"I can control everything… except food." An Episode for the Type-A or Perfectionist

You can crush it in your career, manage a family, and hit every goal on your vision board… But your secret stash of food says otherwise 👀

In this episode, I’m breaking down why perfectionists (the high-functioning, Type A, “I’ve got this” women) are the ones MOST likely to binge in secret.

We’ll talk control, shame, biology, and the sneaky psychological loops that keep even the most “together” woman stuck in food chaos.

TL;DR Bingeing isn’t a failure. It’s your body and brain begging for a break

WHAT WE'LL COVER:

• 00:00 — The Hidden Link Between Perfectionism and Binge Eating: Why the women who “have it all together” are often the ones secretly struggling with food.
• 02:39 — Inside the Type A Mind: When Discipline Turns Into Food Control: How high achievers use structure as safety—and why it backfires.
• 05:02 — The Restrict–Binge Cycle No One Talks About: What really happens when “being good” with food flips into “I blew it.”
• 07:11 — The Psychology of Losing Control Around Food: How stress, shame, and emotional suppression feed the binge-perfectionism loop.
• 10:07 — Is It Willpower or Biology? The Hunger Signals You’re Ignoring: Why your body isn’t betraying you—it’s trying to protect you.
• 12:44 — The Secret Shame That Keeps Binge Eating Hidden: Why Type A women binge in private and how secrecy fuels the cycle.
• 17:14 — Mindset Shifts to Break Free From Perfectionism and Food Guilt: How to move from “all-or-nothing” to self-compassion and progress.
• 20:17 — Practical Strategies to Stop the Perfection-Binge Loop: Real-life tools to create structure without obsession.
• 23:00 — Redefining What ‘Healthy’ Looks Like for a Perfectionist: Letting go of the rules and creating your version of balance.
• 24:50 — When to Get Support (and What Real Recovery Looks Like): How to know when it’s time to reach out and what help actually helps.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

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Transcript

Michelle Yates (00:00)
Hey friends, welcome back to Nourish and Free, the podcast where mental health meets physical health, food guilt gets ghosted and toxic wellness advice gets roasted. Today, perfectionism is going to get called out for the sneaky little liar that it is. If you're new here, I'm Michelle Yates, a registered dietitian with my master's in health psychology, certified health mindset coach. And this is something that I see all the time in the clients that I work with. And honestly, something that I used to live myself, which is when the high achieving

type A, has her life together type of woman secretly struggles with binge or emotional eating. She's probably the one that crushes her to-do list. She volunteers for everything. Maybe she was an athlete at some point or she was the top of her class. She's a dependable one, right? And yet, behind the closed doors,

She's eating in a way that feels totally out of alignment with how disciplined she's supposed to be or that everybody thinks she must be. If that hits a little too close to home, stay with me.

Now before we get into this episode, be sure you hit that subscribe button. If this is topic that you're interested in, it comes up a lot, this topic of binge eating and emotional eating on the and with how busy life gets, it's easy to forget to go back and find a show unless it's popping up on your screen for you. So be sure you hit the subscribe button. That way you can check out future episodes that may just be the episode you need to hear.

to finally feel nourished and free around food. Now let's paint a picture a little bit more about this Polly or Type A Amy woman who holds herself to insanely high standards. Maybe you relate if you hate being

wrong or you crave structure. You love black and white. You love when things are defined and it's clear the expectations are written out in black ink. ⁓

and you secretly equate rest with laziness. Rest is not an option for you, not without guilt at least. And the only time that you really end up resting is when you're forced to because you're so sick that you can't get out of bed. These traits can look like superpowers and honestly, they kind of are like let's call it what it is perfectionistic people or type A women, they get it.

Like they get stuff done. They get promotions, get straight A's, they get the satisfaction of color-coded spreadsheets. Their house is probably in beautiful order. Their kids probably have the most beautiful lunch boxes, right? But here's the thing is their superpower can also be their kryptonite. When you are someone who's type A or a perfectionist and you have it all together.

can really start to wear you down. And because we're so determined to have it all together, we don't really notice and we ignore and we suppress all of those early warning signs that we need a break.

This superpower of being incredibly organized and on top of things and the dependable one is amazing. What a gift. You are probably such a blessing to other people. But here's the thing is that can also be your biggest enemy. Needing that comfort of structure, that

comfort of predictability, that comfort of feeling like you're in control. When those same traits try to get applied to food or your body, of having everything together, having everything perfect, having everything in line, that's when things start to break down. that's why we see such a huge overlap.

with binge eating and those who self-describe themselves as perfectionist. Because perfectionism doesn't just want healthy, right? It wants flawless. It wants the A plus. It wants the best of the best. It wants everybody to say, wow, I wish I looked like her. And anything less than flawless feels like a failure. And this can be really difficult in the world.

of food and nutrition and how our bodies look because we are inherently imperfect people.

So what do perfectionists do when they think they failed? They either double down harder, they restrict harder, they get on another diet, they reduce their calorie plan, they tighten up their meal plan, or they swing completely the other way. Welcome to the perfection binge pendulum, AKA the restrict binge cycle.

Here's what that pendulum can look like in real life. looks like, you know what, I'm gonna start over fresh on Monday. Clean eating, no sugar, no excuses, no bread. Monday through Thursday, impeccable. She's doing a great job sticking to the diet. She had all of the meals pre-portioned, planned out, good to go.

Friday night, something stressful happens. It could be the littlest thing. It literally be the tiniest inconvenience, but here's the thing. She's been perfect Monday through Thursday, and she's getting tired. So Friday, the tiniest inconvenience can seem like a big deal. And when you're exhausted, and something stressful happens, we probably are gonna break a little bit. There's gonna be a little bit of a crack in that.

wall of perfection. And then once we have that little crack, maybe we took a little bite out of the cookie in the pantry or we had an Oreo or we had a piece of the kids candy or maybe we grabbed something from the break room, right? Once there's already been this slip up.

because we're seeking perfection and flawlessness, we've already broken that whole goal, right? The vision is gone. So your brain whispers to you, you already messed up. Might as well keep going.

It's not a lack of willpower. And I know, I know it's so easy to blame the willpower. It's so easy to be like, I just wasn't motivated enough. I just needed to white knuckle more. I just needed to resist more. It's not a lack of willpower. It's the byproduct of this all or nothing thinking. Perfectionism says if I can't do it perfectly, then why do it at all? Which is a great question.

Why do it at all if you can't do it perfectly, right? So when you slip up even slightly, it feels like the floodgates open because we've already not met the standard. So what's the point of even trying to get there anymore? Psychologically, that binge is your brain's wave rebelling against deprivation and against these high standards that were really stressing you out, both physically and emotionally.

And here's the twist that usually blows people's mind. Binging is not the opposite of control. It's the result of control. It's the result of trying too hard to control too much. It's control's shadow. It's what happens when control has been stretched so tight that it finally snaps, like an archer that pulls back the string on their bow.

They're pulling back, creating a lot of resistance. And the more they pull that bow back, the farther it's gonna shoot into the open. The farther it's gonna propel forward.

This is exactly what we're doing when we pull back, create so much control. We have such a tight standard that once we have that tiny little slip, it just shoots forward and we have this huge rebound. We call it a loss of control. We call it compulsive out of my body, but in a way, it's your body and your brain trying to protect you from starving, from burnout, from emotional overload.

It's your body's cry for help. It's your body and your brain trying to say, need a break. This is a lot. You might be an extremely high capacity person and be able to do so much. And that's wonderful. this isn't to say you need to not have goals or that you need to not have a to-do list.

but it's to say that maybe your expectations for yourself are just a little bit too severe, my friend. It's a little bit too much. Can we back off a bit and allow room for stillness, room for error? Can there be a margin of error without the all or nothing thinking getting triggered?

Let's talk about physiology for a second because your body is not out to sabotage you, it's actually out to survive. It really wants to live and it wants to keep living. And most high achievers are chronically underfed. They're underfed and overstressed and running on caffeine. And I'm speaking from experience here. Don't ask me how many cups of caffeine I've had today

Anyway, you are too busy for breakfast, right? Usually we're too busy, we're in a rush, we've got too much to do, maybe we went to the gym, all we have time for is the protein shake. lunch, maybe we grab a salad and by dinnertime your body is like, yo, I am so hungry.

But we don't necessarily see it as hunger. We see it as like, ⁓ I am starting to get a craving. I've got a sweet tooth. We start to blame our addiction to food. We start to play the blame game on all the reasons why we might be wanting food, except for the most obvious one, which is just that we're hungry and we need it. I think we forget a lot of times that food is a basic need. And when you restrict, whether intentionally or just accidentally, because we're really busy and we forget.

Your hunger hormones like ghrelin, they go up. Your satiety hormones like leptin, they drop. And the thing is, you might not notice it until the end of the day. Even though you do need food regularly throughout the whole day, if you're so busy because you're checking off all these things on your to-do list or you've got the job that you're crushing it at that doesn't really have a lot of downtime or you've got the little kids running around you that are screaming for your attention all the time and how they need food and you don't actually get real food.

A lot of times we don't notice that hunger until the end of the day when things have finally started to settle. And because it's been so long, those hormones are just revving up and up and up and up, specifically the hunger ones, mean. And the leptin ones are dropping down and down and down because it's trying, your body's trying so hard to give you the message that it does need fuel. It does need energy. it's really behind.

by the end of the day when all we've had is like a protein shake and a salad.

Once we finally have that second to relax, whether it's at lunch or in the middle of the afternoon or once you get home from work or at bedtime, the revenge hunger kicks in. And so your body is screaming for food while your brain is whispering, don't ruin your progress, don't ruin your progress. Like, come on, we have goals. We're not supposed to have sugar. We're not supposed to have white bread. We're not supposed to have fill in the blank.

But the thing is, biology always wins that argument at the end of the day because of our survival mechanisms. This is why, if you've listened to my episode on over eaters anonymous or the brain over binge episode, I talk about this concept of food addiction and the argument of food addiction starts to fall apart because there's an element of

we do need food to survive. So to an extent, there's always going to be a degree where we feel addicted to it, I guess, because there are things biologically us that need food, right? Our whole entire body needs food. And so there's these, like the hunger hormones, right? They're going to drive us to food towards the end of the day. There's nothing like that in our body in terms of alcohol or narcotics that can be learned.

but it's not already there from birth. And so at the end of the day, biology always is gonna win if it's a matter of survival or not. So no matter how amazing you've done at following your diet or checking off the to-do list, there's gonna be a moment where if you're so underfed, your body's gonna kick in and it's gonna say,

I'm over it. I don't care what it is. I don't care if it's the box of stale cereal or if it's the freezer burnt ice cream or if it's the cold pizza. I need food. Right?

This is why so many binge episodes happen at night. It's not a moral failure. It's not a loss of willpower or weak discipline. It's kind of just math, right? It's your body's like equation. There's a side of the equation in your body that's, I mean, it's grossly unbalanced in terms of how much you've eaten and how much you need. So your body tries to correct that equation.

and your hormones are the communicators that help your body accomplish that, your hunger hormones. Then you wake up the next morning vowing to do better, right? Which really means restrict harder, because we're trying to get smaller, trying to maintain this image, trying to reach an image, trying to be perfect, and the psychologist keeps going.

Michelle Yates (13:46)
I'm in post-production here editing this episode and I realized that I missed a great opportunity to let you know about some resources that I have that will actually help you a lot with getting out of this cycle. So the first one, these are all eBooks that I have and I'll put a link to them in the show notes. And one of the eBooks is particularly on how to make sure that that math equation that I mentioned is not unbalanced by the end of the day. That way you can prevent those nighttime bingeing or overeating episodes.

called the guidebook for guilt-free nourishment. And this ebook will walk you through how to fuel yourself well throughout the day, to make sure that you've got a good cadence and balance with your meals and snacks so that you are taking care of yourself from that biological perspective. The second one is called how to find your happy weight and be happy with it. So this is going to be more of a body image focused ebook. in terms of, especially if you're a perfectionist

Or if you're the type A person who does have this perfect image in their mind of how they want their body to look, sometimes that's not always in line with reality. And that's okay. That's just, it can happen. So the guidebook will, or the ebook on finding your happy weight and body image in general should be a really great resource for you in terms of evaluating where you're at for your expectations with yourself and with your body weight and how you look. And then realigning your...

goals and your expectations so that they don't set you up for cycle of the perfection binge pendulum. And then the last one is how to prevent self-sabotage or how to stop self-sabotage and its tracks. This is a great one for perfectionists who do find themselves in that all or nothing trap of, well, I've already messed up so I might as well just...

completely forget all the goals that I had in the beginning and I'll just start over Monday. So I'll put a link to those, like I said, in the show notes. Definitely check those out. You can get them all together and save some money or buy them one at a time. You'll see more information about that when you click on the link in the show notes. All right, let's get back to the episode.

Michelle Yates (15:48)
So something that I believe I mentioned earlier is the secrecy part.

Now here's the thing, this is usually happening in secret, right? And this is huge. Perfectionists binge in private. They don't want you to know. And I'm saying, I keep saying they. ⁓ Here's the thing, you're probably listening to this episode because it's you, right? It's you. And I want you to know too, that's also me. I'm very type A and you can ask anybody that knows me. am that, I am they.

This is a part of my life that I have recovered in terms of perfectionism, but there are other parts of my life where that still can be seen. But I'm speaking to you, my friend. So let's talk in terms of you, right? So if you're a perfectionist, you're type A, you get things done, you're very black and white. If you're bingeing, if you're emotional over eating, if you're breaking or cheating on your diet, that's

probably happening in private, right? We don't want other people to see. It's a secret. It's not because you're a sneaky person. It's not because you are a liar or you mean to deceive people or you don't want your husband to know you fully and completely. It's because it's just this entire identity is built around control and competence that you have, right? It's built around you having it all together. And so your identity is being threatened.

when we're having a perceived loss of control. So we don't want other people to see that because that's not a fun feeling to be working in direct opposition to who you feel like you are at your core or who you're supposed to be. the idea of someone seeing that, it's messy, it's emotional. We don't want them to see us out of control and that feels really unbearable. That's an unbearable

sensation to have to wrestle with. So you're probably hiding it. Not to deceive others, like I said, but to protect yourself from shame, from feeling like I messed up. I am broken. I am not who I say I am. And here's the cruel irony hiding.

reinforces the shame and the shame fuels the next binge. So then it becomes this loop of I can't let anyone know I am so broken. I'm not actually, I don't have it together as much as I look like I do. I need to get it together. So I'm going to restrict again, set some new boundaries in place so that I can hold myself accountable.

but I'm still remembering why I'm doing this in the first place and it's because I lost control and I still feel so shameful about that. So oops, here's another binge. Let me say this clearly because I feel like somebody needs to hear it today. Maybe it's you. You are not broken. You are worthy. You are incredible.

But here's the thing, your expectations for yourself are letting yourself down. And when you can't meet those expectations because they're too unrealistic, you're coping the best way you know how.

And you know what's a really quick way to feel better is eating. when we think about all the things that make us feel better, like going to a therapy appointment, if you think about driving there, the appointment itself, driving back, that's like an hour and a half of your time.

Or maybe you know that going to the gym makes you feel better because you're getting a lot of anxious energy out, a lot of built up energy and anger out. But you got to drive there. And then the workout is like what 30 minutes to 60 minutes, maybe more. And then you got to drive back or maybe talking to a friend. That's scary though. That first of all, it takes a long time. You got to find somebody who's available that you feel safe with. And even if you do feel safe, it's still shameful. You still have that sense of shame and that guilt. So you don't really want people to know.

But even if you did, that would take a long time. for the perfectionist, the thing is, you got stuff to do. You got things that you got to finish today. You got stuff you got to prep for tomorrow. You don't have time, or least you think you don't, to do any other things that could actually make you feel better and are a healthier way to cope. So we just turn to food because it's quick. It's quick, it's easy, and it tastes good.

So the desire to be on top of things, to have it all together, to cross all the stuff on the list, it can put us in this state of perpetually being rushed and then we don't slow down. We don't slow down in the ways that we need to to regulate our nervous system. So we look for something quick that can give us a quick shot of dopamine. And then we move on to the next thing on the to-do list.

and we try not to carry the shame with us into that next task.

So how do we start breaking free from this loop, from this perfection binge cycle or the restrict binge cycle?

Let's start with a few mindset shifts. Progress over perfection isn't this fluffy self-help ⁓ Pinterest background on your phone motivational quote. It's neuroscience. Your brain literally learns better when there's safety, when there's self-compassion, and you're not in a state of punishment, when there's not this

stress that's overriding your frontal lobe. When you're stressed, it's difficult to access the part of your brain, the frontal lobe or the prefrontal cortex that is responsible for decision making, long-term planning, complex thinking. It's less accessible, that part of your brain, when we are stressed. And so if we're demanding perfection and then we're constantly letting ourselves down because...

I don't know if you've heard this lately, but perfection isn't real. It's not achievable. ⁓ It's gonna create this sense of stress, chronic stress. And so then it gets more and more difficult to reach that party brain. And there's a lot of really interesting research on self-compassion and how that does.

open us up more to be able to accomplish things to grow to have a growth mindset and a growth mindset is ⁓ man, it's crucial in order to be able to move forward with reaching any kind of goal. So if you aren't expecting perfection, and instead you're just expecting progress, whatever that looks like, you're expecting to learn something.

no matter what that looks like. Even if you messed up, you're still learning. When you mess up, it's still an opportunity to learn something new about yourself. You can ask yourself, what is this teaching me right now? What can I learn from this? Instead of immediately shaming and blaming and doing the guilt trip thing about how you didn't meet your standard or how you didn't do good enough. So that's the first thing that we need to shift into is expecting progress, not perfection, because

It's actually helpful. It's not just a Pinterest quote or a Hobby Lobby sign on your wall And then the second thing is we need to shoot for the B grade. This is something that Cory Ruth said on my podcast ages ago when she was talking about PCOS and a lot of times women with PCOS are the ones that

also very type A, they end up with disordered eating, restrict binge cycle, there's a lot of overlap. She was talking about how she herself was very type A and so we always want the A plus, we want 100 percent grade, we want to do everything perfectly. Something that she said, was like, tell my clients all the time, stop trying to get the A plus and just shoot for the B grade.

And that is something that has stuck with me and that I've shared with my clients and they found extremely helpful as well. And it's in line with this conversation of what is your expectation for yourself? Is your expectation to be getting an A plus or is it to be getting a B? what if you were perfect at getting a B grade? Do that perfectly.

instead of doing the A plus perfectly, right? If you're gonna be a perfectionist and you feel like you can't detach yourself from that identity or that label, fine, let's just change how we're defining what is perfect. 10 out of 10 isn't perfect, eight out of 10 is perfect. Do what you're shooting for 80 % of the time instead of 100 % of the time. And if you reach that 80%, you've done it perfectly.

Use your perfectionism to your advantage. Leverage it in a way that's actually realistic.

So my last mindset shift is to...

analyze what being healthy is to you. What is being healthy for you? And whatever that is, however you answer that, is that realistic? And is that actually what the leading experts in the field of health and wellness say is genuinely healthy? And this is like, could

branch off into a million different points for this episode, but I won't because I want to close this out and let you get onto your to-do list. But this ⁓ is then where we can have the conversation of like, who are you looking to for your health information? And you need to be careful because now that the internet is popping, social media is in full swing. There's so much access to information and so much of it is misinformation. It's unhelpful. It's not true.

even people that are in charge of public policy these days are not looking to valid sources for information. You can see my podcast episode on RFK Junior for that one. So we need to be sure that wherever we're getting our information, whatever sources we're looking to for that health advice, make sure that they're actually studying this field.

If you're looking to someone for nutrition advice, make sure they actually study nutrition and not that they just took a four-hour online certification class online, but they're a dietician or they have a PhD in nutrition. If you need somebody to give you advice on what medications to take, talk to your doctor or talk to a pharmacist. These people are not trying to just get you looped into Big Pharma to make more money. They got into the field because they want to help.

So they studied and studied and studied, right? Looking to the internet for your medical advice is going to lead you astray pretty much every time, right? Or looking to your chiropractor for nutrition advice is going to lead you astray every single time. Chiropractors are great for getting a back adjustment, not for nutrition advice. Therapists are great for talking through your childhood trauma, not for getting diet advice.

your ⁓ doctor is great for assessing your health risks and referring you to specialists, But they're not going to be the best person to do a deep dive into.

the health of your hormones like an endocrinologist would be or your gastrointestinal system like a gastroenterologist would be. There's specialists in fields for a reason because nobody can know it all as much as we want to. so lean into those who are specialists who have a very specific scope of practice and are willing to stay within that scope of practice and not go outside of it. Now, with that being said, if you do feel like you need somebody to help you with your relationship with food, with your body image,

with overcoming things like binge eating and emotional overeating, and you want support, you're ready for support, you're tired of just listening to podcast episodes and trying to figure it out and put all the pieces together on your own, then I definitely recommend checking out the show notes for how to work with us inside of my signature program, Nourished and Free. You're gonna have access to me, a registered dietitian and mindset coach with my master's in health psychology.

and our body image therapist. We both have experience working with disordered eating and eating disorders. We are nerds when it comes to how to help people through their relationship with food.

And things like perfectionism or being a type A personality can overlap so much.

And honestly, this episode is a great example of why personalized coaching is so important because it's about our personalities sometimes, right? Just like perfectionism is a personality trait. Being type A is a personality trait. And so there are times where your personality traits, your lifestyle, your...

inclinations to think in a certain way, to like certain things that can affect your relationship with food and with your body and be setting you up for cycles that you don't even realize. So that's where having a third party to look in and see your situation and point things out for you can be really helpful because this is not a cookie cutter process, right? Like you can't just look up online. Best way to stop binge eating and see some sort of three step plan and it magically work for you.

because that doesn't take into account personality, environment, genetics, your story. It doesn't take into account any of those things. That's where personalization is really key. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode Let me know by going to the show notes and sending me a message, letting me know what you'd like to hear about next.

If you loved it, of course, please leave me a rating or review. It's so helpful for the show. The more positive ratings and reviews left on the show, the more that it gets recommended to other people on podcast platforms.

So I always appreciate the ratings and reviews because it takes a lot of work to run a podcast and host it and put episodes together and edit and all of that. So every little rating and review is extremely helpful and extremely appreciated. I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day. Make sure you take time to rest, to regulate your nervous system. And here's to living nourished and free.