I Know What to Do But I Can't Make Myself Do It

If you've ever started a day completely certain it would be different, only to find yourself in the same place again by the end of the day, this episode is for you. 

We explore the gap between knowing and doing, why it has nothing to do with willpower, and what's actually happening underneath the surface when that determined morning version of you seems to completely disappear.

What You'll Discover:

• Why the "knowing/doing" gap is a nervous system signal, not a willpower failure
• How the part of you that binges is actually trying to help you, not hurt you
• Why shame makes it nearly impossible to find real answers
• The questions that can actually open something new and the ones that keep you stuck

If you've been asking yourself what is wrong with me? This episode offers a different question entirely, and helps you understand what's really going on.

If you're ready to explore this work with additional support, schedule a Breakthrough Call today.

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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Have you ever started your day completely convinced this time it's going to be different? And then found yourself in the exact same place you swore you wouldn't be again. Today, I want to talk about what's actually happening in that gap. Because the reason you can't just think your way out of it has nothing to do with willpower and everything to do with what's going on underneath the surface. 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 are here because you're ready or at least open to look at your struggle with food in a new way. And what I'm going to offer you today might be one of the most important reframes you've heard when it comes to understanding why you keep ending up in the same place, even when every part of your conscious mind is telling you not to go there. So we're going to start with something I hear almost every single person I work with say at some point. And it's something that I have said to myself more times than I can count over the course of 25 years of struggling with food. It's this. Something happens. Or sometimes nothing even happens. And I find myself doing the exact thing I promised myself I wouldn't do. And the wild part, in the middle of it, I know. I know this is not going to end well. I know I'm going to feel terrible afterward. And it's almost like I don't care. That might even be something I say to myself, I don't care. I'll worry about it tomorrow. I'll try again tomorrow. We'll start over on Monday. It's like the version of me who woke up this morning determined and clear. That person is just gone. Now, if this resonates with you, I want you to know that you are not broken. You are not weak. You are not failing. There is nothing wrong with you. This is so normal. What you are experiencing is one of the most confusing and disheartening parts of this struggle. And also, once we understand it, it's one of the most important clues about what's really going on. Because the gap, the gap between the you who knows and the you who doesn't care, it's not a willpower problem. It's a much deeper signal. And today we're gonna start to look at what it's actually telling you. So here's something that I think about a lot. Most of the advice that exists around binge eating assumes that the knowledge is a the problem, is a knowledge problem. That if you just learn the right strategy, remember the right thing, eat the right foods at the right times, or feel bad enough about what happened last time that you'll stop, that you'll finally get it together. And I just want to ask you, how many times have you tried to remember how bad you felt afterward as a way to stop yourself from doing it again? How many times have you said to yourself, I am going to remember this? I am not going to let this happen again. And then it did. If remembering how bad it felt was enough, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast. And I wouldn't have spent 25 years in the same loop before I finally started to understand what was actually happening. This is not a knowledge problem. Knowing more is not the solution. Because the part of you that binges doesn't care what you know. And that is what we need to talk about. So many people who are struggling with binge eating have so much knowledge. More knowledge than most. If you are listening to this, if you have been working on this problem for a long time, I'm gonna guess you have accumulated a lot of knowledge around the problem. It is not the solution. But we do need to look at this gap between the part of you that knows and the part of you that doesn't care, doesn't want to do it in the moment. So in the morning, one part of you is front and center. This is the part that makes the plan, sets the intention, thinks about how you want to feel. That part has a lot of energy around getting it right. They're motivated, they're clear, they have a strategy. But at some point during the day, something shifts. It might be stress, exhaustion, a hard conversation. It could be a conversation internally that you had about yourself when you looked in the mirror or you tried something on in your closet, or you thought about what might happen when you go on vacation or you see somebody you haven't seen in a long time. It could just be the accumulation of a long week. It might even feel like nothing at all, like it came out of nowhere. And suddenly a different part of you is running the show. A part that is not interested in the plan, a part that wants relief, comfort, release, and a part that is in that moment far more powerful than any intention that was set that morning. Now, here's what you need to know: neither of these parts is the real you. Neither one is right, neither is wrong, there isn't a good one or a bad one. They are both parts of you with their own agenda, each trying in their own way to help you get through the day. This is not a character flaw. This is your nervous system and it's doing exactly what it was designed to do. When your body and brain perceive stress or threat, whether it's real external pressure or just the accumulated weight of everything that you're holding, your nervous system shifts into a different mode. The thinking, planning, future-focused part of your brain goes offline. The part of your brain that is looking for safety, for relief, for survival, that's the one that's in charge. And if your nervous system has learned over years and possibly decades that food is a reliable source of relief, that eating is one of the fastest ways to shift how you feel, then in that moment, your nervous system is going to go looking for food. Not because you're weak. Not because you have no self-control. Not because you don't know better. But because your brain has built a very efficient pathway towards something that works. Or at least something that has felt like it works. It works temporarily. You do get immediate relief. You get that immediate shift that your body is looking for. So this is where I want to introduce an idea that we're going to continue to build on in the weeks to come. And it's this the part of you that binges is not trying to hurt you. It is trying to help you. And I know that might sound hard to believe. When you are in the aftermath of a binge, feeling the weight of guilt and shame and disappointment, the last thing it feels like is that some part of you was trying to help. But stay with me. What if that part of you developed a long time ago when you needed a way to cope with something that felt overwhelming? What if food became the thing that made hard emotions bearable? Or numbed out something too painful to feel? Or gave you a moment of relief in a life that felt relentlessly demanding? What if that part has been doing its job really faithfully for years, even though the job has come at a cost? Most people I talk to have been in this struggle for decades. This didn't just start last year. For a lot of us, this goes back further than we can fully trace, which means the patterns we're working with are not new. They are deeply wired. They made sense when they formed and they will not be undone by willpower, counting macros, or a better routine. All right, here's what I want to offer. I want to offer something I think can genuinely change the way that you approach this. So right now, if you believe that there is something wrong with you, if you believe that you are broken, then every question that you ask is going to be aimed at fixing your brokenness. You'll ask things like, why can't I just stop? What is wrong with me? Why do I keep doing this? And those questions will keep leading you back to the same place because they are built on a premise that isn't true. But what if you aren't broken? What if this behavior, as painful and exhausting as it is, actually makes sense? So when I shift to that question with people I work with, something changed because if it makes sense, then there is a reason. And if there is a reason, we can find it. And if we can find it, we can actually work with it. Einstein said we can't solve a problem with the same mind that created it. So the mind that created the problem likely sounds a lot like there's something wrong with me. I'm broken. I should be able to figure this out. I know what to do. Why can't I do it? The mind that is going to solve the problem needs to come from a different perspective. So I want you to start asking different questions. Questions like, how does this make sense? Not as a way to excuse the behavior, but as a genuine act of curiosity. What is actually happening underneath this? What might this part of me be trying to do? What is it protecting me from? What does it get me to or away from? What was going on before this happened? What was I feeling or not letting myself feel? These aren't questions that you have to answer perfectly. They're seeds. The act of asking them with curiosity instead of judgment is itself a shift. I have people tell me sometimes, I listen to your podcast and I started asking different questions. In the beginning, I didn't even know the answer, but the act of asking different questions is a shift. You are automatically already changing new neural pathways by asking yourself different questions. So here's something that I love to use as a metaphor, and I come back to it a lot because it captures what's happening so well. Imagine you're driving your car and a warning light comes on your dashboard. This light is telling you that something is going on under the hood. So you have a choice. You could ignore it, you could put a piece of tape over it so you don't even have to see it. You could get really angry at the light for ruining your day. Or you could pull over. You could lift the hood. You could try to understand what the light is actually telling you. What's going on to make that light come on in the first place so you can fix it and get the light to turn off. A binge or out-of-control moment with food is a warning light. It is not the problem. It is the signal that something is going on underneath. And shame, the heavy, crushing weight of shame that most of us carry after a binge or an out-of-control moment with food, it's like a 50-pound weight sitting on top of the hood of the car. It makes it almost impossible to lift the hood and look inside. Which is why, before anything else can change, we have to start with removing the shame. And it's not because what's underneath doesn't matter. It matters a lot. But the shame keeps you locked in the same loop of self-blame and judgment where the right questions can't even get asked. And the real questions, the ones that will lead to meaningful change, can never be found. Now, here's the honest truth about that car metaphor. If a warning light came on in my dashboard, I would not just pop the hood and figure it out myself. Because I would have no idea what I was looking at under there. I would take it to someone else who knows what they're looking at. Someone who could look under the hood, identify what was making the lights come on, and help fix it so the car could actually run better. And the same is true here. You might not be able to see what's happening under your own hood. And that is not a failure. That is just the reality of trying to understand something from the inside. Another metaphor analogy that I like is it's kind of like you are a vitamin inside a bottle of vitamins. When you are the vitamin on the inside of the bottle, you cannot read the label. You cannot read all of the ingredients that make up you as a vitamin. Somebody else can come from the outside and see, who understands, who can read the label, who knows the ingredients and can see, ah, this is what you're made of. This is what's happening. So this is where it can be so helpful to talk to somebody who knows what they're looking at. Somebody who can help you ask the right questions, start working with these parts of you and help you work with your nervous system in new ways, ways that actually create the calm, connected relationship with food that you're looking for. And if you would like that kind of support, someone to help you see what's really going on, I want to invite you to schedule a breakthrough call with me. I will tell you what I see based on my experience working with so many people in this exact place and my own personal journey of 25 years in this struggle. The link to schedule is in the show notes. I would love to be the one to help you look under the hood. Now, before we wrap up, I want to acknowledge something. I know this might sound like I'm saying that the solution is simple. Get curious, remove the shame, ask different questions. And I want to be honest with you, the concepts themselves are simple, but the practice is not always easy. Especially if you have spent years, maybe most of your life, in a relationship with yourself that is built on self-criticism and high standards, and the belief that if you just tried harder, you would get there. Shifting out of that is real work. It's some of the most important work you can do. And it is absolutely possible. I have seen it happen again and again with my clients and in my own life. But it does not happen from information alone. It doesn't happen from listening to a podcast and saying, Oh, yes, that makes sense. It happens from practice and support and learning to do something genuinely new with the parts of you that have been running the old pattern for a very long time. So that's what we're going to be building toward in the coming weeks. But today I want you to have this: the gap between knowing and doing is not a character flaw. It's a signal. The most important thing you can do right now is to get a little more curious, a little less cruel toward yourself when you end up there. And to ask yourself different questions. Questions that will help you see different answers, different ways to approach this, different ways to look at this. Knowing you are not broken. Your behavior makes sense. When we can make sense of it, when we can work with ourselves, with our parts, with our nervous systems, everything can change. All right, next week I am joined by a guest, Lauren Carlyle Brown. She's the emotions coach. We're going to be talking about how to feel your feelings without turning to food. So if there is a part of you that wonders whether emotions, your urges, your desires to eat are connected, this conversation is going to be so helpful for you. We're also going to give you some very practical things that you can do in the moment. So you want to be sure to tune in next week. All right, that's what I have for you today. I'll see you next week. If you've been trying to stop binge eating and nothing has worked, there's a reason. I created the binge breakthrough mini-series to help you finally understand what's driving your binge eating beneath the surface so that you can actually start changing 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. Stop watching at chainhulliver.com forward slash mini. That's chainhulger.com forward slash midi. M I M I