Selfish Is As Selfish Does
By becoming an expert in recognizing the binge voice you be able to see it as a mean-spirited, sly enemy that cares nothing for the health, happiness or even the survival of you. The fact that you, the host, the mechanism to go get food, is growing huge, suffering low self-esteem, social embarrassment, back problems, heart disease, high blood pressure, marital conflict, or failure of the joints in no way deters the midbrain’s binge impulse from seeking ever more food to appease its unending hunger.
Dr. Robert Dupont, former White House drug czar and first director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), aptly describes the midbrain’s character by the title of his most recent book, “The Selfish Brain.” As with other selfish people in your life, you must set boundaries and protect yourself. You have a selfish midbrain with destructive tendencies, and you must apply the new knowledge found in this report by setting limits and enforcing those limits.
Your first goal is not to count calories; it is to become extremely self-conscious of any thinking that supports overeating, in both the short and long term. You must practice, rehearse and anticipate “IT” rearing its ugly head, then rehearse and visualize yourself firmly and comfortably refusing rich and colorful incorrect foods, followed by your slideshow of healthy, appropriate foods. Journaling the phrases that your binge voice uses to manipulate you, along with your upset, angry and intolerant responses is an invaluable tool.
Rehearsing in this way to help retrain your brain to think correctly about your eating is supported by clinical research. According to John Ratey, MD, Harvard Neuroscientist, “We now have proof that brain development is a continuous unending process. The brain has a tremendous ability to compensate and rewire with practice. Experiences, thoughts, actions and emotions actually change the structure of your brain.
So, the more we repeat the same actions and thoughts [from saying “NO” to the binge voice, and “YES” to your healthy voice,] the more we encourage the formation of certain connections, then the more fixed the neural circuits in the brain for that activity become.” So, by actually rehearsing the binge and how you will avoid the binge, you are rewiring your brain to work that way.