Is It Possible to Stop Binge Eating Permanently?

Many people ask, is it possible to stop binge eating permanently? There are often two extreme views. Some think binge eating is a life sentence that is something that you will have to manage and deal with for the rest of your life. Others think that it is absolutely possible to stop permanently and share stories of the immediate transformation of never bingeing again. As you know from other episodes, I am a fan of moving out of extremes and more toward the middle. Bingeing is not just about the food…it goes much deeper. In today's episode, I help lift the veil, uncover how I help my clients look under their hood, and explore what's happening.

It's important to look at the root problem to create permanent change. What is causing the symptoms in the first place? 

 Binge eating is like the warning light that comes on and tells you something is wrong under the hood. When you binge, it's important to look under your "hood" to see what is going on. 

I believe that it is possible to stop binge eating permanently. I also think it is impossible to stop permanently using certain approaches. There is a reason that so many people experience brief periods of what they consider "success", only to start bingeing again. 

I see ending binge eating as unwinding. It's a process that takes time. No button gets flipped, and there are no more thoughts, desires, or cravings for food. It is genuinely a rewiring of the brain, creating new neural pathways. 

Here are some key points from this episode:

• To stop binge eating, you must understand it. You are not broken. Bingeing is not a problem to be fixed or solved. Bingeing is a symptom. An indicator that something else is going on. If you can remove the shame and judgment and understand what is going on underneath the hood to make the binge light come on, we can work on the root cause.

• Instead of thinking I am broken, I am out of control, I am a binger; begin to think I am connected to my body's wisdom, I am stronger than I think, I am my biggest advocate, I am a calm and peaceful eater.

• As you expand your ability to be with any emotion, that will expand your ability to be with that desire to eat and let it pass on its own. Then you can figure out what it had to tell you. As you work with your nervous system, your body feels safer and less likely to need to escape into the patterns it has known before. You will have more connection to your body and access to the logical part of your brain that can help you make those choices at the moment.

If you want to understand WHY you feel out of control around food sometimes, take this short 7 question quiz to discover your #1 reason, including 3 steps you can take today to begin to change.

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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Welcome to Binge Breakthrough. I can design to help you finally break through the barriers that keep you stuck feeling out of control about food. I'm Master by Coach Jane Helper, and I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling, what you've tried, freedom is I'm here to show you. 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 no matter where you are listening to this podcast, when you are listening to this podcast, or what your situation is, I trust that you are here for a reason, that you are going to get something from this podcast that is going to be part of your binge breakthrough. Whether you are able to say, yes, it was that podcast, or there's just an idea or a concept that you hear today that helps you to see something in a new way. So I invite you to just get curious about what you can hear. What are you going to take away from this podcast? What new insight or perspective might you get that is going to help you on your journey with food? So I want today I want to talk about a topic that many people are curious about. And this is the question: is it possible to stop binge eating permanently? Now there are mixed opinions about this. Some people think that binge eating is a life sentence. It's something you will have to manage and deal with for the rest of your life. Others think it's absolutely possible to stop permanently and share stories of immediate transformation, of never binging again. Now, these are two extreme viewpoints. And as I talked about in episode 14 about fear, I find it beneficial to move out of the extreme approaches and perspectives and move towards the middle. I absolutely believe that it is possible to stop binge eating permanently. I have witnessed it. I also believe it is not possible to stop permanently using certain approaches. There is a reason that so many people experience brief periods of what they consider success only to start binging again. And I say success lightly in that they think, okay, I haven't binged, therefore it's a success. But it's not that permanent change. I see binge eating as an unwinding. It's a process that takes time. There is no button that gets or flip that gets switched, and that there are no more thoughts, desires, or cravings for food. It truly is a rewiring of the brain and a creation of new neural pathways. So in order to stop permanently, you have to change your identity as an eater. So if I were to ask you right now who you are as an eater, what would you say? Fill in this sentence. I am blank. Based on my experience with myself and my clients, I'm gonna guess you said something like, I am a binger, I am out of control, I am broken, I am a failure. Many approaches to end binge eating focus on the symptoms. They'll tell you what to eat, when to eat, or how much to eat. Naturally, when you binge, you think about the food, what you ate, how much you ate, how it's going to impact you physically, and how terribly you feel. But I believe that in order to create permanent change, it's important to look at the root problem, what's causing the symptoms in the first place. So I see a binge as lights on the dashboard. It's like the check engine light that comes on in your dashboard. The binge tells us there's something going on underneath the hood. We don't have to try to get rid of the light. The light isn't the problem. The light is information. We want to lift up the hood and understand why the light is going on in the first place. This is why I believe that the number one solution to stop binge eating is to understand it. You are not broken. Binging is not a problem to be fixed or solved. Binging is a symptom. It's an indicator that something else is going on. And if you can remove the shame and judgment, understand what's going on underneath the hood to make the binge light come on, then we can get to work on the root cause. So what might some of those root causes be? Restriction, physical or mental restriction, a dysregulated nervous system, disconnection with your body, the lack of ability or skill to be with difficult emotions, negative self-talk. These are some of the items that I discussed in the how to series, in the solutions for stopping binge eating. We can go in, we can address these underlying issues through this process as you understand that you aren't broken and that you just have some skills to learn, you can begin to relate to yourself in a new way. And through this new relationship with yourself, you develop a new identity as an eater. So instead of thinking, I am broken, I am out of control, I am a binger, instead of those identity sentences, you begin to think I am connected to my body's wisdom. I am stronger than I think. I am my biggest advocate. I am a calm and peaceful eater. Now you may you will not get to those I am sentences overnight. This is not an overnight process, it's a process of developing awareness, understanding, and a new relationship. But as you begin to create this new identity of who you believe yourself to be as an eater, this will influence how you show up around food. So right now, you might try to make the same decisions around food as somebody else who has a solid identity as an eater. So let's say you go out to lunch with a friend who you're like, wow, you know, she's the kind of eater I want to be. She is a very intuitive. She orders what she wants, she stops when she's full, she just kind of knows. Sometimes she has a salad, sometimes she has a grilled cheese, like, you know, there's no rhyme or reason. She just very is clearly connected with herself. So you might try to make the same decisions. Let's say you go out to lunch with this person and you try to make the same decisions, and then you end up after that lunch, you end up in a binge. And she goes home and just goes on with her day. It's not the decisions themselves, the choices, the food choices themselves, it's the emotional landscape behind the decisions. So it's what you're thinking while you're trying to make these decisions. If you are trying to make certain decisions while also thinking, I can't control myself, I can't really eat what I want, okay, I'll order that, but I'm only going to eat just a little bit. Okay, well, I'm going to order this because it's really what I want, but it means I have to have a salad later. Um, you know, if you're having these thoughts that don't really solidify your identity of who you want to be as an eater, then you're going to show up very differently around the food than the person who is calm and relaxed around food. It's not the food itself, it's what's happening in your brain. What is that internal dialogue that's going on while you are in front of the food? So then the question is: okay, if I have to change my identity as an eater, how do I become a person who is calm and relaxed around food? Because I'm certainly not that right now. And maybe calm and relaxed isn't what you want to be as an eater. So the very first thing is to know it's important to know what you want. What kind of eater do you want to become? So, how would you finish this sentence for yourself if I, when, not if, when I get to the place where I have stopped binging permanently, what is my new identity as an eater? What would I say? Okay, I am finish that sentence. How would you like to finish this sentence for your future identity as an eater? I am blank. You need to know where you're going if you have any hope to arrive at your destination. You don't just get in the car and say, All right, where are we gonna go today? And not know where you are going. If you want to change your identity as an eater, which I believe that you do because you are listening to this podcast, what do you want to be? Who do you want to be as an eater? Once you know this, go back to the eight solutions to end binge eating in the beginning series of this podcast. Identify which of these solutions are preventing you from stepping into that identity now. This is where you look under the hood. The biggest risk with just looking at the behavior or just looking at the food without looking at everything else that's underneath the hood is that even if you stop binge eating, you are likely going to replace it with something else. Like shopping, wine, Netflix, or social media. A different light will come on your dashboard. The same things are gonna be happening under the hood. Now we just have a new light. We're not looking to just get rid of the light of binge eating. We want to take care of what's happening under the hood. If what's happening under the hood isn't addressed, and you just approach the food, you're just looking at it from the food perspective, it's likely the food behaviors will come back. We can force our way through things for several weeks and sometimes months. It's like we put duct tape over the binge light on the dashboard and we drive around pretending everything's okay. We force ourselves to follow some plan, but under the hood, there is still something making that light come on. Then the duct tape wears off, the binging comes back. This is why you can have periods, brief periods of success with your eating, but you're but it comes back because you're not looking under the hood. You're just putting duct tape over your binge light. So the key is to look under the hood, to address the root cause, and to change your relationship with food and your identity as an eater. Now, don't get me wrong, this does not mean you have to be perfect or that you have to solve every little thing in order to stop binging. The more you look under the hood, the more you will be able to make sense of what's going on. And as you expand your ability to be with any emotion, this expands your ability to be with that desire to eat and to let it pass on its own. You will learn the beauty and the wisdom of emotions. Emotions don't need to be responded to or reacted to, they just need to be allowed to be a part of our experience and to inform us. So as you expand your ability to be with that desire to eat and let it pass on its own, you can figure out what it had to tell you. And as you do that more and more, you create new neural pathways. The old neural pathways that had that connection between that emotion and the desire to eat, they start to unwind, they fade, they get replaced with new neural pathways where you're able to be with that emotion and you know there's wisdom for you. You don't have to react to it and escape from it and get away from it. That's the new neural pathways that are created as you do this and you get under the hood, you start developing new skills, you start working with your nervous system, and then your body feels more safe and it's less likely to need to escape into the patterns it has known before. You create new patterns of how your body can respond when your nervous system is activated. You unwind the old patterns, you create the new patterns. You have more connection to your body and more access to that logical part of your brain that can help you make the choices in the moment. So many people don't have access to that logical part of their brain because they are operating from that survival brain, the part that just wants to survive, to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and use as little energy as possible. Looking under the hood gives you access to the more logical part of your brain. As you take care of all of these other items, you are no longer in that survival, fight, or flight response that leads you to the food. Now, I personally don't believe that an approach that has a basis that you are powerless over food will work long term. Because this approach requires you to keep the identity that you are powerless and that you have no choice or control. You may ultimately decide for yourself to make some of the same choices around food, but you would do it from a place of choice, preference, knowing what's best for your body, than a place of lack of control. You are more powerful than you know. You are not broken. Change is possible for you. Permanent change is possible for you. There is a perfectly good reason why you binge, and it's possible to understand it and to transform it. This is the work I do with my clients, helping them to look under the hood and see why their light is coming on. And as we work under the hood, the light comes on less and less. The client's identity and perspective around food changes. They realize they have choice, they learn to support themselves rather than shame themselves, and the entire relationship changes. And the amazing thing is that this work flows out into all areas of life. The greatest irony is that it's never about the food. Even though when you are in the midst of it, the food is all you can think about. Now, I do want to put a small caveat here is that it is about the food if you are not feeding yourself enough. There has, there always has to be an underlying level of sufficient food coming into the body, or you will not be able to get under the hood. You will not be able to access that part of your brain because you will be in a survival response if you are not eating enough food physically. So that is a very important caveat. So as long as you are eating enough food to fuel your needs, it's not after that, it's not about the food. Okay, I would love to know what you think. Do you think it's possible to stop binge eating permanently? Why or why not? I would love to hear your thoughts on this. And if you would like to explore what it would be like to work with me to look under your hood, I'd love to speak with you. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Binge Breakthrough. If you want to understand why you feel out of control with food sometimes, I've created just the thing for you. Discover the number one reason why and get three things you can do today. Visit binge breakthrough.com forward slash quiz, and you'll have your answer in your next step. Binge breakthrough.com forward slash quid.