you SMELL.

 Your triggers could be internal or mental, which might be:

•    Something you might be thinking in your head such as an image of you bingeing or purging, an image of you struggling to pull up your jeans, or an image of you standing on the scales looking deflated.

•    Something you might be saying to yourself such as “I’ve had such a stressful day, and I’m hungry, I need to go on a binge”; “I need to lose weight, and my jeans are too tight”; or “This book isn’t going to really help me. I’ve had bulimia for such a long time. I’m a hopeless case.” (But, oh my, how wrong you would be! So keep reading.)

•    Something you might be feeling such as hopeless, helpless, lonely, sad, bored, upset, guilty, worthless, and the list goes on.

For me, my pattern would be:

I’d first have a feeling of being lonely. Secondly, I’d have an image of me bingeing. Lastly, I’d have a thought, I’m so sad.

The most important point we can learn here is that the internal triggers that cause your painful feelings are all in your head; they aren’t real! Your physical trigger of true hunger, now that’s real.

“DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK.”

You can begin to change right here, right now; it’s possible to change these old behaviors into new positive behaviors.

But first, you need to understand what your specific triggers are. What’s the first thing that happens to send you down that road of bingeing and purging?

I want you now to sit back and think about what your triggers might be. Begin to break down the pattern of what gets you zipping down into that bulimia spiral.

Grab your notebook and answer these questions:

What do you see?

What do you hear?

What do you taste?

What do you think to yourself?

What images do you have?

What you touch?

What do you smell?

What feelings are you having?

Once you’ve identified your first trigger, then you can begin to make the change to that trigger. So, when you are ready, zip to the next lecture and I will be showing you have you can begin to change your triggers.