Who Are You Listening To?

Who are you listening to when it comes to your food choices? If you're like most people, you've probably been listening to everyone except the one voice that matters most - your own.

Have you been following external food rules for so long that you've lost touch with your body's signals? Do you find yourself constantly researching the "right" way to eat instead of trusting what feels right for you? This episode will help you understand why constantly looking outside yourself for food answers actually weakens your ability to make decisions.

You'll discover practical steps to start rebuilding that internal communication and learn why your body has been trying to talk to you all along - you just need to know how to listen. Plus, you'll get a preview of something called Supportive Structure that could be the answer to your all-or-nothing struggles with food rules and restrictions.

Ready to go deeper? If you want to get to the heart of why you struggle with food and discover how to stop, watch the Binge Breakthrough Mini Series: janepilger.com/mini

Want to know why you struggle with food and what to do next? Start watching The Food Freedom Mini Series today. 

Transcript

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In a world filled with expert opinions, diet rules, and well-meaning advice, there's one voice that often gets drowned out completely. Your own. Today we're exploring why learning to listen to yourself is the most important skill you can develop on your journey to food freedom. And I'll introduce you to a concept I call supportive structure that bridges the gap between rigid rules and complete chaos. Welcome to Binge Eating Breakthrough, the podcast to help you stop feeling out of control around food and build trust with your body. If you've tried everything but still feel stuck, you're not alone. I've been there too. I'm Jane Pilger, and I'm here to help you see binge eating in a new way so you can finally break free. Each week you'll get the tools and insights to create peace with food and your body. Your breakthrough starts now. Hello, trusted listener. I consider you a trusted listener because I trust that you're here seeking something deeper than another quick fix or temporary solution. I trust that you're ready to explore what it really means to develop the most important relationship of your life, the one with yourself. All right, let me ask you something. Who are you listening to right now about your food choices? When I ask that question, what is the first answer that comes to you? Who are you listening to about your food choices? If you are like most of the people that I work with, you've probably listened to a lot of voices over the years. Here's some examples. Could be the diet industry telling you exactly what to eat and when. Maybe it's the wellness influencer promising that their morning routine will change your life. Maybe it's your well-meaning friend who lost weight doing keto. Maybe it's your mother's voice in your head about good and bad foods. Maybe it's the nutritionist who gave you a meal plan. Maybe it's the book that promised to end emotional eating forever. But here's what I've noticed. The more external voices we listen to, the quieter our own inner voice becomes. It's like we've turned the volume down so low on our own internal wisdom that we can barely hear it anymore. The other challenge is all of these external voices, they are so contradictory. You could go find five different wellness influencers telling you five different things. You might go look at somebody's what I eat in a day post and think, oh my gosh, they eat that. Well, maybe I'm eating too much. Maybe I'm not eating enough. Maybe I should be eating this way. Well, if she's eating that way and she had this result, then maybe I'm doing it wrong. But there is so much conflicting information out there. And what you probably need to eat in order to get to your own version of food freedom is likely going to be very different than your friend, than a wellness influencer, than me. There is no perfect plan. There is no one size fits all approach. And the more we look outside of ourselves and try to find the answers, the more confused we get. And it is true. It's we also quiet our own inner voice. This is actually something I was talking about over uh on the blog at the Peaceful Eater this week. Now, side note, if you are not subscribed to the Peaceful Eater, I highly encourage you to get signed up today for more resources for your journey with food. I send out a blog post, a short article every Monday, in addition to the podcast episode on Wednesday, and sometimes some other fun things over at the Peaceful Eater. So make sure you are uh signed up over there so you can get additional information. You can also look back and find all kinds of blog posts I've written over the last couple of years. But the post I wrote this week was an article titled, When was the last time you spent time with yourself? So many of my clients, and myself included, when I don't pay attention and when I'm not intentional, we spend a lot of time seeking outside information. And outside information can be helpful. I am not here to say, I mean, it would be a little contradictory if I said, don't consume outside information while telling you this on a podcast of outside information. It can be helpful. My goal is that this podcast is a supportive resource to you. But when we consume so much outside information and we fill ourselves with so many external voices that we're not connected to our internal wisdom, that's the problem. The problem is when it comes at the expense of our ability to connect with ourselves. So here's some questions that I want you to consider as we begin. Answer these to yourself as you're listening right now. How much time do you spend with yourself? That means without any outside noise, without listening to a podcast, listening to an audiobook, uh, listening to music, listening, being with somebody else. How much time do you spend just with yourself? Listening for your own inner wisdom. Now, I want you to be very careful and not to judge yourself. If the answer is, oh my gosh, none. I literally have something in my ear. I'm scrolling social media, I'm listening to videos, I'm whatever it is. I always, always, always have something from the outside coming in. Please do not judge yourself about it. But ask yourself, if that is you, how is it possible? How do you think you will be able to listen to your own inner wisdom if you're not giving yourself any space to actually hear? If what you're hearing is all of the external noise and information. Now, it's not all noise. I do think there is amazing information out there for sure. But how much time do you spend with yourself listening for what does resonate with you, what you want to really think about and focus on and apply to yourself? Or is it just constant, what's next? What's next? It's kind of like here's a great example. Um, if you go to watch TV and if you're intentionally watching an episode, you're immersed, you love the, you love the content, you love the episode, you want to know what happens next. Uh, when you're done, you actually feel really good versus the times that you literally sit on the couch for like three hours and you're just like, next, next. Maybe you're scrolling, also like scrolling social media while the TV is on, while somebody else is uh saying something next to you. Those are very different ways of consuming, right? Okay, next question for you to consider. Whose voices do you typically hear, especially when it comes to food? So we had some examples at the beginning of different whose voices you might typically hear. So whose is it? For a lot of people, it is somebody kind of earlier in life, particularly if you had somebody at a figure in your life who had very um uh opinionated, maybe very judgy, very critical things to say about what you were eating or what your body looked like? Whose voices do you typically hear? Do those voices feel helpful and supportive, or do they feel more judgy? Again, there's not a right or wrong here, but whose voices are you hearing? Do they feel helpful and supportive, or do they feel more judgy? And then the last question: Does listening to those voices lead you to decisions that feel helpful and supportive to you? Or do you feel like you're constantly in confusion, resistance, or rebellion? Now, this is just good to know. If you've heard me for a while, you know, if you've been listening to me for a while, you know, awareness is always the first step. So these questions are really to just bring in some awareness for where you are right now. Okay. And here is what I know to be true. Your body is always communicating with you, it is constantly sending you signals about what it needs, how it feels, and what serves you best. The problem is that we've been trained to ignore these signals in favor of external rules and regulations, in favor of what other people are telling us we should do. And this is really particularly challenging for driven analytical people, because you're used to researching, analyzing, and finding the right answer. If you are somebody who really liked to be a good student, who loved to kind of check the boxes, find the right answer. If you are somebody who excels at following systems and protocols, maybe in your professionally professional life, you naturally look for the same kind of clear structure when it comes to food and your body. But this is where it gets tricky because your body is not a business problem to be solved. It's not a project to be managed, it is not something to be controlled or manipulated. It is a living, breathing, constantly changing system that requires a different kind of attention, one that comes from inside. It is constantly changing. So many people approach their body with a the idea that it's going to be the same every single day. Well, this is what I eat. I eat this exact same thing for breakfast and for lunch every single day. Well, your body's needs change. They change with time, they change day to day. Our body itself changes as we age. It is constantly changing. So if you are trying to apply some rigid, inflexible thing to a body that is constantly changing, that math does not work. This is why often math itself does not work. Now, what's the cost though of listening to everything outside of ourselves? When we constantly look outside of ourselves for answers about food, several things happen. First, we lose trust in our own ability to make decisions. I cannot tell you how many people tell me, I just don't trust myself. I don't trust myself around all food or around certain foods. Every food choice becomes a question mark instead of an intuitive knowing. You might find yourself Googling, is this healthy? Or how much should I eat instead of checking in with your own body. You might literally be looking at numbers outside sources to decide whether or not to eat something or how much to eat something. We also, then the second thing that happens when we look outside of ourselves for answers is we create this authority dependence. We're always needing someone else to tell us what's right, which keeps us in a perpetual state of seeking instead of trusting. And for people who are incredibly capable and successful in other areas of life, this can feel particularly frustrating. We can get into this, have an older podcast episode of tell me what to do, don't tell me what to do, right? It's like we want somebody to tell us what to do. We're seeking, please tell me, I don't trust myself. But then somebody else tells us and we're like, no, don't tell me what to do, or oh, yuck, I don't even like that. I wouldn't like that. But if you say this will work, then I'll try it. Then we're going against ourselves anyway. And thirdly, the third cost of listening to everything outside of ourselves is that we start to treat our bodies like they're separate from us. And by say, I when I say we start to, we really start to do this when we start dieting. And so for so many of us, that was decades ago. But we treat our bodies like they're separate from us, like they need to be controlled and managed rather than listened to and cared for. And this disconnection is often at the root of binge eating patterns. So I recently started working with a private client and she shared this realization with me one day. She said, I have literally just realized that my body is a part of me. She said, I have always seen it as something separate from me, something to control. This feels so huge. It was like this awakening of wow, this body is not something just to manipulate. It's something to get to know, to communicate. She is learning to communicate with it, to get to know what it needs and wants, to really tune in rather than just trying to manipulate it and control. It's like this is a part of me. So many people literally separate themselves, their head from their body. It's like from the neck down. Nope, that is not a part of me. That is just either something to ignore, something to manipulate, something to control. But is this something to actually like listen to, care for, a living being breathing that truly is the relationship that you will have, the longest relationship you will have? The one that you will have for the rest of your life is your relationship with your body. Okay, so you might be thinking, you might be listening to this, saying, okay, this all sounds great, but how do we listen to ourselves? How do I turn up the volume on my own inner voice? How do I start listening to myself when I've been listening to everyone else for so long? So the first step, surprise, surprise, it's awareness. It's recognizing this is a skill that needs to be developed. Just like think about something that you are successful in in your life, whether it is your career, whether it is being a parent, whether it is a hobby or something, maybe you're a musician, something that you're really good at. You did not become successful at that thing overnight. It takes practice, it takes patience, it takes time. It's the same with learning to listen to yourself. And it starts with believing that your body actually is communicating with you. So, what do I do? Here's some steps for you. Okay. Start with body awareness. So throughout the day, pause and ask yourself, how does my body feel right now? Now, we're not asking how should it feel, or how do I want it to feel, but how does it actually feel? This simple practice begins to rebuild the communication pathway between your mind and your body. If this is new to you, you might consider setting some alarms on your phone. Body check-in. You could literally, now with phones and alarms, set an alarm several times. You decide what times would be helpful to you and label it body check-in. There's something else you can do. Notice your energy patterns. When do you feel most energized? When do you feel depleted? What activities, foods, or situations leave you feeling good versus drained? Your body is constantly giving you this information. You just need to start paying attention. Notice your energy patterns and what leads to them. What are you doing that creates either the increased energy or the decrease in energy? And how can you make adjustments based on that? Practice the pause. Before eating, take a moment to check in. Now, this isn't to judge, it's not to analyze, but it literally is to notice. What does your body need right now? Are you physically hungry? Are you emotionally seeking comfort? Are you bored? Are you stressed? There literally is no wrong answer, and there's not a wrong time to eat. It is not bad to eat when you are seeking comfort. It is not bad to eat when you're bored, when you're stressed. But if you can notice, oh, I can see some connections here of what's happening. Simply awareness. Check in rather than just eating on autopilot or eating with the lights turned off. Now, we can also start with small food choices. So instead of having a very like a plan or even a rigid plan, here's what I'm going to eat. Just ask yourself what sounds good? What would make your body feel nourished? There are plenty of people out there who literally eat the same thing day after day and have for years. Maybe not because some, it's because they like it and it works for them. If that is you, that's great. I am not telling you you have to change what you eat at all. For some people, that's amazing. It's supportive. For other people, they only eat specific foods because they feel safe. This is healthy. If I eat these foods, that gives me this result. So it might feel scary to actually check in and ask, what do I really want to eat today? What do I want to eat right now? What would make my body feel nourished? What would give me the energy I want for the day? For me, when I ask that question, the answer is often very different day to day. And sometimes it's the same. Sometimes my eating can look very similar. And other times, my body really does ask for something very different. And this might feel scary at first, especially if you've been following external rules for a long time. But remember, your body has incredible wisdom when you give it the chance to communicate with you. Now, I know some of you might be thinking right now, Jane, if I just listen to my body and I just ask myself, what do I want to eat right now? I will eat ice cream for breakfast and lunch and dinner and I will never stop. Or maybe I will eat ice cream for breakfast and I will literally just keep eating all day long. And this is where so many people get stuck in all or nothing thinking. So on the one extreme, we have rigid rules and restrictions, meal plans, forbidden foods, strict eating windows. And it feels safe because it's predictable, but it often leads to rebellion, binges, and a complete disconnect from your body's actual needs. But on the other extreme, we have what you might consider food chaos. It's the idea of eat whatever you want, whenever you want, with no structure or awareness. Any time I want to eat, any hint of it, I'm just gonna eat anything, everything. And while this sounds freeing for many people. Especially those recovering from binge eating, this can feel overwhelming and actually create more anxiety. It's like if you tell me I can just eat whenever, that feels way too unstructured. It feels like kind of, I feel a little untethered when you just tell me I have permission to eat and not to follow any restriction or any rigid rules. But there is a middle path. We do not have to be on the extremes of eat whatever you want, whenever you want, whenever you think about food, or you have to be on this very restrict, rigid plan that feels very much like a diet. So this middle path, this is what I want to introduce you to a concept that we're going to dive deep into in next week's podcast episode. It's called supportive structure. Supportive structure is my answer to this all-or-nothing dilemma. It's not about rigid rules that make you feel restricted and eventually lead to rebellion. It's not about complete freedom that leaves you feeling lost and overwhelmed. Instead, supportive structure is about creating a framework that supports your body's natural rhythm, rhythm, and wisdom while providing enough structure to feel safe and grounded. So think about it this way: if you are a professional who has a professional life, you likely, or even if not, if even if you're not a professional, in your life, you likely have structures that support your success. You might have routines, systems, frameworks that help you perform at your best. These aren't restrictive, they're supportive. They create the container within which your creativity and your expertise can flourish. The same principle applies to your relationship with food and your body. Supportive structure creates a container within which your body's wisdom can emerge and be trusted. So next week on the podcast, I will share much more about how to create your own supportive structure, including practical examples and how to implement this into your daily life. But for now, I want you to practice the skill of listening to yourself. So here's what I want you to focus on this week. Morning check-ins. Each morning, before you look at your phone, before you start your day, take two minutes to check in with your body. If you can do this before you get out of bed, it's amazing. How are you feeling? What do you need today? You are checking in with your body, asking your body these questions. What would support you best?

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And check in in the morning. Just how are you feeling? What do you need? What would support you best? Then before you eat, just pause and ask yourself what your body needs. We're not judging, we're not restricting. It's just connection and awareness. Check in as you're eating, even after you eat, check in. How are you feeling? How did that feel? How is my energy now? Reflect on it. And then in the evening, reflect on the day. When did you feel most connected to yourself? You can also do this when as soon as you get in bed. So your morning and evening reflection and kind of check-in can be in bed. When did you feel most connected to yourself? When did you feel disconnected? What did you learn about your own patterns and needs? You can journal these things or literally just ask and check in. Now remember, your body does not know what day of the week it is. If you are one of these people who eats really differently Monday through Friday versus Saturday and Sunday, or maybe a holiday comes around and you just completely change the way that you eat, your body does not know what day of the week it is. It does not know about diet rules or food trends. It knows what it's been through in the past, and it knows it does not want to again be starved. It knows what it needs to feel nourished and cared for. And the more you practice listening to your body, the clearer this communication becomes. Now, learning to listen to yourself is perhaps the most radical act you can take in a world that profits from your self-doubt. It's also the foundation of lasting food freedom. What you focus on expands. If you focus on external rules and other people's opinions, that external dependency expands. But if you focus on building trust with yourself, that self-trust expands too. If you come in and just say, I don't trust myself, fact de facto, I do not trust myself, you're not opening up to the possibility that you can build that trust. So focus on listening. Create an intention to build trust with yourself. What would that look like? Now, next week, I will be sharing exactly how to create supportive structure in your own life, how to honor your body's wisdom while creating the safety and consistency that allows that wisdom to emerge. And this is the key to moving beyond the all or nothing cycle that keeps so many people stuck. But in the meantime, if you have not yet checked out the binge breakthrough mini-series yet, I highly recommend you go and do that next. It's a short series of videos that will help you understand your food struggles and what to do next. I'll put a link in the show notes. It's janepilger.com forward slash mini M-I-N-I. But if you do nothing else, practice listening. Your body has been waiting patiently for you to tune back in. And I trust that you will be amazed by what you discover when you do. If you've been trying to stop binge eating and nothing has worked, there's a reason. I created the binge breakthrough miniseries to help you finally understand what's driving your binge eating beneath the surface so that you can actually start to change it. Each video is short and they're designed to give you the clarity and direction you've been missing so you can stop feeling stuck and start finding your way out. Start watching now at janepilger.com forward slash mini. That's janepilger.com forward slash mini. M I N I.