Use Your Setbacks as Stepping Stones

Setbacks in your journey with binge eating can feel overwhelming and discouraging. In this second part of our two-episode series, we're exploring how to navigate these challenging moments with self-compassion and wisdom.

We'll uncover the surprising ways confident people approach setbacks and shed light on what true progress really looks like - it might not be what you expect. This episode offers gentle guidance and practical insights to help you reframe your experiences and move forward with renewed hope. If you missed part one, you can find it here:

I Thought I Had It Figured Out...

Remember, you're not alone in this journey. If you're seeking personalized support to understand the root causes of your binge eating and develop effective strategies to overcome them, I invite you to book a Food Freedom Session. I'll help you get under the hood and outline your unique path toward a more peaceful relationship with food.

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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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Binge Breakthrough, the podcast designed to help you finally break through the barriers that keep you stuck, feeling out of control around food. I'm Master Certified Coach James Hoker, and I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling or what you've tried, food freedom is possible. And I'm here to show you how. After years of therapy, eating disorders treatment, restrictive diet, and reading all the books, I was still stuck in the onegend cycle of restricting and binging until I was able to see it all from a new perspective that changed everything. Each week I will share the strategies, tools, and mindset that allowed me to overcome my decades-long battle with binge eating. Your journey to body trust starts now. Let's dive in. Hello, trusted listener. Welcome to Binge Breakthrough. I consider you a trusted listener because I trust that you are here for a reason. I trust that you are going to hear something insightful and impactful on your journey with food. So today we're in part two of our two-part series on navigating setbacks in your journey to end binge eating and overall just feel more in control, more peaceful, more calm, connected, and confident with food. So, as a quick recap, last week, in last week's episode, we explored some common scenarios of what people might refer to as a relapse in binge eating behaviors. This episode is called I Thought I Had It Figured Out. And if you missed it, you can either pause this episode now and go listen to that episode, or you can simply finish this one and then go back. I will link that episode in the show notes so you can get to it really easily. But today we're going to dive into the what to do about it part, what to do when we have these setbacks. And by the end of this episode, you are going to have a new perspective on how confident people handle setbacks. You'll get a realistic view of what change and progress actually look like. And you're going to have practical strategies to apply these ideas to your own journey. So let's jump right in. In preparation for my upcoming marathon, I've been working on my own internal confidence in my running. And whenever I do this, I like to read books, I like to listen to podcasts. I like to, I am constantly learning. I'm constantly looking for new ideas, things that I can apply to myself and things that I can bring into my work with my clients. And in this, I've been reading the book. It's called The Confident Mind by Dr. Nate Zenser. And it's an amazing book. What I love about it is there are so many relevant takeaways, not only for athletics, but really for confidence in any area of life. And in this book, he talks about how confident people deal with setbacks. And here is the key confident people see setbacks as temporary, external, and limited. So the example, so for an example of this, of a setback, I overeat at the party, but it's just this one event. That's the temporary part. It just happened once. It doesn't mean it's going to happen forever. The external part means I don't see this as relevant to me. I'm not making this mean anything about me as a person. And then limited means it was just limited to that one spot. So for example, just it only happened at the party. It was limited, temporary, external, and limited. However, here's the difference about what pessimistic see. Pessimistic people, how they deal with setbacks. Pessimistic people see setbacks as permanent, pervasive, and personal. So the example might sound something like this. I binged again. I'll never get better. I'm broken. I'll never figure this out. So permanent means it's permanent. It's not temporary, it's permanent. It's pervasive, which means it's all over the place. No matter where I go, no matter what I do, I am the problem. Food is the problem. And it's personal. It's related to me. I'm broken. So we can really see the difference here: temporary, external, and limited for confident people, the way they see setbacks, versus pessimistic people seeing them as permanent, pervasive, and personal. One of my favorite analogies for this is this visual of getting a flat tire. So let's imagine you're on the road, you're driving along, and you get a flat tire. What would you do? Now, this would be if you know how to change a tire, you would get out, you would change the tire, and then you would keep driving. You likely would not keep driving on your little temporary spare tire that was in the back of your car for just such an instance. But that's probably what you would do. And then you would go get the tire fixed, you'd get a new tire, and then you would move on. But what do many people do who have eaten more than they wanted? Do they just get out, put on their spare tire, and keep going? No, they keep eating. This is the equivalent of getting out of the car when you have one flat tire and then slashing the other three tires. So when you have a setback, what story do you want to tell yourself when you have a setback with your eating? Let's break it down. If we're taking this view of a con how confident people see setbacks, temporary. Here's an example. You can say this is just for now, not forever. External. This doesn't define who I am as a person. It's limited. It happened in this specific situation, not everywhere. So think about your last setback with food. How did you view it? Did you view it as temporary, external, and limited? Or did you view it as permanent, pervasive, and personal? Did you get out and slash your other three tires? In the confident approach, you learn the lesson. You reflect, you learn, you adjust and you adapt. So if we use this overeating at a party example, then we would just look and say, How does it make sense that I overeat at the party? And when you examine with curiosity and not judgment, maybe you see that you showed up to the party overly hungry. So then you might say, okay, next time I'll eat a snack before the party and see how that goes. This is the adjusting and adapting. Now notice you don't just sweep it under the rug, you make sense of it, and then you make a plan to adjust and try something differently next time. In order to get different results, you need to take a different approach. Any setback can be a stepping stone when you reflect on it, when you learn from it, when you adapt your choices and you adjust your behavior. All right, now let's take a look at how change really works. You've probably seen that image that many of us have seen that compares expectation of success versus the reality of what success actually looks like. So in this image, you see a straight upward line with the label what people think success really looks like. And then you see another image that has squiggles, ups and downs all over the place with an overall upward trend. And this one is typically labeled what success really looks like. Now, the reason you've probably seen this image so maybe so many times is because it is the reality. Setbacks are a part of change, they are not a sign of failure, they are a part of the process. But here's the challenge. So many people see setbacks as failure. This might sound like I failed because I binged. If I don't binge, I'm a success. I had a successful day. But if I do binge, I do overeat, I do eat more than I wanted, then I failed. I'm a failure. They think it's personal. And the only indicator of success is whether or not I ate the appropriate amount of food, whatever that means for you. Whatever you have decided randomly is the appropriate amount. But this simply isn't true. Setbacks are not failure, they are part of the journey. You will have setbacks on your journey. Now, you will have setbacks on your journey towards any goal in life. We're talking specifically today about your journey journey towards a more peaceful, calm, and connected relationship with food. But overall, you will have setbacks on any journey. Think about anything that you have accomplished in life. Did you just have a straight upward trend with no setbacks whatsoever? No, that's not how it works. So, why do you think that's how it should work with food? You will have setbacks. But here's the other thing I want you to know. What your setbacks look like, they will change over time. Even think about it right now. What your setbacks look like right now compared to what they looked like a year ago, two years ago, five years ago. They will change. In some cases, they get better. In some cases, there are periods of time where it looks like, oh wow, this is a really big setback. So we don't have to look at the depth of the setback as an indicator of a problem or not. It really is what we're making the setback mean. How are we approaching it? The other thing that will change about your setbacks is likely the foods that you eat. Think back to, let's say, when your journey with food first started. Think about the foods that you would normally went to. And then maybe think back just a couple of years ago. If you're somebody who's been binging, uh feeling out of control with food for decades, think back five years ago, the foods that you were eating. And then think about what you're eating now. I think it's fascinating to think about how the foods we eat change over time. It is evidence that our brain really does change. Our patterns really do change. You likely have not been eating the exact same foods the entire time. There may be some common, for sure, there are likely some common, common foods, but I bet you there are things that you are eating today that you were not eating out in an out-of-control way in the past. Interesting to notice and to realize, huh? That's interesting. I wonder why. The quantities that you ate may change. As you are on this journey, you may find that even when you're having setbacks, you are eating less food than you used to. Or you might find you're actually eating more. Either way, there is valuable information here for you. The amount of time that you disconnect with food may change. You may be able to reconnect with yourself and with others faster over time. But you will still have times with food that you show up in ways that you don't prefer because you are human. Setbacks are not a problem. They do not indicate failure. Setbacks are actually valuable. They show you what isn't working. Remember, a binge or an out-of-control moment with food, it is a light on the dashboard. It tells us there's something going on under the hood. So we just need to get under the hood and say, what's going on? So for example, if you have a binge, this might reveal you're not eating enough during the day. Let's say you go through the day and you're a person who says, I can do, I'm so good during the day. And then at night, all bets are off. I just eat all of the food. This could reveal, it depends. It might reveal you're actually not eating enough during the day. And so then your body is just trying to get enough food later in the day. This is a light on the dashboard. We get under the hood to see what's going on. So instead of wishing that setbacks would never ever happen, what story do you want to tell yourself when they happen? So instead of I'll never figure this out, or here I go again, or I'll always be this way, or this is just what I do. Let me give you some new sentences to try on. I understand why that happened. I have a plan for what I would do differently next time. I'm gonna get under the hood and figure out what I need to work on. This isn't a reflection of me as a person or of my worth. This is temporary. I'll get right back to what I know works for me. I'm going to be kind and supportive to myself through this. I'm going to get the support I need. So here's my question for you. When you reflect back onto your last setback, who knows? It could have literally been today. It could have been yesterday, it could have been months ago. How can you reframe your last setback more positively? How can you tell yourself a different story about your setback? All right. Now I want to give you some practical steps to handle setbacks confidently. I've already given you some amazing things that you can say to yourself. I've given you an amazing analogy about the flat tire. But here are some just practical steps. Pause and breathe. Don't react immediately. Don't go slash those other tires. Remind yourself you are human. And humans overeat sometimes. Remind yourself this is one flat tire. Reflect on what led to the setback. Make sense of it. Identify one small change you can make. What will you do different next time? Reach out for support if you need it. And be kind to yourself. I know this is hard to do in the moment, but I love to ask myself the question: what would I say to my best friend right now? Can I, is it possible for me to say that to myself? All right. I want you to remember setbacks are not evidence of failure. They are part of success. And your homework is this. The next time you face a setback, you might even be facing a setback right now as you listen to this episode. Practice telling yourself a more confident story about it. Bookmark this episode and the previous episode so you can come back and revisit them when you find yourself having a setback. When you find yourself saying, Oh, I thought I had it figured out. And here's the other thing I want you to know. Sometimes it's hard to look under our own hood. Sometimes, okay, I can see the lights are on. Yep, the lights are on, the binges are happening, the out-of-control moments with food are happening. I'm trying to look under the hood and I can't make sense of it. I don't know what's going on. I just keep doing the same thing over and over again. If that is you, this is not a problem. So often we can't see our own stuff. We have blind spots for a reason. It's called, they're called blind spots for a reason. Sometimes you might need to bring in somebody who is able to look under your hood and help you see what is happening, to help you make sense of it, to help you reflect, to help give you a plan for what to do so that you can prevent those lights from coming on in the first place. We don't just need to get under the hood. We need to do the work under the hood so that the lights don't keep coming on. If you need assistance with this, it's not a problem. You are not broken, but there's just this process of understanding, making sense of it. Sometimes we simply can't do that for ourselves. So if you would like help in getting under your hood, in looking under the hood and figuring out what's going on, I encourage you to reach out. We can schedule a food freedom session where I can help you get under the hood and figure out what is going on for you. So reach out and schedule a food freedom session. We'll get under your hood together. All right. Now in the next episode, we're going to dive into the phases of change. We're going to keep looking at how does change work anyway? We've already found out today setbacks are a part of the process of change, but they're just one part. There are lots of phases of change. So this is what we're going to dive into next week so you can have an even more clear picture of this journey of change. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might need it. And until next time, be gentle with yourself. And remember, even when you can't see it, change is often happening underneath the surface. That's what I have for you today. I'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

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