329. How Jenny Stopped Binge Eating Without More Food Rules

Jenny first learned to connect thinness with acceptance when she lost 30 pounds before eighth grade and returned to school getting attention she hadn’t received before. That connection shaped the next four decades of restriction, bingeing, bulimia, treatment, and trying to make peace with food.

By the time Jenny found Truce with Food, she already knew her struggle wasn’t really about food. What she didn’t understand was what kept pulling her back into the same patterns. Identifying loneliness as one of her eating triggers and recognizing the deeper need for belonging underneath it gave her a completely different place to start.

In this episode of Truce with Food, I sit down with Jenny, a client who completed Truce with Food: Consistency, to talk about how her urge to binge fell away without more food rules or another plan to follow. We also get into the role perfectionism played in keeping her stuck, what helped her close the gap between knowing and doing, and what changed when she started building a life she genuinely wanted to be part of.

6:35 – Jenny’s history with disordered eating and body image

9:55 – Loneliness as Jenny’s emotional trigger for bingeing

19:22 – Valuing peace above thinness in our culture

21:18 – "C plus effort" in the group breaking Jenny’s perfectionism cycle 

25:56 – Attuning to yourself to satisfy the emotional trigger underneath the food struggle

28:47 – The "knowing" but not "doing" gap that kept Jenny stuck for years 

31:49 – Shrinking the gap by learning how to set up for success or for opting out

41:25 – Movement as a door opener to new friendships and more fun

46:01 – Bingeing as betrayal and Jenny’s refusal to let restriction run her life

50:16 – Why the urge to binge can disappear without explanation

55:23 – Bringing your body online to notice what feels good and what triggers you

Mentioned In How Jenny Stopped Binge Eating Without More Food Rules

Truce with Food: Consistency

Free Workshop: Untangle Your Food Triggers: Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

Join Ali on August 18, 2026, for her free masterclass, Untangle Your Food Triggers and Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track. You’ll unpack the four triggers behind that urgent, buzzy energy around food, what’s happening underneath them, and how to close the gap between knowing what to do and doing it. The recording will be available for one week.

Register at trucewithfood.com/consistency.

Transcript

Ali Shapiro: Welcome to Truce With Food, the podcast where we stop fighting food and start addressing the deeper story of what you suspect is going on, but can't put your finger on. Because the focus on food is a waste of your precious time, resources and life. 

Jenny: One of the first things I started was in high school, I started starving Monday through Friday so that when I went out on a date on Friday night, I would feel good about myself. But then I'd go home after the date and I'd literally attack the refrigerator. And that became a pattern. 

I'm your host, Ali Shapiro, an integrated health expert with a 19-year proven track record of client success. I'm a 33-year and counting cancer survivor and creator of the research-based Truce with Food framework that came out of my own personal experience from recovering from cancer and yo-yo dieting. Because you name it, I had tried it. I also have a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. I'm affectionately called people's last best resort and a coach's coach, as people come to me when they've tried everything and nothing's worked long term. This show is where we quiet the noise, so we can go deep, to get you the results you deserve. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute personal, individual or medical advice. 

Now onto the show. One of the most powerful catalysts for change is someone else's story. Having someone else show you what is possible. And I think no one exemplifies that more than my guest today, Jenny. So, Jenny is a client of mine who took Truce With Food Consistency and I invited her on today's podcast because after, in her words, spending her whole life focused on food and trying all the things, which included recovery from a very serious eating disorder, she found the missing piece in Truce With Food. And so today we're getting into her story of where she came from and where she is now, right. After really four decades of a struggle with food. And we're getting in today, she's going to share what she discovered her eating trigger was and how learning to get the needs associated with that trigger, ended her binging. And we're really going to get into how her binging ended with no rules or five-step plans or self-care things she had to do. And we're going to get into how it felt away naturally. We're going to talk about how she came into consistency, very, in her words, anti-exercise and now loves swimming and moving in general, as a way to process her emotions. 

We're also going to discuss the not-so-secret secret to getting out of all-or-nothing patterns. For Jenny particularly, this was around perfectionism. And we're going to get into how her program goal wasn't a weight loss goal, yet she ended up losing weight as a result of identifying her triggers and getting her emotional needs met. And then lastly, what's really different in her life today, from food to friends to having fun. This is such a great story. It's a really rich conversation. So I know if you're here, you like nuance and depth and the inner workings of change. And so, no matter how long you struggle with food, Jenny's story inspires you to realize change is possible. And if you, after listening to this, you want to take the first step to discover your own eating triggers of when it's not about the food, join me in my free upcoming workshop, Untangle Your Food Triggers, Catch Yourself Before You Fall Off Track, which is on August 18th at 12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and that is 2026. I know sometimes people listen to these episodes years later. So this is current for this year. And this workshop is a sneak peek of my Truce with Food Consistency program, which is exactly where Jenny started and it is now open for fall registration 2026. We kick off September 8th, registration ends a couple weeks before that and all of the details are in the show notes to the Truce with Food Consistency Program to also signing up for the free workshop. 

All right, without further ado, enjoy today's episode and get a glimpse of what's possible for you, when you really start to pay attention to that suspicion that something deeper is going on, that's not about the food yet you can't name it. Jenny's going to give us a lot of words and examples today around what that is. Enjoy. 

Ali Shapiro: So Jenny, thank you so much for being here today. I know you're a little nervous. I said, I'm a little nervous, because we just, that's what happens, right? 

Jenny: Well, thank you so much for having me. And yes, I am incredibly nervous, but I'm grateful for this opportunity to share what I've experienced with other people. So hopefully they can understand how much this program works. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. And for the listeners, Jenny took Truce with Food Consistency, which was when she took it, it was called Why Am I Eating This Now, but this three month program and two years ago at this time she started, but I really like to have clients on, after a couple of years, because so many programs, you hear from people while they're in it or when it just ended and there's like this rigidity and everybody's maybe succeeding after six weeks. But once that rigidity and often the program and the group ends, things fall apart. And so that's actually not often the case with this work. It's slow and steady, which can be frustrating if you're used to high intensity, but it actually lasts. And so Jenny took the program two years ago, but she has such a perspective now. But we will talk about the shifts in that three-month program. So yeah, so I just wanted to preface that. So Jenny, no one gets to midlife without struggling with food. I mean, most people, most women especially and have tried a lot of things. So, can you tell us about what was your history and what you had tried before? 

Jenny: I'm glad you brought that up, because it's a very important part of my story. I come from a very eating disordered life of mine. Beginning in elementary school, discovering that I was overweight when a third grade teacher had us make a bar graph of everybody's weights and mine was the biggest and we worked our way up to that together, out loud, in the class. So that was when I first realized it. And then by sixth grade, I was going to a doctor and just going in once a week and taking my clothes off, standing there in my underwear and getting weighed and then going home. So that was how that was dealt with. And then I developed, lots of things happened. My whole life has been focused on eating and body image. And so then by between seventh and eighth grade, I went restrictive. I figured out, I found my first diet and 800 calories. And I kept track to the T in a journal and exercised, way… so much every single day. So in the three months summer break between 7th and 8th, I lost 30 pounds. So then when I went back to school in 8th grade, all of a sudden I got all this attention and I wasn't the geeky brain anymore. I was, oh my God, I was popular. And that meant everything to me. But you know, you can't keep up that 800 calorie diet for years. And so I learned skills and tricks. And one of the first things I started was in high school, I started starving Monday through Friday so that when I went out on a date on Friday night, I would feel good about myself. But then I'd go home after the date and I'd literally attack the refrigerator. And that became a pattern. And then I learned about bulimia. There was a TV special, some show on primetime back in the day. I think you can probably find it on YouTube. I highly recommend you don't watch it. That's where I learned about bulimia. And then that became my life until I was about 40. So, I've done a lot of treatment. I was hospitalized in college for bulimia. I've done outpatient counseling and various mindfulness eating groups. And I mean, you name it. It's been something I've been working on my entire life, of course, because my whole quest has been to be skinny. And which I was at one point and didn't know it, of course. But anyway, now I know that, well, I got to the point where I couldn't be bulimic anymore. It was too hard on my body and I started to have to accept myself and my weight. And that was a hard thing to do as well. I ended up getting divorced, because I felt like I wasn't worthy as I started gaining weight. So you have literally my whole life has developed on this. Anyway, the point is that I've tried so many things and then I got this email or something. I don't know how Ali got my name, but I got an email and it was a quiz for Why Am I Eating This Now and I was in a bad place, you know. And I thought, I'm just going to take this quiz and see, because I'm always searching for help that helps. And so I took the quiz and then I thought, well, I think I'm going to sign up for this, because it said, hint, it's not about the food. And that I've known my whole life, but it seemed like it was always about the food and any treatment plan I went into or any counseling or therapy I got. Now this goes back, I'm 58, so this goes back many years, you know, when eating disorders were just starting. And I was told so many times what I should be eating and that I should do a journal and keep track of what I'm eating and that I should be exercising, you know, those things, which I knew. I mean, of course I know that, but there was some reason why I wasn't able to do those things. You know, there was something there. Well, yeah, now I know. There's traits and there's things that happen in my life that cause triggers. And we all have them. And when we identified that in the group, my trigger was loneliness, which I disbelieved, because, yes, I'm isolated. I've been isolated my whole life, because of my eating disorder. And I've known that I'm going to be isolated. And now I'm single. I never had kids because of it. And I thought, well, this is fine. I like it this way. I like being isolated. And I made my life as happy and pleasant as I could in an isolated bubble. So when we discovered it was… my tail trigger was loneliness, I was like, oh no. You know, there might be some truth to this and that hurts. That's a hard emotion to grapple with and I still haven't completely embraced it. And I'm still working on that, because it's really hard for me to admit loneliness and I want to feel it. I want to feel it somatically, you know, not block it, not disassociate from it, not eat it down, get… eat it away, just eat it away and start new tomorrow and my life will be better tomorrow. And for all these reasons that I've got lined up and then the next day comes and the cycle repeats and this goes on for years and years. So, at first in the group, there was some vocabulary that I had trouble picking up on, but it was new and I was again in a mode of like, oh my God, I got to get an A. So I got to learn this vocabulary. I got to have, like I even have to start a, do a thing in the back of my notebook of definitions of all these words. Like I'd have like an index or something to refer to. I was, I wanted to know it, but it was, again, my perfectionism was kicking in so greatly. And when Ali mentioned the C- plus effort that she gave us permission to do this course with, that was a game changer for me because, yeah, the best of my life growing up was never good enough. So, you know, what are you going to do? So I ended up giving up a lot and rebelling. So the C-plus thing, I thought at first I was like, oh, well, I'm not going to get anything out of it if I do a C-plus. And I thought, well, what are people going to think of me if I show up at a C-plus? You know, they're going to say, why is she here? She's not trying or, you know, all those thoughts. But then I thought about it more and I thought, OK, it's just, it's a nice way to think about going into this. I don't have to be the A plus student. I don't have to be the teacher's pet. I don't have to be the smartest girl in the room or the skinniest. And so yeah, that helped me a lot to get into the program and ease in and let go of my perfectionism. And in that way, I was able to like, I don't know, open up my mind and my heart more with curiosity and gentleness. And wow, that was a new feeling for me. And that really helped me. And I've integrated that curiosity and gentleness into my life. And a lot of the things that I do since I started this program, I find it to be very effective and very soothing. And it's slow. For me, it's a slower process than, you know, losing two pounds in a day, but it sticks. It sticks. It makes it doable. It makes you keep showing up. It makes you want to show up. It takes the pressure off. That's what it is. Yeah, so there's no pressure in this program. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, Jenny, you said so many things that I think so many people can relate to. And, you know, one of the things I think is so hard about when we struggle with our weight is people are like, oh, especially as we're adults, right? It's like, it doesn't matter. People will still love you, et cetera. But those early wounds of, wait, I'm getting attention. I'm popular when I'm thin, especially because as we are, you said eighth grade, right? That's when I really became aware of all of this too, as I started, got interested in boys and who did the boys like, you know? But peers are so important at that age developmentally. As we start to differentiate from our parents, we look to them. We even get our accents from our peers, like all of these things. And I think that feeling of loneliness that it's about the food and it's not about the food, but I think so many people can relate to that, because it builds on itself over decades. Because if you feel like you're only conditionally accepted by your peers and then how that translates into the outside world, I think it's something that just gets dismissed, like you shouldn't care what other people think, versus, no this is so fundamental to who we are as humans to feel like we are accepted unconditionally, instead of based on our weight or our grades or whatnot. So I just, I like that you highlighted that and are aware of how that pattern led to this feeling of isolation. It starts so early and then it just builds and we protect and protect and protect. 

Jenny: Right.

Ali Shapiro: So I just, I think a lot of people can relate to that, because I know a lot of my clients, myself included, we've struggled with our weight, you know, since forever. And it feels like it's just about the weight, but it's this deeper sense of no, but this is when I was, I was acknowledged. And so there's a real history there. So I just wanted to mention that. 

Jenny: Yeah, thank you. Because while you were just talking, you led me to another like Truce moment, which is like when things click in my brain, on this program. Because all of a sudden, words and things that I have learned, heard all my life, all of a sudden make sense. So yeah, like I said before, loneliness, I guess my feeling is, that's a woe is me. And I don't want to be that person. But as you were talking, I realized it was belonging. And that is so important at that time. That means everything. So yeah, you'll risk a lot to belong, you know? And yeah, so it's a soul deep need to belong is what I think is the hole in my gut, you know, that I keep filling with food. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and again, it makes sense, which we'll get to. And I think your point about it not being about the food is so important. I also wanted to acknowledge, because I have a lot of clients like you have done a lot of work, right? I don't, for people listening, Jenny wasn't in an active eating disorder when she came to me. She had done so much work to get to that place of stability. And so I work with a lot of people who have a history of eating disorders, but aren't actively binging, purging or whatnot. And to Jenny's point, I knew something subtle, it wasn't about the food, but a lot of the focus is on food and what… the work we've done to be stable. And so I've talked about some food stages here on the podcast. I have an assessment where you can find out where you are, but a lot of my clients think they're at the end of the road, when really they're in this stage one, ready to be stage two, where they've stabilized their eating disorders and now they can look at what's underneath them. So if you're listening and saying, I've experienced so much of what Jenny has, maybe in a different format of like diets or therapy. We often think, oh, I've tried it all, but I'm not doing it all. When we're really just in that phase one, ready to be in phase two, when we're ready to address that deeper thing. So you articulated it so well. So I just wanted to... Put it in some of the Truce With Food language. 

Jenny: Right. And so, yeah, all the help that I have received throughout my life, I made it sound like it didn't help. But, you know, like you said, it was where I was and what stage I was in my life. And yes, I know, I was ready to find some peace. You know, you get to a point, where you just want some peace and then you get real with yourself like, OK, now how can I go about this? I know what things help and I know what things don't help from the past, that doesn't mean there's not another option. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, no, I mean, to stabilize an eating disorder takes incredible effort. And I just had chills when you said, I finally wanted peace. To value that above thinness in our culture is like fucking radical. 

Jenny: Yeah, it is.

Ali Shapiro: I mean, I remember when I was finally like ending, I was like, you know, and I was so mean to myself. I'm like, well, I'm going to be fat for the rest of my life, but I just can't do this anymore. Like that, I was just like, I am exhausted. It was just like it finally wore me out, but I was willing to at least, quote, and again, I was very mean to myself at the time, but it was just like, I need to be able to live my life without this in the center. But a lot of people never get there. 

Jenny: I was going to say, I'm really glad I'm here. I'm here to experience this. I really am. You know, because there is a peace for sure and there is a somehow it's not magic, but it feels like it as you go through the program, because it's what it is, it's like integration. So it's so you get the structure from Ali. You get all of her knowledge, which is so vast and you get time, time to process, as you go through and no judgment. It's a compassionate witnessing from Ali and from the other women in the group who are all very different, but all have the same underlying thing, where food is present in their lives and it's not in a comforting way, you know and not in a way that we'd like it to be healthy. So Ali sets this up and takes you through the things, step-by-step kind of and then she also repeats a lot, which was really helpful to me. And I told everybody that I mean, that's how you learn. Yeah, that's you know, and it's not repetitive. It's not like, oh, here we go again. It's like, oh, yeah, every time she repeats something and brings something back around, you add more to it and you understand it more and you integrate it more. And that's what happens. It's integration. It's not magic, but it feels like it is, because integration, what do you do? You can't go out and say, I'm going to go integrate today. It just happens. If you show up and you do your C-plus, meaning sometimes I would show up into the group before having watched the pre-group video and such and no big deal. Nobody knows, nobody cares. And then I was able to relax and take notes and listen when Ali was talking and everybody else was talking. I could work on my homework as we were in group kind of listening along. And then afterwards, I would want to go back and watch the video. It never felt like, oh, I got to catch up or, oh, I got to do this. It was a choice. That was the thing. And there was no rush to the end. There is no rush to the end. And which would normally have scared me, because you know, I feel like you have to have a goal and you have to reach that goal. But the goal that we have in this group, the goal that I chose was more like esoteric, you know. I avoided numbers in every way, shape and form, judgment, value systems, scales, anything like that was not involved in my goal. And I got real personal and what do I really want? What do I really want? And I just threw it out there. I thought, well, let's see where this goes. I'm not going to sit here and think about how it could go wrong, what could go wrong and then what if it does go wrong? How will I feel? Blah, blah, blah. I picked my goal and that was a big turning point for me in the program, when we were at that point, where we picked a goal, this last time around, the second goal. The first goal, I remember, it was good, but it wasn't as soul deep as the second goal I chose. And that goal, I kept in mind all the time, because it's something I want. It's not something I should or have to. So every day I would measure things like, well, I didn't measure, because I don't do that anymore. But every day I would examine things in my brain like, is this true to my goal to me, basically, is what I'm saying. You know, is this… it's for me in the end and nothing really, I don't think really, I've never allowed myself that. And so that was a whole new way of living. And with the support all around from the group and from Ali and it keeps me showing up. So there's, there's no, I'm not running away from it and hiding from the truth. 

Ali Shapiro: Well, you said so many good things, Jenny. Because one of the things sometimes people ask are like, am I going to fall behind? How many hours a week does this take? And it sounds like, I think they're bringing this idea of like, oh, this is about deprivation and like trying harder in these ways that aren't nourishing, versus what you were saying is... For everyone listening, this structure is very flexible. We have people who come and go, but you ultimately want to want to do the work, because it's so experiential, it gives you more layers of insight into yourself. And we're all interested in ourselves, right? This self-awareness, we often think we're self-aware, but we're often self-monitoring. Like how Jenny talked about in the beginning of the group, like, oh, I don't have to get an A plus. I don't have to care about what other people are thinking about me, or what I'm doing, or what I'm saying. I mean, not that you turn that off, but we do some exercises like the second wind that Jenny was talking about, where you actually plan, how is this going to go off the rails? How is real life going to find me? Because life is really lifey right now. So we actually plan for that. And then I do tend to attract perfectionists. People who are like, oh, like A plus. And often we don't even know the expectations we're bringing to something. Jenny, I remember when we did that exercise the first time, you're like, it was profound for you. And I think you said something along the lines of like, I was holding on in ways I didn't even know I was, which is very typical of what happens. Like we think we have to get it all right, but the structure is very flexible and you just start to want to want to want to do it. And so I love that you brought that up. And then the other thing I wanted to say that I think is so important and Jenny talked about the tail triggers, that's lesson one of the work. And then lesson two is what do these... And Jenny's trigger was loneliness. And the second lesson is, well, what are the emotional needs that we're using food with, but that don't actually do the job, right? We're retiring food from a job that it could never fulfill, but it almost works, because of the sense of attachment chemicals that it stimulates. And what Jenny was talking about is when she came into consistency saying, I want peace, or what's important to me, one of the needs of loneliness is attuning to ourselves. It's not tuning to what the outside cultural world will tell us, right? Like, I should do this. I should want this from this program. 

Jenny: Oh, yeah. 

Ali Shapiro: It's actually like, what do I want and that, the more we can ask that in those layers, like Jenny, I mean, I'm putting the more academic framework or the more, you know, research process about this, but what's your reaction when I say that? I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you were doing the attunement to start to satisfy that loneliness trigger, so that food just becomes obsolete. It's not worth tackling it. 

Jenny: Yeah. Once you get your tail trigger or triggers identified and you start doing the work on that, that's when food kind of goes out of the picture. And it happens really fast. Because then you realize that, okay, there's other things here. And you know, that's actually a relief. And it’s like you said, it's fun to learn about yourself, not because it's fun, but because who doesn't want to feel better. So there's that, that's that quest. It's cyclical. I also wanted to say, which at first, you know, if you're a linear thinker and you're going to go, you know, from zero to a hundred to find out how good you are and how high your number is, that might be a little weird for you, to sit back and realize that, you know, it just keeps going and keeps going around. And sometimes you go into a new groove and you feel like, yeah, wow, see, I'm getting it. I'm going to master this. And then life will put you back in a groove that you were just in, a little while ago. You'll fall back into a groove and you learn every time you return to those grooves, you learn more, if that makes sense. But that's how I see it now. And I just kind of feel like it's just like a ride that you're just on. There's really no destination at all, except for peace. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. So when we think of, because again, this work is experiential and people, you have to kind of experience it to understand it, but I'm going to try to make it a little practical. So when you were talking about integration, what started to shift? Like how would, when you can integrate some of these timeless truths that like you had heard, but right, there's that knowing and doing gap that we really address. 

Jenny: Yes.

Ali Shapiro: And especially once you learn your tail triggers and needs, the third lesson of this is like, okay, now that I have reaction to having needs, so I have to work through that. And then in lesson four, we worked through, I loved how Jenny said in the beginning, you know, I told myself, oh, I'm happy this way. Or we talk about all this protective resistance to change to work through. So what those started to shift as you started to integrate and shrink that knowing and doing gap? What was in the three months, because again, we've worked together now for quite some time, but in those three months, what started to shift during those 12 weeks? 

Jenny: You know, right now, I really regret that I didn't go back to my old notes. I wish I had now. I was thinking more in a big summary of things, but the knowing not doing gap, that phrase kept coming up, I remember. I also have a therapist because, you know, I have a lot of things. So…

Ali Shapiro: Don't we all?

Jenny: I recommend that because you can take things to your therapist as well. My therapist is right on board with this program with me and knows what's happening. But anyway…

Ali Shapiro: What shifted? I mean, you had mentioned the relief, you know, relief in the food shifting, but also… 

Jenny: The knowing but not doing. Because I was, I realized how often that happens in my life. And at first, it was just a realization that it's happening. But then, to honor, you know, my goal of self acceptance. I realized that knowing, but not doing, is exactly what's kept me unhappy for, you know, so long, or frustrated or discontent or whatever. And so then you're like, you're more aware of one that comes up and you owe it to yourself, because that's how you gain self-trust. And you can't take care of yourself in a healthy way, I don't think, until you have that self-trust. So, and that was something Sas kind of said in her, when she's talked to us. It was something like, I wrote it on my board, I'll make helpful choices only when I feel safe and protected by my healthy self. So you're like, okay, healthy self, let's narrow in on that. And that is the knowing not doing gap is a great example of that. So you can kind of take one or two things that come up and then zoom in on them, be aware of them and be real with yourself and then get out of your comfort zone a little bit. 

Ali Shapiro: A little bit is the key, right? We can't do all or nothing. That's part of getting, that's part of growth. 

Jenny: Yeah, and that's another thing too, is I've learned how to do a little bit. To set myself kind of up for success, or set myself up for opting out. That is another thing that I've learned that it can happen, because maybe whatever you're told should happen isn't what you want to happen. And you have every right to say, this isn't working for me. And that is a really strong thing to be able to do in life. So it's helped me, like with the swimming thing. I'm a swimmer in high school and everything and I'm good at it and it's the only sport I'm good at. Not that that matters, but it does make it a little more fun to do, you know, when you're good at something. So anyways, I've always wanted to go, but you know, there's the swimsuit thing, which is horrible and it's just so unfortunate that swimming is such a naked sport. But, you know, now I see it. I also can wear this black cap, swim cap and these black mirrored goggles. And I go walk right out of the locker room with my goggles on and my mirror on and I figure in my unitard swimsuit, my knee suit, nobody knows who I am. Nobody can tell, because I look totally different than what I do when I leave the locker room. So I twisted it to that. It's like, OK, actually, I'm in a swimming suit, but nobody knows who I am. So anyway, so, yeah, I started with a big challenge there. I wanted to start swimming when I moved to this little town from Madison three years ago. I thought, I'll move here. I'll start swimming at that great tag center every week or day or whatever. And I'll just my life will be so different and great. And so, well, you know what? It took about three years now, but it's happening. Three years, that's a long time, a big chunk of life. And if I knew it would have taken three years, you know, there's no way I would have even approached it. You know what I mean?

Ali Shapiro: That’s life, yeah.

Jenny: Yeah. But it was a progressive thing. So I didn't even realize it was happening in that sense. So anyways, when I went swimming, it was a big deal. And I was hiding around the fact that one of my goals is exercise. I was in a denial of it. But then it came up towards the end here. And I'm like, Jenny, you know, this is this big thing for you. Why do you have such an aversion to exercise? And I could never understand what it was. Was it just that I couldn't do anything to feel good about myself? I don't know. I still don't really know. But what I did to take on the swimming thing, was, I set myself up, like we've learned to foresee what could possibly happen, you know? And how can I deal with that? So I prepared myself. I bought this notebook and I called it my swim experiment. No, no, no, swim experience. It was actually experience, which is even like more freeing than an experiment. And I thought, I'm just going to take this slow and steady, because that's how I need to process things. If I go right in and buy my membership and say and jump in the pool and be like, here I am, you know, going to be this big swimmer, chances are, it won't hang in there. So I thought, what do I need? What does my nervous system need? How can I do this gently? And so I went, I called first and asked questions and had a lot of great information, which I was really grateful for. They gave me a lot of time on the phone. So that was nice. And then I went in and did a tour and got to like go in the locker room and look at the pool and get a feel for it. So it wasn't so shocking when I actually went there to swim. And then I left and then I thought about it. I thought, I got time. There's no big hurry. And I went back and I bought the membership. But I still didn't swim. I, again, went into the locker room and looked at the pool and got the vibes of the whole place again, just to feel a little bit more comfortable. And this whole time I've had the notebook with me knowing and I wrote in it. So after every experience, I wrote like what I felt, what was funny, what was geeky, what was weird, what was good and just let it go at that. And knowing at any time, I don't have to do this. You know, there's nothing that makes… if I go out there in a swimming suit, it really destroys me psychologically. I don't have to continue. I can write it in this book. I can take this to my therapist. I can use this stuff in Truce. It can be things that I can work towards. I can try to understand where that deep scar psychologically came from, but that didn't happen. That didn't happen. It was awkward, but I wrote about it and I made it kind of funny. So yeah, so I wrote in that book four times, I think, but now I don't write in it anymore. I look forward to going. Oh, I'm not counting, keeping count. The thing I joined was 20 visits for 40 bucks for the summer and I'm not keeping track. I figure when I get to number 20 and I walk in and they're like 21, they're like, sorry, your visits are up. I'll be like, hmm, how do I feel? Do I feel disappointed? Well, then I'm going to sign up for more. Or if I feel almost relieved, then I know, okay, well, let's take a break. So it just, I don't know, it's just giving me an option. And that helps with the knowing not doing, to know that there are other options and other ways, yeah, other ways to approach these things and you can have your own back. 

Ali Shapiro: Oh my God, you just said that was such an exquisite example of really what... So what Jenny's describing is, in lesson four, we get into how we think in all or nothing, right? Like Jenny, you said before, I didn't even know how to do a little bit, right? And Jenny talked about survivor self, healthy adult self. Our survivor self is the one that isn't coachable, is not going to do what we want to do. It turns to food, because it feels so unsafe and the work that we do is not to have like, oh, let's pretend that we're suddenly so comfortable in a bathing suit and we're going to be the athletic swimmer we were in high school. It's like, we got to be with real life. But what happens is when we feel so unsafe, we go into our heads and we spiral, right? And we get into all or nothing, either or and we can't actually find this middle way, which is the work. And so what Jenny was talking about, integration, the knowing but not doing gap is about actually feeling our way into what we need. That's how we stop turning to food, but that's also how we feel quote unquote emotionally satisfied and that we can do big things, like do the things we want to do, we grow what we call our healthy adult self, which to do that, you have to bring your body online. You have to bring your body in the season of life that you're into and reality. You have to bring reality online. And so when Jenny was saying like, I did a little bit to get comfortable, more and more comfortable, that's how you win. I mean, we don't even use win or lose, but succeed or failure, but that's how you move forward. And then she was like, okay, I'm going to, after 40 visits, let me see how I feel. And that's where the self-awareness that we're talking about comes on. Self-awareness is not, oh my God, did I get my money's worth? Am I doing good? Am I doing bad? Am I right, Jenny, you said like, I wasn't like, I have to do laps. How many laps? Am I getting my own due training? Am I getting my… it's like, let me start to see how does this feel for me after the good old college try of 40 visits. But so many of us, that's the self-awareness that we're actually cultivating. And that feels good. So you can start to relax into the process. It doesn't mean that you don't have goals or you're not moving forward, but if it doesn't feel good, it's not going to be sustainable. But that flexibility, that option, we call it option C in Truce With Food is because Jenny has built so much capacity by going slow and steady to say, I got me. If this feels like it's not for me anymore, I'm going to take myself out of this. But I actually have an accurate sense now, because I'm in my, I'm bringing my body online. We don't abandon our brains, but when we feel unsafe, our brains go into all or nothing. You aren't an all or nothing person, it's you feeling under threat, but it's also when we feel emotionally unsafe, we spiral, we get hypervigilant. Some people think like, I am hypervigilant. That just tells me that your survivor self is bigger than your healthy adult self in certain situations, which again, makes sense, because like Jenny said, based on real past experiences.  And the work though is to not try to beat yourself into submission, or battle yourself with perfectionist plans, right? Like you said, I'm going to go, I'm going to call. Oh, they gave me time. This is a safe place. I'm going to get familiar with the environment. This is a safe… I feel safer here. Because if you try to do all, you essentially keep the cycle going. It's like restricting and binging, restricting and binging. And so we have to be able to trust in this moderate path. And so that's really, like Jenny just gave us a masterclass on how to actually shrink the knowing and doing gap. And I'm just telling you the quote unquote mechanisms of action underneath is that it's working, because you're retraining your system to say, I got me. I'm going to look at my needs. I'm going to get those met. And then the food doesn't have a job anymore. Right. So I just got a lot, Jenny, but you just gave such a great example. I was like, I got to highlight what's happening. 

Jenny: You know, and you just brought up like a lot of action words, which is something else that I learned, because I do spiral and shut down. And then I end up feeling virtually paralyzed, you know, and it's a freeze. I don't know, flight, whatever. But that has been a big part of me, because I will just go to a paralyzed state and do nothing. And so just showing up, okay, that's movement. I just realized that's actual movement. And then going to the pool, doing baby steps. For me, I started doing things in the community, volunteering with these groups that I love, a nature center group. And coming from a very, very socially uncomfortable place and persona and personality, it was very challenging. But every single time I went and just showed up, it got easier and easier. And now I've known these people for two years and we just see each other at events related to the Nature Center. And I have these friends now and they really feel like friends. I mean, like they, I think they'd come to my funeral, you know, so that's new. But anyway, so doing those little things, that momentum, that is such a big word. It's so important. And that's I would skip right over that always. I'd go from, you know, get it all now, or strive for the best now or, you know, do it hard and fast. And the momentum would never even get a chance to come up. So, yeah, there's a movement thing, so and movement is so important. And that's what I learned this with this group, too. It really helps emotionally, just movement. Whether it's, you know, walking or, you know, anything, anything. It doesn't even have to be like counting steps for sure. I mean, even just a stroll through a park is movement and how helpful that is. Getting out, getting outside and, you know, being seen in the world and little steps cause this momentum to grow and grow. And that's what leads to the consistency, which means I keep showing up. And then eventually I get more and more comfortable. Before you know it, I'm talking without thinking about what I'm saying, without getting red in the face for the most part and things are coming along easier, and I'm actually having fun. And that, I have to admit, is something that is brand new to me, in my lifetime, where it's been genuine, because I never was comfortable letting loose, or being around people and letting my guard down, ever. So being able to do that now, at first when I started doing it, I was like, oh, no, Jenny, oh, my God. Oh, this is scary. You're getting out there, you know? Oh, my gosh. But now, like I went to this little event the other day and a birthday party and I was talking quite a bit. And you know what? Part of me thought, am I talking too much? But then, you know what, when  I left, I felt so good. I thought, God, that was fun. And so, you know, your perspective changes on what matters is the whole thing. Doesn't really matter if I was talking too much. So what? We were all stuck there at a table. Somebody had to do the talking. Maybe they were grateful for it, but your perspective changes. It's not about the external anymore. And that's another thing too. I started being able to look and say, okay, now the feeling I'm having right now, is that because that person doesn't like me? Or is it because that person maybe has a backache today? You know, those kinds of things really opened up for me, those like dialectical behavior therapy types of things, like what else could be going on here? We also got into that quite a bit. So it takes the focus off yourself in a negative way. And I don't know, it all just, like I said, it integrated. It integrated and it's the best I've ever felt in my life. I have lost weight, but that wasn't my goal. But that's good, anyway, for my health. And at first, that was scary, because I thought that I was going to get all wrapped up again. Yeah, but I haven't. And the food, again, back to the food, which, like I said, really doesn't come up very often at all. 

Ali Shapiro: So many people are like, it’s so crazy, like, we're here for food, but we're barely talking about it. 

Jenny: But you know, I have to say this, and I wish I could tell you guys all why, but I guess, like I said, everybody's got different tail triggers or different things that happen to them, or how they feel about things in life. So no one's program is the same. So there's no way of saying this is what's going to happen to you. So I just no longer have the urge to binge. And that's because I feel like I have my back. And binging is like a betrayal of myself, really. And I don't want to do that. I don't want to feel that anymore. Because that's not what has become something I value. And it just doesn't line up with my goal of wanting to be accepted and to be at peace. So that's, I guess, somehow that happened. And I have a lot of food in my house and I have bags of potato chips. I don't follow any kind of diet anymore. I am vegetarian. I have been for many years, 40 years or 30 years. So I follow that, but that's just because of moral reasons. And what I do is I've learned to allow things, so I'm not restricting and I don't let that restriction run my life. And I allow things and then by doing that and by having my own back, the potato chips bags last in my pantry, for I say weeks you guys, sometimes I forget, because I'll pull a bag out from underneath other stuff and here's a potato chips all crumbled at the bottom in a bag and I'm like oh I forgot I had these, like literally that happens. When before I would restrict so I wouldn't allow that stuff in my house, so I would crave it. And so if I did get it in the house, it had to be gone that night, you know, so I could start again the next day, start new, start clean. It would be gone. I would eat it. It would be gone, out of sight, out of mind. But then I learned with this program, all of a sudden I had this realization that I have the option here. I don't have to eat all this tonight before I go to bed. If it's a food that I know that I'll be thinking about all night, I'll be honest with myself. I'll take it over the sink and soak it in water and throw it in the garbage. And it's gone then. But if it's something that I think I can handle and deal with and would like to have again tomorrow, I can put it away. I can save it. Put it back in the refrigerator, put it back in the cupboard and then go to bed. And so that is when I developed my theory of, I wrote it on my board. This is my own motto, I have two mottos, save it or soak it instead of suck it to show up for me. Because yeah, I was like, OK, I can I can do this. I can save it. I don't have to hurt myself with this. I don't have to do that. And then I just, that's, I don't know, that changed things. Yeah. I mean, I still, you know, have hard times, of course, very hard times at times, but I always come out of them and I learn from them and I'm not perfect. I'm not perfect. I'm human. I'm learning balance and I'm learning how to listen to myself. I'm thrilled. I want to do this stuff forever, because I can, because I mean the need will always be there. You can always… I mean, when your whole life has been devoted to this, the whole rest of my life can be, but it's on the opposite end of the spectrum, devoted to it in an actually a healthy way, where I'm taking care of myself, which is brand new. And I mean, really guys, that's really big for me. And I think a lot of the women in the group had some feelings like they wanted to learn how to nurture themselves and mother ourselves is a big thing. But that's such a broad statement. You're like, how do I do that? You know, I mean, that sounds so pretty. But you'll figure it out, because you got to first you have to learn what you need and what you want. And then you can provide start providing that to yourself. 

Ali Shapiro: When I love that you said so many good things, but one of the things I think, you know, comes up a lot, a lot of people do stop binging from, you know, it may take consistency plus the program after that. But what you said was like, I don't know how it stopped. There aren't rules of like bring food in the house. Don't bring food in the house. I mean and you know, there's certain things, but what Jenny said about like, I have my own back. That, when you say, what do I need? I want to go swimming again, right? Those things, or I want to be social, or I'm going to talk a lot and I'm not going to take myself so seriously that I ruin the night, because I talk so much. Or like, like, you know, like when you start to, the paradox is you start to realize like not everything's about you, whereas before you think everyone's like paying attention to you, but you also feel more significant, because you're doing what you want. But what happens is that is the practical way that we grow our belonging as adults, is we start to say, what feels good? What do I want? And so that's how you end, whether it's binging, nighttime eating, in the workshop that I'm giving on, I forget the date, I should have known, recording this, but I'll say it at the top of the episode. I'm going to talk about how whatever you call your disorder eating, again, not eating disorders, but whether it's from binging to overeating, to mindless eating, to nighttime eating, it's just about the degree of loneliness, or not necessarily loneliness, everyone has different triggers, but the degree that your needs aren't getting met. So, for those of us who have binged, like Jenny and me, it's like we had really, it wasn't necessarily a ton of needs, but it was layers of needs that needed to be acknowledged, right? And that loneliness trigger. For some people, it's the tired trigger, right? The uncertainty, inadequacy. But the binging goes away, because you start to nourish yourself with your true needs, not through any rules or regulations. It's just like kind of, it's like magical, but it's also like there's a, it's not magical. Like there's a very structure in Truce that helps you get there, but it's not the way that I used to approach it. Oh my God, try to, you know, take a walk or all these things that weren't really addressing the belonging urge and primal need underneath. So I just wanted to say that, because so many people were like, okay, my binging ended, but I don't know what I did. You had your own back.  

Jenny: Yeah. And what you just said was another thing that just hit me, because I've been thinking this whole time, like, I feel like I'm growing up. But that you're like, oh, my God, 58. I'm finally growing up, you know how sad. But it's not growing up. It's what you just said. I'm growing my belonging. That, oh man that feels so good I'm going to cry,  yeah, that's a great, great thing to feel in life. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. Well, and it's self-actualization. And we live culturally. I'm so big on cultural conditioning, because we're in a patho-adolescent culture. We don't have a lot of people who have grown up. We all get old, but we don't necessarily grow up and mature. And so the fact that you, again, that you got out of the eating disorder matrix, which is part of that patho-adolescent culture and the fact that you are maturing in our culture, right, is really radical and rebellious, because everything that we are told is normal, is very like arrested development, in my opinion. 

Jenny: Yeah, and plus arrested development is protective in our society.  

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, it's hard growing up. I like still want my parents to rescue me. You know what I mean? 

Jenny: I want everybody to like me. 

Ali Shapiro: I know. I still want them to say, do you need a snack? Give me a snack. You know what I mean? I'll pay the mortgage again. You know, it's like, I don't blame anyone. 

Jenny: But it's deeper than that. It's belonging. And that means to yourself and within the world that you can develop around yourself. 

Ali Shapiro: Well, and I love the specific examples you gave us. I think that's tangible that people can really understand that. Like when you were talking, I was thinking about how like I so often forget, like we have an ice cream maker and like I'll make these different flavors for Essa and like whenever I'm like flipping through the freezer to find frozen broccoli that we are going to grill again for dinner, because we don't have a lot. We don't love to cook in this house. We're working on it. But I'll find those ice creams and it still gives me like, oh my God, I used to obsess about this. And again, I've had a Truce With Food for like 20 years now, but I'm still like, I am so grateful that I can forget this is here. It speaks to the work that we've done. So I totally get that feeling too of gratitude and humbleness and awe. It's just like, oh, I'm so glad I'm not there.  

Jenny: Yeah. Another thing I learned was the option C, I guess, and the knowing not doing kind of in the messy middle kind of stuff is that, okay, I'm craving, I'm craving a strawberry shortcake, because it's summer. Okay. I just crave it for one day. And it's like, well, you know what? I can make that in a way, let's be creative. in a way that is delicious and I enjoy eating and I don't hurt myself eating it. So like I'll use a vanilla Greek yogurt and I'll nuke some frozen strawberries from the freezer. And then I treat myself to one of those little, I mean, I'm not meticulously counting things, but what I'm trying to say is I'm bringing things into my life that I want to eat, rather than not eating them at all, especially holidays and seasonal stuff and things like that. I'll figure out a way to incorporate it where it's healthier and then I'll let myself eat it. And then you know what? I don't want to eat it anymore. That's the greatest part. Then I have strawberry shortcake. It just means nothing to me right now, because I had allowed myself to eat it in a good, caring way. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. And again, I think, I just want to circle back to when you bring your body online, instead of thinking, I'm being good, I'm being bad around food and that's self-monitoring. When you bring the body online, you realize like, I can be moderate. Like I'm actually registering, because I know when I was binging, it was like the first couple bites tasted good. But then like after that, it was not like I was just... essentially now I have language. I was in a freeze, like shame spiral. So I couldn't feel anything. And so I think that's kind of, you know and again, we get into all of this. I loved how Jenny, I'm going to circle back again, talked about feeling our feelings, because a lot of the traditional advice wants us to just like sit with them. But if you think about emotions, it's like E motion, it needs motion. And so lesson three in consistency, we get into how do I actually work through the emotions that come up about having needs and my tail triggers. So Jenny mentioned that, but I wanted to circle back, but that's also how we start to realize and bring the body online of like, wait, does this really feel good after several bites? And again, binging is like, we feel so alone that we're not going to stop that. And that's not the goal, but it's to start to bring the body online to notice the tail triggers and the needs and what feels good. 

Jenny: Yeah, you can start tweaking your own vocabulary. So you start to choose words that are movement oriented and action oriented. Like I'll say I want to explore something rather than I'm going to do it or I don't know, I have to go change my mind, because I was anti-exercise, when I started this program. And so I worked hard at finding ways to tweak my words so that there is movement involved. So I get this propulsion feeling, this leading feeling about things without having it be like, must do this, must exercise. So if you can just start changing the way you're even thinking and opening up to movement in your vocabulary, I find it coming up a lot. I'll say a word, I'll be like, wait, there's a better word I can use for that. And then that mentally is a movement thing. It's a momentum. Again, it takes me forward rather than keeping me frozen or actually giving up. So yeah, that's a neat thing to do. 

Ali Shapiro: Because you're making me think about how like, I should, I have to, it's so pressure filled versus once you identify what you need, it does is like, it's like, I'm choosing this, right? It's agency instead of pressure. 

Jenny: That's it. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. 

Jenny: Yeah. I work best without any force. And force is a movement thing too, but that's not the movement that I go good with. I like to find my own words, words that help me get through, help me rethink things, so that it's more something that I'm willing to do than something that I need to do. 

Ali Shapiro: Wow. Oh, my God. Brilliant. Jenny, your stories, I think, is so inspiring. And I think people who have struggled for decades, like most of my clients have, are just going to feel like a world of possibility is available to them. So thank you. One last thing, what would you say to someone considering consistency? Yeah, what would you…

Jenny: I'm so glad I had this opportunity to talk about it, to let it be known. This is a word of mouth thing right now and, you know, getting out by word of mouth. And I'm glad I'm able to express how helpful it has been to me and that hopefully other people will give this a try. You just got to give it a try. Might work for you, might not, but it is different. It is a different program than anything I've ever experienced. And I'm so grateful for it. 

Ali Shapiro: Thanks, Jenny. And anything you want to say that I didn't ask you or we covered a lot of ground. 

Jenny: Yeah, we did. I know. 

Ali Shapiro: I know. I love it. The discussions in the group are so rich. 

Jenny: I'm doing it for myself. That's a big thing. Let's see. Yeah. I truly like my life now. That's the last thing I wrote. When I was getting this ready. That's crazy to say. 

Ali Shapiro: Oh, you put in the work, Jenny. I'm so happy to hear that. 

Jenny: Honestly, it touches on heavy stuff, but it doesn't feel too hard. It's a gentle program. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. That's how we digest and metabolize the heavy stuff. Not all or nothing. 

Jenny: Right.

Ali Shapiro: And we do it in a group so that we can carry the load, right. There's something so magical about realizing you're not alone with the heavy stuff. 

Jenny: Indeed. Thank you so much, Ali. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. Thank you, Jenny.