My Binge Breakthrough Story

Welcome to this introduction of myself and my journey.

What do I mean when I talk about binging, anyway?

I share my story so that you can understand where I’ve been and how I can help. I share how it makes sense and invite you to find yourself in my journey.

I share my gifts with this work and how I can use them to help you to develop understanding, connection, and trust with yourself and your body so that you can finally experience the food freedom you desire.

Join me each week as I guide you toward a new way of understanding yourself. 

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, a 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 Jane Hilker, 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 disorder treatment, restrictive diet, and reading all the books, I was still stuck in the on-again, off again cycle of restricting and binging and how 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. I am so excited to be recording the first episode of my new podcast. I created this podcast to provide a resource for other people who struggle with feeling out of control around food. I want you to know and understand that you aren't broken. There is a perfectly good reason why you do what you do with food, and I want to help you see it so you can begin to see yourself in a new way. In each episode, I want to invite you to become an active listener. Where do you see yourself in what I'm teaching? And how can you take immediate action to apply what you're learning in your own life? So I thought we'd start by talking about the term binge and what I mean by it. A lot of people ask, what do you mean by the term binge? Am I a binger? Do I need to know if I'm a binger? Personally, I don't worry about the specific definition of binge eating disorder as it's stated in the DSM 5. I'm not here to diagnose anybody. But in general, the way that I think about a binge is by these contexts. So large amounts of food eaten in a short period of time, typically more than what someone would might usually eat. And there is often a large amount of shame associated with the behavior. So it might include weird combinations of foods or things that maybe you might not normally eat around others. Um, you might often feel like there are two parts of you. So the kind of one part of you that acts very differently during a binge versus the other part. And you also you might not even be aware of what is happening during the binge itself. So it often feels like you're out of control, like you truly can't stop eating until you simply physically cannot eat any more food, or until someone or something else interrupts that pattern. So the use of the word binge itself, it's really not the important part. I use that term because it's how I identified it for myself. So a binge for me might look very different than a binge for somebody else. And we don't have to quantify it or get technical about it. What I find most important is just that out-of-control feeling around food. So you might call it binging, you might call it compulsive overeating, emotional eating, food addiction, whatever you call it and whatever your struggle is, the concepts and the teachings in this podcast will likely be applicable to you. So for this very first episode, I wanted to go ahead and just share my story. And I thought I would do that for two reasons. Number one, so you can understand that I've been there. I know what it's like to feel helpless and out of control around food. And I also know what it's like to finally find peace and ease around food. And the second reason is so that you might be able to see a little bit of yourself in my own story. So as I share my story with you, see if you can find any similarities with your own background and your personal history. Maybe by listening, you might even put a few pieces of your own puzzle together as I share my experience with you. So let's dive in. So as a baby, I was really sick. I couldn't keep any food down. I was really weak. I had some developmental delays because I wasn't able to keep the food down because I was so sick. And my mom had a really hard time soothing me. And so, fast forward a little bit later as a child, I started using food to soothe. I don't have a lot of real specific memories about it, but I do have one memory of hiding in the pantry, eating brown sugar out of the jar with a spoon. And this kind of soothing with food, it was really intermittent. I didn't really, I didn't have any issues with my weight growing up. I didn't have anybody telling me what or how much I should eat. And so then in middle school, my parents went on a liquid diet and I started getting the message that being overweight was bad. And in order to lose weight, you needed to eat less and severely restrict your consumption. Now, growing up, I grew up in a very loving home and I recognize my many privileges as a straight-sized, cisgender, heterosexual white woman with financial food, and physical security and safety. But one thing I didn't learn at home was I didn't learn how to be with, process, or navigate difficult emotions. So when I was upset, I would go to my room, slam the door, and then I would just come out the next day acting as if nothing had ever happened. I didn't learn how to deal with conflict or any other emotion that one might consider less than ideal. Now, I don't blame my parents for this. You can't teach what you don't know. So in high school, I went on a little mini Peace Corps program and I spent eight weeks in Paraguay. And after eating the regional fried foods regularly and sweets anytime I could put my hands on them, I gained 20 pounds in eight weeks. And I ended up with stretch marks on my hips, my thighs, and my breasts. And when I got home, none of my clothes fit. And I was on a volleyball team and our uniform, it exposed the red stretch marks on my thighs. And that was really my first time of thinking that my body was not okay, that it needed to change, and that I needed to lose weight. So I went on my first restrictive diet and I started counting calories and I joined a gym to work it off. And this started what would become years, decades of gaining weight and losing weight, that cycle of gaining, losing, restricting and binging. So then when I went to college, I didn't know anyone. I didn't make the volleyball team, and I was feeling really alone and abandoned by my core group of friends from home. I was experiencing these emotions I did not have a name for, and I did not know what to do with them. And my first binge, it happened my first semester of college. So I received a care package filled with miniature candy bars from this local church I had attended one time. And I was so upset when I got this package. I was thinking they didn't even know me or care about me. Now, I don't remember the binge itself, but what I do remember is afterwards, sitting on that floor in my dorm room with this empty box next to me and empty candy wrappers strewn all around me. I had eaten the entire box. I could not believe I had eaten all of the candy. I was so mortified and so ashamed. And this was the start of this decades-long cycle of binging. I kept dieting, trying to lose weight. And every time I binged, I was even more concerned about gaining more weight. So the restriction amped up. The more I restricted, the more I binged. I was either eating lean cuisine and cottage cheese, or I was eating boxes of macaroni and cheese, half gallons of ice cream, boxes of cookies, cakes, muffins, and donuts. I would drive to different places to buy things so nobody would know what that I was going to eat all of these things by myself. So for most of my college life, I lived on my own, which made binging much easier. There was a small period of time that I lived with a friend, and I remember eating her Oreos and then deciding I needed to replace them before she discovered what I had done. I started and seeing an eating disorders therapist, and I had some small sporadic periods of success. And then I met the man who would become my husband. And I was so happy and I was so focused on him that my binging really declined. And I was just focused on becoming my best, most healthy self for the wedding. But shortly after we got married, I started binging again, and it was all in secret. I did not want him to know what I was doing. So I would drive around from one convenience store to another, then to the bakery, the drive-thru, and maybe the grocery store, buying one or two things at each place, just enough to give me uh enough that I could eat while driving to the next place. And then before I got home, I would stop at a gas station and I would throw away all of the wrappers so there wouldn't be any evidence of this terrible thing that I had done. I often did not eat dinner. I would just tell him that my stomach hurt. And it was true. And with my past digestive history, this was a pretty easy excuse. I really was not myself after a binge. I was very closed off and removed, and I often was so irritable and easy, easily angered. I continued seeing a therapist, and she finally convinced me to talk to my loved ones. And it was such a hard conversation for me. I was just sure that my husband was not going to love me. I remember laying on the bed in our bedroom on my back with my arm over my eyes, crying. I was so filled with shame, I couldn't even look at him. I just, I didn't think he was gonna understand. I did not think he would understand what I did with food. But the truth is that I never gave him the opportunity to understand by hiding it from him. And in reality, he was so kind and loving and compassionate. And it took a while for me to be able to talk about it with him. I used to say I had a bad day. I wouldn't even use the term binge, and I definitely would not tell him exactly what I ate. So he would come home. I would let him know before he came home that I had had a bad day. So he could be prepared with what he might be coming home to. And he would sit next to me and he would just ask me these very gentle questions. And eventually I would be able to talk to him about it. And I would start to cry and I would process my emotions. And over time, I was just able to do this sooner and sooner. And I decided I would never hide this from him again. I would never hide the evidence. I would always tell him when it happened. I would tell him what I ate. And it just was not going to be a secret anymore. So over this time, I tried a lot of other things to stop inching. I went through two rounds of intensive outpatient therapy at an eating disorders treatment center. Uh, I did Overeaters Anonymous, uh, several restrictive diets, books, coaching, and more. And with each approach, I learned something new, but I was never able to have that long-term success. But I just refused to give up. I knew that a world existed where I didn't binge. And I knew that if I didn't give up, that I could and that I would figure it out. And so after over 25 years, I found, finally found what were the missing pieces for me. And those missing pieces for me were cultivating safety and trust with myself and with food. And I did this by learning about the nervous system and how to work with it. And I discovered that so many of the things I was doing to try to stay healthy were actually keeping me in the cycle of binging. And I came to understand my binging in an entirely new way. And that shame was gone, which allowed me a new perspective from which to see the behavior. So now my weight has stabilized and I don't weigh myself anymore, but I'm gonna guess I weigh about 30 pounds less than I did at my highest weight, and probably about 20 pounds more than I did at my lowest weight. But the number doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm living in a place that doesn't take thought, effort, or restriction to maintain. I don't have to plan ahead, bring any food with me, or worry about what will happen on holidays or special occasions. Now, I still have days where I have negative body image chatter, or I think it would be better if something were different, but I recognize it's normal to think that way. I'm a human living in a human body. And I can generally remind myself the size and shape of my body is not at all tied to my worthiness or my lovability. So now when I look back on my history, I can see how all of it makes so much sense. And this is what I love to do with my clients. I love to help them understand how it makes sense. So, how does this make sense for me? As a baby, I didn't have a secure attachment to my mother. With my early digestive issues, I wasn't able to receive the soothing that I needed. I didn't learn how to recognize, process, or talk about my emotions. I achieved success and recognition by achieving and figuring out how to do things right. I started dieting in high school. And in college, I was separated from the attachments that I did have. And I didn't have language for all of the emotions that I was feeling. And then once I started binging, my focus was entirely on the food and the weight and trying to control both of those things. It was this perfect storm that probably could not have ended up any other way. Here's what I know: my brain and my body have always been trying to protect me. Over the years, I've been much more open about sharing my journey as I've been coaching other women who struggle with binging. For several years, I was coaching while I was still binging on occasion. And originally I had so much shame about this, but I only had that shame when I was trying to pretend to be someone that I wasn't. And I didn't want to admit that I would still binge sometimes. And when I finally owned up to that, it was truly freeing. And people shared, it was so helpful. I was telling them about my binges, how I would process them and work through them. And so through all of this work, I just kept learning and growing. And I learned about the nervous system and I created that trust and that safety with myself. And I'm not perfect and I don't want to be. I want to be human. Sometimes my brain still throws up that desire to eat and a way to disconnect with my physical or emotional experience. It doesn't happen often anymore. But when it does, it's a clear indicator that something else is going on that needs to be addressed. It's just not a big deal, and it's not who I am anymore. And at this point, I've coached thousands of women on the topic. And my gift is the ability to see what is happening for a person and why they are stuck in the cycle. I teach the tools and the framework to develop understanding, connection, and trust with yourself and your body so you can finally experience the food freedom you desire. So in this podcast, I'm going to share the knowledge and insights that have helped me and countless other women live a life where food no longer plays a leading role. Now, I know that not everyone will be able to work with me personally, but I want anyone who feels out of control around food to know that you are not broken. There is a very good reason why you do what you do, and food freedom is possible no matter how long you've been struggling. Join me each week as I guide you towards a new way of understanding yourself. I know that you will likely be listening to me on your own, sometimes during a binge, sometimes after a binge, and sometimes in between, or maybe in those longer stretches of time without a binge. Whenever you listen, know that your presence here matters. Keep listening. One thing I say could change everything for you instantly, or maybe it'll be many things I say over time. Perhaps the insights have already started as you start to connect the dots between my story and your own experience. One thing I know is that most people who binge have a lot of negative internal self-talk. I want to talk to you in a way that you may not speak to yourself so you can practice receiving it. I want to end this first episode by telling you that you matter. You are lovable and precious no matter what you eat or what you weigh. Nothing can take that away from you. I will refer to you, dear one, as trusted listener, for I trust that you are here listening to me for a reason. Even if we never speak, your presence listening to this and any future episodes will have an impact that you and I can never know, estimate, or discern in this moment. Thank you for being you. Thank you for listening to my story. You belong here. Thank you for listening to Binge Breakthrough. You can find the show notes and any resources mentioned at binge breakthrough.com. If you like this episode, subscribe to have future episodes delivered to you each Wednesday. And remember, your five star rating and review will help others discover these life changing concepts. See you next week.