I Thought I Had It Figured Out...

Have you ever thought you've beaten binge eating, only to find yourself back in the cycle? You're not alone. In today's episode, we explore the frustrating experience of relapsing after periods of progress. Discover why the thought 'I had it figured out' might be holding you back, and learn to reframe setbacks as valuable insights.

We'll unpack common relapse triggers, from post-vacation struggles to stress-induced binges, and explore the hidden thoughts fueling these patterns. Gain a fresh perspective on restrictive diets, your identity as an eater, and the impact of labeling foods.

Learn why blaming external circumstances keeps you stuck and how to look inward for lasting solutions. Tune in for part one of this two-episode series and start transforming your setbacks into stepping stones toward freedom from binge eating.

Episodes Referenced:

Remove Restrictions

Unintentional Restriction

All About Restriction

Your Identity as an Eater

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

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Binge Breakfast, the podcast design to help you finally break through the barriers to keep you stuck feeling out of control, mom. I'm Master Coach Jane Poker, and I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling, what you've tried, freedom is a therapy, even treatment, restrictive diet, and reading all the stuff in the omicken optic cycle of restricting 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 listening to this podcast for a reason. I trust that you are going to hear something today that is insightful and impactful on your journey with food. So today we're going to dive into a topic that I hear about a lot, a sentence that I hear more often than I could could even begin to tell you. I thought I had it figured out. You know, it's that feeling when you've had a long stretch without binging and you think you're over it, and then it starts again. Now, if you have ever experienced this, and especially if you are going through this right now, this episode is for you. Now let's break it down. When you say, I thought I had it figured out, what is unspoken but implied, is that you were wrong and that you really don't have it figured out. Now, this may or may not be true, as we're going to explore in this episode, but I want to offer the possibility that just thinking about any setback in this way implies that it shouldn't be happening, that something is wrong, and that be your behavior is somehow bad. Now, the challenge with this is that you are bringing in shame and judgment. This shouldn't be happening, something is wrong, something is wrong with me brings in that shame. And as we've talked about before, shame and judgment is the number one thing that keeps us in the cycle of binge eating. So, what I want to encourage you to do is to put aside shame or judgment. And what we're gonna do here is we're gonna get really curious. This is how we figure out what's going on. Remember, your binges are like lights on the dashboard. They tell us that something is going on under the hood. So if binge eating has returned for you, or your out of control episodes, your compulsive eating has returned, all that means is there's something going on under the hood that we need to look at. But shame and judgment are gonna be that 50-pound weight that prevent you from looking under the hood. So the very first step before we even dive any deeper, is we need to shift into curiosity so we can get that hood open to take a look at what's going on. So I'm gonna share a few examples for you that I hear often. These are scenarios that I hear related to the I thought I had it figured out. So as you listen to each example, I want you to think about your own personal experience. Is this something that you are currently experiencing right now, or perhaps you have in the past? So, what I'm gonna do is I've got four examples. I'm gonna read you each example, and I want you to just listen like, yep, check, either been there, done that, or yes, that's me right now. Like you are singing exactly what I'm going through. So I want you to just identify for yourself can you see yourself in any of these examples? So I'm gonna read each example, and then we're gonna do a little bit of a deep dive into each specific example. All right, example number one. Several years ago, I made massive changes to my diet. I cut out all processed sugar and flour, or maybe some other foods or food groups, and I felt great. I lost a lot of weight, I had no cravings, and I want to get back there, but I can't seem to do it. All right, that's example number one. Do you see yourself either now or in the past in this example? Okay, here comes example number two. I was making progress. My binges had decreased in volume and in frequency, or maybe they even stopped altogether. But then something stressful happened in my life, and now they're back, and I can't stop. Do you see yourself in this one? Have you seen yourself in this one? Example number three. I was making progress and I was feeling really connected with myself and with food. And then I went on vacation and I haven't been able to stop eating since I returned. Do you see yourself in this one now or in the past? All right, last example. I was feeling very connected with myself and with food, and then I got sick. Ever since then, I've been turning to food for comfort. It's like once I started eating comfort foods, it opened the floodgates, and now I can't stop. Do any of these sound familiar to you? I bet they do, because I have heard them all many times, and I have experienced several of these for myself. All right, we're gonna break each one down and really make sense of each one. All right, so for the first example, the I've I've made massive changes to my diet in the past. I felt great and I really want to get back there, but I can't seem to do it. I can't seem to repeat what I did in the past. Now, this one is often the fallacy of it worked before. When you're thinking about cutting out food groups or limiting like the quantities or even the times that you eat. We tend to have this hindsight bias where we don't remember everything that was happening at the time. Now, only you can say what your experience was if this is you and you're thinking back on a time in the past. Only you really know what your experience was. But I find that often when I ask a lot more questions about this specific scenario, things weren't really as great as we remember them. Now, this is a classic restrict binge scenario where significant physical and mental restriction occurs. And the body simply won't allow you to return to that situation. It's a physical response to the restriction. Now, I have lived this one personally. I can remember going through this period of time where I made all of these restrictions and all of these changes, and I did go through a period of time where I thought I had everything figured out and I was feeling good and all of these things. But the reality is I was not in good mental health. When I look back and I get real open and honest with myself, I was not in good mental health and I was severely limiting the nutrients and resources for my body. And sadly, this is also the time I got the most compliments on my physical appearance. Now, if this is you, if this example number one is you, when you reflect on that time in the past, how much restriction was actually taking place? Both physical and mental restriction. I'm gonna link in the show notes for you some previous episodes on restriction so that you can kind of hear more about this topic and just get curious for yourself. If you can't get back there, it is very likely that your body is preventing you from this type of restriction in the future. All right, let's move on to the second example. So the second example is something I was doing great, but something stressful happened in my life, and now the binges are back and I can't stop. Now, this one is really common. If one of the reasons why you binge is that it's a coping mechanism, to your brain's response to a perception of risk or threat, something that happens, something stressful happening in your life can reactivate that response. Now, this doesn't mean that you're doomed to binge eating forever, but it means that binge is the light on the dashboard. It tells us something is going on under the hood. So in this case, it's telling us the nervous system is dysregulated. And perhaps I don't have the emotional capacity to deal with the emotions that are coming from this event. So we can work on nervous system regulation, we can work on expanding our emotional capacity so that you can open up and allow these emotions in a way that feels safe enough so that you don't need to binge for safety or escape. All right, that's the second example. Now let's look at the third example. The third example is I went on vacation and I haven't been able to stop eating since I got back. So this one reflects that you probably feel like you are either on plan or you are off plan. So often people who feel like they need a plan to keep themselves accountable have a really hard time when the plan isn't in place. They don't have an identity as an eater that follows them wherever they go. What they have is a plan that keeps them from behaving a certain way. Do you hear the difference there? It's they don't have an identity as an eater. That follows them wherever they go. You don't have to have a plan everywhere, every time. If you have an identity as an eater, I'm a calm, connected, and confident eater. I don't need a plan to keep me on track. In general, people who think they need a plan, they think the plan keeps them from behaving a certain way. It keeps them from binging. So if I go on vacation and I don't have a plan, or if I just have a busy day and I don't plan, then I'm likely to binge. I'm likely to overeat because it's an I don't have that identity of an eater in place. So in this case, what I would do is I would look at your identity as an eater. I will post in the uh in the in the notes a podcast episode about this, your identity as an eater. Are you someone who's either on plan or off plan? Or are you someone who stays connected with their body, whether they're on vacation or not? Now, also, here's another thing that happens in this vacation scenario. If you get back from vacation and you feel like you may have gained weight on vacation and you want to lose it, your brain might go into scarcity mode, thinking about the upcoming diet or restriction that might be coming. And that mental restriction, even if you haven't even tried to eat less, just the mental restriction of I'm going to lose the weight, I'm going to uh eat less so that I can lose this weight that I gain, that mental restriction can lead to continued binge eating. All right, our fourth and final example is I got sick. And ever since I got sick, I've been turning to food for comfort. It's like once I started eating comfort foods, it opened the floodgates. And now I can't stop. Now, this example also goes to your identity as an eater. Are you identifying certain foods as good or bad? Are you thinking that you shouldn't be eating certain foods when you aren't sick? Sometimes people will say, Oh, okay, well, it's okay for me to eat these foods while I'm sick, while I need comfort, while I, let's say, for example, a lot of people, when they get sick, they have no desire to eat vegetables. This makes sense to me because a lot of times your digestive system is not really working at full capacity. And you know what? To eat vegetables, your digestive system has to work pretty hard because of all of the fiber and the skin and all of the other things that happen with vegetables. So it makes sense that we don't crave those. We want foods that are more easily digestible. But if you're thinking you shouldn't be eating those foods if you're not sick, we get into this good and bad mentality around food. So this idea that once you start eating certain foods, it opens up the floodgates, can be very common. But from my perspective, and after working with thousands of women, I can tell you for sure, it isn't the food itself that opens the floodgates. It's your belief that once you start, you can't stop. All right, so we've done a deep dive into each of these four examples, and I want you to think about your personal situation. When was the last time that you had a setback? A time when you thought, oh, I thought I had it all figured out. What was your personal experience with it? So I want you to look back, look at these examples, look at each one that I've given you and how we've broken them down. Look for yourself. Can you see in your scenario how it makes sense? Can you identify what changed for yourself to go from feeling in control around food to not feeling in control? Now, when you look at this and you're trying to identify, okay, what happened, what changed? Here's what I want you to be very clear about. The vacation, the sickness, the challenging situation, or the dessert did not create the setback. Don't blame your external circumstances. Because if you do, then you're stuck with something that you can't change. Or you're stuck believing that every time you go on vacation, get sick, eat dessert, or have a stressful day at work, you're going to end up binging. This will keep you in the cycle. But instead, I want you to get clear on what you're thinking about yourself and your abilities in those situations. What are you thinking about that might be contributing to the increased out-of-control food episodes? What's happening in your nervous system that you might be trying to calm with food? Let's go inside for the answers. That's where they always are. The problems and the solutions are inside, which is great news. This is why we go under the hood. We don't change the food, we don't change the external circumstances. We don't just decide, well, as long as I have a plan, then I'll be fine. No, because then that means you have to have a plan every day for the rest of your life, or you can't trust yourself. This is not what we want. We want this the answers that are inside. We go under the hood to see what's going on. So I invite you to make sense of your situation. Make sense of the times that you have a setback or that your binges return or they increase in volume or frequency. It always makes sense. But if we can look at it with curiosity, set aside the shame and the judgment so we can get under the hood and figure out what we need to do so that we can go back to these times with more connection with food, where the binges decrease in frequency, they decrease in volume, they decrease all together. So make sense of the times when you think I had it all figured out. What changed? Let's look under the hood. Now, I also want to invite you to be sure to tune in to next week's episode. Because in next week's episode, I'm going to give you some practical tips on how you can look at your setbacks so that they don't keep you in the cycle of binging and feeling out of control around food. We're making sense of it today. We're, we're looking under the hood, we're figuring out, oh, okay, yes, this makes sense. I want to go look at restriction. I want to look under the hood. I want to look at my nervous system. I want to look at my identity as an eater. And we're going to talk even more about setbacks. I want you to remember setbacks are a normal part of any change process. We're going to dive deeper into the phases of change next week and why setbacks are actually an important part of your journey. We don't need to just hope that we never have any again. It's what we do with them that matters. So until next week, when we dive even deeper, I want you to know you always make sense. So if you are currently going through a setback, get curious about what's going on under the hood. Then you will know where to go to get yourself right back on course. All right, that's what I have for you today. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Binge Breakthrough. If you would like personalized guidance, insight, and support to implement the tools, skills, and concept you are learning on this podcast, I have just what you need. Cultivate an entirely new relationship with yourself.