What is bulimia, and how does it manifest?

Bulimia is an eating disorder.

Before the onset of the symptoms of bulimia, the person often starts by taking drastic weight loss treatments, by counting his calories and especially by an excessive preoccupation with body shape and weight.

Intense fear of being fat or becoming fat is part of this condition.

Bulimia symptoms manifestation:

• episodes of compulsive eating, during which the person can consume a large amount of food and feel that he/she loses control over what / how much they eat.
• Compensation behaviors, which can be: self-induced vomiting, excessive sports, laxatives, weakening teas, diuretics, enema, black post, etc.,

What is anorexia nervosa, and how does it manifest?

We can surmise that a person is suffering from anorexia nervosa if it is permanently scared that it may get fat, although it eats much less than needed

Or when the person is doing everything possible to lose weight through intense physical exercises and exaggerating often or causing vomiting and, especially, when that person firmly believes (but is unrealistic) that is overweight or obese.

Anorexia usually begins in adolescence or youth. It is more common in women, but men can also be affected.

Anorexic people can drastically limit the amount of food they consume or cause themselves to vomit after meals.

Anorexic persons:

• slices food into small pieces and does not consume them; they can play with menu on the plate during the meal
• excessive exercise, regardless of whether the weather is terrible, they are injured, feel bad or have an overloaded schedule;
• consume laxatives, diuretics or, medicines that inhibit the appetite.

Other possible apparent symptoms usually correlated with anorexia:

• dry, yellow or bubbly skin, covered with fine, fluffy hair;
• confused or slow thinking, associated with poor memory;
• depression;
• dry mouth;
• excessive sensitivity to cold;
• the fragility of bones;
• loss of muscle mass, etc.

What is Binge Eating?

Mancatul compulsiv este o tulburare alimentara grava, numita si tulburarea binge eating, ce ameninta viata celor afectati. Este cea mai comuna si raspandita tulburare alimentara, prezenta la toate genurile, la toate grupurile etnice si rasiale si adultii de toate varstele. Afecteaza 3.5% dintre femei si 2% dintre barbati. Poate aparea in adolescenta, dar de cele mai multe ori debutul este in j

Compulsive eating is a severe eating disorder, also called binge eating disorder, which threatens the lives of those affected. It is the most common and widespread eating disorder, present in all genres, in all ethnic and racial groups and adults of all ages. It affects 3.5% of women and 2% of men. It may appear in adolescence, but most often, the onset is around the age of 18-20.

How does it manifest?

The person has episodes in which he consumes uncontrolled (sometimes in secret), in a short period (2 hours), a large amount of food, so that, then, he feels intense guilt, shame, disgust, and depressed state. The person eats even if he thinks that he has become saturated, or that he may be hurt. This disorder decreases the quality of life, is accompanied by severe stress, other mental disorders, and symptoms specific to the metabolic syndrome. Most of those who suffer from eating disorders with excessive appetite are overweight or obese and are the type of people who regularly eat diets without losing weight. Unlike a person who has bulimia, after an episode in which he has eaten a lot, a person who suffers from an eating disorder with excessive appetite does not compensate for excess calories by causing them to vomit, taking laxatives, or doing sports excessively.

Brief Strategic Therapy treats anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating.

There are innovative psychotherapeutic solutions for those who want to be helped in controlling bulimia.

An innovative and highly efficient solution was called the Paradoxical Diet, defined within the Brief Strategic Therapy.

Therapy’s essence is to fight bulimia with your weapons, by the constructive and conscious orientation of fantasies towards the pleasure of eating.

In other words, voluntarily imagine the foods we like most and how we will eat them in the most pleasant environment and in the most relaxed way.

The search for the sensations given by the most loved foods, evoking their tastes, also smells visual effects, leaving us carried by the self-induced feelings so that we can choose what to eat that day.

Through this self-induced suggestion, dangerous food temptations become a possible voluntary choice and are no longer a loss of self-control; a feared enemy turns into a respectable friend.

So, it is smoothly moving from the fear of losing control to planning the way of voluntarily realizing the pleasure of eating what one wants, which means assuming control over what we might give up.

Thus, a person until then, the person living with bulimia, will discover that she is no longer overwhelmed by unstoppable desires, and even the foods that were previously the most coveted, remain desirable but are no longer overwhelming.

As a result, it becomes possible to select in a controlled and balanced way our daily diet composed of the foods we like the most.

One of the successful therapies in the treatment of anorexia is short-term strategic therapy, which has excellent outcomes in over 90% of cases.

Anorexia is an eating disorder of a psychic nature, is not solved by a nutritionist, but by a psychotherapist who can understand the deep and personal causes, never investigated, because of such a distortion in the self-image, that is precisely the psychic ground on which anorexia developed.

For binge eating, a highly efficient technique we could apply, namely, the symptom prescription with extraordinary results for people with compulsive disorders, even compulsive eating.

Enhanced Cognitive Behavior Therapy

In addition to traditional cognitive-behavioural therapy and interpersonal therapy, which have proven to be effective in treating eating disorders, CBT-e (Enhanced Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) is a promising alternative.

Recently, for the psychological intervention on eating disorders, a form of treatment has been developed based on a general model, useful for all these disorders: CBT-e (Enhanced Cognitive Behaviour Therapy).

CBT-e, changes eating habits, the behaviour by which the person controls his weight and obsessions for eating, silhouette, and fattening. The treatment is applied intensively (in 40 sessions for those with body mass indexes between 15.0 and 17.5) or classic (in 20 sessions for those with body mass indexes over 17.5). And it is followed by a follow-up period of 60 weeks.