13 Binge Eating and High Performance with Dr. Jessica Neukam-Helms

If you’ve ever felt like you “should have more willpower” when it comes to food, this episode is going to change everything. In this episode of Cupcakes and Clarity, Lisa Pirinelli with licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Jessica Neukam-Helms, unpacks the real reason high-achieving women struggle with emotional and binge eating.

This episode breaks down emotional eating in a way that is both science-backed and deeply relatable, helping you move from shame to understanding. If you’re ready to stop blaming yourself and start getting clarity around your habits, this conversation is your starting point.

What listeners will learn:

• Why emotional eating is a nervous system response rather than a lack of discipline.
• The difference between enjoying food and using food to cope with stress.
• How urgency, patterns, and aftermath reveal whether food is being used emotionally.
• Why nighttime cravings happen due to depletion, not failure.
• How high-achieving women unknowingly create internal pressure that leads to binge cycles.
• What your body is actually asking for in moments when food feels urgent.
• Why awareness, curiosity, and compassion are the foundation for healing your relationship with food.

FAQ:

Why do I lose control around food at night?

It’s not about losing control—it’s about depletion. Your brain and nervous system are exhausted from the day, making food a fast and effective way to regulate stress.

How can I tell if I’m binge eating or just enjoying food?

Look for urgency, repetitive patterns, and how you feel afterward—guilt, shame, or disconnection are key indicators of emotional eating.

What is the first step to stopping emotional eating?

Awareness. Start by asking what you actually need in the moment instead of trying to immediately stop the behavior.

Ways to contact Dr. Jessica Neukam-Helms:

Website:HOME - Therapy for Overwhelmed Women Seeking Freedom from Perfectionism, People-Pleasing, and Emotional/Binge Eating

Free 1 hour webinar on decreasing binge & emotional eating: Webinar: How To Decrease Binge & Emotional Eating with 3 Steps

LinkedIn: Jessica Neukam-Helms, PsyD, HSPP | LinkedIn

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Cupcakes and Clarity, a podcast for high-achieving women who want success and fulfillment without burning it all down. I'm your host, Lisa Pirinelli, and every Tuesday I'm bringing you honest conversations and practical strategies to help you create more balance, purpose, and joy in your work and your life. Think of this as a heart-to-heart with a trusted friend. Together we'll get real about the challenges you face, and you'll leave every episode feeling clear, confident, and inspired to make your next chapter your best one yet.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Welcome back to Cupcakes and Clarity. I'm Lisa Perinelli, and today I'm so excited I have a special guest today. It's Dr. Jessica Nikom Helms. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and the creator of the Finding Food and Body Freedom Formula. After healing her own relationship with food, she now helps women break free from binge and emotional eating without diets, willpower, or the exhausting all-or-nothing cycle. And through her online program and virtual coaching, she blends psychology, neuroscience, and somatic work to help women quiet the noise, heal their relationship with their bodies, and stepped out of perfectionism and high-functioning anxiety. She's also a mom of two adorable kids, a wife, a business owner, a therapist, consultant, and an all-around amazing human who I have now known for maybe a year. Has it been about a year?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

I think it's my it's probably been about a year and a half, you know, since I started the group. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

We met in a networking group. And the funniest thing is we were in the group for a pretty long time. Um and I did not know that you also had a daughter in the same grade at the same school. And I remember coming in one day, and I I don't exactly remember what was due that day, but there was something we were supposed to like fill out online. And I was in panic mode thinking, oh my gosh, I totally blew it. And that's how we connect I connected with like, oh, you knew you were dealing with that too. And I was like, then it was like, oh my gosh, how did we even being in the same group, we had not known we had kids in the same school, same grade, which is what was amazing that connection. So and since then have gotten to know you even better. So I do apologize for everyone with me, and I am fucking cold. So I'm a little nasally, but Jessica is fine. So you'll be hearing from her mostly anyway. So let's just start off. How did you get into this work?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me on your podcast. And so I'm excited to support you and talk to your listeners. Excited to be here. And so this is totally my my passion binge in emotional eating and being a therapist and a consultant and helping will women recover. Absolutely my passion. So feel free to cut me off at any time because I seriously talk about this for hours and ask my clients. They they would tell you that. So as far as how I got into this work, so I think it's, you know, I grew up, I grew up in southern Indiana, grew up in the country, um, grew up with two parents who worked really hard. And so, you know, that being said, like I learned at a very early age that like work ethic and working hard for your goals, being responsible, being driven, that's that's how you build a good life. And so it really set the stage for me to become like again, a responsible person, but also a high achieving person and to really take that on. Um, and so I really I pushed myself and I had big goals. Obviously, like, you know, I went to college, got my master's, got my doctorate. And so just continued to push myself. And so I think all of those qualities are are strengths, right? But like every strength eventually it becomes a weakness, right? If it goes too far. And so I think my high drive and my my high achieving stuff really led into a lot of internalized pressure. I don't think it was really coming from anybody outside. You know, it wasn't my parents or anybody else putting pressure on me. It was really coming from inside myself. And so I started putting a lot of internalized pressure on myself and it actually started to spill over into food. And like a lot of my clients I work with, I have, you know, I've worked really hard on not being such an all or nothing thinker, right? Black or white, all or nothing, perfect failure, that kind of feel. Most high achievers have that mindset with the being being driven, right? And so it started to spill over into food with me, right? And so I would swing from being very disciplined with food and trying to lose weight, trying to stick to a perfect diet. And then per usual, as it does for most people, that collapses and then it would collapse into overeating and emotional eating and eating to the point of discomfort. And so I carried so much shame about that because like on paper, it looked like I had everything together, right? Like I was going to this classes, getting the A's, doing the thing, like I was super successful. Um, inside I just felt like a mess, like total mess, right? And so as I got into graduate school for clinical psychology, you know, I started working, I did a lot of my training in college counseling centers, which are like rampant for eating disorders, um, especially for for females, right? And so I became exposed to that population early on. And so I was really doing like a lot of parallel healing. And so I was healing myself and I was also trying to understand this for other, trying to understand this and what this was for other clients I was working with. And I had great supervisors, I had great support for myself. And I found my way through what I call food recovery, right? So I was able to heal my own relationship with food, and it really became, again, my passion. Became my passion to help other women also figure out like, hey, their relationship with food is being driven by this anxious, perfectionistic, exhausted, controlling drive to succeed. And so yeah, that's how I got here.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

That's amazing. So many people I've learned in my journey too with your pain becomes sometimes that passion for helping others. And so you take what you've experienced in this case, right? You turn it into something really great that you have helped heal yourself and now are healing others. So what you said your awareness became was around your college years that you you were aware that you had this like issue with food. But was it through the like the educational process of you becoming um a doctor that it was like, oh wait, was that your awareness or you actually already kind of figured out I have a problem here?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah, I think like for most people, like with binge and emotional eating, like most of the time it's it it starts through dieting. And like, like, like all of us, if you're a female in America, you've been on a diet at some point for the most part, right? And so, and I would just also like to give a brief shout out. Like, we're recording this on National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Oh my god, this lap week. Yeah. So I know we're recording it back in February and it won't air till later. But and so that being said, like, yeah, I, you know, dieting and I wasn't overweight or anything like that. Like, it's just we always have this pressure to look a certain way as females in society, right? And so again, it wasn't coming from anybody, it was just society, right? And so, um, you know, as a teenager and so forth, like I was watching what I would eat um and trying to lose weight. Um, you know, my thighs were always like a little chunky, and so I was always preoccupied with those. It wasn't until like more of like college that the the control aspect collapsed. And then I think I don't know how much I gained in college, but I put on a good amount of weight and realized like, okay, like this can't be a thing anymore. Like I'm miserable. I was not happy with it in high school, but I'm definitely not happy with it in college. Where's my happy medium? Where's the gray when it comes to my body and my relationship with food? And so started, found my own support, started going through the healing process, going into graduate school and my healing healing process, I would say came through my graduate school experience and and then has just continued to evolve. You know, I'm always a work in progress, right? I'm not like no one is ever truly completely healed. So, and I make sure my clients know that.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

That's awesome. So, so the awareness piece was um, you may answer more that I have may have additional questions on that one, but let's move forward because um you may answer it naturally. No, I don't want to get us all trapped. Um, what is emotional eating and then how is that different from just enjoying food?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah. And so that this this question will probably build into like some of the awareness piece, right? And so um I think it is a really important question because sometimes, okay, so sometimes when I meet women, they know what emotional eating is or binge eating, you know, they've been diagnosed or they've listened to a podcast, they read a book, like they they know about it. Other times people will reach out to me like in my DMs or email and they'll be like, I don't know if I have a problem or not. I'm like, okay, cool, that's fine. Let's talk about it. So I thought this would be a really good question to kind of to put out there, you know, because it's I know your podcast is not specifically for mental health or eating disorders or anything like that. So I thought I would go over like what is emotional eating. And the first thing I always like to say about that is like, first of all, eating is emotional by nature. Okay. Emotional eating is a thing that we all do. Food has always been tied to comfort, to celebration, to connection, and to tradition. All right. So we never demonize emotional eating. Like, I don't believe in that. It would be like telling, you know, how like if you have a bad day, like you go to your partner or your best friend and say, like, I had a bad day, can I have a hug? Like, we would never tell someone that they shouldn't do that. And so, in the same way, I view I view food the same as touch in so many ways. I would never ever tell my clients, like, oh, you shouldn't turn to food ever for support, right? Yeah. And so, because eating, like you think about a baby being born. There is two ways to comfort a baby. It's touch and it's food.

unknown 10:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Totally makes sense. Yeah. That baby comes out and that baby's placed on the breast or given a bottle and held by the mother, right? So it's wired into us. We use food to comfort ourselves, to celebrate, to grieve. And so we don't need to undo all of that. It's more so the emotional eating becomes different when you turn to food as the primary way to regulate your emotions, right? When you don't have any other way to find relief from stress, to comfort yourself, to shut down at the end of the day, take it, take a load off. That's when emotional eating becomes a problem, right? And so, for example, like if I eat a cookie and you know, the cookie sounds good and I'm enjoying it, I taste it, I like it, I feel satisfied, I move on. I don't think about what I ate, I don't analyze it afterwards. It's just a cookie. Great, fantastic. But if I'm eating emotionally, right, it's gonna look different. First of all, I'm probably gonna overthink eating the cookie in the first place. It's gonna feel urgent the more I think about it. Like I have to eat this cookie, feels like I need it. And then I'm probably also not fully tasting it either, right? Because I'm just like scarfing it down because there's a part of me that's like, I shouldn't be eating this. And so, but I feel like I need to eat it for whatever stressful driver is happening underneath in my my nervous system. And so that's that's truly what emotional eating is, is it's finding a way if the food becomes the way to regulate your nervous system and it works. It truly does. Neurologically, scientifically, food does work without getting into all the science. It's just that we know that sugar and carbs do that really efficiently. It's just that they do it short term and it wears off. Um, and then we feel even worse because oftentimes we haven't actually healed the problem that got us there in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Yeah, I the whole eating and then not realizing that you you never tasted it. Or for me, it's like because until I met you and I started to hear more about what you do, and you're you're talking like honestly, you've never really thought about binge eating. I it's not something that I had really thought of for myself. And if I really look back, like I would say for me, I would I probably didn't really start binge eating until what I would now classify as like, yeah, maybe I do this sometimes to cope with stress, was becoming a mom. Like when I I had other coping mechanisms, I guess, outside of food, although I do love food, and I'm sure some of that was in there, but it was after becoming a mom that, you know, because you're so exhausted. And it was a different level of exhaustion than I had in stress that I had ever had before having, you know, my kiddos. So when I first like started hearing about what you do in in more depth, I was like, oh yeah, there are times I totally eat and then realize did not even where where did that time go? Um, because either I'm just putting food into just like because I know I'm just supposed to check the box of eating, or you know, maybe I was just really stressed out and I was looking, and yes, I love sugar. I mean, I did name my podcast after cupcakes. So now which I love by the way. Love a good cupcake.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

I do love a good cupcake.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

So yeah, so how if someone how does someone tell if they're using it to cope rather than just eating normally? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

It's a great question. And there's like three things that I there's usually well, there's more than three things, but three main things um that I usually focus in on, especially when someone's first trying to figure out like, hey, is this something I I need to work on or want to work on? And so I would say those things are urgency, pattern, and the aftermath.

unknown 14:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

So I want to go back. So the first one I talk about is like urgency. So if you're enjoying food, there's choice. There's choice if you decide to eat that cupcake, you know, how you eat that cupcake, awareness with the cupcake, you could have it, not have it. It's fine either way, right? But if you're emotional or binge eating, there's usually urgency, right? So if you're using food to cope, it just feels like you need it, right? There's a pool, there's a restlessness, almost like I can't relax until I have this. And so you may find that you start getting like fixated on it, like mentally. Like you just keep thinking about it. And this happens a lot where like if my clients are trying to like previously before I start working with them, they're like, Oh, I just try to white knuckle it, right? I sit in front of the TV and I'm like, I'm not gonna eat those chips, you're not gonna eat those chips, right? And they might sit with that for 30 minutes, but it becomes obsessive, right? So if you are feeling pulled towards food, it feels like you gotta have it and you shouldn't eat it. Like that's that's your clue that it this is gonna be more of an emotional eating thing. So and especially if you don't feel hunger, right? Especially if you're checking in with your body and you're like, oh, I don't even feel hungry. I just, you know, I finished dinner 10 minutes ago. Why am I in the pantry? Yeah, it's that's also one of our clues.

unknown 15:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Urgency is a big one.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Yeah, yeah. Like if I really feel like I need it right now, that's I've thought of it that way. But yeah, that's a really good way to really kind of did nobody so now that people are aware of that, and they like they're like, now that they've heard you say that, what is it? Should they stop and think, like, what is it, what kind of a conversation should they have with themselves when they are now aware of that happening?

SPEAKER_00 15:46

It's a big question. I could talk on that like an hour straight.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Like, true.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Like, that's such a big question. My beautiful brain goes in so many different directions, right? So it's like, and that's what the question I get, because essentially it's like, well, what should I do? What should I do? You should do nothing. The more you try to do in this moment, actually, the more it's gonna backfire. Right. So actually, like what I would start with, and I would say, like, let's just pull back. Like, let's let's first of all breathe. Please just take a breath. Um, put your feet on the floor, squish your toes in the carpet or whatever, feel grounded, take a breath. And I usually I ask my clients, like, like, but let's make sure you're not hungry first. Like, um, so many women like go all day long and don't eat. They're just go, go, go, go, go. They're skipping lunch, they're skipping snacks, they're working through lunch, they're not tasting their lunch, they don't even like what they're eating, right? And so, like, like that's one of the first questions. Like, if you're gonna do something when you feel the urge to eat, like, like just check in with your body first. Like, are you hungry? Because if you are hungry, you need to eat. So, but yeah, there's a lot of different ways of why question.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Oh, like I I could take it down a whole rabbit hole on that way, but you actually just said something that was really key. I I literally just had a conversation with someone in the last week who was talking about how they just certain days they're working so much that they forget to eat and they just don't eat. Like it just doesn't come into their mind. And then when they do finally eat, it's like chips and soda and fast because it's whatever is at their work or whatever's available. And then there's that feeling of like, I know I shouldn't be eating this way, and then that spirals into some other negative thoughts and feeling. Um, but in reality, is she probably really was hungry and probably was past hungry and then maybe went into just like gotta eat whatever is nearby and obviously what feels good.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

And if you are past hunger, um, you are primed to overeat, right? So think about like if I so think about if you go swimming, right? And you're trying to hold your breath under water, right? At first you're fine underwater, right? But the longer you're under there, the more things start to feel overwhelming, right? And it's like, oh my God, I can't breathe now. I can't breathe, I can't breathe. And then we finally let you above the water. Like the first thing that you do is right, you gasp to take in as much air as you can. Hunger works the same way. You don't feed your body all day. And the first time, like you don't put food into it till two or three o'clock in the afternoon. Your body is like give it all and give it all now. And you you are gonna you were gonna eat past fullness. One of the very first things I do with my clients is let's look at if you want to work on binge or emotional eating at night, it's not about nighttime. It's how did you wake up that morning and what did you do throughout the day?

SPEAKER_02 18:55

That's fascinating. So you really have to take it back. It's it's not like what you're what I'm hearing is it's not really about the moment as much as it's like it wasn't like an instantaneous, like all of a sudden now you're binging. It's so much more that Whitman went into that moment. Like you're saying it was starting as soon as you woke up, do it how you did how did you care for yourself that day? So okay. There's so much, yeah. You could go inside. I was gonna say we could talk for hours. I love this. I love this because it's just I mean, uh I have so many clients that when we first talk and they first come to me, and I'm like, what are the things you want to focus on? So many times, it may not have been the original thing they thought of, but then the health piece of it and the eating piece of it will come into play into the conversation. And a lot of it is around, I want to feel better, I want to look better. Like it starts kind of surface level of I want to lose weight or I don't, you know, I want my clothes to fit better or whatever, or I know I should eat healthier. The shoulds, you know, I should this, I should that. So that's why I was like, I think what you do is so impactful for so many of us because you want you you support women. And in this day and age, especially because the people I work with are high achieving as well. And so we just have these standards for ourselves that are just sometimes impossible to achieve and to hold up for a long time. And then we find coping mechanisms or things that just maybe over time creep up. And, you know, for some people, it may have been something that's been like lifelong. And then others, like me, where I was like, I don't really remember having this until I was a mom. And then when I was a you know, working mom, it just became really, really difficult to one. I didn't realize I was doing it until again until I started listening to you. And I was like, oh maybe, maybe I am doing that. So that's why I was like, I love the awareness because I just not everyone even realizes that they're doing this. And it you could go a lifetime with not really understanding where everything, all the pieces and parts that play into it, and you just live a life of feeling like I shouldn't do this, and then I did it, and then I'm guilty, and all the negative emotions. So so with that, why does emotional eating happen in the first place? Like, how does that play into it?

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Yeah, yeah. And again, that's also a a big question, but I think one of the, and I I could answer it in multiple, multiple areas that the part that I want to talk about today is mostly like nervous system, because the nervous system is basically it's the system in your body that decides whether you feel safe or stressed, right? So it's responsible for scanning your environment and and asking, like, Am I okay right now? And so when you're calm and you're you're regulated for the most part, like everything's okay. We call this like the parasympathetic state. And so um Um, you know, that's what rest and digest state like. So you feel steady, you feel browned, you can think clearly, you're connected to your hunger cues, you're connected to your fullness cues. And so everything is chilled. But when you're stressed, this is what we call the sympathetic state, right? And so that's that stress could be related to a work deadline, conflict with somebody, pressure to perform, just um even ongoing like chronic overfunctioning. Your nervous system goes into like fight or fight mode, or fight, flight or freeze, or fawn. There's other levels, right? And so fight, fight or flight mode means that like certain things happen in your body. So like your stress hormone, cortisol, increases, right? Your brain becomes more reactive. All sorts of sciencey things happen inside of your body. And when that happens, this is where food comes in. Because certain foods do temper temporarily lower your stress response. And so they can increase dopamine, they can increase serotonin, they can lower that stress hormone, cortisol, they shift your body out of that wired state. And so it doesn't last long, but food does work. It really does work. So if you think about being a high-achieving woman who has worked all damn day, who is probably pushing through hunger signals, right? And is not really in tasting her food if she is eating, you're making decisions nonstop, you're responsible for everyone else, your nervous system is running hot, is how I call it, right? It's like, okay, your nervous system is probably like running hot throughout the day. And so by the end of the day, you're looking for relief, you're looking for safety. And so food is fast. Like I said, it's for most of us, it is accessible and it works. And you just add, if you add like kind of what you were saying earlier, like with becoming a mom, like especially with postpartum hormones and stuff like that, you're responsible for caring like for a little human all day long. That's a lot of stress and it's a lot of responsibility. And so at the end of the day, a lot of times women reach for food because it's reward, it's relief, it's comfort, maybe, but it's actually reward. It's like, I did it again. I'll think of it through another day. My kid's alive, or you know, I didn't miss a work deadline. And so the house quiets down at nine o'clock at night, the kids go to bed, your work emails are finally shut off. And it's like, what is finally mine? What is mine? And here's the box of cookies. This is mine.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Oh my gosh, that's so profound. Not to interrupt you, but like, what? Yeah, that's just so amazing. Like, I mean, true. The whole end like I think about again the people I work with and even myself, how you know, there's a lot of times people are scrolling at the end of the night. They get online and they scroll and they're not even paying attention, they don't really even care what they're looking at. And then obviously there's a whole nother piece to the scrolling of the negative things that can happen from that and the whole, you know, comparing despair kind of thing. But it's that time, you're like, but this is my time. No one's telling me what to do right now. Everybody else is asleep. And for some people, that would be food. I this just totally makes sense that that's what you're saying. It's like a reward of you made it through your day, and you're looking for something that's just your own, your own decision. You're no one's asking you of anything, you're just gonna do this for yourself. And I didn't never thought about the food piece of it before, but it's true.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

I always say it's never about food. Like it's never about food. And so food is the pathway, you know, it's it's not right, like it's just the pathway of your nervous system trying to regulate. And so we all have different pathways. And unfortunately, yeah, for women, food becomes that pathway for a multitude of reasons, right? You gotta go deeper, you gotta always go deeper to really understand what it's actually trying to meet, what need it's trying to meet.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

So yeah, not everybody wants to go deeper, but the first step is becoming aware, which is what I love that you're educating us today on. Because again, if you're not aware that like again, I was not even aware that I was doing some of these things. Um, but once I realized I was like, oh, well, now I know I'm doing it. I doesn't necessarily mean I'm not gonna do it again. It doesn't mean I have all the answers, but you're like, I it's normal.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Like it is, it's very normal. It is so normal, and it's all on a spectrum continuum, right? And so, you know, like I I tip obviously I work with clients who like it's happening frequently and they're just fed up, you know, they're exhausted, there's so much shame, there's guilt, like they don't want to live like this anymore, right? And so, but for sometimes, you know, it happens like for some people, like once in a while, and it's like, yeah, I overate a little bit of those chips. Okay, we move on, right? So it really comes down to like, you know, what somebody's individual motivation is, if they want to make a change with it or not. There's no right or wrong answer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Um, so why does discipline and willpower often disappear at night? What why is it the night time? Well, you kind of explain that a little bit, but is there more to that, or is it really just like that's your time? You finally are exhausted, you've you've depleted everything.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Oh, depleted. Totally going to interrupt you because this is what I love to say to people. Like, it's not that discipline disappears at night, it's that depletion shows up at night, right? And so I just I threw this question in because I wanted to make sure that people know that emotional and binge eating have nothing to do with discipline or willpower. And that is like my pet peeve, right? Is that society tells people it's like, well, just have more willpower, just still need it, right? And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I want you to think about like how much willpower and discipline you have in every part of your life. You have that. You have it in spades. You can't use it with emotional and binge eating because that's not the tool you need for emotional binge eating. So you're wrong, tool, right? And so, because it's not about discipline or willpower, it's about depletion. At the end of the day, like you still have discipline, but that's not a tool that we need anymore. What we need is to work on stuff throughout the day and and fulfill your nervous system in a way that keeps it steady and regulated at nine o'clock, 11 o'clock at night. And so, yeah, and I know I did kind of mention this, but like women, like people in general, but you know, women like high achievers, like they're using their prefrontal cortex. I love the science, right? And and high achievers like the science too, because it's like, oh, I love the science. It makes sense, right? Yeah, you respond to that. And I love to talk about it because the prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain that is responsible for planning and making decisions and impulse control, um, restraint. And so we're using that all day long as we're managing households and work and everything in between, making hundreds of decisions, all of that, right? But at the end of the day, your brain is tired. Your brain is tired, decision fatigue is real, um, and energy is, you know, is limited, right? And so it's not that you don't have discipline, it's just that at the end of the day, like that's not the tool you need anymore. You need something else. And so that's why people think it does disappear, but it doesn't. It's still there, it's just not accessible at that point because your body is trying to tell you, hey, you're you don't need discipline, you need to be doing something else for yourself to actually sue yourself. Oh, that is so powerful.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Because I'm just like, I'm I can there's so many conversations I'm like reliving in my head with women that this keeps coming up. And there's so much guilt and shame that comes up from the fact that they're like, because they are so high achieving, and it is like in every other area of their life, they're like, if I just push harder, if I just work harder, if I just get more organized, right? All these things that they can control to achieve the goal. And it's food is just like it feels like, and especially growing up in the way we all did, it very much was like, well, then you just either you go on a program, you go on a diet, you exercise more, eat less, right? Calories in, calories out, all these different things. And so, and even though like high-achiev women are tend, you know, very educated, but even in this one, this area, there's just still so much emotion attached to it and shame and guilt that it's like I really don't think the message has made it all the way through to what you're saying. I don't think that message is out there enough. I still feel like diet culture is just huge. And there's so much money to be made from it. So it's like, you know, I get why it's not going away. But it's why I'm so happy you're here today to help just give women another another viewpoint, right? Expand their their worldview on this and understanding like there's more to this story than anyone's really ever sharing. And yeah, this is it goes so much deeper, like you said. So if someone realizes food is their only off switch, what is the first step? And then how do they begin coping without it? This is a great question. Sorry, just because just saying she gave me this question, and I love this question because it's actually one I had when you were talking. So because it's always like, okay, so it's not the right tool. What is what is so many, so any tool.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

I can I could come back, we could have a conversation about diet culture for like an hour. We could have a conversation about this question for an hour, and I'm happy to do that. But so I'm gonna hit kind of like some of the key points that I think that I want people to know, right? Most of all. The first step is not taking food away. Right. That like we don't take a tool away if you don't have something else to replace it with that is very overwhelming and threatening to your nervous system. Um, and so instead of asking, well, how do I stop eating at night? start asking, where am I overfunctioning during the day? Right. How do I feel during the day? A lot of this is gonna be creating awareness first and foremost. And so we got to really back up and like check in with your body and yourself and your thoughts throughout the day. We need to start with that. So we got to catch depletion earlier. And so gotta start with that first. So, for example, like, why don't we um make sure you're eating your lunch? Right? Why don't we make sure that we take your five minutes and go sit outside on a bench in front of your office and put your face up in the sun, right? Like we need to like slow down, which is terrible about society as a whole. So we got to back up and figure out what's going on throughout the day. And then another question, like that I encourage people to ask like, so if you do have the awareness of, like, okay, I'm reaching for food right now and I don't think I'm hungry, maybe you know that, maybe you don't. Ask yourself, what am I actually needing right now? What am I, what do I need right now? What am I hoping this food will do for me right now? Right. So I talk about comfort, I talk about connection, I talk about reward, I talk about relief, I talk about soothing, I talk about rebellion, I talk about advocacy. There are really a lot of underlying needs that food is trying to meet for people. And so start with a question of like, what do I want food to do for me right now? What am I hoping it will do for me right now? Right. So kind of starting with that question, because you know, we don't we're not trying to white knuckle urges to eat. What we're trying to do is create self-compassion and we're trying to create space just to explore those urges first and foremost. And so, yeah. Kind of to add to that, like, you know, everybody has heard like the toolbox skills, right? Like take a deep breath, take a walk, call a friend, right? And so those strategies are great strategies and they work. The reason they don't work for people though is because you got to understand what the eating is actually doing for you first. Like people try to jump to strategies and they're missing this chunk in the middle that is vital for understanding what the food is doing for them first. In my world as a psychologist, I use a lot of internal family systems. And I'm not gonna go through all of what that is, but we use it a lot for it's beautiful work for changing your relationship with food. You gotta understand what the part of you is eating for. What does she need from you first? If you don't understand what this pattern is about, she's gonna override you every single time. And there is no amount of walking or texting a friend in the world that will ever fix that for you. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

That's there's so much like yours is so deep. Like there's so much emotion. And I know, yes, you could talk so much deeper on it. And yes, maybe we will need to have another follow-up episode when people can send in some questions and what this is like bringing up for them, which would be amazing. And I'm so grateful that you would be willing to do that. So just in that example, let's say, especially because that's a learned behavior to be able to stop before it happened and to say, what is, you know, what do I need right now? You know, what is my what is this food going to do for me? What I'm hope, what am I hoping? I love that question. So let's say now they're aware of that. Like we're we've heard you say that, and let's say we don't, right? We are like, okay, I'm aware of that. And then it happens where you, we know, I binge eat, I I just ate because I was, you know, I just wasn't thinking. Is it still good then to after remember? Okay, can I now go back and say, okay, what what was it I needed? Is that good? Like, right instead of feeling bad about it, like say, okay, it happens. And I forgot to ask myself the question. And yeah, they're all right, like ask now so that you can maybe in hindsight say, okay, well, like I'm still I'm learning from that.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

So I'm gonna throw out my two favorite C words. Two favorite C words, because these are vital when it comes to healing your relationship or food curiosity and compassion. Right words. Okay, it's not control, I promise you that. It's curiosity. People focus on control, they should be focusing on curiosity and compassion. Again, wrong tool. Yes, get curious. Get curious before, get curious during, get curious after. If you're like, oh man, screw that up, ate the whole box of cookies again. Okay, cool. You ate the whole box of cookies again. Get curious. What's going on with it, right? What do you remember about it? Tell me about your day, right? This is a lot of the work I do with my clients. It's sort of it's not going to be being critical, it's gonna be about being compassionate. There's so many C words out there, right? Some that are great, some not so great. And it's about so it's about being curious and then being compassionate, right? So you get curious about it and you're like, oh yeah, man, my boss sent me that email and I didn't realize it at the time, but it didn't really land well with me. And then I just started feeling more and more stressed throughout the day, but I didn't really know why. And then my my child was annoying me, and you know, I was trying to make dinner and the dog was barking, and so all of a sudden the Oreos are out and I'm eating them as I'm making dinner. Common example off the top of my head. And so let's get curious, right? Finding that curiosity about like, okay, where did it start? Right? What can we pinpoint? And then, okay, it's okay. Like, it's okay that it happened. Beating yourself up will not make change. I tell my clients all the time, if being critical of yourself ended your binge eating, I would have been out of a job a million years ago. It does not work, right? So curiosity and compassion. Yeah, it's always worth to go back in and just kind of explore it.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

I love that. I love that there's two C words that trump the other two C words that are negative, right? They always are the ones to lead with. Compassion and curiosity are wonderful words to live by. I love that. So if someone is listening and is realizing this might be them, like it was when I first started following your thing, I was like, wait, what? I I didn't realize that. Uh, what would you want them to know?

SPEAKER_00 38:16

I threw this question in just because it was a personal preference. Because I do want them to know, right? If they're like out there and they're like, oh my gosh, I think I have a problem with food. What I want you to know first and foremost is that there's nothing wrong with you and you are not broken. There is nothing wrong with you and you're not broken. Because so many people, when they, whether they're aware of it or not, like they feel like there's something wrong with them. Like that there's something broken inside. They feel ashamed and they feel ick and we don't talk about it. We don't talk about it. And so you're not broken. It's just that you've gotten really good at functioning. That you're not as, you know, you're you're not a superhero. You need to eat, you need time for yourself, you need to sleep, you need rest, you need joy, you need pleasure, you need curiosity, you need compassion. But you know, that's what I want people to know. You're not broken. So instead of asking, like, what's wrong with me, maybe shift it to like what's been hard for me lately. Right. And so I think that's just like the biggest, the biggest piece of it.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

I think that's amazing. And I do think I love that you've talked so much about the willpower because I feel like that's something either you feel broken and or you feel like you're you're failing in some way with not having the willpower to do it or the drive or whatever, you know, whatever the word is that someone would feel. So I love that you're you know, you're just it's so accepting. You're so accepting and it the calmness behind it, and the just like that wonderful feeling of like someone gets me, someone understands and also sees past the negatives that I'm feeling about myself. And you're, you know, in the way you meet people where they're at, and not you are very you're very educated, you're very smart, and you have all these, you know, the science behind it, which is amazing. But um, you you're talking at a level like I'm I get it, right? I know some of the some of the science things, and um, but you're we just need to hear it in a way that's so relatable and you you are doing that. And I love that. Okay, before we talk about where people can connect with you, um, I always like to have a cupcake moment in every episode, which is finding the joy in the chaos or finding joy in the difficult. And I just wanted you to be able to share your own cupcake moment.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Cupcake moment, yes. And so when I was originally like kind of thinking about that, I was like, first of all, I love that. Like, that's so cool. Um, I do a lot of tiny cupcake moments, like throughout the day, right? Like where I'm just like, like, let me just shut off my computer and my phone and drink my coffee for two minutes without any input in any sort of capacity. So I call those tiny like being very intentional. But then I was also thinking, and didn't even occur to me until last night when it was happening, my family has gotten into doing puzzles lately. And so I have a five-year-old and an eight-year-old. They both love puzzles. And so we have like a cardboard table set up in our basement, and it's just so nice because all four of us is it is an activity that we can now do together. And it's just so nice. It's it's a it's a bonding moment, and there's no screens, no devices, we're connecting, we're talking, we're helping each other find pieces. And so I think my my really, I would say my big cupcake moment has been doing my family puzzles lately. I think it's been really fun.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

That's really sweet. I don't like that, and it the whole like finding something that's technology free is really great. Ours right now is Lego. Yeah. Doing the Legos, Lego. Sorry. There we just started watching this series, which is not new by any stretch of the imagination, but it was called Lego Masters and or Lego Master Masters. Anyway, I grew up saying Legos, plural, and we've learned it's just Lego. There's no I did not know that. Yeah, I say Legos all the time. I was like, I I try not to now, but you know, it's hard to take that habit out. So I love that. That's a really great one. And there's a great example for people to maybe think about doing what their own family if they like puzzles. Get the kids in them up. I would have thought maybe that would have been more challenging because the five and you know, five-year-old maybe like not wanting to do that, but I think that's really sweet.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Yeah, he does his like a little bit easier puzzles, but like right now, honestly, like the puzzle we're actually working on is a 1,000-piece puzzle, and it is candy. It's candy bars. And candy bars, right? And so, yeah, it's been fun. All of us can can work on it.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

So well, that's amazing. Um, so thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge today. Yes, I think it would be amazing to have you back on um with people, be able to send in some questions um and go even further with in certain areas of whatever people are finding the most either challenging or they're most curious about. And um, that would be amazing. So, where can people go to connect with you and learn more?

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Yeah, absolutely. So um I would say, like, if you if you listen to this, you know, conversation today and you're like, oh my gosh, I think this is me. You know, I want to know more. Um, the best place to start with me is like doing a free consultation call. And so I always offer free consults for people who think they, you know, might want to work with me. And even if we don't, if we don't end up working together, their free consultation is like super helpful because I I walk people through a series of questions to help them identify their underlying binge eating loop is what we call it. And so even if, you know, they don't end up working with me or if I'm not the best fit to work with them, they still walk away from a free consultation with clarity. And I think that's really helpful because I could just be like a stepping stone. Right on their path of healing and recovery or or whatnot. So I definitely think free consultation and the way to find me on a free consultation is you can text me and you can email me. And I think you're gonna put my email address and my phone number, my business phone number in the show notes. So text me or email me. I will get back to you directly. I'm a one-woman show. I do not have an admin assistant. So anytime you hear from me, it it's me directly and so forth. So reach out to me in that way. A couple other things I always like to throw out there is I do have a free webinar on the first steps like for binge and emotional eating and like understanding binge and emotional eating and how to start kind of finding your way out of that. And I believe that link will also be in the show notes if you want to find that webinar. I also run a free Facebook group for women only for binge and emotional eating. That link should also be in the webinar. I think I share posts and helpful stuff in there. My Instagram, my Facebook, and my LinkedIn, all of those should be in the show notes. So I like to say like I'm kind of around everywhere. There's lots of ways to kind of get in my my network and so forth. And so yeah, click on a link and shoot me a message. I'd like to hear from people.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Awesome. Yes, we will definitely include all of that in the show notes. I personally know I'm I follow you on Facebook and you have really great, inspiring videos and tips and just the and it's just so encouraging and it's just so comforting to all of your words. So I definitely suggest finding her on social media. And a clarity call is so good for everybody, and like you said, it's great. So yes, everything will be included in the show notes. So thank you so much for joining me today on Cupcake from Clarity, and I hope to have you back sometime. And yes, thanks again. And for everybody that's listening, I will see you in the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Cupcakes and Clarity. If today's conversation inspired you and you'd like even more tips and strategies tailored to your life, go to LisaPirinelli.com forward slash resources for more self-guided tools. And if you're ready for personal support to help you navigate what's holding you back, I'd love to meet you. Head over to LisaPirinelli.com to schedule your free consultation call. New episodes drop every Tuesday, so be sure to follow or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. If you enjoyed today's episode, it would mean so much if you shared it with a friend or leave a quick review. Until next time, here's to creating more clarity, confidence, and joy in your life, one cupcake at a time.