Peace With Food with Jane Pilger

How do you feel about food? Are you at peace with food, or do you overindulge with certain foods and maybe restrict yourself with others? In today's interview, Jane Pilger gives us eight reasons why we might not have peace with food, and then four helpful ways to combat those reasons. Her new book, “The Binge Eating Breakthrough”, her podcast and her, “why do you binge quiz”? Are all helpful tools that she'll tell you about in today's episode. I can't wait to share her knowledge with you about seeking peace with food. Let's call it in!  

Transcript

How do you feel about food? Are you at peace with food, or do you overindulge with certain foods and maybe restrict yourself with others? In today's interview, Jane Pilger gives us eight reasons why we might not have peace with food, and then four helpful ways to combat those reasons. Her new book, “The Binge Eating Breakthrough”, her podcast and her, “why do you binge quiz”? Are all helpful tools that she'll tell you about in today's episode. I can't wait to share her knowledge with you about seeking peace with food. Let's call it in! Welcome in, Jane. I'm so happy to have you with us today. 

Speaker Jane 

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for the conversation that we're going to have. 

Speaker Dar

yes… seeking peace with food before we get into that topic, would you tell the audience a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with this work? 

Speaker Jane 

Yeah. So you know, when I look back on my relationship with food overall, I can really see, like so many, so many links to the chain that kind of led to a very not peaceful relationship with food for me. And it really started. My journey really started. I went on a short, like an eight-week kind of mini–Peace Corps type of thing the summer before my junior year of high school. And when I did that, I gained about 20 pounds in a really short period of time, and I had a lot of stretch marks. And when I came home, I was really, I was very embarrassed about my stretch marks. And I played on a volleyball team, and on this volleyball team, we wore these, they were called Bun Huggers, very small kind of briefs as part of our uniform. And you could see the red stretch marks on my hips from my weight gain. And that really started for me. It really started going on a pretty restrictive diet, trying to lose weight. Did that for a couple of years, and then I went off to college, and my very first semester in college, I had my first binge, and I don't really remember the binge itself, but what I remember is being in my dorm room on the floor. I had received a care package from home that was filled it was in October, and it was filled with lots of little miniature candy bars, and I was on the floor surrounded by this empty box and empty wrappers all around me, and I had eaten the entire box of candy, and I had no I didn't really have a relax recollection of what had happened, but I just knew that I had done something really bad and really wrong, and this really started for Me. This it what became almost a 25 year journey of restricting and binging and restricting and binging, and I really just I wanted so much to stop binge eating, but I had so much shame about what I was doing that I wouldn't talk to anybody about it behind I just didn't want anybody to know what I was doing in secret with food, and little did I know that so many of the things that I was doing to try to stop were actually keeping me in the cycle. And I mean, I literally just spent, spent years, decades, including I had a I spent a couple of rounds, a couple of rounds of treatment at an intensive outpatient treatment center here locally, and therapists, books, podcasts, coaches, you name it, all of the things to try to stop. And I remember thinking, if I ever figure this out, I am going to help other people figure this out as well, because I was in so much pain and so much shame and judgment that if there's anything that I can do to help somebody else find some relief from their own shame or judgment around their eating behaviors, that's just now what I'm it's just what I feel like I'm on This earth to do is just help bring some understanding and some compassion and some gentleness to just an area that has a lot of shame and judgment around it. 

Speaker Dar 

Thank you so much for your authenticity, speaking about your own shame and your own judgment and how long a journey it was, and how great that you're ready to help others now that you have some keys as to where to go next. 

Speaker Jane 

Yeah, yeah, we talked about there are some primary reasons that we might not have peace with food. So instead of talking about seeking peace with food, let's talk about the opposite. What are the reasons we might not have yes with food? Yeah. So we can talk about the eight reasons, eight reasons why, and what I have found with my work, I primarily work with people who struggle with binge eating, but these reasons really work for anybody who does not have peace with food. There are these eight primary reasons, and so I'll go through each of the reasons, and then we can talk about after that. We can talk about, okay, well, how do we seek peace? If we know the reasons why, then how can we seek peace? How can we find peace with food? But first, I really find that we need to understand why we don't have the peace to begin with. 

So the first reason is what we talked about really in sharing my story. It's the shame and judgment. So the way that I like to see it is when we really have these moments with food. We struggle with food, whether it's a binge, whether it's an overeat, whether you're showing up with food in a way that you really do not prefer to. I see those moments as really like lights on the dashboard. They show us that something's going on under the hood. And really what we need to do is we need to get under the hood to see what's going on. And the reasons two through eight that we're going to talk about are the kind of things that are happening under the hood that cause some of this non peace to happen with food. But what happens with shame and judgment? It's shame and judgment is like the 50 pound weight that goes on top of the hood. We can't even open the hood to get underneath to see what's really going on if we have shame and judgment, because we want to hide when, when, and when they're shameful. We don't want anybody to see what's happening. We don't want to talk about it, and that can keep us really in that cycle. So the number one reason is shame and judgment, and then we can start getting under the hood. 

So the number two reason is restriction. And restrictions can show up in two ways. It can be physical restriction, literally not eating enough food, trying to, you know, eat less so that we lose weight, there's also a concept called mental restriction. And mental restriction is when we restrict ourselves with our thinking, when we say, don't eat, that you shouldn't be eating, that don't eat too much. Just have a little bit. All these little things that we say to ourselves that give the body the message that that supplies are limited and scarce. 

Reason number three is a dysregulated nervous system. So many of us very wisely, at some point figure out that we can use food to try to regulate our nervous system. So that's reason number three. 

Reason number four is disconnection from our body. So we're kind of for so many reasons, whether it's previous diets, whether it's trauma, whether it is some other reason we have disconnected from our bodies. And so that really can be one primary reason why we struggle with food? Because we're not really connected. 

Number five is it's a coping mechanism. We've used it over time to cope, to deal with challenging situations, and maybe we don't really have the ability to kind of be with our emotions, be with our challenging feelings. So we use food to cope, or kind of to try to to escape or to numb ourselves. 

Number six is, it's an attempt to control. We're trying sometimes, when we feel like we don't have a lot of control in life, or there's something else going on where we don't have control, we try to use food to feel like we do have control in an area. 

And then reason, reason number seven, it's a habit. Anything we do becomes a habit. And so, you know, if we have some of our patterns or behaviors with food that we've been doing repeatedly over time, then it makes sense that it would be a habit. Now, a lot of people try to address their eating challenges or their eating concerns with number seven just as a habit. So okay, well, I'm just going to stop eating after dinner or whatever, whatever the habit is that you're trying to break. But if you don't consider all of these other reasons and these other things that might be at play, just trying to change the habit or break the habit is not going to address these other items where you're not really going to end up with that overall peaceful relationship that you're looking for. 

And then the last reason, reason number eight, is negative self-talk. And this is just the way that we talk to ourselves inside our own heads. And what happens is that when we speak to ourselves negatively, and we are saying all these, Oh, you're so gross. You shouldn't be eating this. I can't believe you're doing that. Again, whatever it is, what we want to do, think about it for yourself. When you when somebody says something negative to you, you likely, like most humans, want to get away from them. And so we do that with ourselves. When I'm talking negatively about myself, or have these negative beliefs about myself I might want to eat in order to kind of silence that noise. So that's reason number eight. So those are the eight reasons why you may not have peace with food. 

Speaker Dar 

Wow, and I'm glad you mentioned the example with the habit that quite a few people try to change a habit, and then they might have some of the other things going on. Oh, now I would love it. If you move on to what can we do about some of these? 

Speaker Jane 

Yeah. So what are the solutions? 

So if there are eight reasons, then we have eight solutions, and these solutions will lead us towards peace with food. 

So reason number one was shame and judgment. It's that 50-pound weight on the hood. So the solution number one is to understand, understand why you don't have peace with food. Because a lot of times people just think, Oh, I'm just broken. Oh, I'm just out of control around food. I just am this way. But when we can understand, we can really look at these eight reasons. We can look at the eight solutions. It's like, oh, when we can get to the place where we can say, that makes sense, I understand why I'm doing this, then I shift out of shame and judgment, thinking I'm broken, there's something wrong with me, into Oh, I get it. I understand now. I'm curious about what I can do to address these other reasons, what I can do and what I can do to take on these solutions, I shift into curiosity and being willing to experiment with different things. Instead of just thinking I'm broken, I'll always be this way. So that's got to be number one is really understanding why. I also think it can be really useful to understand why, why we started having challenges with food. We can kind of look back and say… has there been a time in life where I have had a more peaceful relationship with food? And if so, what was different then versus now and then? You know, we can kind of try to, like, make sense of it, whereas, like, for me, I can make sense of overall, really, up until probably I went away there. There was a lot more peace in my life. And then when that weight gain came on, and then I went into the restriction I had, you know, there were several other things happening in college, being away from my primary connections and not being able to deal with my emotions. There were so many things. It's like, oh, okay, I get it. So that's the reason. That's solution number one. 

So reason number two was restriction. And so the solution there is to remove restrictions, and to really understand that when we try to eat less, when we try to tell ourselves don't eat that. When we try to pull out certain food groups or do things, when we try to really take things away, it really sets up a kind of a scarcity feeling in our body. And then when we think supplies are scarce, we and especially if we are physically not eating enough food, the body is going to try. It's going to make sure that we don't go into starvation again. So for anybody who has been on a lot of diets in the past, particularly restrictive diets, you might find, and this very much happens as we get older, the things that we used to be able to do. We simply just can't do it anymore. It's like, why is it that I used to be able to change my diet, or I used to be able to eat, you know, eat less food, or take these things out, and then I would lose weight. And now, anytime I even think about it, or I try to start eating less, all of a sudden, I find myself eating a lot more food. And it's because your brain and your nervous system really have this memory, and they know, oh, we are not doing that again. Never again. Are we going on a restrictive diet? Never again. Are we going to starve ourselves to do this? And so when we try to restrict in the ways that we used to restrict in the past, we simply just can't, and we end up with a pretty opposite reaction that really becomes like a you can really imagine the pendulum swinging where we go from one end. We're trying to restrict, we're trying to diet, we're trying to, you know, take all these things out, and then you find yourself swinging pretty far in the other direction. So that's solution number two. 

Reason number three was a dysregulated nervous system. So the solution there is going to be to learn how to work with your nervous system. So there's a lot there around just understanding what your nervous system is. What are the different states of your nervous system? How do you approach food differently depending on which state your nervous system is in. And then how can you get to know your nervous system and get to develop tools to work with your nervous system that are outside of using food? So that's reason number three. 

Reason number four was disconnection from your. Body. So the solution, then, is to connect, learn how to connect with your body. Sounds very simple, but it's really not simple, but it really is simple. It's just not easy. We naturally, your body is always communicating with you. It's just that we've taught ourselves not to listen over the years. So once we can kind of open up that connection, and that listening and developing that that ability to really connect with our bodies, that is, is a very, very powerful solution. 

Number five. So the reason was a coping mechanism. So the solution here is to expand your emotional capacity. So your emotional capacity is your capacity, your ability to be with any emotion. And this takes time. It takes some you know? It just takes some practice. So many of us did not grow up really learning about our emotions. This was certainly the case for me. We did not talk about our emotions when we got upset, when, when I was growing up, we would just go to our rooms. So I would go to my room, I would slam the door, and I often wouldn't come back in until the next day, and when I did come back out, it was just business as usual. We never talked about it, we never addressed anything. We didn't really learn how to, kind of like, navigate and manage conflict, and so I had a very low emotional capacity. And what I came to discover through a lot of this work that I've done, is that when I would binge it was like, the way that I would slam the door on myself was like, that's exactly what happens when things feel like too much, when the emotions just feel like too much to bear, then I would just slam the door on myself. So in order to not to be willing to feel safe enough to be with the emotions, to not feel like I have to go slam the door with food, then I need to expand my emotional capacity, my ability to be with these bigger emotions without thinking that I need to turn to food just kind of slam that door. 

Number six reason was an attempt to control. So the solution here is to develop two way trust. So when we're trying to control ourselves, we're trying to control our body. We're trying to control what we eat and what our body looks like. What we want to do is develop trust. And this two-way trust means that I trust that my body is going to communicate with me, and my body trusts that when it communicates with me, that I'm actually going to listen. So it's this two way trust between you and your body. Instead of this kind of like a one-way dictatorship, it becomes a two-way trust. 

Number seven reason was a habit. And a pretty simple solution here is to break the habit. And there are a lot of things that we can look at around just overall habit formation, all of these things that we can do with any other habits. But again, like I said, we cannot just look at your relationship with food as a habit without addressing all of these other things that we talked about. 

And then finally, the last reason is that negative self-talk. And so the solution then to create more peace around food is to change the internal dialog. So it's really this shift. I like to think of it as changing the radio station. So we all have a pretty typical if you think about when you get in the car, there's probably one or two radio stations that you listen to if you even listen to the radio anymore. Right now, we have all of these different ways to listen to music, but there's, there's typically kind of, one, typical type of music that you might like to listen to. It's the same that happens internally, but we don't really even realize that's what we're doing, and that there is, like a radio station that's constantly playing. So we can, we can learn how to become aware of the radio station there, and do I want that station to be playing? And if not, we can learn how to change the dialog, change the channel, change the station inside. And if we if what's happening inside your mind, your internal dialog, shifts to something that is kinder, more compassionate, softer, then it makes sense that we're not going to want to need feel the need to get away from ourselves in the same way that we did when it was negative, when it felt so, you know, like, like we wanted To create space, we'll be more willing to stay with ourselves, rather than needing to kind of use the food to try to get away from ourselves. So those are the eight solutions to help create more peace with food. 

Speaker Dar 

Thank you. That was such a Share a list, and I was sitting here identifying several of these. Yeah, I'm wondering if you could give us a little bit more information of maybe when it comes to the nervous system, you mentioned there would be tools. Could you just give us a little bit more information about the nervous system, if that is the reason? 

Speaker Jane 

Yeah, absolutely. So within the nervous system, I like to to describe the nervous system in a very basic way, so you do not need to understand science. You don't need to understand all of the things that are involved. But basically, your nervous system is the it really is the command center of your body. It is the connection between your brain and the rest of your body. Your nervous system is always, always working and scanning to see if things are safe. Your brain's number one job is to survive and to stay alive. That is its number one job. And if there is a threat, if it senses a threat, it is going to use most of its resources towards addressing that threat, because it's number one job is survival. Beyond survival once it's like, okay, we're okay, we're gonna we're gonna live now its next kind of motivations are to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and use as little energy as possible. So these things are just always kind of going on in the brain. So if we know this, then it also makes sense, why sometimes it just feels a lot easier to, you know, eat some highly palatable food instead of doing that thing that maybe is on your list, or that thing that feels challenging, or that thing that you're not really sure how it's going to turn out, there's some risk there. There's maybe a potential threat there. There's also might take some energy to do it, and yeah, like the brain wants to seek pleasure and avoid pain. So when we can just understand that's kind of how it works, we then we can kind of work on things that we can work with our brain, instead of kind of just falling into that like trap of just that false pleasure, where we're just kind of seeking pleasure from food, but we're not really getting pleasure in other areas of life. So that's just a good thing to know overall about the nervous system in the brain. Now, as it comes to the nervous system, there are three primary states of your nervous system. There's what would be called, like, grounded, settled, where you feel safe, that nervous system that's always scanning for danger. When you feel safe in your nervous system. This is, I call it home base, which means you're at home. It's kind of like when you're at home. In your body, you feel comfortable. You're able to, kind of make progress towards things that you're working on in life. You have access to the logical part of your brain. This is called the rest and digest state. PRI it is the best place to be for resting, for eating. It's a beautiful place to be. Now, not we're not always in home base, and some people are not in home base very much at all. There's also the way that I like to think about it, is the amount of energy in your nervous system or running through your body. So if we're talking about something with a lot of energy, then, and if we feel kind of, kind of, maybe kind of jittery, kind of like, like I'm feeling, maybe some of the feelings now you're we're above home base. This is the fight or flight part of the nervous system. So here we might be feeling stress, we might be feeling anxiety, we might be feeling fear, worry, anger, that type of there's, there's a lot of heightened energy up above, above home base, then below home base, i is, is where, is more in that freeze state. So this is where we're kind of, there's the feelings might be hopeless, depressed, lethargic, just really, it's more of that shut down state like I can't really. You might just be scrolling for hours. You may be not able to get off the couch, or you just keep watching Netflix, like you literally cannot get into action. It's kind of that free state. It is also a survival state in the brain. But it's like there's your brain, so there's so much of a potential threat that we can't even get ourselves into action, where, when we're above home base, there's still a threat, but we're either running away from the threat or we're trying to fight the threat. So as far as tools go and how we work with the nervous system, the very first thing to do is just check in and just see, can I even say where I am in my nervous system? So am I on home base? Am I above? Am I below? And you know, by the amount of energy in your body and just overall, when you're in home base, you feel grounded, you feel connected, you feel confident, you might feel curious, those types of emotions in home base. So can I identify where I am? What state Am I in? Am I nervous? There are no good states or bad states or right or wrong states, but if we can just identify them, then if I'm above home base, this means I have a lot of excess energy, stress, anxiety, fear, anger, I've got a lot of excess energy. So if we think just naturally, what I need to do is to bring down the energy. So things that you can do, tools that you can do, are anything to release, to drain energy. So some great ones. The breath is always an amazing tool that you can use any time, anywhere. When you're above home base, you have a lot of excess energy. What you can do is you can take deep breaths where your exhale is longer than the inhale. This will help to kind of drain that energy. Another thing that's always very helpful is movement, any kind of movement of any sort, just getting out, going for a walk. Music can be very helpful in any place for your nervous system. But if you're feeling a lot of stress, a lot of fear, a lot of worry, think about the type of music that might help you to train and kind of get some of that energy out. If you're feeling anger, frustration, an amazing tool is a pool using a pool noodle. You know, just those foam pool noodles. Get one from the dollar store and bang it on the bed or the couch. Very great way to kind of release some of that energy. Now, if we're below home base and we are, you know, on the couch, or we can't get out of bed, that type of thing. We have very little amount of energy. So what we want to do there is something to increase the amount of energy that we have. So this might be, you could splash water on your face or even on the back of your hands, again, movement, even just some gentle movement, anything to kind of create some energy. You can also use your breath in this case, but in this case, you actually want your exhales instead of when you're above home base, you want your exhales to be longer, but when you're below, you actually want them to be shorter. Again, we're generating more energy. You can also use movement, even if you can combine movement with some more upbeat music that you really like, that can also help to kind of create some more energy. So here's what's interesting. When we think about the nervous system and with food, a lot of people end up using food. They kind of figure out at some place, which is, really can be pretty useful. It's a useful awareness and a useful thing that people figure out, but it's not really very beneficial long term. But what they figure out is, if I'm above home base, and I have all of this excess energy, and I eat some food, particularly some, you know, like highly palatable, hyper dense, hyper rich foods. This will help bring the overall energy in my system and in my body down. And we kind of go down a lot of times. We go down past home, through home base and down below, and then all of a sudden, we're on the couch, and we're like, going nowhere. Now we have managed to bring some energy down from our nervous system, so this is why it's like, well, it actually does, in some ways, work, but it doesn't really meet the need of getting us back to that calm, safe, regulated space in home base. But that's what we're attempting to do when, if you're a person who gets really stressed or really anxious, and then you find yourself going to the pantry or going to the drive through, or, you know, ordering, ordering food to be delivered to you, whatever it is, if you can even just see, I see what's happening. This is my nervous system. My nervous system is dysregulated. Is there some other way? Can I do something else to try to drain that energy before turning to food? We don't want to say, No, you can't eat. You can't do that. That's bad. That's wrong. Then we're right back to number one shame and judgment. But if we can see what's going on, we can understand it. We're in the number one solution of understanding. Oh, this is my nervous system. Okay, let me experiment. Let me try some different things. I can always come back and eat later, but let me try some things first and see how this works for me, rather than going to the thing that I've just gone to without any sort of awareness or realization in the past, 

Speaker Dar 

Oh, thank you for that clarity. That was really an eye-opening answer. I just appreciate that so much. So when we talk about clarity, I would love it if you would share with the audience the quiz that you have available.

Speaker Jane 

Yeah. So if you're kind of wondering to yourself, and you're listening to all this and you're thinking, wow, I resonate with a lot of these reasons. And number one, I want you to know you are not alone. Most people resonate in some way with many of these reasons. You also do not have to figure out like 100% each one of these reasons in order to gain peace with food. I personally think that our relationship with food. It is an ongoing journey, and it will change, just like we will change. I mean, think about, if you think about your own life, from when you were very small to now, and imagine all of the changes in the iterations, not only in yourself and in your body, but imagine all of the changes in the food that you eat, it will continue to change. So we're not going for a finish line of 100% perfect peace with food, but we are going for more peace daily. Can I become a little more peaceful with food every day? That will if you think about if we can do this daily and let that consistently compound over time, the amount the the increase that you will experience in peace around food, will just be incredible. So if you're wondering for yourself though, gosh, which one of these is it? I don't really know. I have a quiz that you can take in order to identify your primary reason. And you can find that quiz. It's at Jane pilger.com forward slash quiz, and I'm sure we'll have a link for you in the show notes. But through that quiz, you'll get your primary reason, and with that, you'll also get some very easy to implement tips that you can start applying right away, along with a couple of podcast episodes that where I've kind of.. I've dived deeper into the various topics, depending on what your answer is so you have some links to podcast episodes as well as some general information. Here are some things that you can start applying into your life right away, so that you can apply this to your own journey. 

Speaker Dar 

That sounds so beneficial. As we wrap up today, we have some exciting news, your new book, Jane, will you talk about that? Please? 

Speaker Jane 

Yes. So I'm so excited that my first book is out and available now. It is called “The Binge Eating Breakthrough”. “Why food isn't the problem and what really is”. And what I do in this book is I talk about these eight reasons and the eight solutions, but I also talk about the four pillars to creating peace with food, and even if you don't resonate as a binge eater, specifically, if you know what you've heard on this podcast today. Release is, it resonates with you. If you would like to hear more, if you're curious about, Ooh, there's, there's four pillars. Also, what are those pillars? I really go do a pretty deep dive in this book around, really, what you need to do to create peace with food. What are those pillars? I share some very specific processes that I share that I work with my clients to kind of teach what do you do in the moments when you're getting ready to eat? I have a process for that. I have a process for if you have had a binge or a moment with food that you just really don't like, I have a process for how you can really go through that and understand it, and, you know, kind of remove that shame and judgment so that you can learn from it, and, you know, hopefully make some adjustments so that that things will be different in the future. So that is all available in my new book. And, yeah, I'm just really excited to bring all of these things that I've been teaching, and, you know, with my work, not only with myself and my own experience, but with so many clients over the years, to kind of put it all into one book. I'm just really excited to have it out in the world. 

Speaker Dar 

I certainly am going to be excited. I do not identify with binge eating, but I sure identify with several of the things that you've talked about today, and am curious about the four pillars to create peace. So that's definitely why I will be getting your book. I'd like to thank you for being with us today. This has been such an informative, wonderful interview, and I just want to praise you for such articulate answers to my questions, and give you a big Virtual hug of Thank you. 

Speaker Jane 

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation. Any time I can, I can bring some awareness and insight into this topic that is really so painful for so many people, and the challenges that there's just not that many people talking about it. So the more that we can talk about it, and the more that we can help people, I can help people understand you are not alone. You are not broken. There's such a good reason that you don't have peace with food, and peace with food is possible no matter what, no matter how long you've been struggling, no matter what you do with food, you absolutely can find and cultivate peace with food.

Speaker Dar 

Beautiful. Thank You. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai