The Surprising Hidden Reason For Your Binge Eating

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Episode 80. What do you think is the reason for your binge eating or emotional eating?

And when I say binge eating, what I mean is any eating you are doing where you feel even slightly out of control, guilty about it, feel like you “should” restrict certain foods, have certain food rules (even if they feel like they are “healthy” rules).

Any and all of that is a form of disordered eating, and although it’s very normalized, it does not need to be your reality.

What to Expect in this Episode:

• My Iceberg Analogy for eating behavior (and why it works for almost any behavior)
• What types of things keep us stick in the binge eating cycle
• The most common mistakes that keep us stuck for years longer than we want to be
• Tangible steps to get yourself unstuck

“I am binge eating because…”

Most people when they come to work with me, or hear what I do have some sense of what they think might be causing their binge eating.

They probably don’t know for sure, but they have some guesses.

Here are some of them:

• I just need to have more self control, more willpower (aka I’m weak)
• I am addicted to sweets or carbs (aka something is wrong with my brain, and therefore me)

“No childhood sh*t, I just need some strategies.”

Have you seen Brene Brown’s Ted Talk on the Power of Vulnerability?

If not, it’s time to become one of the 18 million views it’s gotten at the time of this writing and recording.

She said something that always makes me laugh:

“No childhood sh*t, I just need some strategies.”

I can soooo relate to this. As a psychologist and a science minded person, I so badly wanted to be able to fix my emotional pain with books, learning, and strategies.

All the Strategies in the World Won’t Help If You Don’t Address the Root Cause

But guess what? All the best strategies in the world won’t help if you don’t get to the root of the issue.

And as it turns out, most of our pain comes from childhood sh*t, or other early experiences. Although some of our pain may come from painful interactions as an adult.

So while strategies may provide some Band-aid type relief, it’s unlikely to solve the root of the issue.

Examples of possible Band-aid fixes as it relates to our eating habits:

• Getting a new eating plan, meal prep strategy, reading a new book (e.g., Paleo, plant-based)
• Joining a new gym
• Eating to cover up our emotions or discomfort

The Issue with Dieting

The thing that is so confusing to so many, and was confusing to me, is that we see the surface behavior only. The “tip of the iceberg” if you will.

I’ve had many people tell me lately that they are trying a new approach for their eating. The most common one lately is intermittent fasting. But the other common one is eating less gluten or carbohydrate heavy foods.

But there are subtle things that I hear, that suggest to me their new plan is unlikely to work. Not because the plan is bad necessarily. I know a few people who do a lower gluten diet without any diet mentality at all, and they feel good.

But I hear things like:

• “I really should be eating better, [and I’ll work on it soon]” (diet mentality)
• “I can’t lose weight because I continue to eat or drink [enter any food perceived as unhealthy here]” (self-blame and shame)
• “I just need to return to a more consistent schedule.” (suggests to me that the eating plan they chose wont work for them long-term)
• “I’ve lost X amount of lbs so far.” (indicates that they are focused on weight loss, versus internal motivators)

When really, it’s the stuff underneath the water’s surface that’s keeping us stuck.

There’s Nothing Wrong with You, and You Can Act More Skillfully

People often also think that something is wrong with their character. Like something about them is defective.

They also usually think that they need to just “control themselves” and “make a plan.”

Some of them might think there’s some pain or traumatic experience they might uncover. This typically causes them fear, but usually by the time they get to me they’re are like, “Okay, let’s figure this out.” Their distress at their eating (often due to weight gain) finally raises enough of a red flag to them that they come in for help.

What they don’t think is causing it is their internalized judgment around their eating.

They rarely think that dieting, diet mentality, is causing their binge eating. They don’t consider themselves restricting at all. “Did you hear how much I eat? I’m clearly not restrictive!” they tell me.

And I get it. I didn’t think I was restricting either. Not one bit.

And yet, there hasn’t been one person yet who has come to see me to work on binge eating who wasn’t restricting to some extent, either behaviorally (not allowing themselves certain foods due to fear of weight gain) or mentally (judging themselves harshly for each certain foods, which our brain and body actually interpret as restriction).

What else is it about?

Want to know what else they do not come in saying.

They do not come in saying, “Hey Shawn, I’ve had some really painful experiences growing up. My parents did the very best they could with the tools they had, but I think that some of the painful experiences from my childhood might be part of why I focus so much hatred on my body. My body feels more like something I can control versus my emotions which feel scary and like unchartered territory.”

Instead, they say:

• I’m ashamed of myself
• I think something might be wrong with me
• I’m not sure if I’m loveable (they often don’t say this on a logical conscious level, but after some digging)

Uncovering Diet Mentality

Uncovering your hidden diet mentality is a crucial step. It’s incredibly powerful. When you start to realize that your body can be trusted. It’s pretty darn amazing, actually.

No matter it’s size, no matter the messages you’ve gotten about it and what it “should” look like (thin, lean, etc.) or what it “should” feel (not hungry 2 hours after eating, not hungry for “excessive” sweets), your body is awesome. And it knows what its doing.

But What if There’s Something Deeper?

And, just to give you a heads up, there always is. But it may not be what you think.

Let me take a second to paint a picture for you first.

For a moment, just imagine that we taught emotional intelligence, self-compassion, and unconditional self-worth to all parents. So as they were learning, they could teach and model this to their kids from day one.

What if we helped parents and all the humans they were raising know that although there is no perfect parenting, we can learn to do better, and we absolutely should.

What our Upbringing Has to do with Our Binge Eating

But you know what? It isn’t about all the parenting strategies.

It’s about the parents own self-worth.

It’s about the fact that “do as I say, not as I do” does not work.

And if your parents didn’t learn unconditional love and self worth for themselves (very few did, btw), they actually couldn’t have passed that to you.

So, again, there’s always something deeper.

Not because you are a flawed, weak human, as you’ve been told. But because you are a human, raised by imperfect humans. And because the human experience is messy, painful, and hard.

And beautiful, of course. But we can’t bypass the underneath stuff.

The Elusive Unconditional Self-Worth

If you’ve been following the podcast for a while you know that I took a break over the summer. A much needed one.

So I’ve had some time to really reflect on what I’m doing, and why. And how to best do it.

I’ve also had time to reflect on just why I pushed myself so hard last year. Part of it? I freaking love a good challenge. I was a new business owner and I wanted to crush it.

And, even though I’ve talked on here about shame and sharing your story, and I truly don’t have shame about my eating disorder history anymore, I was still avoiding some other pain.

That avoidance was showing up as overworking, doing things that didn’t feel right to me but ignoring it, and saying yes to all the opportunities.

I was operating from a place of not enoughness, and realistically, it’s just not sustainable.

Get to the Root Cause

Even though I’ve worked through a lot of layers of my eating and body shame, the middle of that iceberg, some of that pain relates back to painful experiences I’ve had in my life that I had never fully acknowledged or addressed.

Much of this relates back to childhood experiences, and ways that I interpreted my world and my surroundings, and internalized beliefs that simply don’t serve me.

Some examples include:

• “My pain isn’t valid” (why do you think I did the episode on comparative suffering, I’ve been trying to logically validate my pain for years), or
• “It’s not okay to want what I want.”
• “My worth is dependent on what I achieve.”

For me at least, I actually was never directly told any of these things. But it’s the way I interpreted my world.

I internalized them and they were operating under the surface, without my awareness.

These are the roots of the tree, and when we see them, we can shift them and truly start to heal for real.

We can stop putting our worth in external achievements, the opinions of others.

We can start saying no to the things that drain us, the yes to the things that light us up.

We can know that our pain and experiences are valid, no matter what they are. And the more we validate them, the less we project our pain onto others.

And then if we are a parent, we can actually start passing those things along.

It Still Isn’t About the Food

The more I learn about what actually leads to true and deep healing of human pain, the more I realize that the diet cycle and focus on weight and controlling our bodies, is definitely a culturally caused issue (that is, we have the issue because we have an issue accepting that body diversity is a fact), however, it also very much serves a purpose for people.

Often the pain of social rejection (e.g., perceived rejection from our mom, dad, siblings or friends) is really what we are avoiding when we try to shrink our bodies.

“I can’t make them accept me, but I can control this thing.” (or at least I can temporarily)

Beyond Intuitive Eating

Intuitive eating was an incredible book for me. It helped me a ton.

But to truly heal and feel at peace, you will likely need to go beyond it.

Beyond the middle layer of the iceberg, towards the deep stuff.

For me, it came down to working on a daily basis towards unconditional self worth.

Primarily so that I can pass that long to my kiddos.

But you can learn from my mistakes. No matter where you are in your journey, you can start today. You can pursue the root cause sooner, and avoid wasting time on surface level strategies.

When We Go Beyond the Food and Body Stuff, True Change Awaits

A disordered relationship with food and your body serves a function for you. It’s keeping you incredibly distracted from things that you brain perceives as super painful.

But what if those are the things that will actually get you unstuck. We talked in Episode 76 about the cycle of avoidance and how it drives emotional eating.

For many of us, some of the stuff underneath might be:

• Realizing we want a career change
• Recognizing that we want to focus on and invest in our growth in other areas (e.g., parenting, a hobby, another skill, more down time)
• The fact that the pace of life we have chosen simply isn’t sustainable
• Grieving past losses or hurts that we never fully healed (losses of loved ones, or maybe losses of time or opportunity)
• Changing patterns of co dependency

Tangible Things You Can Do To Start Digging To the Root of Your Tree

1. Get your thoughts out of your head. Journaling on paper or in the notes app in your phone is a great place to start. Start naming what are some of the emotions coming up (using emotion words like grief, fear, disappointment), and then what are the thoughts or beliefs coming up (e.g., “I’m not good at this” “I can’t handle this” “what’s wrong with me?” or “this is a dumb exercise, it wont help”).
2. Remind yourself that your pain and experiences are valid. Likely you will have lots of thoughts like “this isn’t going to help” or “I’m just complaining” or “other people have it so much worse, I’m just having a pity party” or “I’m being self-indulgent – who cares what I feel?” But the reality is, having the courage to explore the stuff underneath the water’s surface is incredibly brave, and truly the most selfless thing you can do for the people in your life. Because the more you validate your own pain, the more emotionally available you can be for others (in a boundary-ed and not self-sacrificing way).
3. Share with a trusted loved one. Tell them beforehand, “don’t try to fix this, just listen and notice”. Choose someone who has some basic skills in being able to listen, not someone who will get uncomfortable and immediately try to fix. Remind them, and yourself, that you are taking an “isn’t this interesting” approach of curiosity. Our brains do fascinating things when they are in fear or feel threatened. Just notice. If they can see with you, listen, and give you a feeling like “I see you, and you matter.” That in itself can be incredibly healing.
4. Breathe and go at your own pace. Let things unfold as they will. I could have never anticipated how and why I’ve had the “aha” moments I’ve had. The more I kept searching and being curious, the more progress I made. But it was never linear. Keep moving forward and don’t avoid, and you don’t have to do it all at once. Just take that next little baby step forward, and acknowledge yourself. This stuff is super uncomfortable at times, vulnerable, but you can do it and you are worth it.
5. Seek our resources on fostering unconditional self-worth in yourself and others. You better believe I’ll be talking about this a lot more on my podcast moving forward. Also, two of my personal favorites are the Unconditionally Worthy podcast with Dr. Adia Gooden, and Mastermind Parenting with Randi Rubenstein.