Have you ever been unable to concentrate because there’s food nearby, and it’s all you can think about?

Have you ever started eating so fast that your jaw ached and your eyes watered, but you just couldn’t stop?

Have you ever cried over food?

Have you ever wondered “why can’t I just stop eating?”

Food insanity describes that feeling of being completely out of control when it comes to eating. It puts you in a constant state of self-loathing and sends you cycling through a million different diets, strategies, detoxes, and control techniques to try to get your mind right. And when you fail, it’s your fault. Right?

Wrong.

The craziest thing about food insanity is that it isn’t your fault. And “control” isn’t the solution; it’s the cause.

This is your brain on starvation. It only takes one diet to send a primal alert to your brain that your food sources are not dependable, and as far as your brain is concerned, you are starving. Indefinitely.

Starvation mode throws your hunger hormones out of whack and makes you see the world completely differently: through a lens of full-on food panic and calorie desperation. This is more than just cravings, or willpower, or self-control. It’s a biological drive to consume. And you probably don’t even realize it’s happened. All you know is that you can’t seem to stop binge eating.

The 6M2S method is all about relinquishing the notion of control — no counting, no restricting, no judgment — and showing your body that food is readily available to win back your sanity.

While you give your body time to fix the biological factors of binge eating, you can get to work undoing the devastating psychological effects that diet culture has on the way you view the world. Try these seven simple ways to change your self-talk: