How Does It Make Sense? Jane Pilger on Binge Eating, Shame, and Self-Compassion

In this powerful episode of Don’t Fk*n Shrink, Daffney Allwein sits down with Jane Pilger, Certified Binge Eating and Body Trust Coach, host of the Binge Eating Breakthrough™ podcast, and endurance athlete.

Jane shares her 25-year journey of struggling with binge eating, the moment she realized food was a tool for safety, and how she finally broke free from shame by understanding the connection between the nervous system, emotions, and behavior.

This isn’t a conversation about food rules or willpower. It’s about healing your relationship with yourself, rewriting old stories, and finding compassion for the part of you that learned to survive.

✨ In this episode:

• The real difference between binge eating and overeating
  
  
• How food becomes a coping mechanism for safety
  
  
• The “safety paradox” and why comfort foods can feel like a threat
  
  
• The eight reasons people struggle with food and how to heal them
  
  
• Why shame and judgment keep you stuck
  
  
• How to regulate your nervous system for long-term change
  
  
• The surprising link between self-respect, curiosity, and recovery
  
  

💬 “We are asking the wrong questions. Instead of ‘What’s wrong with me?’ ask ‘How does this make sense?’” – Jane Pilger

🎧 Listen now to reclaim your power and finally make peace with food.

To learn more about the food habit 'Safety Paradox' keeping you stuck and the '8 Reasons Why' Strategy

Connect with Jane directly at https://www.janepilger.com/

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Transcript

0:00

We are asking the wrong questions. What questions do we ask? We say, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I figure this out? Why don't I do the things I know I'm supposed to do?" These are terrible questions because your brain is going to go find all the evidence of what's wrong with you and why you can't do this and why you'll always be this way. But if we can say, "How does this make sense?" Your brain will figure it out. In the beginning, it will be like, "I don't know." But if you keep asking from that true curiosity and compassion place, you will find some amazing answers for yourself that will then help us really be able to now kind of look at the other reasons. Hey, everybody, and thank you for joining us on another episode of Don't F*kn Shrink the Podcast. We all have different relationships with food and what that means and our likes and our dislikes. Sometimes we don't know if the decisions we're making are the healthiest and has to do with stress or things outside of us helping to make those decisions or if we need to dig a little deeper some days. I am joined by Jane Pilger. And Jane Pilger is actually a binge eating and body trust coach and expert in my mind. She's a fellow podcaster, author, and much to my own heart, an endurance athlete. So we will dig into that because Jane's got some big news on that front too. Hi, Jane. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to just dive into all things food, relationships with food, exploring the complicated relationship with food, no matter who you are. If you are listening to this podcast, I can guarantee there are some times you show up with food in ways that you're like, "What just happened? Why did I just do that? Why did I eat this thing that I said I wasn't going to eat?" And my goal for you is whether you are a person who overall is like, "Yeah, food." You know, like, "Yeah, sometimes it's a little weird." Or you're one of these people who literally thinks about food nonstop and wishes that your brain wasn't filled with thoughts of food and what you are going to eat or what you did eat or what you should or shouldn't eat all day long. Wherever you fall in the food spectrum, my goal is that you will get something out of our conversation today that really can just help you in your own relationship with food. Maybe even think about things kind of in a new way and from a new perspective that just might open up some new possibilities for you.(Jade) I love that. So well said. So I could not have done that better because it is true. And this is going to be a really important conversation that I think everybody can benefit from. Sometimes it's just a punchline on a rom-com or whatever it is. But we all think about food like when we're stressed at work or when our family is coming to visit. And it's so important we're having this conversation, let's call it pre-holidays, when a lot of us take this liberty to indulge a little further for what we call comfort food, right? Now, we're not shaming anybody today. We're not telling you that you have a problem. We're not diagnosing you. We're not. But we just want to make you very aware that you have some control here. You have some skin in the game. You have the ability to step back in those really tough moments or those tough patterns, as we're going to talk about here too, and have some real control. So we're going to give you control back, give you a little more cognitive perspective on maybe why you're doing those things and also how to regulate your nervous system because that's huge here, right? We're not eating comfort food because we're excited and happy and motivated. We're uncomfortable at the very least. So, Jane, you have a history with binge eating. Is that correct? Yes. And that's really informed how you help others now and how you coach others. Can you tell us a little bit about your story? Yeah, absolutely. So I would say for me, when I really talk about, and even when I think about my binge eating and my binge eating history, I really go back to this one very vivid moment in time. And it really wasn't the start of it all, but it really was my very first binge. And so because it was my first binge, the brain really remembers events that have pretty high emotion attached to them on either end of the spectrum. And I think that's why this is such a vivid memory for me. It was my first semester in college, which I did not know at the time, but I have come to discover many, many people struggle with food and kind of like their, even their binge eating starts right around that kind of time of college. But it was my first semester in college. I was in my dorm room. I was sitting on the floor. I had received a care package. It was a box filled with, it was right around this time of year. It was probably October. I had received a care package with, that was filled with a bunch of miniature sized candy bars. And I had eaten the entire box. I have no idea how many there were, but what I remember, I don't remember the binge itself, but I remember sitting on the floor with that empty box in front of me and just empty wrappers just strewn all around me. And I remember looking around and just thinking, Oh my gosh, what have I just done? And I was filled with shame. And I was also filled with this like determination of I will never do this again. And nobody will ever know what just happened. And so that to me, I can look back and see it really started years before that with extreme dieting, with the inability to name or process emotions with there's so many things that happened before that. But that to me really was kind of like the start. And I proceeded for 25 years to try to stop binge eating. And for many of those years, it was all in silence on my own. I did seek the support of some eating disorder therapists. Ultimately, I went through two rounds of intensive outpatient therapy here at a local eating disorders treatment center. I was married before I told my husband. So we were together for probably three years before I even told him. Just so much shame. I was so convinced that he would never love me if he knew what I was doing, which spoiler alert was not the case. But I really through this whole journey, I remember telling myself, if I ever figure this out, I want to help other people. I want to help other people just knowing how much shame I was feeling, how challenging it was, how isolating it was, how much I felt like there was something so wrong with me and that nobody else could possibly understand. Nobody else could possibly know or certainly nobody else was doing the things that I was doing behind closed doors or in my car. I actually binged a lot in my car. And so that really was kind of my journey to getting here. And I would have these periods of time, and this is very common for people as well, is I would have these periods of time where I would be doing pretty well. I would be, the binging would kind of, I would feel like I was over it. It was gone. That was the thing of the past. And then something would happen. It would come back. I would kind of get back into the cycle. And it just felt like this never ending thing that I was just trying to stop and try to get rid of. Yeah. And for me, one of the last pieces of the puzzle for me was learning about the nervous system and really understanding what happens with the nervous system and how so many of us from a very young age, pretty wisely learn to figure out that food can be a calming source. It can. We wouldn't turn to food if it didn't provide us some sort of relief. It's like, it makes sense, right? But- And feeling something different. Yeah. If we don't really then get to know about the nervous system and understand when I started really learning about the nervous system and seeing, oh, that's what's going on. If I can now learn to respond to my nervous system through other ways, I essentially now have just a lot more tools in my toolbox instead of the one tool of food that may work very temporarily in the short term, but has so many lasting and more long-term consequences that at the end of the day, really aren't helpful for the nervous system. So it's like, we're just using the wrong tool. We have one tool in the toolbox and we're using the wrong one. And so if we now can start bringing more tools into the toolbox and realize, oh, this tool works in these circumstances and in these circumstances, actually a hammer is really much better or I need a screwdriver here or out. I need a level. It's like really expanding the options there. It's really interesting. I think the most important part of a lot of this is that identification. So sometimes we look at TV or we look at what we think binge eating is, what we think bulimia looks like, what we think bad relationships with food look like. And we tell ourselves that these are the extremes we stay away from. These are the no-no zones. We don't talk about this. It's that sort of thing. But you're right. You're getting relief. You're feeling something different in your body. So the nervous system is huge. But I think people could really benefit from understanding what that looks like. What does a binge feel like? What does it look like? Because somebody might be doing that right now and not realizing that that's categorically what binge eating is. Do you mind sort of giving? Yeah, no, it's a great exploration because I have definitely had many people come to me and say, "I had no idea that what I was doing was actually binge eating." After really kind of reading about this and studying and kind of listening to you talk and sharing some of your stories,"Oh, I realize that is me. I actually am doing that." And some other people are like, "Oh, actually no, I don't do that." So I will explain a little bit about just kind of the difference between a binge. Like what is a binge versus say just overeating? In general, there are certain, and I'm not going into the DSM classifications, all of that. This is just a general overview so that you can understand. Is this something that I have done or I have experienced or not? So with a binge, there's some general qualities to it. It's eating large quantities of food more than would typically be eaten at a general setting. Large quantities of food in a short period of time, there is often a sense of shame, a sense of kind of like wanting to hide. It is very often done in secret. Sometimes there can be kind of even unusual combinations of foods or you might be eating either the quantity, the type, or the combination of foods might be different than one would normally eat. And the other kind of hallmark quality of it is there is a perceived inability to stop. It feels very out of control. Like I literally can't stop eating. So there's like this compulsion. You just feel this drive, this compulsion to eat and to keep eating. And often in a binge, the thing that makes somebody stop is either somebody shows up, it might be, "Oh, I've got a meeting now, so I have to stop eating." Sometimes it's like literally, "I physically can't eat anymore." I would eat to the point where I was literally, I would be sweating. I would get sores in the roof of my mouth or just get to the point where I just literally could not eat anymore. And it's painful, probably painful. They could actually... Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. So either the shame was painful or the physical sensation was painful, or you were physically hurting your body with the ingestion, right? Yeah. I think that's really... And what happens with that is the thing that's really fascinating about it and the reason why I used to be so shocked at just how much food I could eat. It's like, "How can I eat so much food during a binge when I could never eat that much when I actually stay connected with myself?" And the reason is that we really end up dissociating. We dissociate from our bodies. We disconnect from our bodies. So some people, even with a binge, they might even say, "I don't even... I don't even... I don't experience it." It's almost like... I used to say that it was like turning the lights off on myself. It was like, once I started binging, there's no connection. There's no awareness. I'm not checking in. I'm not feeling into my body. There really is a true dissociation and disconnection, which is what allows so much food to come in because there really is that disconnection. Then in contrast, an overeat, for example, is imagine Thanksgiving Day. Imagine going to an all-you-can-eat buffet. It's like, "This is so good. I want to just keep eating." You're really enjoying it. You might know that you're really full. You might have more of a sense of, "Oh, wow. I feel like maybe I want to loosen my pants a little bit," or you feel that heaviness in your stomach. You're eating because it tastes really good. Maybe there is a sense of, "I don't want to leave anything behind. I don't want to waste food." Maybe there's a sense of, "I don't want to offend so and so. I don't want her to think that I don't like her cooking." Those types of things. But there's not usually a sense of shame, a sense of, "I'm broken. There's something wrong with me." I literally can't stop eating. Those are a bit of the hallmarks between binging and overeating. Thank you for clarifying that. I think that's one of those things where, and sometimes binging can come with bulimia or can come with different things because the reflex is there. If I'm being honest, I think that you've said it so well. When there's shame associated with what you're doing, it's behavioral. It's not a physical thing. It's not that I'm so hungry or that I got distracted for a second and I didn't realize that I ate so fast because that's a whole other consideration. For me, I had a sugar addiction. It's fueled by your gut. It's fueled by a lot of things. But what I was realizing is that I could eat endless amounts of sugar. I remember having a boyfriend or something in college and he was like,"How are you not diabetic?" But what was happening is sugar was something I learned as a kid that when things were really uncomfortable, when I was sad and I wasn't allowed to be sad, I wasn't allowed to have emotions. Sugar was this friend that I had that would keep me up. In my mind, there wasn't as much shame behind it because I wasn't doing drugs. I wasn't drinking or doing drugs like other kids. But what we don't realize is that follows us. If we don't address that behavior, that follows us and that followed me well into adulthood. Things were uncomfortable. Please don't leave a bag of chocolate around. I think one of the jokes when I was a kid was that no one could hide chocolate or candy in the house because I would find it. I just had a beacon for it and it was gone. It's because I didn't know how to work with my emotions. I wasn't afforded the opportunity to have emotions, to have reactions, to have conversations. In order to keep up this energy all the time, sugar was my friend. It wasn't until I addressed it later. This is the perfect example of what I call the safety paradox. You growing up, it's like, "Oh, well, sugar was a source of safety. Sugar was the comfort. Sugar was the thing that I went to when I didn't have other people or when I had emotions, I went to sugar. Sugar was this source of safety for me." Then what happens is then over time, this thing that once was a source of comfort now becomes a threat. Even the way that you said it, it's like,"Don't leave a bag of chocolates around me because it's dangerous. I will eat it all." So that one thing, so the safety paradox is the food that once was a source of safety, then becomes a source of threat. Even if it still feels like,"Oh yeah, sugar is the thing. It's what calms me. It's what soothes me," most people then, when they are actually eating it, there's this paradoxical feeling where it's like,"Okay, on the one hand, I am feeling some sort of relief, but on the other hand, there's also this other voice telling me, "Don't do that. You shouldn't be doing this. This is bad." All of that is happening. Now there's really not even safety in that thing that once was safety. It really does become this very paradoxical thing where now what we have to learn is how do I create safety in other ways? How do I create safety outside of food, outside of sugar, or whatever the thing is that has been my source of safety? What we have to do is not just take sugar out. It's a matter of realizing from the nervous system lens and from that perspective, "Oh, I need other sources of safety." I think what makes the most sense, if you don't mind digging into the safety paradox a little bit, I'm going to put it up on the screen here and also put a link here in our show notes too so that the folks can really get a sense of what this means and maybe just sort of a visual representation. Can you tell us what safety paradox feels like there is? Yeah. So I mean, literally it is those foods that once were a source of safety. So think back for yourself. If you are listening to this podcast, is there one food that you're like, "Oh, this is the food, like my version of comfort food." Whatever it is, think for you. What is your version of that comfort food? So for everybody, it's going to be different. You can also even think about why, like what is the association? So for me, it's like this, it's kind of people would call it like monkey bread, essentially. It's like cinnamon sugar deliciousness, right? Okay. And then you think about why. Why is it? What memories do I have with that food? So for me, I can think back to family on the weekends, we would make coffee cake as a family. And it was really the one time that we all kind of were together. My dad wasn't going off to work. We were connecting. I also have memories of eating brown sugar from the spoon in the pantry, hiding in the pantry and eating brown sugar. So for me, it's like that's that food. So think about for yourself, what is that food that you're kind of comfort food? Then think to yourself now, when you eat that food now, if you think back then it was a source of safety, even now it may still be a comfort food. But what happens for you now, when you eat that food? Does it still have that same quality of comfort, that same quality of, "I feel safe while I'm doing this?" Or is there some potential sense of threat also with that food? So for example, if you know, "Oh yes, I love this kind of monkey bread," but if I'm eating it and I'm thinking, "This is so bad for me. Once I start, I can't stop. I shouldn't be eating this. These bad things are going to happen to me if I eat this," those types of things. Now that food that was a source of comfort, it was a source of safety is now a source of threat. And so it's like the paradox of that is the safety paradox. So it sounds a little bit on the realms of addiction, right? Because it's like, "This is what helped me cope. And now I need this thing in order to jump that hurdle every single time." Is that similar? And you can help me? I don't know that I would necessarily see it as addiction. I mean, we could do a whole another podcast episode on addiction, the topic of addiction, all of that. But I think in this case, the answer to me, if we say, "Yes, this is like addiction," then the answer becomes,"Well, you just shouldn't eat that food because it's bad and it's causing these problems." And I don't believe that at all. I still very much eat monkey bread. I enjoy it. I love it. Do I eat it all the time? Is it my thing? If I'm struggling, I go eat that? No. But I create places in my life where I can still have the joy and the pleasure and the memories and all of that without the threat. So we can absolutely change our relationship with certain foods so that they aren't a threat anymore. And we can do that without just eliminating those foods entirely. And I think in an addiction model, the addiction model says, "I am powerless over sugar and therefore I don't eat sugar. I can't have sugar in my life. If I have it, then I go off the rails," all of that. And I have just seen too many people be able to have relationships with sugar, for example, that involve moderation, that involve intention, that involve very much control and don't involve the, "I'm powerless and once I start, I can't stop," type of scenario. So I love that. That's a good way to explain it. When you use the phrase, "Remove the threat," can you tell me what that means? Yeah. So this is really from the lens of the nervous system. So the nervous system is basically our command center between... It's a two-way communication between our brain and our body. It's always running 24 hours a day and it's two ways. So our body's constantly communicating with our brain. Our brain is constantly communicating with our body. So it really does matter what's happening inside as well as what's happening outside, as well as what has happened in our past, in our previous experiences. And the nervous system really has one primary job, which is to keep us alive. And it's always scanning and it's scanning with one question in mind, which is, "Am I safe?" Always asking, "Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe?" If I'm not safe, then my job is to do anything that I have to do in order to keep myself safe and to keep me alive. And the brain's job really beyond survival is it really loves to seek pleasure. It loves to avoid pain and it loves to use as little energy as possible. And so it's important for us to know that's how the brain works. It's important for us to know how the nervous system works. It's important for us to know when the brain senses danger, senses a threat, what happens in our nervous system. So you hear people talk about fight or flight. We hear people talk about freezing. Fight or flight often happens in terms of binge eating or eating from a place of when we get really activated. We have a lot of energy in our body that's like, "Maybe I'm stressed. Maybe I'm overwhelmed. Maybe I'm angry. Maybe I'm frustrated. I've got a lot of this energy in my body." What happens is that the nervous system is like, "Oh, there's too much energy here. We're kind of like going, going, going with our foot on the brake or on the gas pedal. We need to slow down. We need to bring this energy down." And we learn somehow, a lot of times way back when, we learned that food will kind of drain that energy. And so we might find that we turn to food when we're stressed, when we're anxious, when we're overwhelmed, when we're angry to kind of try to drain that energy. But what happens, especially with binge eating, is that we eat, but we eat so much. And what's happening with the internal dialogue, while we're eating these large amounts of food, we also are saying really mean awful things about ourselves. And so then we kind of go all the way down through the regulated part of the nervous system down to a place of freeze and collapse. And that's where we're on the couch and we're scrolling and we're in the, "I can't believe I did it again," or we're watching Netflix and we can't get off the couch or whatever, whatever it is. That's kind of what happens just in a nutshell with the nervous system. And so because the nervous system is always asking, always scanning for danger, always asking, "Am I safe?" When we have these certain foods that we have deemed for whatever reason aren't safe. So if we go back to the safety paradox, that food's not safe. You said it yourself, a bag of chocolate was not safe. It's not safe in the house. It's not safe around me. So I've deemed that is not safe. So as soon as I see it, there's a threat, threat to my nervous system. If you are a person, for example, if you are listening and going to the grocery store is hard for you, which just know if going to the grocery store is hard for you, you are so not alone, is a very, very challenging for a lot of people to go to the grocery store. But it's a perfect example of when food becomes a threat. It's like, it's not safe. I can't go in there. I see all these foods. They're calling to me. Whatever it is, there's this perception of these foods are a threat. They are not safe. And just automatically then I'm in a survival response. My brain, I'm either going to shut down or I'm going to be in this fight or flight place, which is going to make me more likely to then turn to food to try to regulate myself because I've done it so many times before. And this is how we kind of can get, it's one of the ways that we can get stuck in a cycle with food. That makes perfect sense. And you know, there's all sorts of different neurodivergence and we've studied and realized that ADHD might be a factor in some of this neurodivergence. But I think that you said it well, it is the disconnect. It's like your brain takes over and just shuts down all the feedback from your body and that in that sort of case, almost like there's a blockage here. And your brain starts coming up with different ways to work problems or work fears, legitimate or not. I think one of the other things that you really did a great job doing is sort of highlighted some of the eight whys for a lot of people. And I think that's, you know, that might be a really great way. And we can put that here in the show notes as well as right here on the screen for you guys to follow. But maybe you're going back and forth, you haven't really decided if this applies to you or not, or because it may or may not, or maybe somebody you know or someone you love. And thank you, Jane, for saying that the best thing you can do is tell somebody you love what's going on in your brain and what's happening. Jane, do you mind going over some of these eights? Yeah, yeah. So in my work over the years, I have really come to discover there are eight primary reasons why people struggle with food. So whether we're talking binge eating or just those moments when you show up with food in ways that you're like, Oh, why did I do that? Why did I eat that food? Whatever it is, right? Every single human has had those moments with food. And there really are eight primary reasons why. Now, I think it's very important to know why, because as soon as we understand the why, now we have a roadmap and we know where to go in order to, you know, now kind of start looking at it. So I have a metaphor that I use, which is any time you have a moment with food that you don't like. So it could be a binge. It could be you just, you know, ate, I don't know, you weren't going to eat dessert and you ate dessert. It could be you were watching TV and all of a sudden now that bag of chips is empty, whatever it is. Anytime you have a moment with food that doesn't really align with the type of eater that you want to be, I consider that a light on the dashboard. This is just telling us there's something going on under the hood, right? So if you have your car, you're driving your car and all of a sudden one of the lights comes on, you know, oh, there's something going on. If I don't address this, then my car ultimately is going to stop working. I either need to get gas. I need to get my engine checked. I need to check my oil, whatever it is. The same thing is with our moments with food. It's like that is just a light on the dashboard. We don't have to now say, oh, and now I have to get the sugar out of the house. Now I have to stop eating this food. I have to, you know, only eat, I have to stop eating three hours before bedtime or whatever all the stupid rules are that are out there. It's not that it's let me look under the hood to see what is causing these lights to come on in the first place. And then if I know what's causing the lights to come on, now I can go to work on those areas. So we'll go through the eight reasons and each reason has a corresponding solution, which is great because then it's like, oh, well now, now I know where I can work. So for you. Yes, exactly. So if you are listening, if you are watching, my encouragement for you is to really listen to these reasons and think for yourself, identify a couple that are like, oh yeah, I think that actually would probably be really, if I could work in this one area, it really would make a difference for me and my relationship with food. Now, before we get into them, I want to warn you, you may be like, uh, all of the above. And if you are in the all of the above category, I want you to know you are not alone. Many, many, many people identify with all eight. This doesn't mean you are a problem. It does not mean you're broken. It does not mean you're hopeless. It just means, oh, well, it makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense why we have these challenges with food, but now we have a roadmap in terms of where we can go and what we can work on next. So with that said, let's go into the eight reasons. The number one reason is shame and judgment. So if our moments with food are a light on the dashboard and we really want to get under the hood to see what's going on, shame judgment are is like that 50 pound weight that is on the hood of the car. We can't even get under the hood if we are in shame and judgment about what we've done. So what does shame and judgment look like? It looks like shame is the like, I am bad. I am broken. There's something flawed and terribly wrong with me. Judgment is more of the, I can't believe I did that. I know better. Why don't I do better? It's those kind of just like those, those places that we're just really mean to ourselves. So shame and judgment is the number one reason we can't even get under the hood if that 50 pound weight of shame and judgment is there. So then what's the, what's the solution? The solution to shame and judgment is just to understand, to understand why. So this is where we shift from shame and judgment into curiosity and compassion. And we start to ask the question, how does it make sense? If you get nothing from this episode and you remember one thing, what I would love for you to remember is this question. How does it make sense? How does it make sense that I just ate in the way that I did? And we can start to really, oh, you know what? I didn't get very much sleep last night or, you know, somebody said something to me. Oh, I'm trying to work on this project and I'm really worried that I'm not going to get it done on time. So I started eating instead. There's so many really good answers. So how does it make sense is, is a gold mind of a question. And I'll tell you this about the brain. The brain will always, 100% of the time, go to work to answer any question that you give it. Now here's where we kind of unintentionally get this wrong. We are asking the wrong questions. What questions do we ask? We say, what's wrong with me? Why can't I figure this out? Why don't I do the things I know I'm supposed to do? These are terrible questions because your brain is going to go find all the evidence of what's wrong with you and why you can't do this and why you'll always be this way. But if we can say, how does this make sense? Your brain will figure it out. In the beginning, it will be like, I don't know. But if you keep asking from that true curiosity and compassion place, you will find some amazing answers for yourself that will then help us really be able to now kind of look at the other reasons. So reason number one is shame and judgment. Reason number two is restriction. Restriction comes in different categories. It could be physical restriction, which is I'm eliminating food groups. I'm eliminating certain types of food. I'm just literally not eating enough calories to sustain what my body just needs over time. It could also be mental restriction, which is don't eat that. Those foods are bad. When we classify foods as good and bad, when we go into an environment and we say don't eat too much, those types of things are really subtle forms, but they are very impactful for the brain and the nervous system, especially a body that has been on many diets in the past. Speaking of the threat response, the nervous system that's always scanning for danger, that is always saying, am I safe? If you have been on restrictive diets in the past, which most people have, then the brain remembers that. And the brain catalogs these situations that in the past were really challenging and were kind of threatening to us. The brain catalogs it and says, never again. Never again will you starve me. Never again will whatever happen. And so the brain works really hard to make sure that doesn't happen. So if then you start trying to diet and it's kind of reminiscent for your brain and your nervous system of those old diets that you've been on in the past, your nervous system can kind of be like, alert, alert, she's starving us again. No, no, no, this will never happen again. And that's how we can really get into the restrict bench cycle where we are, we're swinging from one end of the pendulum to the other, not eating enough food. And then the brain and the body's trying to overcompensate. I don't know if you're going to feed me. I don't know when you're going to feed me again. I'm going to get as much as I can. So that's a, it's a real big, that's another place we really sometimes unintentionally get ourselves kind of on the cycle. And so the solution. Oh yeah. It's also like food education in some ways. I know you say good food, bad food. One of the things I do as a fitness professional with, with young kids is exactly like you said, when, when we start having those conversations early on, parents mean well, but these are good food, bad foods. And I think what I learned from someone else, because that's where the real expertise of parenting comes from, is I started categorizing foods in go food and grow food with my daughter. And in the catalog of, you need the grow foods and we've had enough go foods today already, right? Because there's no shame associate. And it's funny, we know this now, you know, the generation of people who were not allowed to eat fat, right? Remember we were all, we were all on a fat free diet as children, whatever, whatever we could eat margarine, which is still in our system to this day. But this comes down to education, right? Like how we even look at food. But is that, is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's, I talk a lot about that. It's not, it's not the food. It really is what's, what's going on underneath. But at the same time, do we need to be educated about food? Yes, we do. But if we are, if we're only looking at food from a place of these foods are bad, these foods are scary, these foods will do evil, awful things to you. There's so much morality involved and a hallmark trait of somebody who struggles with food, particularly with binge eating is all or nothing black or white. There can really be some perfectionism. I'm either eating perfectly, exactly. I'm eating, eating perfectly or I'm just not even like, I'm literally like, I may, I may even be counting my calories. I may be looking at all, I'm tracking all my macros, everything. And then as soon as I'm off a little bit, then forget it. I'm not going to look, I'm not going to, I'm just going to, I'm because I'm going to be perfect tomorrow. Now I'm going to go, you know, do as much as, as I can right now because there's not that limitation on me. Yeah. Yeah. So the, so the, the solution for, for the problem of restriction is sounds very straightforward. It's to remove restrictions and it is much easier said than done because for some people they say, Oh, well I tried that. I tried removing restrictions and then I just ate anything I wanted anytime I wanted. And I felt miserable. I gained weight really fast and I still wanted those foods all of the time. So how does that work? Which is way beyond the scope of this podcast, but there is a way to remove restrictions that doesn't have you in the, like now I'm just lethargic and still craving and eating all the foods all of the time. And there is also a way that doesn't have you like never eating sugar again. Like there very much is a beautiful place in the middle where all foods can fit. So if there's a matter of kind of really looking at that. So reason number three, dysregulated nervous system. We've talked a little bit about the nervous system already, but, but it really is that at some point in time, your body very wisely figured out that food can be a regulating source. The problem is it's not the best tool for the job. So if we can really, the solution then is just to learn more about your nervous system, work with your nervous system, bring in more tools, more things you can do to calm and regulate yourself that don't involve food. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful step. Yeah. Reason number four is disconnection from the body. So for lots of reasons, many of us aren't very connected with our body. There may be, for example, maybe there was trauma in the past that has me very like, nope, we don't, we don't go there. All this safe space. Yeah, exactly. Makes a lot of sense. Other people like for me, for a long time, I felt, I just felt safer in my head. I'm a very logical person. I just, I like to think my way through things. I was not taught emotions. I was not taught, you know, how to tune in and let my body guide me in various things. It was like, no, I just did it all with my brain. And so, so if we're disconnected from the body, then that is one of the reasons that we might be then having these, these times with food. So the solution then is to connect with it, to really learn the signals of your body, to learn what are, what the body is always communicating with you, always. The challenges that most of us have just like literally blocked ourselves from that communication. So it may have been from diets when we were young. It may have been from even the messaging of you have to clean your plate. Then, you know, we don't really get, we don't, we don't learn that the body actually will tell us. So the solution is to learn, to connect with your body, learn, really tune in that inner listening, the re-establishing that connection with your body. Reason number five is a coping mechanism. We just have used it to cope with emotions and it could be negative emotions. You know, the emotions that feel like, oh, that that's not safe. Maybe if, if that emotion comes up, I'm going to eat instead to kind of try to cover it up. It could be, I've actually learned of when I was young that we just celebrated all, all things came with a celebration of food. So, you know, we, we can learn it that way. And for a lot of people, the, the solution here is to expand your emotional capacity. So your emotional capacity is your capacity to be with any emotion. And again, this also brings in a little bit of the nervous system because if you are a person where experiencing certain emotions, doesn't feel safe. Maybe you got the message that, you know, don't be too fill in the blank emotion. Maybe emotions like in my house, we didn't really do emotions. We didn't talk about emotions. When people got upset in my house, we would just go to our room and slam the door and we literally would come out the next day and we never talked about it. And there was the default. Yeah. Yeah. We never, we never, we didn't talk about it. We didn't, just the next morning, everything was fine. And so my emotional capacity was very, very limited. And so part of that, then is learning to recognize your emotions, learning to be able to name them, to be able to be with them, to let them be a part of your experience instead of then trying to cover them up with food. Got it. Reason number six, attempt to control. And so this could be, I'm attempting to control the size of my body. I'm attempting to control for some people, if, if the rest of my life feels very out of control, sometimes it can feel like I have control over what I eat, when I eat, you know, what's going into my body, these types of things. It can be this kind of illusion of control when things around us don't feel very much in control. And, you know, the challenge with trying to control our bodies is that our bodies really can't be controlled in the way that, you know, we might, we might try. The solution here is to develop two-way trust. And so two-way trust is this. It is, I trust that my body is going to communicate with me and tell me what it needs. I trust that my body is communicating, that I can develop a dialogue with it. It's going to tell me if it's hungry, if it's full, if it's tired, all of these things. The second part of two-way trust is my body trusts me, that I am going to respond to it when it communicates. So how many of us have had the experience of we're hungry, but it's like, well, no, I just ate. I'm not supposed to be hungry. I'm not going to eat. Or I'm just going to push. I'm going to push my hunger for two or three more hours because of whatever reason. I think I've, you know, I've already eaten enough today or whatever it is. I'm really ignoring what my body is actually telling me. So this is why two-way trust is really important because right now for so many people, there is neither way. I don't trust my body. I don't trust my body to tell me or to talk to me because I'm so confused by it all. And maybe my signals are so messed up or I don't even get signals anymore. So I don't trust my body. And my body also doesn't trust me because sometimes I'm eating, sometimes I'm not eating. Sometimes I'm like, no, we're not eating any of these foods. And then other times I'm eating like all of these foods to the place where I feel so sick. There's not trust either way. So it's really important to develop that two-way trust. Reason number seven is habit. And anything we do repeatedly becomes a habit. That brain that wants to use as little energy as possible is always creating new habits. Some of our habits are really supportive for us and some of them are less supportive. The reason that this is number seven is that a lot of people like to approach habit as the thing, particularly with food. Okay. I just need to, I need to just, it's just a bad habit. I need to change this. And we start to look at habit change without addressing any of these other things. And no amount of habit change work is going to stick if we have a dysregulated, if we have a dysregulated nervous system, if we don't have, you know, if we have a limited emotional capacity, if we're disconnected from our body, if there's not any trust happening anywhere, no way is just straight up habit change going to work. And at the same time, it is important. I mean, anything, what fires together wires together. Anything we do repeatedly does become a habit. So it is one of the factors, but I encourage you, if you are listening to this, do not make this the one thing you're going to focus on because so many of the other reasons really are going to be more foundational. And then we, we don't want to, we don't want to discount and we don't want to pretend that there isn't a habit component. It just can't be the only place that we look. So the solution is to break the habit. And, but again, it's just, this isn't the only, the only reason and it is, it's probably the mistake that a lot of people make is just looking at it as a habit without looking at the other components that are much bigger of the nervous system, the emotional capacity, the restriction, the connection. And then the very last, yeah, the very last, I'm so glad you said that as number seven though, because you're right. That's exactly where people start when they're dieting or they're not, they're not okay with what they're eating or they're, they're, they're looking at their bodies and they're just saying to themselves, this is a willpower issue if I just try a little harder. But the truth of the matter, this is not a willpower situation. And so no amount of sticking it out, doing this, regulating is going to change. So I'm glad that's number seven. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. And last but not least is negative self talk, which is the way that you talk about yourself to yourself. What are you saying to yourself while you're eating after you've eaten? What is that dialogue? So many people don't even know. They really have no idea what's happening kind of in there. And it literally is like a, it's a radio station. You know how radio stations, I think they're probably still the same, but I think back in the day when I used to listen to the radio station, there would be really a handful of songs that would just play over and over and over, right? You knew all the songs, you knew all the words. It's very similar in our brain, but often we don't even realize what those songs are. We also don't realize it's like we don't even know what station we're tuned into. So the question that you can really explore here is what does it sound like in my head? What are the songs that are playing over and over again? Now, when you were young, you didn't really have a lot of choice of the songs that came in because of could be the way you grew up. It could be who was around you, could be your influences, lots of different reasons that kind of create that radio station inside your head. But as an adult, you get to choose. You can change the radio station in your head. And it starts with awareness. It starts with becoming aware of what does it sound like in there? And if I want it to change, I literally get to turn the dial. I get to change it. And just like anything else, repetition, what fires together, wires together. So if I start listening to a whole new slew of songs over and over again, that's going to be more of what I'm saying to myself. So the solution here is to change the internal dialogue, change that radio station, but you have to do it intentionally with repetition. And again, kind of even going back to that habit discussion, right? It's like the habit, what is your habit of the way that you're speaking to yourself is a huge factor. That's powerful. I didn't think of it that way. And I think sometimes we, you said it best that these are things that are established for you and sort of like come into your awareness, subconscious, not even your awareness, but it's the way maybe people spoke to you or maybe the way people judged other people who were struggling with different things in their life. And the beauty of becoming an adult and having that awareness is it's not your fault that those voices are there, but it is your responsibility. Yes. You know, I love that. And that's like in coaching, I say that a lot where you were right. Foundationally, all eight of these things maybe are not your fault. You didn't, you weren't educated properly. Someone told you that was a bad food. My favorite is I deserve cake, right? Like somebody put these things into your subconscious, whether it's just the universe as a whole, where you live, your generation, and that's not your fault, but it is your responsibility because now you are a fully conscious adult and you're making choices. And one choice leads to another choice. And I think Jane said exactly what it is, is that flexing that muscle, right? Where instead of judging the five things you could have done better or eaten better today, focusing on that flex, right? Where you're like, but I got all my water in, I took a multivitamin, whatever it is, whatever is going to contribute and focusing on that piece. Huge, huge. Thank you for saying that. Yeah. One of the things I love to say that I say all of the time is what you focus on expands. So if you are focused on what you're not doing right, then that is what all your brain is going to see is the lack, the limitation, what's not going well. But if you can, if you can intentionally start to focus on even the little tiny things, any amount of progress, any amount of celebrating, acknowledging, acknowledging yourself, it's so fascinating to me just how many people are so resistant to this. Well, I don't want to celebrate myself because even if, uh, let's say I had two days where I felt really connected with food. Um, and then the third day I didn't, you know, I kind of went off the rails. Well, now those two days don't count because I messed up and it's like, no, those two days on their own have so much to tell you. And there's so much to learn from them. But if we refuse to acknowledge ourselves, if we refuse to celebrate or we think that some other thing kind of like just wipes the slate clean, then we, we literally are robbing ourselves of the neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is your brain's ability to change, to rewire, to develop new habits and new skills and all of the things. One of the two, two key things you can do to create neuroplasticity for yourself. Number one is curiosity. Being open, being curious that back to the, the number one question I want you all to remember, which is how does this make sense? Now I'm in curiosity. I'm like, huh, I wonder which of these eight reasons might I really benefit from digging into a little bit more? So the one very key thing in neuroplasticity is curiosity. The other one is celebrating, acknowledging what you are doing that is getting you towards closer, any amount closer towards where you want to go. And that shows the brain, Oh yeah, okay. I want to do more of that. It literally tells your brain what to focus on and what to repeat. So if you are a person who's like refuses to celebrate unless it's like a hundred percent, you know, over whatever, if you have some ridiculous expectations for yourself or for any reason you refuse to acknowledge, you refuse to celebrate yourself, you literally are, you are hampering your own progress. If we go back to what Daphne was saying about self-responsibility, two words I love, self-respect and self-responsibility. If you put these two together and you combine it with really working with your brain, with your nervous system, with your emotions, with your body, you will absolutely transform your relationship with yourself, your relationship with food. But if you're like, yeah, no, I can't do that. Oh, that's bad. Oh, I won't celebrate myself. Oh, but I did this so it doesn't count. No, that is what holds you back. That literally is you holding yourself back. So think about self-respect, self-responsibility, curiosity, and really truly acknowledging your own progress when you are taking those steps towards where you want to go. That's what the brain will remember. It's what it will focus on and it's what it will want to do more of. And that's powerful. Like right there, that's just the most powerful information to give somebody. And I think that sort of wraps exactly what we wanted to come back to today. So I hope we can do this again. I think this is a really great topic. There's a lot of other things we could really dig into individually that I think would really push everybody forward on their relationship with food, with their health, their wellness, and specifically the nervous system and how they relate to the outside stimulus. This is incredible. And I think the thing we should leave everybody with today, here's the question. I usually do this on Wednesday, but here's the question that I have for everybody today. What are we celebrating? What can we celebrate today? All right. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Don't Strength the Podcast. Jane, thanks for being with us. I hope we get to do this again. Have a great one.