Quick and Practical Advice to Help You Stop Binge Eating (Part V)

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I am continuing my blog series to provide quick inspiration and practical advice about a variety of issues that may come up for you in binge eating recovery. (You can read additional advice in Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV)

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Showing up for yourself

On days that feel hard, read this…

“All progress is made when people who don’t feel like showing up for themselves show up anyway. Your power is wielded in your ability to act despite conflicting emotions. Feel your feelings, then get moving.”  -J. Mike Fields

This is not to say that you always need to push through and exhaust yourself. Sometimes rest and downtime is what you need. But it’s vital to realize that you can’t wait to feel good to take positive action, and you especially can’t wait to feel good to avoid the harmful action of a binge.

When you show up for yourself and say no to binges no matter how you feel, you will start to feel better and better!

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What if I eat emotionally?

Recovery from binge eating does not mean you will never eat emotionally again.

It’s simply not realistic to expect yourself to avoid every form of emotional eating that may come up. Emotions are always running through us, and pretty much every time you eat, you may be able to point to an emotion that could be theoretically linked to that eating. It’s sometimes hard to sort out what is actually emotional eating and what is just normal eating in times that you’re emotional.

It can become a little confusing and I think that’s why it’s important to realize that—even if you do eat something that seems to be driven by emotions—you can still stop after a reasonable amount and you can dismiss any urges to binge that may arise. In other words, emotional eating never needs to lead to binge eating.

I talk extensively about the relationship between emotional eating and binge eating in the Brain over Binge course, especially in Lesson 7. (The course is only $18.99 per month with no commitment.) 

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Stay binge-free even with persistent urges

It can feel frustrating to dismiss an urge only to have it come back not long after it settled down…

But when you start thinking things like “I can’t believe this is happening again!” or “why can’t these urges just leave me alone!” it puts your nervous system in a fight-or-flight state that makes it more difficult to dismiss the urge again.

Try not to be surprised that the urges keep coming back. After all, the lower brain thinks you need this habit, and producing urges is what it’s been conditioned to do. The less you are upset about the recurrence of the urges, the more accepting your mindset will be, and you can even welcome each urge as an opportunity to make the changes you want.

I’m not saying you’re going to like having the urges! But, to decondition the brain, you have to learn to be okay with having unmet desire to binge (no matter how often that desire shows up) until that desire fades away.

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What do you need to allow in recovery?

Do you fight against binge urges instead of letting them come and go?

Do you automatically start eating when you feel certain emotions?

Do you go into a full binge after feeling some discomfort from overeating?

Do you attempt to keep tight control over your weight?

While all of these issues may seem different, you can improve any of them by learning about the concept of allowing what is. When you develop an allowing mindset surrounding urges, food, weight, emotions, and more, you actually step into a much more powerful position to make positive changes.

Allowing what is is not being passive…it is letting the things you can’t control simply be. When you do this, you get your energy and focus back to use it on what you can control.

Coach Julie and I have a podcast episode about this topic, and I know you’ll find it helpful in many aspects of binge eating recovery:
Listen to Episode 142: Allowing What Is (with Coach Julie)

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Not eating mindfully?

You’re not alone if you find yourself not eating in a mindful way. Life is busy and challenging, and thankfully, mindfulness during meals is not a requirement for recovery.

You may have received the idea somewhere that you “should” be present while you are eating, and chew slowly, and pay close attention to the sensations of your body. All of this can certainly be helpful, especially if you are re-learning normal eating and re-establishing your hunger and fullness cues.

However, not eating mindfully does not make you destined to binge.

Your lower brain might produce a thought like, “you weren’t present enough and you didn’t really enjoy your food, so now you need the ‘pleasure’ of a binge.” This is neurological junk. The reality is that sometimes you just have to eat and move on, and you simply don’t have time to sit down and savor your food.

You’ll find the level of mindfulness that you want (depending on each situation), but always remember that you can dismiss binge urges no matter what.

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Eating outside of meals/snacks is not a binge

In Episode 147: Redefining Restriction, I mentioned that I generally like to eat 3 meals a day plus some snacks in between. Someone then reached out to ask: If you eat outside of these meals/snacks, do you consider that a binge? The answer is absolutely not.

Life is often challenging and unpredictable, and having meals and snacks is just a general framework, definitely not a rule. On extremely busy days, I sometimes just eat something whenever I feel hunger or when it seems like I need some energy, and this ends up looking like maybe 7-8 snacks. I sometimes eat a few large meals and no snacks, or sometimes only one actual meal and the rest just quick convenience food because it’s easy and I don’t have the bandwidth to put any effort into food.

The point here is that life doesn’t always line up with how I’d ideally like to be eating, and when I eat in a way that doesn’t fit that “ideal,” I never consider it a binge. My past binges were large and unmistakable, and after recovery, I told myself that if I had to ask if it was a binge or not, then it was not a binge.

This allowed me to confidently choose to eat in whatever reasonable way I wanted to, based on my available time and resources, without thinking I was wrong or broken. This also kept me from creating strict rules around my eating that could have led me back down the path of dieting.

I realize that for some, binges are less clearly defined, and that’s why there are significant sections of my course and 2nd book devoted to helping you define your binges. You can also find guidance in this blog post: Subjectivity in Binge Eating.

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Are low moods making food more appealing?

Feeling down or feeling negative emotions absolutely makes rewarding behaviors more enticing. This, combined with the reality that food is the easiest form of reward that most of us have access to, creates a scenario that sets us up to feel driven toward food during low moods.

Even people who never struggle with binge eating can develop some emotional eating habits over time. Everyone probably “uses” food for reasons other than true hunger to some extent. To keep this in balance, it’s about learning to consciously choose instead of feeling like food has control over you.

For more help with this (especially if negative emotions are connected to your binge eating), listen to Episode 39: Q&A: Emotional Attachment to Binge Eating

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Would you tell a friend to binge?

We often tell ourselves that a binge “makes sense” for one reason or another, and one common reason you may come up with is that you’ve already eaten something unhealthy, or you’ve already broken a resolution to avoid a certain food, so you might as well binge.

It can be helpful to take a step back and think about what you’d tell a friend who broke a resolution or ate something unhealthy…

Would you tell them all is lost and that they might as well eat all of the junk food?

Of course not!

However, you may believe this same logic when it comes from your own thoughts. A big part of binge eating recovery is learning to recognize these faulty, lower-brain thoughts and realize they don’t represent your truth.

Instead, you’d tell a friend that whether or not they stick to their other resolutions, a binge never makes sense and always leads to more pain. You’d tell them that regardless of their food choices, a binge does not bring them any closer to improving their eating habits.

You can treat yourself the same way you’d treat a friend—knowing that whether or not you are “successful” with your eating, you never have to binge… and that is a huge success!!

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This advice is taken from weekly emails I send to encourage recovery. If you’d like to receive my emails (and monthly newsletter) going forward, all you need to do is enter your email address on this page.

When you sign up, you also get the free “Brain over Binge Inspiration Booklet” and the free course track, “Manage Your Mindset After a Binge”.
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More help:

If you want extra guidance as you learn to give up binge eating, here are some resources for additional support:

One-on-one Coaching – Book a 45-minute or 20-minute private and highly personalized session with Kathryn or Coach Julie. You will learn to change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.

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.

Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.

Brain over Binge Books – Get Brain over Binge and the Brain over Binge Recovery Guide on Amazon and Audible.

Quick and Practical Advice to Help You Stop Binge Eating (Part IV)

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I am continuing my blog series to provide quick inspiration and practical advice about a variety of issues that may come up for you in binge eating recovery. (You can read additional advice in Part I, Part II, Part III)

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Not binge eating is a gift to yourself

The binge urges will make you feel like binge eating is a gift—that it’s what you “want, need, and deserve.” Your thoughts will tell you that the binge will provide “excitement, pleasure, escape, relief”…

But you know by now that the binge doesn’t deliver on what the urge promises. Not only does it bring pain, shame, stress, and isolation, it takes you away from yourself, your life, and the people and causes you care about. In the moment of an urge, you may think that what’s you want, but when you step back and think about who you are and who you want to be, you realize that dismissing the urge is the true gift to yourself.

When you don’t binge, you open yourself up to truly experiencing life, even the most challenging parts, and connecting with everything that matters to you.

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Separate from the dieting voice

It’s usually easier for a binge eater to see that the binge urges are not from their higher self, but they hold on to the belief that the voice encouraging restrictive dieting is their true voice.” – Brain over Binge Recovery Guide, pg. 96. 

In order to quit binge eating, it’s vital to stop depriving yourself of necessary nourishment. If you are having trouble eating enough food, it could be because the harmful dieting mindset has become as much of a habit as the binge eating. Once you spend enough time on restrictive diets, or engaging in excessive exercise, the voice encouraging those behaviors can be intrusive and incessant as well.

It’s important to start to separate from that dieting voice—knowing that depriving yourself of necessary food is not an effective way to lose weight and will prevent recovery from binge eating. Even if dieting feels like what you truly want to do, you can unlearn the harmful restrictive behaviors and give yourself the nourishment you need to end the eating disorder and thrive

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Using success to justify a binge

Do you experience this common binge-encouraging thought?
I’ve done so well, one binge isn’t a big deal, it will be easy to get back on track.

Although success breeds success, your lower brain may sometimes try to use your success to justify a binge. You may notice that after a certain number of binge-free days, your lower brain starts producing thoughts telling you that you should take a “break” from recovering.

Not acting on these thoughts is vital to your success. Remind yourself that your success doesn’t mean you deserve a binge; it means you are one step closer to solidifying new neural pathways that no longer support binge eating, and that is what you truly deserve

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Wanting to not binge

When you feel like you are forcing yourself to avoid a binge, it feels hard. It feels like you’re denying yourself something you actually want.
When you feel this way, think about this…

What if by bingeing, you are actually denying yourself something you truly want—which is to not binge.

You wouldn’t be reading this blog post if binge eating was something you really wanted in your life. If it was your true desire, you would be enjoying it, not experiencing any consequences, and definitely not seeking recovery resources.

Even though you may be able to see this rationally, the problem is—in the moments when urges are present—you forget, and you believe the lower brain.

The remedy for this is to develop a mindset of wanting to dismiss the binge urges. Channel the belief that you are choosing to accept any discomfort the urge brings because you want to avoid the binge. When your lower brain tries to make you feel sorry for yourself that you can’t binge, remind yourself that it’s not that you can’t, it’s that you want to make this change.

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Lack of motivation during urges?

I want to share something that came up in 1:1 coaching last week that I believe would benefit everyone to hear:

It’s okay to feel unmotivated during urges. 

It’s normal to feel like you don’t want to dismiss the urge, it’s expected that you’ll feel like a binge is appealing in that moment, it’s a given that you’ll temporary not care about your reasons for recovery. This does not actually mean that you lack motivation, it just means the urges are passing through. When that primitive, pleasure-seeking, lower-brain state is in charge, you are in a different mindset than when you are feeling rational and inspired to recover.

The goal during urges is not motivation, it’s acceptance of whatever feelings, thoughts, sensations, and desires arise, while knowing you aren’t going to act on them. For example, you may feel sad or depressed that you can’t binge, but that’s okay. Try to stay as detached as possible from those feelings, knowing that the sadness will lift and you’ll be so happy you didn’t binge.

When the urges pass, you’ll again connect with your motivation and your desire to be free of this habit!

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What about distracting yourself?

Distraction can have a place. You can do countless things during an urge, and there is no right or wrong here.

But when it comes to distraction, know that no alternate activity can satisfy the urge to binge.

This is something you’ve probably experienced and it’s completely normal. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you or the activities you are choosing. It’s just that those primal, habitual brain pathways are calling for a binge, not any other option.

The important thing to remember about doing something else during an urge is that the goal of doing something else is not to make the urge go away. The urge has to naturally go away on its own, and you can do whatever uniquely helps you allow the urge to pass.

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Did you “fail” or just eat?

You may have “I failed” or “I’ve blown it” thoughts after eating treats or other delicious foods. It’s important to step back and realize that these are thoughts and not objective indicators, and it’s possible to have different thoughts.

Someone else might eat in the exact same way that you do, and they think it was “delicious” or “amazing” or “wonderfully filling,” or just “okay” or maybe even “a bit too much.” Then, they move on with their life, focusing on other things, while you are thinking that you did something awful by eating in that same way.

If you have subjective food rules for yourself, and you don’t follow one of the food rules—then you simply did not follow one of your subjective food rules. That’s all that’s happened. You can move on from it, realizing that there is no one right way to eat anyway. It doesn’t mean you’ve “failed,” and it especially doesn’t mean you should go on and do something more harmful (like continue overeating or bingeing). The thoughts that want to use “imperfect” eating as a justification to binge are neurological junk.

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Self-respect over feelings

I recently shared the following quote on Instagram and I want to explain how you can use it as you end harmful habits:

“Your self-respect has to be stronger than your feelings.” 

The quote is in reference to relationships (from Jimmy Knowles), but overcoming urges to binge is—in many ways—like pulling yourself away from an unhealthy or toxic relationship. You are going to feel like you want to engage in the habit at times (that’s just how the brain’s reward center works), just like you are going to sometimes feel attached to a person who you know is not right for you. But your self-respect can still win out.

Even when the habit seems appealing, you can know deeply that binge eating is not in line with who you are or who you want to be, just like you can know that a person you have feelings for is not aligned with what you truly need or want. It’s okay to feel a temporary sense of loss for the harmful habit or relationship, but always remember to put self-respect over feelings!

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This advice is taken from weekly emails I send to encourage recovery. If you’d like to receive my emails (and monthly newsletter) going forward, all you need to do is enter your email address on this page.

When you sign up, you also get the free “Brain over Binge Inspiration Booklet” and the free course track, “Manage Your Mindset After a Binge”.
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More help:

If you want extra guidance as you learn to give up binge eating, here are some resources for additional support:

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

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.

Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.

Brain over Binge Books – Get Brain over Binge and the Brain over Binge Recovery Guide on Amazon and Audible.

Stop Believing There Is Ever a Reason to Binge

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Do you try to come up with complex reasons for why you binge? You are not alone, and this is a common tendency in all bad habits. In this post, I want to help you shift your perspective in a useful way surrounding your reasons for binge eating, and also help you let go of those reasons.

To stop binge eating, you need to stop believing there is ever a reason to binge.

The brain will provide endless rationalizations for continuing the binge eating habit…until you realize it’s not telling the truth. Justifying habits is part of a universal pattern of the lower brain, and it’s important to know that as long as you are engaging in binge eating, the brain will never stop pointing to emotions, problems, or circumstances as reasons for your behavior.

This is not to diminish anything you’re struggling with, because we are all complex individuals, and no one’s life is simple. You have your own unique tendencies, personality, and history. There are likely some factors that led you into the binge eating habit in the first place, but once you realize it’s hurting you, trying to figure out all of the theoretical reasons is not an efficient use of time. Even if you solve for one reason, the brain will provide another and another, because its job is to maintain the habit. Instead, you can learn to dismiss any and all reasons, and take back control. (If you are new to the Brain over Binge approach, you can get my free eBook to help you get started). 

What if my reasons for binge eating are valid?

Until this point, you may think I’m telling you to simply ignore your reasons, and to a large extent, that’s exactly what you need to do. But you may feel that there are certain issues which make it impossible for you to stop binge eating. For example, what if you believe you are acting compulsively because of another issue like ADHD or trauma?

There are definitely factors that can affect your ability to access self-control at times, and I always want you to be compassionate toward yourself for what you are facing. However, I want to challenge you to stop seeing any other issue as a “reason to binge,” and instead start seeing it as a “reason to get additional help in order to stop binge eating.” There are zero conditions that I’m aware of where binge eating is the recommended solution. So, even if you have another condition, get help for that condition, and don’t point to it as a reason to resign to binge eating.

In other words, believing that there is never a reason to binge includes solving for any reason you think is holding you back. Because the truth is, no matter what you are dealing with, binge eating is harming and not helping.

What if it’s helping me emotionally?

You may struggle to let go of emotional reasons for binge eating. Mainstream therapy and also the culture as a whole perpetuates the idea that binge eating is about meeting emotional needs or coping. It’s appealing to believe this, because when we are engaging in a behavior that feels so out of line with our true self, we naturally want to feel like that behavior “makes sense” in some way. Emotions are easy to blame because they are readily available; we are full of difficult emotions daily, and even on our good days, it’s always possible to point to an emotion as the reason.

This is not specific to binge eating. We all want to feel like we have deeper reasons for doing things that we know are destructive, and there’s certainly a place for self-analysis. But when you want to quit binge eating, it’s time to stop analyzing and to start believing that you can avoid the behavior no matter what. The reality is that binge eating does not actually help with emotions, it makes them worse in the long run, and gives you additional negative emotions. Binge eating increases shame, anxiety, depression, loneliness, despair, and fear. It also makes us less able to deal with the other problems in our lives. Even if binge eating brings some temporary distraction or escape from feelings in the moment of bingeing, it isn’t worth it.

Letting go of reasons for binge eating means letting go of the illusion that binge eating is doing anything truly helpful for you.

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I understand that this can be a challenging mindset shift to make, and we’re here to help you along the way as you recover.  You can use the resources below to get the support you need to free yourself from this source of pain.

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

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.

Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.

emotions are not the cause of binge eating

Emotions Are Not the Cause of Binge Eating

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Emotions are not the cause of binge eating.

This is not always the most popular message, but once I internalized this concept, it was so freeing. It allowed me to stay binge-free no matter what was going on in my life or in my mind, because I knew that even in the darkest, loneliest, scariest times, I had the ability not to binge.

I understand that it’s often not that simple to let go of the belief that you binge because of emotions. This belief could feel very true for you right now, and I’m not here to talk you out of that. Everyone has their own experience and story, and if the idea that binge eating is because of emotions is helping you stop the behavior, then please don’t change course. This post is for people who are struggling and who can’t seem to stop bingeing no matter what emotional healing or self-improvement work they do. This is for people who sense that they can binge under any circumstance or in response to any feeling (even positive ones), and who believe that even if they could learn to cope with emotions well, they’d still want to binge. This post is also for people who sense that connecting binge eating to emotions is making things worse.

Blaming emotions makes you “need” the harmful binge eating behavior

Through my years of helping binge eaters, I’ve heard from so many who tell me that therapy or other self-help resources convinced them they binged for deep emotional reasons, and this only served to strengthen the habit, because it made them feel like they actually needed the habit to cope.

You may have indeed developed a connection between your emotions and your bingeing, I think that most people with a binge eating habit (or any habit) do. But, as I talk about in my books, this connection is indirect. Emotions don’t truly cause the bingeing, because if that were true, anyone who had strong emotions would binge, and curing emotional issues would cure binge eating.

Because of patterns you’ve developed over time, your brain may automatically urge you to binge in response to certain emotions. When you can recognize this pattern, you can gradually learn to decondition it. However, what often happens is that when you try to avoid binges, emotions can seem temporarily worse, which may cause you to give up and revert back to your old patterns. I want to help you understand this so that it doesn’t stop you from continuing toward a binge-free life.

Why do emotions feel worse when I try to stop binge eating?

There are a couple of common reasons why emotions may seem more difficult for a period of time as you are ending binge eating:

1.) You’re out of practice being with emotions without binge eating

2.) Your primitive brain tells you the emotions are terrible so that it can get what it wants – a binge

1. You are out of practice being with emotions without binge eating

If you’re used to following the urge automatically during certain emotions, then to just have the emotion without binge eating is going to feel different. Different does not mean worse. All things considered, it feels much worse to binge.

Binge eating is a dangerous and health-sabotaging behavior, but that’s what you’re used to at this point. So, when you don’t distract yourself, there are going to be new sensations that arise. You’ll have to deal with both dismissing the urge and having whatever sensations the emotions cause. It’s not that bingeing ever helped you cope with that emotion or solved any problem, but it did create temporary pleasure that diverted your attention, and then pain and shame afterward that likely prevented you from focusing on other problems and emotions.

It’s important to accept that whatever distraction binge eating provides, it’s not worth it. You don’t want to be binge eating in response to emotions, or to anything for that matter. You want binge eating out of your life, and to do that, it’s going to take some practice of not binge eating and dealing with whatever you feel when you aren’t distracted by a dangerous habit. It often takes just letting these emotions pass a few times to start realizing that you are definitely capable of doing that, and nothing terrible happens, and in fact, you are so much better for it.

You can do whatever you need to do to learn to deal with emotions, but to give yourself a chance to learn to cope in healthy ways, you have to dismiss the urge to binge. When binging is simply not an option, then you have so many options available to you for helping you get through tough emotions.

2.  Your primitive brain tells you the emotions are terrible so that it can get what it wants – a binge

The second reason emotions feel worse when you first quit binge eating is that your primitive brain is trying to perpetuate a habit. To do that, you’ll have automatic thoughts that tell you how awful it is to not binge. Your primitive/lower brain will send messages that make you believe the emotions are much worse than they really are. During urges to binge, you’ll feel like the emotions are awful and a binge will be great, but in reality, that’s not the case.

This thought is very common: “you can’t possibly deal with this emotion, so you need to binge.”

That thought has likely worked to get you to binge in the past, so it’s going keep showing up, without regard for the fact that binge eating is so much worse for you than an emotion. Consider that this thought is simply part of how your urge to binge operates and has nothing to do with what you’re truly capable of. When you dismiss the thoughts that say you should binge because you can’t handle emotions, you start to realize that the emotions are never as bad as your primitive brain says they are.

On the other hand, the binges are always much, much worse than your primitive brain says they are going to be. You’ll have thoughts saying a binge is exactly what you need, but when you follow that thought, it only leads to pain. If you can step back from the lower brain’s false promises and realize that you can learn to experience the full range of human emotions, it helps build your confidence, and you’ll realize that you never actually needed to binge to cope with emotions.

More help:

If you want extra guidance as you learn to break the connection between binge eating and emotions, 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 125 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, weekly group coaching calls, mindfulness resources, plus course access.

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

decoupling food and exercise

Ep. 121: Decoupling Food and Exercise

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Quick and Practical Advice to Help You Stop Binge Eating (Part III)

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Below is more quick inspiration and practical advice about a variety of issues that may come up for you in binge eating recovery. (You can read additional advice in Part I, Part II, and Part IV).

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Fear of junk food

Are you afraid to eat any “junk” food as part of your normal daily eating? Are you bingeing on large amounts of those very same foods?

Something to consider is that your fear of unhealthy foods could be a reaction to the binge eating itself. If you’re eating junk foods excessively during binges, it makes sense that you would feel the need to avoid those foods at other times.

Considering this, it may not be that you truly fear unhealthy food in moderation. It may be that you fear eating unhealthy food in moderation AND binge eating on top of that.

A question you can ask yourself is: “If I knew I would never binge, how would I like to incorporate foods I believe are unhealthy?”

There’s no one right answer here, but if you start seeing yourself as a binge-free person, you can begin letting go of the fear, and realize there is a place in your life for many different types of food.

For more on this topic, you can read my post: Can I Recover & be Healthy if I Eat Everything in Moderation?

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Eat like you won’t binge later

If you are tempted to restrict food, consider that you could be trying to prepare for a potential binge. It’s not that you want a binge to happen, but because you’re worried that it will, you try to limit your calories…just in case.

But this restrictive behavior sets you up to binge. Something I like to say is: Eat like you won’t binge later. Meaning, don’t try to diet in preparation for a future binge.

This mindset helps with eating adequately, because you’re taking the fear of binge eating out of the equation when you decide what to eat. Then, in turn, eating adequately supports you in avoiding a future binge.

Gradually, you’ll become more confident that you are definitely not going to binge later, and that will help increase your feelings of freedom around food.

(If you struggle with thoughts of how you “should” eat, get more help in Episode 85: Drop the “Shoulds” Around Eating)

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Giving up dieting = Eating less

If a desire to diet and lose weight is getting in the way of your recovery, remind yourself that your previous attempts gave you the opposite result (binge eating and more weight gain).

The mindset needed to give up dieting starts with the realization that restriction > leads to binge eating > leads to eating a lot more than you would if you simply ate an adequate and nourishing amount of food each day.

In other words, not bingeing + not restricting is less food than restricting + bingeing. It’s helpful to remind yourself of this simple math, especially when your mind is focused on wanting to lose weight.

When you eat without dieting or bingeing, your body can start to find its natural and healthy size. For more help with weight questions, go to BrainoverBinge.com/Weight/

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Negativity bias?

As you are relearning how to eat in a way that works for you (without binge eating and without dieting), you will likely have thoughts saying you are doing it “wrong.”

Before you make adjustments to “fix” your eating, consider that these thoughts could be due to the negativity bias of the brain. The brain is always looking for danger, giving us a natural tendency to find and dwell on what’s negative (more than what’s positive or neutral).

You may find your brain pointing out the negative in getting a little too full after meals…and not getting full enough, in choosing processed foods…and choosing healthy foods, in sticking to a meal plan…and eating in a flexible way. This makes it seem impossible to get it “right”!

When faced with “you’re eating wrong” thoughts, I want you to consider the possibility that nothing is wrong at all, and that the food choices you’re making are all simply part of normal eating.

That doesn’t mean you can’t make improvements or changes to how you’re eating, but understanding this tendency gives you the ability to decide for yourself, instead of always believing those automatic negative thoughts.

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What about tracking calories?

Keeping track of calories consumed is an extremely popular component of dieting, especially in the years since tracking apps appeared.

Even as you let go of dieting, you may be scared to stop the calorie counting—worried that if you don’t track, you’ll gain weight.

Calorie counting can have a place in binge eating recovery—if it’s used as a way to make sure you are getting enough food and nourishing your body. However, if you are counting to try to maintain a deficit, this will not support you in ending the binge eating habit.

Something that can help you let go of the tracking is to think about all of human history and how recent calorie counting is to our species. It simply can’t be true that we need this technology in order to keep our bodies at their natural, healthy weight.

Think of all of the people who have lived in the past or now—who have not tracked calories—and yet stayed generally the same size. Start trusting your own body’s innate wisdom to find the weight that’s right for you.

(Read more about weight issues in recovery at BrainoverBinge.com/Weight/)

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It’s always an option: Choosing how you think about your body

I took one of my daughters to paint pottery over the weekend, and she can be a perfectionist when it comes to her art. As she was trying to fix what she thought was “wrong” with her paint job, she said, “I just want to look at this when it’s done and not be mad about it.”

I responded, “That’s always an option, no matter how it looks.” That power is, of course, in how we choose to think about it.

You may have thoughts like my daughter’s when you look in the mirror, or when you think about your food choices or exercise routines. You may think that getting it just “right” is going to help you feel better. But the truth is, my daughter could have kept painting forever and not been totally satisfied with it.

When it comes to body image, it’s always an option to choose self-caring thoughts, knowing that you are doing your best and that your uniqueness makes you the beautiful person you are.

For more on body image, listen to Episode 40: Body image and Binge Eating

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Feel like you’re on a roller coaster?

Do you get hopeful about recovery, do well for a while, and then let yourself down? Does this happen over and over and seem like an awful roller coaster ride?

You are not destined to be on a never-ending roller coaster. What often leads to this experience is constantly telling yourself you are “starting over” in recovery. But you are never truly starting over. You are gaining insight along the way and learning what you need to learn to step out of this cycle for good.
Always tell yourself that you are moving forward, not in circles. Tell yourself that every renewed commitment is a continuation, not a new beginning. You are persevering in order to arrive at food freedom, even if there are some ups and downs and turns along the way.

For more help with this, read my post: “Making Commitments Last in Binge Eating Recovery”

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Discouraged by bingeing less?

You may feel frustrated that you’ve reduced your binge eating but haven’t fully eliminated it from your life. So, instead of celebrating your progress and making more improvements until the binge eating is gone, you may tell yourself that “improvement is not good enough,” and that you “might as well go back to bingeing more.”

It’s okay to acknowledge that you want binge eating fully gone…of course you do, because it creates pain in your life. However, less binge eating means less pain in your life, and that’s a step in the right direction. Going from binge eating daily, for example, to binge eating once per week leads to so much extra time, energy, money, and peace of mind.

Do not let a transition period of less frequent episodes make you want to return to full-scale bingeing. Instead, allow your experience of additional freedom make you even more motivated to fully recover.

For more on motivation, listen to Episode 95: Creating Motivation to Stop Binge Eating.

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This advice is taken from weekly emails I send to encourage recovery. If you’d like to receive my emails (and monthly newsletter) going forward, all you need to do is enter your email address on this page.

When you sign up, you also get the free “Brain over Binge Inspiration Booklet” and the free course track, “Manage Your Mindset After a Binge”.
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More help:

If you want extra guidance as you learn to give up binge eating, here are some resources for additional support:

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

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.

Brain over Binge Course – Self-paced online lessons (plus an app) for only $18.99/month. Includes over 125 tracks to listen to that give you the information and answers you need as you end binge eating.

Brain over Binge Books – Get Brain over Binge and the Brain over Binge Recovery Guide on Amazon and Audible.

hunger anxiety

Anxiety About Hunger in Binge Eating Recovery

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If you have anxiety or negative associations surrounding your hunger, or you feel like hunger is your enemy in binge eating recovery, this post will help you start developing a healthier mindset when it comes to this natural body signal.

It’s possible that you fear your hunger because you think it has sabotaged your past efforts to diet or because you feel like strong hunger always leads you to binge.  This anxiety response to hunger is something to address in recovery, as well as in your efforts to make peace with food in general.

Hunger discomfort

Hunger is a normal sensation, and reminding yourself that it’s part of the human experience will help you avoid believing there is something wrong with you when you are hungry. That does not mean you’re going to like feeling hungry. You’re not supposed to like it. Hunger is meant to be an uncomfortable sensation that motivates you to fix it by eating. Humans would not have survived for long without this uncomfortable drive.

When hunger first starts, it can be just a gentle feeling nudging you toward food, but as more time goes by, you may become irritable, you may not be able to think about anything else besides food, you may get frustrated if you can’t get food right away, and you may have a lot of unpleasant sensations in your body.

It’s not realistic to expect yourself to have all of those feelings and sensations—which are meant to strongly motivate you toward food—and feel completely calm about it. Making peace with your hunger simply means that you’ll learn to experience the discomfort without causing it to be worse with a lot of fear, anxiety, and self-judgement.

Recall your pre-eating-disorder experience of hunger

You can likely remember times when you’ve experienced hunger without the anxiety and self-criticism, especially if you think back to before you began restricting or binge eating. Maybe think about when you were a child in school, and you were hungry while sitting in class waiting for lunchtime. I’m sure you did not like that feeling of hunger, and I’m sure you did not feel perfectly peaceful in those moments. Your empty and growling stomach probably distracted you from the work you needed to be doing, and you probably looked at the clock wishing time would pass. I’m sure you that you were excited about eating when the time finally came and that it felt so good to satisfy your hunger.

Through all of this, you didn’t judge yourself for what you were experiencing. You didn’t fear your hunger, and you didn’t criticize yourself for wanting food or enjoying it when it was time to eat. You weren’t sitting in class as a child thinking, I shouldn’t be hungry … I have no willpower … I’ll never be able to control myself when I start eating … I’m scared that I’m going to overdo it and gain weight … why can’t I just stop thinking about food so much.

Before your eating disorder, hunger was a lot more of a pure experience—meaning you just experienced it without judging yourself for it. You just knew that you were hungry and that you wanted food—without thinking you were broken in some way for having these natural body signals and desires for food.

Anxiety about hunger often stems from restriction

Anxiety and negative associations with hunger often develop as a result of dieting. When you are trying to eat less than you need, your hunger can start to feel like your enemy. When you know you’re only “allowed” a certain amount of food (according to your diet), but your hunger tells you that you should eat more than that, you feel like you need to suppress your hunger and ignore it. You may get angry with your hunger and wish it away and think it’s the reason you can’t stick to a diet.

Because our bodies are wired to protect us from starvation, your hunger likely got stronger during your diet. Understandably, you eventually followed your hunger and broke your diet, and because you thought it meant you were “weak,” you then engaged in a lot of self-critical thoughts. This may have repeated countless times for you.

If you started bingeing in response to your strong hunger, then that adds another layer of negative feelings, self-judgement, and anxiety. You start to fear your hunger because you fear that it will lead you to binge. It makes sense that you are afraid to binge, because binge eating is a harmful and painful behavior that you truly don’t want to engage in. In turn, it also makes sense that you would come to fear anything you think causes that behavior.

Hunger is not the problem

I hope that now you better understand how hunger goes from being a pure experience (not a comfortable one) to something that brings up a lot of anxiety. When it comes to making peace with your hunger, an important starting point is realizing that the sensations of hunger are not the problem. The problem is the negative thoughts and feelings you’ve inadvertently connected to hunger over time.

You can start to separate the sensations of hunger from those negative thoughts and feelings, and you can start to dismiss those negative thoughts and feelings—including anxiety and self-judgement. You can start gravitating back toward experiencing hunger as you did before developing this struggle with food.

Decondition the [hunger = binge] pattern

As it relates to getting rid of the fear that you’ll binge in response to hunger, this just takes time and consistency. As you learn to experience urges to binge without acting on them, you’ll get more confident that nothing will lead you to binge, not even strong hunger. Then, the anxiety around hunger can naturally subside.

For this to happen, it’s going to take many times of being hungry and then satisfying that hunger without going on to binge. Once you’re confident that you can eat adequately in response to hunger, and that it won’t spiral out of control, then hunger is no longer going to feel like a threat.

Making sure that you’re eating enough overall and giving up restriction is definitely going to make hunger feel less fear-inducing, because you’re no longer going to be trying to suppress the hunger, or deny it, or view it as the enemy. As you let go of dieting, and as you learn to nourish your body, you will start viewing hunger simply as a signal that it’s time to eat. You can even learn to welcome this signal as your body’s amazing way of communicating your needs.

Heightened hunger signals will fade

One thing to know (if you’ve engaged in restrictive dieting) is that your hunger may be stronger right now than it would otherwise be if you had never restricted. When we diet, our body turns up the hormones and neurochemicals that drive hunger and turns down the ones that lead to fullness. This only makes sense from a survival standpoint.

Once you start eating enough, this heightened hunger can take some time to regulate. So, if your hunger feels more uncomfortable than you think it should, know that this is something that corrects itself over time—as you get further and further away from restriction.

Binge eating also has the effect of increasing your hunger because your body and brain simply come to expect and demand large amounts of food. But as you recover, you allow your digestive system to heal and your appetite to go back to normal. If you have any concerns about abnormal hunger during recovery, you should absolutely get the medical and nutritional help you need, but the solution is never to binge.

Over time, you’ll learn that hunger—although not a pleasant sensation—doesn’t have to create anxiety. You can learn to make peace with many different levels of hunger, and never fear that it’s going to lead you to binge.


More help:

If you want extra guidance as you learn to give up dieting and binge eating, and make peace with your hunger, 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 125 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. She will help you change your thinking, uncover what is holding you back, and get on a path to complete freedom from food issues.

Fernanda Lind

Ep: 79 Learning to Thrive After Binge Eating Recovery (Interview with Fernanda Lind)

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