Dr. Simon and Me - The Journey Continues

Taken from Banyan Treatment Center website

Preface.  My Story.

Starting over again, I haven't lost faith in Shirley's approach to changing eating behavior, that is, to focus on the behavior and not the food. There may be all sorts of reasons why certain people are prone to self-destructive eating habits, and there certainly are many theories out there that purport to explain and remedy those habits, freeing the food-addicted person from the life-long pattern of indulgence followed by remorse. But this theory makes the most sense to me, so I return to it, trying once again to make it work.

From her research, Dr. Simon learned that "overweight people were indeed different from thin people in the way they behave toward food. They found that we respond differently to hunger and to taste sensations and that we react differently to a large number of things in our environment; that much of the time we eat in response to emotional states, to the time of day, to what we see, to where we are, while thin people eat mainly in response to feelings of hunger" (page 3). This seems like a rational conclusion, but while it's gratifying to be confirmed in our suspicions that we're different, it doesn't do us any good to stop there. As Shirley puts it, "We must also know what we can do to change our behavior" (4). So that's what Dr. Simon provides us with in her book: a way to change.

So once again, I'm starting over with Chapter 1, which is where the food addict analyzes her behavior. She has to know where she is in order to determine where she must go and how she will assess her progress. In Chapter 1, Shirley explains behavior modification as the changing of learned responses that have become automatic through repeated reinforcement. As Shirley puts it, "we learn to do those things that have good consequences and learn not to do those things that have bad consequences" (14). Simple, no? We learn to overeat in the same way a dog learns to perform a trick and for the same reason: we get rewarded for it. Understanding that makes it possible to see the project of changing eating behavior as figuring out how to stop the reinforcement of self-destructive behavior. Simple, yes. But easy? Definitely no.

In this blog I'm continuing the project I started five years ago. I'll be recording my progress, once again, with hope that I can find a way to make it last a little longer this time. Join me!