Blog Archives - Page 8 of 15 - Brain over Binge

Affordable Help: An Alternative to One-on-One Coaching

If you’ve read my blog posts or listened to my podcast, you’ve likely heard about the Brain over Binge Course. In this post, I want to talk from the heart a little about the course, how I created it, and how it could help you end binge eating.

I wrote Brain over Binge thinking that if I could just help one person, it would be worth all the time and effort I put in. I feel humbled every day that the book has helped thousands, and I continue to get frequent emails saying that the book has changed a person’s life and they are done with binge eating.

I also get emails with questions and requests for more personalized help, beyond what’s in my two books; and over the years, my desire to help just one person has grown into a desire to free as many people as possible from this habit.

The course offers an affordable alternative to private coaching and group coaching, while still providing powerful guidance.

In the course, I answer nearly every question I’ve been asked since publishing Brain over Binge in 2011 (and I’m continuing to create new course recordings to address questions and concerns). I’ve always kept notes of common questions that I received through email, and issues that came up frequently when I did one-on-one and group coaching. I’ve seen so many common themes and common areas where people need some extra advice, so I decided it would be helpful to consolidate all of my answers, insights, suggestions, and experiences, and record those responses. This went from an idea to a mission that I poured my heart and soul into and that took up much of my life for many months. The result was over 80 Q&A recordings that are now part of the course. (In total, the course contains 117 tracks and counting!).

Just like with my books, what’s made it worthwhile is to hear from people who have benefited from the Q&A’s. Here is just one quote from a course member:

“The Q and A’s were unbelievably helpful. Thank you, thank you. I feel completely confident that I’ll remain binge free for the rest of my life because, for the first time, I have the tools for ongoing recovery.”

Now, I also want to share the other side of this, in order to help you make a decision that’s right for you. The one negative response I got about the Q&As was that it felt more impersonal to have tracks to listen to rather than a person to talk to. That’s a valid concern if you are someone who does better speaking to someone directly and getting feedback.

Private coaching (and even group coaching) can be expensive, but it is definitely valuable to have a coach to talk to, and I would not want to discourage anyone from doing that. However, if private coaching isn’t feasible for you, or simply doesn’t feel like the right fit right now, I hope my course can be the next best thing.

I want everyone to get the help they need regardless of cost, and that especially applies when medical and nutritional interventions are necessary. However, for those who are stable physically and who are not suffering from severe and complicating mental health conditions, I hope my course can provide guidance in a refreshing and effective way.

I think back on my own recovery, and despite the thousands of dollars my parents and I spent on therapists, what ultimately led me toward recovery was a $12 book in 2005 (Rational Recovery). But, many people feel like they need more than a book (whether it’s mine or someone else’s), and that’s perfectly okay because everyone is different.

The Brain over Binge Course can be a next step that is still very affordable but provides so much extra guidance. It is now only $18.99 per month with no commitment required, or you can purchase it for a one-time fee of $179 if you think you’ll use the course for a long time.

I hope you will take time to learn more about the other features of the course, and consider if this is the right opportunity for you. If you sign up, I hope the course leads you to a binge-free life.

To end this post, I want to share one more testimonial from a course member:

“This course hit the mark on so many fronts. It was well organized and easy to use. I loved all of the audio recordings, including the informational Q&As. Most importantly, it spoke to me and helped me to solidify my decision to stop bingeing. Every week I learned something new that deepened my resolve to quit bingeing and enhanced my understanding of this terrible habit. Thank you Kathryn! This course was a wonderful addition to your two books.”

Brain over Binky: Childhood Habits, and Letting Go of Harmful Behaviors without Drama

by Kathryn Hansen

*Originally posted on May 1 , 2011. Updated and re-published on July 23, 2019 (My little boy I wrote about here is almost 13!)

My four-year-old son gave up sucking his “binky” (pacifier) a couple weeks ago. We had already reduced his use of it during the day, but he was still very attached to it at naptime and bedtime. We decided to offer him a reward to quit. We let him pick out a toy in exchange for his pacifiers, and he’s been thoroughly enjoying the airplane set he chose, and he’s seemingly forgotten about his pacifiers.

This is a kid who I could have never pictured without his pacifiers. When I think back to his baby years, the main image in my mind is him looking at me with big blue eyes and sucking away on his pacifier. When he was very young, we couldn’t leave the house without a binky, and when I kissed him goodnight, I had to always make sure he had one for his mouth, and a couple extra in his bed so he’d be sure to find one if he woke up in the middle of the night. He loved his binkies, they were his favorite way to self-soothe.

An Lesson in Simply Letting Go

I didn’t think it would be as simple as it was for him to give up the pacifiers. He had a few nights where he slept less and fussed more, but now, he acts like he never had them in the first place. My husband and I were prepared to give him lots of extra comfort during the initial “withdrawal” phase; but it turned out that he was fine without them. He stopped performing the habit, and in turn, the desire for the habit seems to have gone away already. I can’t be absolutely sure because I haven’t talked about the pacifiers in over a week, as I don’t want him turning attention to them unnecessarily. I told myself I’d only talk about them if he started the conversation; but he hasn’t, and because he’s a very talkative kid, I think this is good evidence that he’s not thinking about the pacifiers.

Observing my son simply let go of this habit that he was so attached to just weeks ago has me thinking about how people – young and old – have the ability to give up bad habits without much drama. I’ve been drawing parallels between a child giving up a pacifier and adults giving up their harmful behaviors and addictions. I believe that if adults who struggle with destructive habits could model the example of young children, then giving up those habits would be much less complicated.

Adult Habits are Treated with More Complexity

Why are adults told they are diseased or psychologically unwell because they have a bad habit or because they repeatedly overuse a substance? Why are they often excused from simply quitting, and told they are powerless? We do not tell our children they are powerless over their habits (otherwise, there would be widespread adult pacifier use).

Was my son “addicted” to his pacifier? I realize that the word “addiction” can be charged and has different meanings to different people, but I think I could argue that yes, he was addicted to his pacifier, even though there was not a chemically-addicting substance involved. But, did being “addicted” mean he was flawed or broken or had underlying emotional issues he needed to resolve? Absolutely not. Did being “addicted” mean he was not capable of simply stopping the behavior moving on with his life? No. And, I want to encourage binge eaters to believe that they are also capable of simply letting go.

The way I quit binge eating was indeed very similar to the way my son quit using his pacifiers. I stopped letting a binge be an option. I decided that I didn’t do it anymore, no matter what, and the urges to binge faded when I no longer acted on them. It did take longer for my urges to binge to go away than it seemed to take for my son to lose his desire to suck his pacifiers; and this is possibly because a child’s brain is more plastic and more easily changed than an adult’s. Nevertheless, my brain moved on and developed new neural pathways; and I developed new interests and things to think about; and the feeling of wanting to binge became merely a memory.

Your Lower Brain May Act Like a Child, but Your Higher Brain Can Guide You to Freedom

A difference between my son and me was that my son wouldn’t have chosen to stop sucking his pacifiers on his own, at least not anytime in the near future. He needed my husband and I to tell him when it was time to stop, and take the pacifiers away. Likewise, the more primitive part of a binge eater’s brain (which I call the lower brain) is “addicted” to binge eating and wants to continue the habit indefinitely, receiving whatever temporary pleasure and comfort it brings. The lower brain needs a higher authority to say “it’s time to stop,” and in adults, that voice of reason is the prefrontal cortex (which I call the higher brain). The higher brain is the part of you that knows binge eating is not what you truly want, and it is the part of you that is capable of dismissing the urges to binge. *For help learning how to dismiss the urges to binge, you can get my free eBook.

Ending Binge Eating Can be as Straightforward as Quitting Your Childhood Habits

If, right now, you believe your binge eating brings you comfort and pleasure that you can’t live without, just think of all the children who bravely hand over their binkies, or stop sucking their thumb, or stop carrying their favorite blanket everywhere they go. I know that not all children give up their habits as easily as my son did, but even if there is a difficult phase in the beginning, the child eventually stops and it just isn’t that big of a deal.

I am not trying to minimize the problem of adult addictions by comparing them to childhood habits, but I am trying to help you see that quitting a harmful behavior does not have to be so complicated. It also does not have to involve a major personal transformation or solving your life’s problems. Deciding to give up a harmful habit does take courage, but it’s well worth it, and it may not be as difficult as you think. After a couple of weeks binge-free, you may be surprised to feel your desire to binge fading quickly. You’ll feel confident when you realize you didn’t truly need the habit after all, and you’ll feel free when you realize you are so much better off without binge eating in your life.

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The Brain over Binge Course will help you let go of ideas that are making habit change more complicated than it needs to be, and help you tap into your own power to end binge eating without drama.

Brain over Binge: Tips to Help You Achieve Recovery, Part 2

by Kathryn Hansen

[Read Part 1]

In order to end the binge eating habit, it’s necessary to stop acting on the urges to binge. You are trying to de-condition a habit, and to do that, you want to stop reinforcing the brain pathways that leads you to binge. Once the binge urges no longer lead to binge eating, the brain will gradually stop producing the urges. This is because the brain has the ability to change based on the actions you take or don’t take, and this is called neuroplasticity.

In my books, blog, and on the Brain over Binge podcast, I share ideas and principles to help you avoid acting on binge urges, and you can get all of the basics in my free PDF. You can also read many additional ideas and insights in Part I of this blog series. But I want you to know that, when it comes to how to stop acting on urges to binge, there isn’t one exact “right” way, and different ideas work better for different people. Also, the experience of avoiding a binge feels a little different for everyone. I’ve found that the best tips for using the Brain over Binge approach and for recovery itself come from the people who have succeeded.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to hear a lot of women and men describe their own experiences and what helps them detach from binge urges and stop acting on them. I want to share the experience of one woman below, who explained to me what was helping her, and gave me permission to share it on my blog. I really liked the analogy she described, which helped her visualize herself as separate from the urges to binge. Hearing someone else’s experience can spark your own insights, and help you change your own perspective in a helpful way. I hope you benefit from reading her tips and success story:

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While I was reading Brain over Binge, I had a light bulb moment. What the light bulb illuminated: “This book could be a real game changer for me. Am I ready to take the big step of having my game with food entirely change? Yes, I am!” And indeed, I am on Day 37 binge-free. I truly feel that binge eating has moved into my past.

My problem with resisting binge urges, for many years, can be summed up with one word: inevitability. It sounds ridiculous to me now, but I truly believed, for the longest time, that my binge eating was inevitable, handed down from above, totally out of my control. What helped me to overcome it unfolded in a series of steps: I happened to be reading, in the book 59 Seconds, a review of several different studies on what factors most enable people to achieve big long-term goals. When I looked at the list of factors, one of them stood out: “Go public.” The author recommended, based on solid evidence, that if you want to achieve something big, you should announce it to the world—kind of like giving a press conference. As a result of that tip, I got online and went in search of a public forum, a place where people announce their goals and give each other support, and announced my big project.

The next step, based on something else I read in 59 Seconds, was setting “mini goals.” One of the tried and true techniques in accomplishing a big goal, is to break the project up into smaller sub-goals, and work on them one at a time. So I set myself my first mini-goal: “Go 30 days without any binge-type eating.” (I think the longest I’d ever gone between binges was 13 days.)

The next step came, then, when I was putting techniques from Brain over Binge to work, where the rubber meets the road, in dealing with a real-life urge to binge. What it felt like, to me, was a mental feat. Since my most recent experience with pulling off mental feats is memorization (at the advanced age of 58) of vocabulary in a foreign language, I found myself reaching for one of the mental tools I’ve learned—specifically, vivid imagery (visual plus other senses) with some sort of action going on.

Let me formulate this as a tip for you, in confronting your own urges to binge. As soon as the urge arises, look for some way of dramatizing, in pictures and sounds, how you, as the higher self, are very separate from the binge urge, which is “neurological junk.” For example, I thought of myself as a cool cerebral character playing chess, in a room where a ridiculous little yappy dog (the urge to binge) is trying to get me to play fetch with it. I imagined the dog as having a high-pitched yelp of a voice, barking away, and I imagined it holding the ball in its mouth and doing everything in its power to get my attention—butting my legs, knocking against the chess board, and so on.

Meanwhile, I am not exactly ignoring it: I am merely observing its frantic, silly behavior while I contemplate my next chess move. (Since I’m a higher being, I can do both of those things at once.) I’m not saying anything to the dog, nor am I reacting to it in any way. I don’t need to tell you the end of this story, because it’s obvious: the yappy dog eventually gives up and wanders off into another room.

You can use, adapt, that little drama however you like, or better yet, come up with a new one of your own, but take care to make the scenario very specific (imagine the dog’s little ratty tail), with more than one sense (visual, auditory, etc.) involved, with some kind of action taking place. The more ridiculous—even humorous—you make the urge to binge appear, the more easily you can be in the role of cool, calm, collected observer.

I’ve had very few urges to binge since coming up with the yappy-dog scenario, and the ones that have arrived are so attenuated, they just float up briefly into my consciousness and drift away. To reinforce the thought that my binge urges are in the past, a couple of times I have visualized myself actually bingeing, and I’ve observed how the visualization, as if made of old fragile film stock, has a lot of little white and black blobs obscuring the view, like pixelated static, as it drifts further and further into the past. 37 days may not seem very long, but believe me, that behavior is ancient history. The last time an urge to binge surfaced, I just thought, “What’s this? We don’t do that anymore!” and the urge went poof! and vanished.

Thanks to all of you who’ve read this far, and best of luck in getting your own urges to binge into ancient history!

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For more tips and guidance as you end binge eating, you can download the free Brain over Binge Basics PDF, or learn more about my Course.

The Brain over Binge Blog: Tips to Help You Achieve Recovery

by Kathryn Hansen

I created the Brain over Binge blog to give you a variety of tips, ideas, information, and insights to go along with my two books. Even if you haven’t read the books, you can benefit from my posts, especially if you’ve learned the basics of the Brain over Binge approach in my free PDF or by listening to my podcast. I hope what I have written so far on the blog, and what I will write in the future, will help you toward freedom from binge eating.

This post and the next (Tips to Help You Achieve Recovery, Part 2) will be a central part of the Brain over Binge blog, because I’m writing it for people who need extra help in recovery. This two-part blog series will give you additional ideas if you are struggling to stop binge eating, and if you are having a difficult time letting the binge urges pass rather than acting on them. I’ve heard from many women and men who understand the Brain over Binge approach and know they have the ability to avoid binges, but they still find themselves following the binge urges. (For more about the urges, listen to Episode 2: The Cause of Binge Eating: Urges to Binge).

Are You Having Trouble Avoiding Binges?

The first thing I want to tell you is that not everyone stops acting on binge urges immediately. Even if you develop a new and empowering perspective about your binge eating, and even if you know that you are capable of overcoming the harmful habit without needing to solve other problems first, that doesn’t mean your recovery will be automatic. You are on your own path, and different ideas work for different people in different ways. That’s not to give you excuses, because you have the ability to end binge eating for good, but you always want to have self-compassion along the way. Being self-critical is not an effective way to move toward change.

To help you create the change you want, I’m going to list some common obstacles that may be getting in the way of you successfully avoiding binges, and I’ll explain how you can move past these obstacles. I’ll also share and link to other useful posts and resources on the Brain over Binge blog and website so that you can get more information to support your recovery.

Recovery Obstacle #1: You Are Arguing With the Binge Urges

Several people have asked if there was anything specific I did or told myself to detach from the urges to binge. Besides briefly reminding myself of the brain-based information I’d learned and the fact that those urge thoughts and feelings weren’t truly me, there wasn’t any specific mental dialogue or action that helped me separate from my lower brain—the primitive part of the brain that created my urges. (You can listen to Episode 3 and Episode 5 for more information about the lower and higher brain). I simply accepted the experience of the urges, without letting those urges affect me and lead me into a binge.

I think trying to have any sort of mental dialogue with the urges to binge is counterproductive, because it engages the lower brain. The lower brain sends automatic messages to try to get you to maintain a habit it senses you need, and there’s nothing you can say to yourself to make those messages go away. Actually, the more you try to say things to yourself, the more you end up arguing with the urges; and you therefore give the urges more attention and significance, which makes them stronger.

I’m going to use an analogy to try to explain this:

Let’s say you are in an argument with someone, and you are listening, getting upset, and arguing back. Your words and actions are helping to fuel the disagreement. Whatever you say, the person has a counterargument, and emotions run high. But, if you eventually realize that arguing is futile and not worth your time, you will just quit listening and letting the person’s words affect you. You will still hear what they are saying, and you will still have the experience of being in an argument, but that experience will suddenly feel very different. The person’s words will no longer make any difference to you, and you’ll no longer feel so emotionally charged. That’s detachment. That’s how you can experience the urges to binge.

You don’t need to announce that the urges aren’t worth your time. You don’t need to say “I’m not listening anymore.” Detachment is a mental shift that you can make without any dialogue with the urge thoughts. You can just let the lower brain do what it’s been conditioned to do, without reacting to it, and it will eventually fall silent.

Recovery Obstacle #2: You Are Letting Binges Lead to More Binges

After learning information about the lower/higher brain, completely changing how I understood my bulimia, and realizing that I had the power to stop acting on urges—I still binged two more times. But, I didn’t see the binges as a sign of failure or as an indication that I couldn’t be successful with my new approach to recovery. I saw that I had simply acted on urges to binge, but that it was not inevitable for me to act on binge urges that would follow. After those two binges, I didn’t feel like I had to start over, or find a new approach. I just took a look at what happened, and saw how I could prevent it from happening again. I explained this in more detail in my first book: Brain over Binge: Why I Was Bulimic, Why Conventional Therapy Didn’t Work, and How I Recovered for Good.

If you have a binge while you are trying to recover, don’t make it mean more than it does. It doesn’t mean you won’t recover, it doesn’t mean you can’t utilize your higher brain more effectively next time. Something helpful you can do is to mentally go back to determine what led you to act on the urge. I’m not talking about figuring out what events or feelings “triggered” the binge, I’m talking about determining how the urge itself led you into the binge. How did your lower brain get what it wanted? What binge-encouraging thoughts did you believe? When did you lose that detachment and separation from the urges?

You might feel discouraged about a binge, and that’s okay, but by analyzing what happened, you can keep the binge in perspective. You may realize it was just one enticing thought that hooked you and made you decide to follow the urge. You’ll be prepared to experience the next urge without believing the lower brain’s faulty messages.

Recovery Obstacle #3: You Feel Like You Want to Binge

In Brain over Binge, I also talked about how learning to stop acting on binge urges wasn’t truly difficult for me, but it was tricky at first. My lower brain could be deceptive, and by far the most tempting and common reason it gave me to binge was because I simply wanted to. I had thoughts telling me that it didn’t matter what part of my brain generated my urges, because I wanted to binge nonetheless. I had thoughts telling me I should definitely follow my urges because a binge was my true desire. As long as I stayed detached from those thoughts and viewed them as meaningless, they could not affect me.

This topic of wanting to binge comes up a lot in those who are trying to recover, so I’ve addressed this issue in two other posts on the Brain over Binge blog: Is “Wanting to Binge” Holding You Back in Recovery? and Do You Want to Recover?: Why It Sometimes Feels Like You Want to Keep Binge Eating.

It’s so important to be able to dismiss ANY thought or feeling encouraging binge eating as the neurological junk that it is. This includes those messages that tell you binge eating is worth it, or that it is really you that wants to binge. You don’t need to disagree with those thoughts or try to argue them away, because like I talked about earlier, that doesn’t work; but you can remain unaffected by those thoughts and feelings until they pass.

Recovery Obstacle #4: You Are Not Eating Enough

I’ve brought this up a lot on the blog so far, but I believe it’s the most common reason for struggling in binge eating recovery. If you are not eating adequately, you are keeping your body and brain in survival mode, and I truly believe that urges that arise because of food restriction are harder to dismiss than urges that arise due to habit. Eating less than you need is not compatible with the Brain over Binge approach. If you think this may be a problem for you, these two blog posts will give you some useful information as you give up dieting: Weight Gain From Binge Eating Recovery? and What are Your Motivations for Dieting?

Recovery Obstacle #5: You Need Additional Guidance in Recovery

Some people can read a book or learn the basics of a new approach, and then apply it with consistency—without any additional help. But, this is not always the case. Most people need to have a way to reinforce what they’ve learned, or need some questions answered along the way, or need additional clarity about how this approach applies to their specific situation, or need some help staying focused as they put an end to binge eating.

There are many ways you can get additional guidance, clarity, and reinforcement—and that may be outside of the Brain over Binge blog and website—but if you resonate with my approach and would like extra help and additional recovery resources, I want to tell you that I’ve created the Brain over Binge Course to serve as a powerful way to keep you on track and moving toward freedom from binge eating. I’ve also made sure that it’s affordable for anyone who is committed to ending binge eating (you can get access to the course for only $18.99 per month)

As a part of this course, I’ve recorded detailed answers to nearly every question I’ve been asked over the years, so that you can get the information, ideas, and advice that you need to support yourself on your journey to freedom from binge eating.

Here is what one course member had to say:

This course is exactly what I needed to hear! I’ve read countless books on the BED-topic (including Brain over Binge) before, without any success. The course is full of deep insights and packed with valuable and practical information. I really appreciate the rational and organized form everything is presented. I’m exceedingly thankful for the course – it has really changed my life! THANK YOU!!!

Continue to Part 2 of this blog series.

Indulging in Food, Part 3: Getting over Overindulging

by Kathryn Hansen

This is the third and final post in my blog series on indulging in food. If you have not read Part 1 and Part 2, I recommend you do that before continuing with this post, which aims to help you stop overindulging in food. In those previous two posts, I talked about what indulging may mean to you, how you can think about indulging, and I reminded you that’s it’s normal and okay to indulge in food.

Is your indulging a problem?

Do you think your particular form of indulging is harmful? Do you feel like your indulging is more frequent than it should be? Do you worry that you’re eating too much when you indulge? Do you think it’s possible that you are overindulging in food?

If you are certain that you’re not defining indulging with a restrictive mindset (see Indulging in Food, Part 1: Reality Check), then this may be something to look at and address. I’m going to break down how and why indulging in food could become problematic, and I’ll give you some guidance to help you overcome overindulging. First, I’ll take you through a series of questions that will help you determine if this is an issue for you, and then I’ll explain how you can start gaining control.

Question 1: Have you very recently stopped binge eating (or are you still binge eating)?

In the Brain over Binge Recovery Guide, I described a process that you may go through as you transition from binge eating to eating in a normal way—I called it a bridge to normal eating. I explained that you probably won’t go from binge eating to completely normal eating habits overnight, and that it can take time for you to feel like you are on steady ground with food. When you are a binge eater, you become accustomed to eating large amounts of food; and even when you stop the harmful binge eating behavior, you may find yourself overeating a little more than you’d like, and that includes over-indulging in pleasurable food more than you think you should. (For more on this, you can listen to Episode 47: What if I’m Overeating After I Stop Binge Eating?)

I don’t think you should waste energy worrying about this, and instead you should stay focused on becoming confidently binge-free. Your physiology will gradually stabilize and the size of your stomach can return to normal—so that normal amounts of food and normal-sized indulgences will feel more satisfying. (Please seek any needed medical and nutritional help to support you as your body and appetite regulates).

The main message here is that—if you are only recently removed from binge eating—and you think you may be overindulging in food, try to give it some time and allow yourself to heal. If the issue does not resolve over time, then you can begin to address it. The same advice applies if you are still binge eating—try not to worry about any overindulging right now and focus instead on ending the binge eating habit and allowing your body to regulate. Then, you’ll be in a better place to work on any problematic eating issues that remain.

**Question 2: Do strong cravings primarily drive your indulgences?**

There’s a difference between deciding to go out and indulge in some ice cream with your family, and impulsively driving to the nearest fast food restaurant for a milkshake in response to strong sugar cravings. Neither situation is a binge, but if you feel like you are being overrun by your cravings, then it’s going to feel more problematic than if your decision to indulge feels rather calm and relaxed. Even if the desserts in both scenarios contain a similar amount of sugar and calories, you’ll feel more conscious and in control in the first example of getting ice cream than in the second example—when you feel more like you are being controlled by your desires.

Even though there is certainly food pleasure in both situations, they feel very different. If strong and uncomfortable cravings are the driving force behind most of your indulgent eating, then I believe this is something to work on, and you can start by using the suggestions I’ll give at the end of this post.

Question 3: Are you obsessing over your indulgences?

If thinking about your food indulgences and looking forward to them takes up too much mental space, that’s another reason indulging could feel like a problem to you. Normal indulgence isn’t something that consumes your thoughts in a bothersome way. It’s something you choose to do, either in the moment or by planning it beforehand; but it doesn’t feel like an absolute priority in your life. If getting your treats feels so important that you can’t focus on anything else, and it causes you to lose sight of what is truly important to you, then you’ll definitely want to bring food indulgence back into it’s proper place in your life.

[If you are someone who struggles with incessant food thoughts on a regular basis—not just related to overindulgence—you can listen to this free Q&A audio from the Brain over Binge course: “Food is constantly in my thoughts. Even if I’m not having urges to binge, I’m incessantly thinking about eating.”]

Question 4: Are the consequences of indulging too great?

Even if you don’t feel driven by strong cravings, and even if you aren’t obsessing about indulgences beforehand, you may be experiencing problems after indulging. You may be someone whose decision to have ice cream in the first example leads to uncomfortable digestive issues or an exacerbation of certain inflammatory symptoms. You may have a health condition that makes the indulgences you are choosing too physically damaging for you personally.

You can start to find replacements that are equally or nearly as enjoyable, or you may need to let certain indulgences go in the name of better health. (For help with this, you can read my post: Eliminating Foods in Binge Eating Recovery, Part III). Do not take this too far by completely banning anything that is not healthy, but if you have specific symptoms and issues with certain pleasurable foods, then you should take that into account as you approach indulging in food.

Question 5: Do you find yourself saying “it’s okay to indulge” too much?

Yes, it’s true that indulging in food is okay, but if you hear this thought over and over in your head and it justifies overeating every day, or even at every meal, then it’s going to feel problematic. It’s definitely a good thing to remind yourself that indulging in food is not “bad,” and that you don’t need to be restrictive; but know that you don’t have to eat anything and everything that comes into your mind. Take an honest look at your behavior, and know that you get to decide when it is okay to indulge, and when it may not be the best idea. You get to strike a balance that works for you.

How to Get Over Overindulging in Food:

The simple advice I’m going to give you about dealing with overindulging can be organized into five D’s:

Define (what indulgences are okay to you): Take some time to think about what indulging means to you and how you want it in your life (see Part 1 and Part 2 for help with this). Your definition of normal indulging will provide guidance when you have opportunities and/or desires for certain foods, and you hear that voice in your head saying “it’s okay to indulge.” If you’ve already determined what’s okay and not okay for your personally, then it becomes clear whether or not you will follow that voice. You do not need to set exact, strict rules, and in fact, I would not recommend that at all (listen to Episode 49: Can I Use the Brain over Binge Approach to Stick to Strict Eating Plans?). It’s best just to have a general idea of what food indulgences you want in your life, and follow that in a flexible way.

Desire (accept food cravings and possibly address some of them): Desire may or may not be present prior to indulging. If it is, it’s not a problem—desire for pleasurable food is a normal part of life. Desires are part of the human experience. I realize that here I could probably insert an entire book about the effects that modern foods and our modern lifestyle have on cravings, and I understand that many theories abound; however, I believe it’s best to keep it simple and realize that desire has always been a part of the human condition. Even if certain modern foods are more “addicting,” we still have a choice about how much to indulge in these foods. If you want to dive deeper into this, you can listen to Episode 52 on food addiction.

It’s important to accept that desire for food is okay, but also to know that it doesn’t mean you are destined to have what you are craving (and if you do decide to have what you are craving, you are never destined to overindulge or binge.)

When you have desires, try to pause and determine the course of action you want to take. That may be to have the indulgence you are craving (and not binge afterward); that may be to have a healthier food option; that may be to do another activity. You may also want to develop an overall strategy for addressing the cravings you feel are out of the range of normal. Cravings can be dismissed like binge urges, but additionally, you may want to get nutritional or medical support with any physiological issue you feel is contributing to problematic cravings, like blood sugar and/or hormone imbalances. You can also look into improving sleep, reducing stress, and improving hydration, which can all help reduce some cravings.

Decide: This is where your power of choice comes in. It’s important to realize that you are the one deciding to eat the food, or indulge in the food, or overindulge in the food. Your cravings and desires do not control your voluntary muscle movements, even if you have some physiological imbalances that are contributing to those cravings. You can start to experience your own power to determine what you indulge in and how much you indulge.

I believe that bringing the power of choice into your eating decisions is how indulging stays in the proper place in your life. When you know you have a choice—even if strong cravings are present, and even if you do decide to have the indulgence you are craving—you can still feel conscious and in control. You have the freedom to decide to indulge anytime, and you also have the freedom to decide against it when it doesn’t feel like the right decision for you.

Deliberately enjoy the indulgence: You don’t have to eat super-slowly, or chew a certain number of times, or be completely mindful, or avoid doing anything else while you are eating; but try to slow down enough to enjoy what you are indulging in. If you are eating rapidly, or eating mindlessly in front of the TV or in the car, it will feel more impulsive and is more likely to lead to overindulging. Eating a little more deliberately goes hand in hand with deciding to indulge—it’s another way of keeping your higher brain engaged, realizing what you are doing, and proving to yourself that you are in control.

Delicious: This is a bonus “D” to remind you that you can and should enjoy eating and indulging in food. When you indulge, it’s perfectly okay to soak in the pleasure (without the guilt!). Then, when you are done, put the food aside and move on with you life.

I hope this series on indulging has been helpful to you. I hope you are able to determine the proper place in your life for indulging in food and put aside any overindulging that feels harmful to you.

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More help:

If you want extra guidance as you work on the recovery goals of the Brain over Binge approach, here are some resources for additional support:

Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 130 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.

Group Coaching – Get help from coach Julie and support from others who are overcoming this habit. Includes a forum that is open 24/7, group coaching calls, mindfulness resources, plus course access.

One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute private session with coach Julie or Kathryn. You will learn to change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.

Indulging in Food, Part 2: It’s Okay, You are Okay

by Kathryn Hansen

This is the second part of a 3-part series on “indulging” in food. In my Part 1, I talked about the fact that there is no consensus on what it means to indulge. I gave you two tips for how to think about indulging: First, remember that indulging is not the same as binge eating, and second, avoid overly restrictive definitions of indulging (because a lot of perfectionism and guilt can arise when you define indulging too narrowly).

In this post, I’m going talk about what indulging may mean to you personally; and more importantly, I’m going to try to help you see that it is okay to indulge, and it does not mean something is wrong with you.

Exploring what indulging means for you in binge eating recovery and beyond

I don’t think it’s necessary to come up with an exact definition of what indulging means to you. Eating behaviors can’t always be neatly categorized. Eating is a balance; it can change from day to day, and certainly from person to person; and you get to make it work for you. You may already have your own thoughts about what indulging looks like in your life. Maybe you think about a holiday dinner, or having a meal at your favorite restaurant, or being on vacation and eating a variety of delicious foods you don’t normally eat, or maybe you think of having an extra serving of a food you love when you are already rather full. You may automatically think of eating sugary foods, like having a doughnut or two at the office, or a larger than usual piece of cake at a birthday party. It’s possible you think of healthy foods as well, like eating a big serving of your favorite organic vegetables, or a large, juicy grass-fed steak cooked just the way you like it, or succulent seasonal fruits that you love.

As long as you know indulging is not the same as a binge, and is not defined as “any time you eat imperfectly,” that gives you a wide range from which you can view indulgent eating. If you were to check the dictionary, the definitions of “indulge” are varied. Here are just a few: to allow oneself to enjoy the pleasure of….to yield to an inclination or desire…to satisfy or gratify. Using only the textbook definitions, you could theoretically indulge in any eating opportunity, because you could think of it being more about the experience of pleasure and satisfaction than the amount or type of food. During any normal meal or even a small snack, you can certainly allow yourself to take pleasure in it, and you can feel satisfied and gratified. Eating is pleasurable and food should be enjoyed.

However, when leaders in the field of eating disorders say, “it’s okay to indulge sometimes,” they typically mean it’s okay to get more-than-normal satisfaction and gratification from eating. So, in the context of promoting recovery from binge eating, bulimia, anorexia, and EDNOS, indulgence usually refers to eating experiences that are at least a little outside of what you’d consider normal food pleasure. And that’s the general standard I’m using when talking about “indulging” in this blog series.

Defining indulging in a practical but highly individual way

Using that perspective, if we were to come up with a broad, overarching view of indulgent eating, it would be something like this: Taking more pleasure in food than you normally do, or more pleasure than you’d consider normal (and this description is given with the assumption that it’s okay to take pleasure in your food whenever and whatever you eat.)

If you want to explore what indulging means to you personally, take a look at what you believe normal eating is for you (and if you aren’t eating normally yet, look for examples in other people who you consider to be normal eaters); and then, if you decide to take more pleasure in food than that baseline of “normal,” that’s what you can see as indulging. If “normal” is enjoying most meals and snacks, experiencing pleasure in eating reasonable amounts (of both healthy foods and some unhealthy foods as well); then indulging could be thought of as enjoying too much of certain foods that are either healthy or unhealthy…but you’ll probably be more likely to think it’s indulgence when the foods are unhealthy.

For example, you might eat one average-sized scoop of ice cream for dessert sometimes and you consider that normal eating pleasure, so indulging might be having a two-scoop serving with toppings, which leaves you a little too full. Normal food pleasure might be going to a restaurant and enjoying every bite of your favorite meal, and indulging might be having an appetizer and wine before the meal, still enjoying your meal, and possibly even having dessert afterward.

I realize words like “too much” or “normal,” and even “healthy” and “unhealthy” are open to interpretation, but that’s okay, because how we eat and how we indulge in food is highly individual, and having the freedom to decide what it means to you is empowering.

Why does all of this talk about indulging matter to binge eating recovery?

Because I want you to take the advice that “it’s okay to indulge” to heart. I want you to believe it, and to believe it requires understanding it. I want you to know that quitting the binge eating habit never means quitting the pleasure of eating, and it also doesn’t mean giving up indulging in food. If you think it does, it makes recovery seem much more difficult, because it requires you to live up to unrealistic standards and it fosters a rigid mindset around food.

From a purely nutritional perspective, is indulging an ideal form of eating? Probably not. Is indulging optimally healthy when we look at it only from a physiological standpoint? Again, probably not, because even if you are indulging in healthy foods, too much of anything usually isn’t nutritionally ideal. But might indulging sometimes be good for your mental health and stress level, and benefit you more overall than always having tight control over your portions and the types of foods you allow yourself? Absolutely, especially if you are learning to overcome a “dieting” mindset.

Indulging doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong

Not only is it okay to indulge, YOU are okay if you indulge. Indulging in food is not a sign that you are off-track in recovery from binge eating.

Because binge eating activates a more-than-normal pleasure process in your primitive brain, and gives you a temporary reward, in some ways it may seem similar to indulging. So when you are trying to quit binge eating and you find yourself indulging, your inclination may be to think that you are not okay, and that indulging is just another sign that something is wrong with you, and you will never be normal around food. That is not the case.

When you indulge, simply recognize it, be aware of it, label it as “indulging” if that helps you, and then just continue your recovery – always keeping your intention and commitment not to binge. You can even get excited when you avoid following an indulgence with a binge. Turn your mindset from “I didn’t eat perfectly, I indulged…something is wrong with me” to a more empowering thought like, “Yes, I may have indulged…but I’m breaking the connection between normal indulgence and binge eating.”

Another benefit of believing it’s okay to indulge and you are okay when you indulge is that it helps cement the fact that you are not restrictively dieting. It helps your body realize you are going to feed it and food pleasure is allowed. This can reduce the binge urges that are rooted in the survival drives, which are activated by deprivation.

Like I mentioned at the end of the last post, I’m not saying indulging too much is a good thing; I’m not saying you should never try to curb indulgence if it’s causing a problem for you (which I’ll talk about in the next post). But, I am saying that when you do indulge, it’s very helpful to avoid self-criticism and avoid thinking you are flawed and broken, and instead remember that it’s okay and you are okay.

Go to Indulging in Food, Part III

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More help:

If you want extra guidance as you work on the recovery goals of the Brain over Binge approach, here are some resources for additional support:

Indulging in Food, Part I: Reality Check

by Kathryn Hansen

I’m starting a 3-part blog series on indulging in food. This is a multifaceted topic and I find that it leaves many recovering binge eaters confused. So, I’m going to do my best over the next 3 posts to talk about what it might mean to indulge in food, when it may become problematic, and how to indulge in a way that works for you personally.

Indulging is not bingeing

I say what it might mean to indulge in food because there is no exact definition, but one thing I want to make clear at the outset is that indulging in food is not the same as binge eating. Binge eating is a much more harmful, life-altering, and out-of-control-feeling behavior, whereas indulging is in the range of normal eating behaviors and it’s typically not a problem at all.

What does “it’s okay to indulge” really mean?

You’ve likely heard the phrase “it’s okay to indulge sometimes” (or some variation of that phrase) while trying to end your binge eating habit. This is a common message in the eating-disorder-recovery community, and you’d probably hear some form of “it’s okay to indulge” from any expert in the field. Additionally, most nutritionists, health coaches, fitness trainers, doctors, and weight loss specialists tend to give similar advice, even to people without eating disorders. But, what the advice actually means can be very different from expert to expert; and how the advice is interpreted can be different from person to person.

Because there is no definitive consensus on what is just eating and what is indulging, it will be helpful to put some thought into what indulging means to you. In this post, I’m going to talk more about how not to define indulging than how to define it, which I’ll dive into in the next post. You already know not to define indulging in the same way you define binge eating, but I also want to encourage you not to define indulging with a dieting mindset.

The dieting mentality and its narrow view of indulgence

The primary goal of this post is to help you avoid creating an overly rigid and strict definition of indulging in food.

If you are a dieter, or former dieter, or you are heavily involved in the fitness, weight loss, or even nutrition industries, you may define indulging very narrowly. You may consider having anything unhealthy to be indulging. You may consider one bite of a dessert to be indulging. You may consider eating something off of your restrictive diet plan to be indulging. These strict definitions of indulgence are definitely promoted in the dieting/fitness/weight loss industries, where it’s common for people to talk about “cheat meals” or “cheat days” where dieters indulge in foods that are not typically “allowed.”

I think it’s so important to do a reality check on these dieting-based definitions of indulging in food. If you are wrapped up in that community, it’s helpful to step back and realize that these “cheat meals” or indulgences for a dieter would simply be considered eating to the rest of us. For example, the one bite of a dessert indulgence for a dieter may simply be the first bite of a normal-sized dessert for a non-dieter; the dieter’s indulgence of eating anything unhealthy may simply be a normal eaters’s decision to have convenience food when they are hungry and busy; the dieter’s indulgence in something off of their restrictive plan simply doesn’t apply to someone without a restrictive plan.

When guilt creeps in: a personal example

If you are enmeshed in the dieting world, it may be challenging for you to loosen up your definitions of indulging, but I encourage you to try. The reason for this is: overly strict definitions can actually backfire, causing you to have a lot of guilt surrounding your eating, an all-or-nothing mindset, and more urges to binge. I’ll begin to explain this by way of a personal example…

I was recently reading an article from a health writer and mom who talked about allowing her children to indulge in raisins every once in a while. I laughed a little when I read this, because my children would never consider raisins an indulgence. They might consider raisins to be something kind of healthy that I try to get them to eat sometimes. Although I certainly admire someone who feeds their children well, it was clear that my ideas and the writer’s ideas about letting our kids indulge were very different. After being slightly amused when reading about the raisins, another feeling came over me: guilt. I felt like I couldn’t possibly live up to those standards, and although this story is not specifically about binge eating, it made me think about how this type of guilt affects people in recovery. Because I keep a balanced mindset surrounding food, my guilty thoughts about the raisins didn’t last long; but guilty thoughts can take a strong hold in binge eaters, especially those who have overly rigid definitions of indulgence.

Avoiding the guilt-binge spiral when you indulge

Even if you tell yourself the common and sound advice that “it’s okay to indulge,” if you define indulging as, for example, having two bites of chocolate, then you are likely to start feel guilty when you take a third bite. If you go on to eat two squares, you might feel like you’ve failed in some way, and if you go on to eat five squares, you might begin having binge thoughts like, “you’ve already blown it, so you might as well eat all of the chocolate…and other desserts in the house…and then start over tomorrow.” You can dismiss those thoughts and urges to binge, but it also helps if you don’t feel unnecessary guilt for having the five squares of chocolate in the first place. A normal eater might consider five squares of chocolate to be a rather typical indulgence, and if it’s high-quality dark chocolate, they may consider five small squares to be an antioxidant-rich, pretty-healthy snack.

Seeing that there is more than one way to view certain foods, in certain amounts, in certain situations, can help you break old thought patterns that are holding you back from feeling free around food. I’m not suggesting that you relax all of your standards, and never try to eat healthy, and be okay with eating too much, too often. I’m only suggesting that you do a reality check on how you define indulging, so that you don’t encourage the harmful restrict/binge cycle. If your definitions of indulgence are based on a dieting mindset, you are much more likely to think you’re over-indulging and then feel guilty, when that’s not necessary, because you’re probably just eating or indulging in a normal way that truly is okay.

Go to Indulging in Food, Part II

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More help:

If you want extra guidance as you work on the recovery goals of the Brain over Binge approach, here are some resources for additional support:

Don’t Binge When You Break A Resolution

by Kathryn Hansen

If you have a goal to stop binge eating in the new year, I want to give you some advice that I hope will help you keep that resolution.

My advice is twofold:

1.) Prioritize stopping binge eating

2.) Don’t connect stopping binge eating to your other resolutions.

Let’s talk first about prioritizing your goal of ending the binge eating habit.

Stop Binge Eating First Before Working on Other Eating Resolutions

Of the unhealthy eating habits you may have (we all have some!), binge eating is probably creating the most pain in your life, and it’s the biggest factor holding you back from pursuing other goals or simply being more at peace. With that in mind, I would suggest setting aside your other eating-and-weight-related goals and keeping your focus on stopping the binges. This helps you avoid putting too much pressure on yourself to eat exactly “right,” and helps you avoid judging your eating too much or falling into an all-or-nothing mindset. Once you don’t binge anymore, and you are confident that you won’t binge in the future, you can make other healthy improvements to your eating, if that’s what you want.

If making sure you don’t binge is your top priority, then if you eat foods that are unhealthy, you can still be excited that you didn’t binge. If you overeat, instead of being upset with yourself, you can be proud that you didn’t follow your overeating with a binge. If you find yourself grazing when you are upset, you can praise yourself for not going into a binge during or after the grazing. If your weight does not change in the way you want it to, you can celebrate the fact that you can be binge-free at any weight, and know that a number on the scale doesn’t change your commitment to walk away from your harmful binge eating habit.

Prioritizing stopping binge eating also means committing not to diet.

If you’ve been following my blog and podcast, you know that restricting your food intake is a way to end up binge eating. Two of my recent podcasts focused on helping you avoid restrictive dieting in the New Year (and always): Episode 30: No Resolutions to Diet and Episode 33: Challenging Your Motivations to Diet.

You might have some anxiety about making stopping binge eating your most important resolution, because you may be thinking…”What if I do binge? Does that mean I’ve failed at my top priority?” Absolutely not. Acting on an urge to binge does not mean that ending the habit is suddenly less important to you, and it certainly doesn’t mean you should give up. Because quitting is your top priority, then if you do binge, you are in great position to learn from what happened, and move forward. You can look at what thoughts led you to follow the urge, decide what you will do differently next time, and commit to continuing to prioritize your goal of quitting.

To illustrate this, I want you to imagine that your priority is to learn to play guitar. If you think about this goal, it’s apparent that you would not quit if you played some wrong notes. The process of learning is your priority. Because your goal is important to you, you can seek support when you need it, and make adjustments as you see fit, and you can do the same with binge eating until you are completely binge-free. With the guitar goal, you may decide you need a private instructor, and with binge eating, you may decide you need a one-on-one coach (if you want help implementing the Brain over Binge approach, you can schedule a 1:1 session with Brain over Binge coach Julie or myself).

Don’t Binge After Breaking a Resolution Not to Binge, or After Breaking Other Resolutions

If you do break your resolution not to binge with a binge, that doesn’t give you a reason to keep repeating the destructive behavior. A binge does not need to turn into binges. When I was bulimic, my response to a binge was often this: “well, now all is lost, so I might as well keep going,” and I’d end up binge eating for days at a time. I know this experience is common; but when stopping binge eating becomes your top priority, you can minimize the impact of any slips that you do have. For a podcast about getting back on track after a binge, listen to Episode 17: What if You Binge During Recovery?

It’s also important not to break other resolutions with binges, and this brings me to my 2nd piece of advice for stopping binge eating in the new year, which is: Don’t connect stopping binge eating to your other resolutions.

Many of you will take my suggestion to make stopping binge eating your only goal as it relates to your eating and weight, but if you are like some of the women and men who I’ve worked with, you may be thinking something like this: “Yes, stopping binge eating is my top priority…but I also need to eat healthy…and lose this extra weight…and I should stop eating gluten…and I think I need to quit sugar…and I want to commit to only eating when I’m hungry…and I need to end all overeating as well.”

As much as I can tell you to put aside those goals for now, I know that they may still be in the back of your mind. Even if you plan to work on those goals in the healthiest, least-restrictive way possible, and you are committed to eating adequately, those other goals can still become connected in an unhealthy way to your goal of stopping binge eating (and therefore interfere with your goal of stopping binge eating).

What tends to happen is this: You break your other eating resolutions—as most people do sometime in January—and then you have thoughts saying, “you’ve failed, so you might as well binge.” So, instead of just breaking your other resolutions, you break those resolutions and go on to binge. Maybe you’ve experienced this before, but let’s say you resolve to avoid gluten, and then the first time you eat some bread, you think something like this: “See, this is evidence that I don’t have any self-control, so I might as well give up, eat everything, and start over tomorrow.” Then the next time you eat gluten, this cycle repeats.

Or, let’s say you resolve to eat only when you are hungry, and then the first time you decide to have dessert after an already satisfying meal, you feel that “all is already lost” and that “there is no reason to dismiss urges to binge”. Then, the next time you eat when you aren’t hungry, you do the same thing, so that you end up frequently breaking your resolutions with binges.

What if you simply broke your healthy-eating resolutions, and stopped there?

What if you ate gluten, but still stayed committed to avoiding binges? What if you always dismissed binge urges after eating when you weren’t hungry? What if you didn’t lose a single pound in the new year, and never used that as a reason to binge? Breaking your resolutions would cause so much less damage, and in many cases, absolutely no damage, and you’d stay on a path to a better life—even with all of your imperfections.

Think of the millions of people who simply break their resolutions and don’t go on to do something more harmful afterward. It’s difficult to give up a food or food group altogether, or to follow exact parameters for eating, which is why not many people manage to consistently eat in an ideal way. Plus, eating in an ideal way is different for each person, so you don’t want to create a scenario where your ability to binge or not binge depends on your ability to follow or not follow difficult food rules—rules that may not even be right for you personally.

If any of your friends told you that they broke their New Year’s resolution to eat healthy or to avoid a certain food, would you tell them that “all is lost” and they “might as well binge”? Of course not! But, somehow binge eaters tend to believe this same logic when it comes from their own thoughts. These type of thoughts are neurological junk from the lower brain—the part of your brain that is trying to maintain your binge eating habit. If you can learn to dismiss these binge-encouraging thoughts, you are well on your way to erasing the habit.

I’m not saying you can never decide to make healthy changes in the way you eat; but, I am saying that whether or not you are “successful,” you never have to binge. And that is a huge success!

It’s the same with any type of resolution, even if it’s completely unrelated to eating. I think it’s wonderful to create goals for yourself in other parts of your life, so that you can turn your focus away from food and weight obsessions. However, even if you don’t measure up to the vision you have for yourself in the new year, and even if you never accomplish what you intend to, you never have to follow thoughts that say “you might as well binge,” and you can become binge-free for good.

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I wish you all a safe and healthy new year. Thanks for continuing to read the blog, listen to the podcast, and receive the newsletter.

More help:

If you want extra guidance as you work on the recovery goals of the Brain over Binge approach, here are some resources for additional support:

One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute private session with coach Julie or Kathryn Hansen. You will receive help changing your thinking, uncovering what is holding you back, and getting on a path to complete freedom from food issues.