The Truth About Binge Eating: Overcoming Misconceptions and Breaking Free

Are you ready to shatter common misconceptions and tackle the challenging topic of binge eating head on? The promise we make to you in this episode is to shed light on what binge eating disorder really is, clarify common misinterpretations, and guide you with effective strategies for conquering it. As the most common eating disorder in the U.S., it's time we face the issue and dispel the clouds of false messaging that often surround it. Remember, all eating disorders are valid, require attention, and can be overcome for a healthier relationship with food and body.

Let's begin our journey by scrutinizing the factors that contribute to binge eating such as coping mechanisms, emotions, stress, and personal challenges. We'll explore how food and binging are not the issue, but rather the restriction and negative relationship with certain foods. We address why binge eating is not a choice and how shame often fuels it. Lastly, we talk about breaking free from the binge eating cycle and joining supportive programs like True Body Image Freedom for Everybody. We believe every step towards loving your body is a victory, so subscribe, tune in, and join us on this transformative journey towards body liberation.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Bites in Body Love. I'm Jamie, a dietitian and body image specialist. Join me to liberate yourself from diets and body shame, embracing true freedom and confidence with food and body. Take your place at the table on this transformative journey towards a life of freedom and confidence. Alrighty, today we are going to be talking about binge eating. We are going to talk about all of the misconceptions and false messaging we get around binge eating and how to actually conquer it. We're going to talk about a better way to think of and approach binge eating. We're going to talk about how it's super common and the most common type of eating disorder is binge eating. We're going to talk about how to tell or what questions to ask yourself if you think you are struggling with binge eating, and then we're going to also talk about how to actually conquer it and where binge eating actually stems from. So, without further ado, let's go ahead and get into the topic of binge eating and give you all a better way to think about it, so you can actually start conquering it and have a free relationship with all foods where you don't have to worry about bingeing.

Speaker 1: 1:13

Okay, so how common is binge eating and how common is binge eating disorder. I'm going to probably lump those two together pretty consistently here, so they are not the same thing. Experiencing binge eating and having binge eating disorder. They're not the same thing. However, really eating disorders, and binge eating included, is all on a spectrum. They all are valid struggles and they all deserve attention. Okay, so as of September 2021, binge eating disorder is considered to be the most common eating disorder in the United States. It's more prevalent than anorexia and bulimia and other eating disorders, and it's just extremely common. However, I do feel like there's a huge problem with people not believing that this is something that deserves help. A lot of times, anorexia, bulimia are considered just. I think they're more understood or they're more talked about, but binge eating disorder and binge eating it affects more people and I think all eating disorders are misunderstood. But it's just frustrating because I think binge eating disorder is. It's something that's so I have seen in my clinical practice. Binge eating is just conquered a lot faster than other eating disorders. I feel like I work with people with binge eating for a lot less time. However, people can get stuck in binge eating for a long time because they get the wrong tools and the wrong information. But when you have the right tools and the right information, I feel like you can conquer binge eating fairly quickly with the right tools and the right support. So it's just a shame that there's so much misconceptions around there and people have to struggle longer than they need to. So but that's why we're here today we're gonna talk about how to conquer it once and for all and what you can do. Okay, so let's talk about how to know if you are personally struggling with binge eating.

Speaker 1: 3:24

Binge eating is consuming large amounts of food within a short period of time while feeling a lack of control over eating behavior. These episodes are often accompanied by a lot of emotional distress about the binge eating. So I'm going to repeat that a bit and add a little bit of specifics and some experience here. So, oftentimes, people struggling with binge eating versus overeating if you are struggling with binge eating, you it's a lot of food in a really short amount of time and you feel like someone has taken the wheel and is making the choices for you. You feel very, very out of control and it's large amounts of food in a short amount of time. Now, this can sometimes I, when working with clients, I hear that someone say they're binge eating when they may just be overeating or they're eating something that they feel ashamed of. So if someone is restricting, if you're restricting and you are, you put something off limits and you say I can't have that cupcake and you quickly eat that cupcake and you feel shameful for it. You may say I've binged on that cupcake. However, there's still feelings of shame, like you don't have control because you wanna try and control that with restriction. However, that is that I wouldn't classify that as the same as binge eating. However, again, both are extremely important to look at because those are both really affecting. Both of those experiences can be really impacting your life. Okay, but we're gonna talk about binge eating and that is the lack of control. You feel like you're on autopilot, you cannot help yourself and you're eating a large amount of food in a short amount of time and often you feel very, very shameful and also sick.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Okay, so let's talk about the symptoms. We really can I mean, I can take that definition I gave and pull it apart a bit for the symptoms, but if you feel like you're experiencing what I just described, that really is the main symptom. The other symptoms would be, again if an impact on your mental health rapid eating, eating alone, eating in secrecy, feeling really distressed with eating when the frequency is consistent, at like once a week, at least once a week for three months or more. That and I'm talking about what classifies as binge eating disorder. Okay, so, upon second thought, I'm just going to define what binge eating may feel like or look like. I'm not going to go into the symptoms that would classify someone into having binge eating disorder, because it's just so relative and it's so important for everyone to feel heard in this conversation and that what you're experiencing is valid. If you are binging, if you're having those episodes, no matter what the frequency is, no matter what comes along with it, that this is worth looking at and worth healing so that you can free up your relationship with food and body.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Okay, so let's go ahead and talk about the common misconceptions, about what is causing that binge eating. These get me so frustrated just thinking about starting to go into this conversation, because it really holds people back from actually healing, because they're trying to. They're telling themselves the wrong thing and they're trying to heal the wrong thing in the wrong ways. So the first misconception is lack of willpower. This is a significant misconception that binge eating is solely a matter of willpower and self-control, but it is a matter of your relationship with food and what that looks like. What your behaviors are are greatly impacting binge eating, which is also really hopeful, because if you change those things which we'll talk about later, you can absolutely change this. It's not willpower, it's not that you are not trying hard enough. Your body is literally in charge here. When you say you feel like you're an autopilot, that is your body and your mind being on autopilot to take care of you and I know that might be hard to hear that you're bingeing in order to take care of your body, your body's doing that in order to take care of you, but we're gonna talk about why that is here in a second. So it's really just essential to recognize that lack of willpower is just not the name of the game false, and it puts a huge amount of shame on the individual struggling because you feel like, well, this is my fault, if I just had more willpower, gosh, I would be able to solve this.

Speaker 1: 8:22

No, so the next misconception I hear the most often this would be number one is that food is the problem and that binging is the problem. I want you to reframe this. Food and binging is not the problem. Restriction of that food, a negative relationship with that food, having that charged up, taking foods off limits that that is what is the problem. We label our binge foods but really we can label them as restricted foods. The foods you restrict, the rules that you have, that's what you binge on. Now those are what you break, because the problem is not the binging, it is the restriction. That is at the root. And we can go into the psychology behind that cycle and that drive and why that is the case in another episode, but we're not gonna go into great detail here.

Speaker 1: 9:24

But again, the second misconception I really wanna hit home today is that food and binging is not the problem here. And so when we're shaming that and we're focusing so hard on this idea of good and bad foods and taking these foods out, not being able to trust foods and trying to just and shaming our binging and just thinking if we can just focus and stop the binge, this is gonna solve the problem, what happens is we close our eyes to all the other things that actually can help us solve the problem. When we're looking at binge eating and we're staring at binge eating, we're missing all of these other things that we can be looking at. So I'm sure you're like Jamie. Well, can you tell me these are the misconceptions and these are what I believe. Can you tell me what actually can help me solve the problem? And absolutely I will.

Speaker 1: 10:18

Let me just talk about a few more misconceptions here, which is another. One is that it's all about food, it's always about the food, and while food is involved and your relationship with food is huge, binge eating is not solely about the food. It's so much more there. It's about coping mechanisms, how you deal with emotions, stress and challenges that you face. So there's a huge component about food, but really I would lump your relationship with food and food in a completely different category and say it's not always about the food. It's actually really about your relationship with the food, your relationship with yourself, your relationship with your emotions, stress, challenges and body image, which we'll talk about here in a second.

Speaker 1: 11:09

Okay, and the last misconception is that binge eating is a choice. Heck, no. Who on earth would choose to struggle with binge eating? It is extremely uncomfortable, it's extremely scary, it's extremely distressing. It just we feel so shameful, out of control, lost. Binge eating is not a choice and the only choice is to heal it. It is not your fault. It is not your choice. Of course you don't wanna be binge eating. We need to get rid of shame, and that's pretty consistently across these misconceptions. Shame is a huge problem and shame really contributes to binge eating.

Speaker 1: 11:53

So let's talk about how to actually help binge eating and where binge eating comes from, why we are continuing to binge eat, why we can't get over it. So what does it stem from? And, in turn, we're gonna be talking about what you can do about it. That actually works and it's gonna break you out of the binge eating cycle and really get rid of binge eating once and for all. So binge eating is, it does have a lot of complex origins and can be influenced by many factors that we're gonna talk about today, but I do want to make sure I note that this is not all inclusive and just so you don't take that at face value and feel like the things I'm talking about are the only things that can contribute to binge eating. However, I will say these are absolutely the top things that, while working with clients, that we work on that help them heal and let go of binge eating once and for all. Okay, if they're willing to get uncomfortable and do things differently, because what I'm gonna be talking about is scary, especially in our society.

Speaker 1: 13:02

So the first thing, the number one thing I always address with clients that contributes immensely to binge eating is restriction and food fear. Restriction is the problem, whether it's physical, mental or emotional restriction, which is in another episode it is what is contributing to binge eating and until you stop the restriction, it's going to be very hard I would say impossible to stop binge eating. You have to heal the root, which is the restriction, restrictive eating, whether it's due to intentional dieting, food rules, fear of certain foods. It can create a sense of deprivation or actual deprivation and a heightened focus on food. This triggers super intense cravings, it charges these foods up and it causes the binge eating. And binge eating often emerges as a response to deprivation. Many times I see other types of disorder eating turning into binge eating Because it's a response to the deprivation. It might be a response to that way of disorder eating where we're restricting food and we may not have seen and had binge eating prior. But once we start restricting certain foods, whether it's through disorder eating, dieting and eating disorder we feel we really find ourselves losing control around food and in response to the physical and psychological hunger and our relationship with food, we binge eat. So restriction and food fear and I know that's a large topic there's a lot to that, but that's number one that I wanted to name.

Speaker 1: 14:51

The second thing is shame. Shame specifically around binging is the first type of shame I wanna talk about. Oftentimes, I will tell you when I work with clients, we will reduce the restriction, we'll stop the restriction and binging is still happening and the number one culprit of that is that there is still shame around the binge. There's shame around eating. There's shame around food and that is that emotional restriction where we're still beating ourselves up for having that food, even though we're allowing ourselves that food and we're no longer physically restricting, we're mentally restricting and shaming ourselves. And so when we are binge eating and it's accompanied by feelings of guilt, shame and distress, these negative emotions that stem from our societal stigma, our personal beliefs about food and eating, a sense of moral failure due to our perceived lack of control, all of that adds to this cycle and continues to create this cycle where individuals attempt to cope with our emotions around binge eating by binge eating again and perpetuating the pattern. So really a big big thing is we need to take care of not only our relationship with food and our relationship with restriction and food fear, but our relationship with binging and the shame that comes with it and tackling that.

Speaker 1: 16:21

The next thing is body image concerns. Negative body image and dissatisfaction with your appearance contribute, of course, immensely to binge eating. It's and then binge eating becomes this coping mechanism to numb, distract from those feelings, just a way to continue to disrespect your body, because it's really easy to disrespect something we don't like, right? Especially when we're being told from society that our body is not okay. So body image concerns which you know, of course, we chat so much about and we're gonna continue to chat so much about on this podcast, but body image concerns are huge, and so if you find that you have conquered your relationship with food, or you're maybe 75%, 75% of the way there to where you want to be with your relationship with food, and you have worked on your relationship with shame, but you're still binge eating and you have a lot of distress around body image, this can keep you trapped and I really want to say everything that I'm naming. I don't feel like you can skip. You really need all of these things to conquer at once and for all and to feel very solid and grounded in your relationship with food to stop binge eating. Okay, so we're not going to go in super in depth into body image, because that's what the whole podcast is. We can talk about that for days, but body image concerns is a huge contributor to binge eating and continuing to binge eat and staying stuck.

Speaker 1: 18:01

The next thing is diet culture. We can lump this into relationship with food or into restriction, but if we're, we can, let's put just put this separately. Diet culture, of course, promotes this idea that there's a certain way of ideal way of eating and ideal body. It promotes these ideal bodies, these extreme measures, restrictive eating, and this culture leads to preoccupation with food weight appearance. So binge eating is extremely common, a common result of being in diet culture, because it really perpetuates this harmful relationship between these restrictive behaviors. And then, of course, binge eating.

Speaker 1: 18:44

And the next thing we need to make sure we address is emotional regulation and how your ways of coping, and maybe your male adaptive coping mechanisms, can contribute to binge eating, because binge eating can really serve as a way to cope with these difficult emotions in life and also around binge eating. So binge eating often is a coping mechanism for stress, anxiety, sadness, boredom, all of those things that are harder emotions to sit with. So emotional regulation is really important and having that awareness around how you do cope with emotions, what are your strategies? One thing to ask yourself right now is to kind of assess if this is something you're struggling with is ask yourself how do I currently regulate my emotions? Do you want to walk? Do you call a friend? Do you breathe it out? Do you do some yoga? Do you dance? Do you journal? Now, if what comes to mind is binge eating or restriction or something with your relationship with food or body image, that's a big sign to emotionally regulating through your relationship with food and body. So it's really important to recognize that these factors can really interact with each other and reinforce each other and then creates a cycle and it's really challenging to break without proper support, proper education, proper intervention and help.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Treating this involves addressing all of these underlying things and challenging these harmful beliefs around food, in body image, and you can absolutely create a healthier relationship with food and conquer binge eating. I will say it again and again it is absolutely possible. If you are struggling with binge eating and you have been trying all the wrong things that I have mentioned and you are focusing on binge eating shaming, binge eating and you haven't addressed restriction, your relationship with your body, diets, the shame. There is so much hope out there for you to conquer binge eating. You can be free of this and you deserve to be free of this.

Speaker 1: 21:02

So let me know if you have any more questions around binge eating, specifically misconceptions around it. I love to answer your questions and further support you. Thank you for tuning in to Bites in Body Love, ready for true food and body freedom. Apply to join my program True Body Image Freedom for Everybody, where we will guide you every step of the way. Dm me at jamieRD underscore on Instagram or Facebook for a no pressure conversation so we can learn more about you and your fit for the program. Remember, every step toward loving your body is a victory. Subscribe and leave a review to support our message of body liberation. Stay awesome and see you next time You've got this.