Are You a Secret Eater?
My binge eating struggles began when I was living alone—so when I moved in with roommates, I began “secret eating.”
When my food cravings became unbearable, I would hit the grocery store or order takeout, then triggering a hideous transformation:
I’d turn into a ravenous little rat, sneaking off to my dark lair with a pile of food that no one else could see or touch, where I could devour every last crumb in hiding, before falling into a shame coma.
Thinking about those times now, I no longer feel shame for my behavior, because I know that binge eating is a normal response to the food restriction and emotional struggles I was experiencing at the time. And I now know that eating in secret is a normal response when you don’t want others to know what you’re going through.
Secret eating isn’t limited to binge eating though.
You may choose to eat in private anytime you don’t want to be judged for your food choices, whether that’s what you’re eating, how much you’re eating, or when you’re eating.
You might eat in your house, a car, at work, or anywhere else that you feel safe.
And you might think thoughts like:
“I hate other people commenting on my food choices…”
“I shouldn’t be eating this...”
“I don’t want other people to know I’m making unhealthy choices…”
“People would be disgusted if they knew how much I ate...”
“People would be concerned if they knew how little I ate...”
The commonality these thoughts share is that they trigger you to feel guilt and shame for what you eat.
While shame may be a normal response to thoughts where you judge yourself or your behavior in a negative light, it need not swallow you whole.
If you’re a secret eater, the first thing I invite you to do is to extend compassion to yourself. Which, if you’re short on, you can borrow some of mine. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with you. And I know how deeply it hurts to feel out of control around food.
You may feel like you’ve gotten yourself into a tangled mess with so many pieces to unravel before you’ll ever feel normal again. And while the process of improving your relationship with food does take time, I promise you a million times over that the healing is worthwhile.
I’ll give you a glimpse at what this process looks like.
There are 6 key areas to examine if you want to stop secret eating:
1. Mindfulness
Mindfulness doesn’t involve sitting quietly on a cushion, but rather a broad increase in your awareness, particularly of your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. By increasing your self-awareness, you’ll be able to trace behaviors to their origins and make changes to the root causes.
2. Your Emotions
Secret eating can relate to food avoidance and overeating, both of which can be forms of emotional avoidance. By learning how to process your emotions, avoidant behaviors will no longer serve a purpose for you.
3. Your Thoughts
Your thoughts can increase (or decrease) psychological distress in response to various secret eating triggers. When you learn how to observe and change those thoughts to more helpful ones, you’ll eliminate urges to secretly eat.
4. Body Image
Body dissatisfaction is the primary trigger for disordered eating behaviors. By addressing your body image concerns, you’ll remove yet another major factor motivating secret eating.
5. Self-Compassion
Self-compassion is said to be an antidote to shame, one of the primary emotions that results from secret eating.
6. Ending Food Restriction
Food restriction that results in secret eating is one of the disordered eating behaviors triggered by a negative body image. Lifting restrictive food rules about what, when, and how much you eat will encourage more consistent, balanced eating patterns.
We cover all six of these topics in depth within our Food Body Self® program but they’re not only relevant to secret eating. Our students have also used these tools to:
Stop emotional and binge eating
Enjoy their meals more, along with the process of preparing them
Gradually increase meals from a place of severe restriction
Stop nighttime snacking
Confidently attend outings and gatherings where food will be provided
…and more
As I mentioned earlier, shame need not swallow you up whole. What our students have found in community with each other is that they are not alone. Which means you are not alone.
In the words of author and shame resilience researcher Brené Brown, “If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment.”
But, if you’re willing to bring your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors close enough to the light in order to examine them with acceptance, compassion, and empathy, shame has no hope of survival.
And neither does secret eating.