Katy Harvey: Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust with Your Body. I am Katy Harvey, your host, and today on the show we are going to talk about that moment. I know that you know, the moment I am talking about it is that moment after you’ve had a binge, you weren’t planning on it, it caught you off guard, and now you’re sitting there thinking, well, I’ve blown it and I’ve ruined intuitive eating.

What is wrong with me? And then before you know it, you’re Googling things like how to detox after a binge and you’re eyeing your pantry and thinking, maybe I should just throw all of this stuff out. I will start over. I’ll start fresh on Monday. I’ve been there. I get it. Here’s the deal, that impulse to fix it and to make up for it or to get back on track, that is diet culture sneaking in through the back door and it’s wearing intuitive eating as a disguise basically.

I can you picture, you know, that like old cliche thing? Um. Where they would, uh, have the disguise with like the glasses and the mustache. That’s what I’m pretending, or I’m imagining that it is, and that’s what diet culture sometimes does. So in this episode, we’re gonna talk about what to do after a binge without turning it into punishment for yourself, without turning it into compensation and without turning it into dieting.

And I’m going to walk you through why binging might. Still be happening to you, even if you’re not actively restricting. We’re gonna cover common mistakes that people make after a binge, even when they have the best of intentions. We’re gonna talk about what not to do after a binge, and then I’m going to give you a three step compassionate framework for what to do and how to reconnect with your body and how to move forward.

No guilt, no punishment. No starting over. Sound good? I like it. Okay. Before we dive you into that main topic, you know what time it is. We’ve got some wellness. Woo. To talk about. Wellness. Woo is the stuff that diet and wellness culture tells us we should do in the name of health, but it’s really based on pseudoscience, exaggerated claims or just nonsense.

Today’s wellness woo is Oz Patch. I almost rolled my eyes right out of my head when I first saw this. It came through my social media feed and. They’re obviously trying to imply that this patch does the same thing as ozempic, right? So what is the ozone patch? Well, it’s a patch. You can get it off Amazon and you stick it onto your skin.

And what it contains is glycerin, microcrystalline wax, mineral oil are artemesia, I think is how you say it. Vulgaris root. Ginger cinnamon bark and paonia lacto flora root. Basically it’s some supplements in a patch and interestingly, I was reading the description and I was like, well, let’s see what claims they’re making.

Let, let’s see how bold they’re getting here. All that they claim is that it firms and titans, and keeps you in good shape. They’re not even making weight loss claims. They don’t even believe in their own product enough to claim that it produces weight loss. Although they are clearly wanting to imply AKA trick you into thinking that that’s what this will do for you by calling it Ozzy patch.

Just to be clear, there is no scientific evidence that any of these things are going to produce weight loss. And as a side note. It is interesting to me as I’m reading this list of ingredients and some of them I can barely pronounce, which is that thing of like, you shouldn’t eat anything you can’t pronounce.

Right. And how. People are often so willing to take these types of supplements or slap these things on their body and to feel like it’s totally safe. It’s no big deal. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t, but if it does, that would be amazing because this is natural, but. On the other hand, if your doctor said, Hey, your, your cholesterol is high, you need to be on a statin, there’s a good chance you would hesitate and say, no, no, no.

I don’t wanna do that. Let me try some lifestyle changes first. Like, I need to go the natural route. But yet we’re willing to do these wild things with crazy ingredients that are not evidence-based, that they’re not even regulated by the FDA and will do that in a heartbeat. Before we would take an FDA regulated medication that has tons and tons and tons of scientific research behind it on safety, dosing effectiveness, what are the appropriate uses and all that jazz.

So just a little side note there. Anyway, back to the Oz Z patch. The reviews are terrible, absolutely terrible. Tons of one and two star reviews, and everybody in the reviews is saying I didn’t lose weight so clearly. That’s why they bought it and what they thought it would do. Even though the product is not even claiming that it produces weight loss, the name of the product is misleading.

So bottom line, this product is a scam and it’s total woo. Always view these types of things with a critical eye. Okay, that’s enough of that. Moving on to today’s main topic, how to get back to intuitive eating after a binge, without punishing yourself and without treating it like a diet. Let’s talk about why the binge happened in the first place, because I can promise you it didn’t come out of nowhere, and it’s not just about willpower or losing control.

If you’ve been working on intuitive eating and you end up in a binge, it’s easy to think, what the heck? I thought I was past this. Here’s the thing, binging isn’t random. It doesn’t just fall out of the sky and it’s not a sign that intuitive eating isn’t working or that you’re a failure that that you’re too far gone.

Any of that stuff, it’s actually a really huge, valuable clue that something deeper is going on beneath the surface. Maybe you’re not dieting anymore. But you’re still thinking like a diet or, or your brain is still viewing food in those ways and reacting to food in those ways. Like you’re technically letting yourself eat the pasta and the brownies for dessert, but you’re still judging them in your head and.

Maybe there’s days where you’re running on fumes all day, and by 9:00 PM your body is screaming loud enough to override all of your intentions, and you’re like, oh, I can’t believe I binged. I had a decent dinner. I was full after dinner. But if you ran on fumes all day long, it would stand to reason that at the end of the day, your body’s like, Hey, yo, I still haven’t had enough fuel for the day in whole today.

And this is the part that no one talks about when they say, just listen to your body, because sometimes your body is trying to speak to you through a binge. So instead of trying to jump in and fix this or clean it up or punish yourself or make up for it, let’s slow down and let’s ask ourselves, what is the binge trying to tell me What need isn’t being met?

What pattern might still be playing out that I need to pay attention to? So we want to, we’ll wanna start with normalizing rather than pathologizing, and to start by taking the moral judgment off the table. A binge is not proof that you suck, you’re a loser, or that you’re broken. That tends to be how we feel afterwards, right?

A binge is a protective response from your body or your nervous system, and it’s a way that your body is trying to help you cope, to soothe, to survive, to get your needs met. Binging is a symptom, not a problem. I’m gonna say that to you again because I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of people who struggle with binge eating, and everybody assumes that the binging itself is the problem.

Of course, it’s the thing you wanna get rid of and stop doing, but I can tell you this with with so much certainty in my soul, the binge is the symptom. Not the problem. And when we can look at it that way, it completely changes the way we are viewing things. Your body’s not misbehaving when you binge.

It’s reacting to something and that something is often very subtle and complex. Like yes, sometimes it can happen because oh my gosh, I got ravenously hungry, I was starving and I just ate and inhaled all the things. Sure. That’s a very obvious binge. Again, the binge is the symptom of the fact that you didn’t eat enough earlier.

Not the problem in and of itself, but a lot of times the something. Has nothing to do with the food itself. It might be completely unrelated to food, or it could be related to sneaky ways that your di your brain is still holding onto remnants of diet culture thinking. So let’s talk about some of the triggers for binging that aren’t always as obvious.

Number one is mental restriction. So you’re physically allowing all foods, but you’re mentally still judging them. So you eat the ice cream, but you think, Ugh, I shouldn’t have eaten that. And so your brain hears the judgment and responds as if the restriction is happening, and it sets off the binge and restriction cycle.

Another reason that is less obvious is what I call a subtle scarcity mindset. So those little things like, oh, I’ll be better tomorrow, or, I can’t keep doing this. It’s activating that diet part of your brain, even if you’re not on Weight Watchers or keto or intermittent fasting anymore. You’re still having those thoughts that you learned from dieting, and so when you’re thinking, I’ll be better tomorrow, or I can’t keep doing this, it creates an urgency to eat it all now, which can drive that last supper binge like behavior.

This next one is the one that I see the most often. That’s the least obvious to people I. It’s emotional suppression. So the food is serving as a buffer or as a coping mechanism for emotions that you have not learned how to sit with yet. And the binge gives you a temporary sense of relief, distraction, numbing, soothing, especially if you’ve been trying to hold it all together in your life.

The binge can be kind of that release that you’re, it’s like that exhale where you go, ah, of course it’s temporary, and then you feel like crap afterwards and the cycle repeats itself. With those emotions, though, again, the, the tricky part with this is a lot of times the emotions have absolutely nothing to do with food.

They have something to do with something else in your life, and you may be so detached from those emotions that you have no freaking clue what it is. That’s where the work begins. We’ve gotta start to get curious about that and connect those dots. Another, uh, less obvious or uncommon, not uncommon, but less obvious, um, trigger for binging is.

Perfectionism and all or none thinking. So it’s that thing where you feel like you messed up and then you go, screw it. I already blew it. And you just go back for more. It’s, it’s the what the heck response where you throw in the towel or you, um, you know, completely shame yourself of like, oh, I haven’t binged in so long and now I did.

And it’s like I’m starting over or I’ve gone backwards, or I’m failing at intuitive eating or healing my relationship with food. And then this last one is, I, I kind of alluded to it before, um, but I wanna reiterate it again. Sometimes binges happen because of biological reasons. If you are undereating, if you’re skipping meals, if you’re going long gaps between eating, or it might be that you’re eating enough technically, but if you’re not eating enough of a certain nutrient, like if you’re not eating enough carbs or you’re not eating enough fat, or if you’re not getting enough.

Protein, sometimes the binge is your body’s way of trying to get what it so desperately wants and needs, and that’s why it’s really important that you’re not cutting out any food group or avoiding any nutrient group. And so even if completely unintentional, your body will eventually override your plans with this primal type of hunger.

Okay. I want, I also want to move into a little mindset shift here, and then we’re gonna talk about what not to do after a binge. The first mindset shift is that binging in this, you know, post dieting, you’re kind of in the messy middle with intuitive eating. In this stage, a binge often means that you’re at a critical growth edge.

You’re untangling decades of learned thoughts and behavior, and of course it’s going to feel complicated and complex and messy. These moments are data about what still needs healing. Not reasons to punish yourself or start over, it’s data about what still needs healing. This is golden information. It is treasure if you can approach it that way.

And I’m gonna show you how to do that in just a minute with my three step framework. Before we get into that though, let’s, let’s just get this out of the way. What not to do after a binge Don’t. Restrict the next day or try to make up for it. Don’t shame yourself or promise that you’re gonna start over clean on Monday or do a detox or anything like that.

Don’t punish yourself with exercise and don’t treat intuitive eating like it’s a streak that you’ve broken. Th this is not a streak. You’re not on a bandwagon. There’s no wagon to fall off of it. It’s just a process and an experience of learning to relate to your body differently. It’s not this thing that you’re on or off with it.

Okay. What to do instead. I’m gonna give you a three step compassionate framework here. Step number one is to pause and get curious rather than judging yourself. This is the hardest part because your, your tendency is going to be that you wanna judge yourself. You go to shame, you’re frustrated with your yourself, you’re angry, but I want you to remember, pause and get curious and to ask yourself what was going on before the binge.

What were my physical needs? What was my emotional state? What unmet needs might I have had today? And let your binge be information and be data for you. Let it be a signal for you to look at what’s going on, not a character flaw. Think about the binge as like the warning light is going on on your dashboard of your car, and it’s signaling you, Hey, something needs attention.

To help you with this part, ’cause a lot of people have a very hard time connecting these dots. Like, what was it that I was actually thinking, feeling, or needing outside of the binge? I want you to go grab my free worksheet that is going to help you with this. Go to non diet academy.com/binge cycle and it’s gonna help you understand the reasons that you are binging.

This part is really important. Do not skip over it. And the key is to do it with curiosity and not judgment. Again, it’s at non-diet academy.com/binge cycle, and the link for that is in the show notes for you. Step number two. So first we’ve gotten curious. Step number two is to reground yourself in self-compassion.

So remind yourself I don’t have to earn my next meal. And to practice giving yourself the same kindness that you would a friend or a child. I know this sounds cheesy as all get out, but I swear to you it works. If you were to ask yourself, what would I say to my best dearest friend right now? Or what would I say to a child if I was caring for them and they binged and they felt bad, their stomach hurt, they were upset.

You wouldn’t. Yell at them or shame them or tell them how stupid they were, how disgusting they were. You would automatically go to compassion. I can pretty much guarantee you that you need to do the same thing for yourself. It’s not gonna feel comfortable or true at first. When you do it, you’re gonna be like, this is so stupid.

I don’t actually believe this, but you’ve got to practice doing it, or you’re never gonna create that neural pathway in your brain. And if you need to borrow my compassion, do it. Channel my my energy. Listen to your Katy voice. It’s always funny to me when people are like, I heard you in my head. I’m like, that’s amazing.

It’s a little creepy, but it’s also amazing. And then use some type of grounding tool that’s gonna help you physically ground in your body. Because the temptation after a binge is to disconnect and basically dissociate from your body because it feels bad. We actually need your brain. To register the fact that this didn’t feel good, not in a shaming way, but as just purely a matter of fact data point, that that does not feel good to be overly full, because otherwise what happens is you binge and then you detach from the physical sensation afterwards, and all of the data then that your brain has is, oh, I binged.

And that food tasted so good and it made me feel so good because it helped me to distract and numb and soothe. So your brain then is wired to think, oh, that feels good. That’s a useful behavior because you’re not staying connected with the part where it feels like crap afterwards. We need your brain to have that deterrent that your brain knows.

Yeah, I could binge and it would feel good for a minute, but it’s gonna feel really bad afterwards. It’s kind of like, you know how if you’ve ever had the stomach flu. Sometimes you have this memory of what you ate before you got sick, and you’re just like, Nope, I can’t. Nope. It’s like your brain has formed this association with that food, and even if it was just a virus and it had nothing to do with the food, or if it was just that food had.

Foodborne illness, and you know, not every batch of that food is gonna make you sick. Your brain is still just like, Nope, nope. Don’t wanna do that. We, we want your brain. Your brain is smart about these things, and we want your brain to be able to remember this doesn’t feel good. Again, not in a judgmental way, but purely as a data point to help you because your body is so smart and your body will help you.

When you stay connected to it. So I want you to get re-grounded in your body and stay with your body. I love putting my hand over my heart when I’m having a hard time, when I’m having a hard moment. I put both hands, one hand over the other on top of my heart, and I put some pressure on it and it’s almost like giving myself a hug.

And it’s interesting to feel my nervous system regulating as I do it. I like to see if I can feel under my, my hands for my heartbeat, that that helps me to create some mindful awareness. And, um, sometimes just breathing into that for 10 breaths can be so powerful. Uh, another one that can be really helpful is take your shoes off and feel your feet on the carpet or the floor, or even like, go outside into the grass and you’re like literally grounding yourself And do a mindful, slow walk for a little bit.

You could also do some journaling. Uh, music is another one. Especially if you can like, let yourself move your body to the rhythm of the music, that can be really helpful. So play around with some of these things as a way to stay connected with your body rather than dissociating from it. And then step number three in our compassionate framework is reconnecting with your body in terms of your hunger and fullness, and to reassure yourself, I can eat again when I am hungry.

I trust my body to tell me when I’m ready. The other thing I will say, it’s tempting to skip your next meal or snack if you’ve binged. And to try to kind of make up for it that way. Don’t do that. Don’t skip, don’t compensate. But it is okay to kind of wait for that hunger to come back. And when you have some mild hunger, go ahead and eat something.

Now, if it’s a situation where you’ve binge and then you’re not hungry when it’s time for your next meal, it’s okay to delay that a little bit, like maybe an hour and check back in. And if at that point you’re not hungry yet, you might try eating a little something. I don’t want you to make yourself feel sick.

Sick, but you might try eating a little something just to settle your stomach and kind of, um, show your body that like we’re not restricting. And, uh, to, to again, reassure yourself that probably by the time tomorrow rolls around and you wake up, you’re gonna feel back to normal again and ask yourself some gentle questions as you’re reconnecting.

So when you are ready to eat and when you are hungry, like what would feel satisfying right now? What would feel nourishing right now? Not from a good food, bad food standpoint, but like what would feel good in my body? What would feel good to my body? Right now? You can ask yourself, how does my body feel today?

What does my body need? What do I have available to me? What foods do I even have to choose from and from those foods, what sounds like the most satisfying option? You can also ask yourself, what do I want to eat and what does my body need? And we can pair those two things together. So it, it’s not about making up for it, it’s about reconnecting with your body, reconnecting with your appetite, reconnecting with satisfaction, and not restricting, punishing and depriving yourself afterwards.

So I’ve got a couple mindset reframes for you here and then we’ll wrap up. Uh, the first one is, a binge is not a failure. It is feedback. It is data. The next one is that diet culture tells you that you need to fix the binge or make up for it. Intuitive eating says we need to listen to the binge. I actually want you to write that one down.

You don’t need to fix the binge or punish yourself for it. You need to listen to it, and you need to get curious about what it’s telling you. And then the last magnet reframe that I’m gonna leave you with is that healing. It’s like building a relationship. And these moments of disconnection are then an opportunity to return to connection, to repair, and to deepen the trust.

You are literally rebuilding trust with your body. That’s the name of this podcast. That is what we are doing here. Okay, so let’s, let’s wrap up. I’m gonna recap those three steps of the, um, compassion framework for what to do after a binge. Get curious, give yourself compassion. Then reconnect with your body.

1, 2, 3. And the thing that I want you to be asking yourself next time you binge is what is the binge trying to tell me? Don’t forget to go grab the breaking the binge cycle worksheet to help you break down your triggers for a binge and to understand what it’s telling you that’s gonna help you with that piece.

And what it’s ultimately gonna do is also help prevent you from binging because you have more awareness of what it is that you need in the first place. So that’s at non diet academy.com/binge cycle. And in case nobody has told you today, you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.

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