What If Your Binge Eating Has Been Working... In a Way?

Today we're going to talk about something that may sound strange and maybe even a little uncomfortable. What if your binge eating or compulsive overeating has been working, not working in the sense that it has made your life better in every way? Not working in the sense that it has been harmless, or that you would want to keep doing it forever. But working in one very specific way, it may have been doing something for you. It may have been giving you relief, rest, freedom, numbness, comfort, or a way to get through moments that felt impossible to get through any other way. I want to be clear right from the start because I know this is a heavy subject. Appreciating what binging has done for you does not mean pretending it hasn't hurt. If binging has left you scared, ashamed, physically miserable, isolated, frustrated, or like you're living in a cycle you just can't get free from. I'm not here to minimize any of that. I know how much it can rob you of life. I know how discouraging it is to keep doing something you genuinely do not want to be doing anymore. Today I'm talking about all types of eating, not just binge eating per se, that feel driven, urgent, secretive, compulsive, or hard to interrupt. For some of you that is binge eating. For others, it may be compulsive overeating, eating past comfort, or turning to food when nothing else seems to work. Whatever words we use, we're talking about moments when eating is doing more than feeding your body. It's doing emotional, psychological, or survival work. And sometimes in order to change something, we have to stop treating it like it makes no sense at all. Because binging usually does make sense. Not in the sense of this is the best solution. Not in the sense of this is what I want for you, but in the sense that somewhere along the way, binging started doing something important. It may have helped you cope. It may have helped you survive. It may have helped you get through life circumstances that felt unbearable. It may have been the fastest way your nervous system knew how to reduce pressure, create relief, shut down, or finally stop trying so hard. That's one of the painful things about binge eating. People often think I hate this. I know it makes me feel awful. I know I'll regret it. So why do I keep doing it? And the answer is never that they are irrational or weak or doomed. The answer is that binging is often solving a problem. It may be solving that problem in a costly, messy, and painful way, but it's still solving something. So today, instead of asking, why do I keep ruining everything? We're going to ask a much more useful question what has binging been doing for me? That question, I understand, can feel strange. It can feel almost disloyal to your desire to recover. Like if you acknowledge that the binge has helped in any way, you're giving it permission to stay. But I actually think the opposite is true. When we understand what the binge is doing, we have a better chance of meeting that need in another way. When we refuse to understand it, we end up trying to rip away a coping strategy while leaving the original problem untouched. And that is where people get stuck. They try to stop binging while keeping the same pressure in their life. The same restriction, the same loneliness, the same raging perfectionism, the same overfunctioning, emotional isolation, the same belief that their needs are too much or only allowed after everybody else is taken care of. And then when the binge urge comes back, they think, see, I failed again. But what if the binge came back because it still had a job? A job you weren't getting done any other way? Let's make this more concrete. Imagine someone who spends the whole day being good. And I don't just mean good with food, although that may be part of it. I mean, good in the bigger sense. good at responding to people, good at being agreeable, Good at being efficient, staying on schedule, eating a responsible lunch, answering the email, making the appointments, walking the dog, cleaning the kitchen, caring for the kids. All of those boxes. Getting checked. And then the evening comes and something in them just says, no, I cannot keep being this contained, not necessarily in words. Maybe it just comes as a pull toward the pantry, the drive through or the bakery, or the ice cream in the freezer. Maybe it comes as that familiar, trance like feeling of I just want what I want. Maybe it feels like urgency. Maybe it feels like rebellion. Maybe it feels like relief before the first bite has even happened. If we only look at the food, we might say, okay, the problems cupcakes. The problem is potato chips. The problem is sugar. But what if the binge is the only place this person gets to stop performing? What if binging is the only time they get to rest? What if binging is the only time they're not watching the clock or being productive? Well, now we are looking at a very different problem. Because if binging is the only time that I get to rest, then the solution is not simply stop binging. The solution has to include rest if it's going to last. This is where recovery becomes so much more humane and so much more effective, because the goal is not to shame your needs out of you. The goal is to recognize the need while updating the strategy. We all know that we need certain things to survive. Nutrients, water, oxygen, and so on. Yet sometimes people believe that things like rest or pleasure are fluffy ruffles on the outside. Not actual needs, but more comforts. Luxuries. I want you to know that rest is absolutely essential. Pleasure is absolutely essential. The need for comfort is not fake. The need for privacy is one hundred percent valid. We all need to stop being responsible at times. We all need to feel full and satisfied from the food we eat. The need to have something that's just yours is not selfish. If you have spent years trying to get rid of binging while secretly believing that the needs underneath it are embarrassing or childish, selfish, dramatic, or that they make you too much. Of course, recovery has felt harder than it needed to feel because you were not only trying to change a behavior, you were trying to eliminate a behavior while still disallowing the very human need that behavior was trying to meet. And needs do not disappear just because we judge them. This is also why binging can feel so powerful, even when we know it is not going to feel good afterward. The part of the brain and nervous system that is reaching for relief is not doing a long term cost benefit analysis. It's not sitting there with a spreadsheet saying, well, this align with my goals for the next six months. It's responding to the immediate state of the organism. Too much pressure, too much hunger, too much emotional pain, too much loneliness. Food can change state quickly. Eating can shift attention. Change sensory input. Create a feeling of warmth or pleasure or sedation. It can narrow the world down to something concrete and understandable. It can offer predictability when the rest of life feels like complete chaos. That does not mean it's the only way to create those shifts, but it helps explain why your system may have learned this works. And when your system has learned this works, it's not enough to say, stop doing that. We have to help our system learn. There are other ways. There are safer ways. There are ways that do not leave me feeling so miserable afterward. There are ways to meet this need sooner, more directly, and with less harm. For some people, this pattern begins in ordinary adult stress. Too much work. Too little rest. and not enough help. And for others, it goes even further back. Many people who struggle with binge eating can trace their roots back to a time in life when they had very little power. Maybe they were children or teenagers. Maybe they were living in a family where they could not say what they really felt. They could not leave when things got tense, they could not decide where to go, what to do, or how much space they needed. Sometimes they could not even express themselves without being accused of talking back or being dramatic or disrespectful. Sometimes they were called selfish or accused of making things harder for everyone else. If binging started when you were young and powerless, it makes sense that it may have felt like survival. A young person usually can't restructure the household, set better boundaries with adults, leave the environment, demand emotional safety, or create a support system. So maybe overeating was not the best solution. Of course, it wasn't the best solution, but it may have been the only available solution. A young person often has to adapt to the world they are in, and sometimes food becomes part of that adaptation. This is one of the reasons shame is so unhelpful, because shame looks back at a coping strategy that may have begun when you had very few choices and says, why didn't you do better? But better may not have been available. Asking for help may not have worked. Saying no may have got you punished. Resting may have been mocked. Wanting may have been criticized. So food became a place where something could happen. Not everything you needed. Not enough to truly heal the situation. Not without consequences. But at least it was something. And if that is part of your story, recovery is not about criticizing the younger version of you who was trying to find comfort where comfort could be found. It's about bringing more options online now. It's about recognizing that what began as an adaptation may no longer be the way you want or need to live. Because when a coping strategy begins in a season of low power, low choice and low safety, we might just stay in that lane long after life has changed. The nervous system may still be using an old map. It may still be saying, when I feel trapped, food is the way out. When I feel controlled, food is freedom. And that's not stupidity that is learning. The work now is to update our learning. So I want to offer you a little reflection exercise. This is not a quiz. You can pass or fail and you don't need to keep any score. I'm going to read a list of possibilities, and your only job is to notice whether anything dings for you a little. Oh, that one. Or I don't like it, but yes. I'm going to slow down here. Let these land one at a time. Binging is the only time I rest. Binging is the only time I feel free. Binging is the only time I get to eat chocolate. Binging is the only time I stop worrying about work. Binging is the only time I stop trying to improve myself. Binging is the only time I stop being responsible. Binging is the only time I get to have what I want. Binging is the only time I'm not calculating. Binging is the only time I stop worrying about my weight. Binging is the only time I get to be excessive. Binging is the only time I get a break from being careful. Binging is the only time I feel comforted. Binging is the only thing that makes the evening feel bearable. Binging is the only thing I look forward to. Binging is the only way I say I don't care. Binging is the only way I stop feeling sad. Binging is the only way I stop feeling angry. Binging is the only way I get a break from being a perfectionist. Binging is the only way I reward myself. Binging is the only way my mind gets relief from food rules. Binging is the only time I stop pretending that I'm fine. If one of those landed, just notice it. You do not have to solve it yet. Just let it be information, because this is the kind of information that can change Everything. Let's say the one that dings for you is binging is the only time I rest. That tells us something very different than I really need more discipline around snacks. If binging is functioning as rest, then we need to ask, where do I override fatigue? Why do I treat rest as something I can only have when everything else is done? Where do I keep pushing until my body has to find a way to shut me down? And am I ready to change any of those? And I know someone listening may think, well, I can't rest. I have too much to do. And I believe you. Many people are carrying an unreasonable amount. But even then, the need for rest does not become fake just because life is demanding. The question becomes can rest enter the system earlier in smaller, more deliberate ways before binging has to become the emergency brake? It might not look like a full eight hour day at a spa. I don't know. I've never had one of those. It might look like sitting down to eat lunch instead of eating while standing up at the counter. It might look like ten minutes with your phone on Do Not disturb. It might look like lying on the floor after work before you start dinner. It might look like saying, I am not doing one more productive thing until I have had twenty minutes to just be. And yes, I know it sounds almost comically basic, but sometimes recovery is very basic. Sometimes it's not a grand transformation. Sometimes it's allowing your body to stop before it crashes to the ground. Or maybe the line that dings for you is binging is the only time I feel free. A lot of people who binge are living with a tremendous amount of internal control. Food rules, body rules, productivity rules. Good person rules. Be easy to love rules. And if the only place freedom exists is inside the binge, then of course, the binge will feel magnetic. The solution here is not to become a person who no longer needs freedom, who just becomes okay with rules all the time. The solution is to give freedom a more legitimate place in your life. Maybe that starts with food. Allowing enough to get satisfied. Allowing dessert on purpose. at the table without the secrecy and the last chance feeling. Maybe it starts outside of food, wearing clothing or fashions that you actually like leaving one chore unfinished. Listening to music in the kitchen, making art badly. Saying no. Changing your mind. Doing something for no reason. Freedom does not have to be huge to be real, but it does need somewhere to live. Or maybe the line that dings is binging is the only time I get to eat chocolate. That might sound small, but it is not small. Because if the only time you get to eat chocolate is when you are already in the mode of screw it, I've blown it. I might as well keep going. Then chocolate becomes fused with urgency, rebellion, and loss of control. It's not just chocolate anymore. It is freedom. Chocolate it is. No one can stop me. Chocolate. It's. This is my one chance. Chocolate. and one of the most powerful recovery moves is to bring foods like that out of the binge and into regular life. Not all at once, not in a forced way, and not with the expectation that you are going to feel perfectly calm around them immediately, but gradually, intentionally, with as much support as you need. You can teach your brain this food is available, this food is allowed. This food doesn't have to be eaten in secret or quickly, or while panicking. I can have a cupcake on a Tuesday. I can enjoy it. I can have enough lunch first and then sit down, taste it, and have another one another day. The binge does not get exclusive rights to this food anymore. Or maybe what dings for you is binging is the only time I stop worrying about work. That one is so common. Your brain is spinning all day. Emails, deadlines, conflict, appointments, mistakes, things you forgot to do, things you need to do tomorrow. And then food becomes the off switch. Not because food is magical, but because eating can absorb your attention. It gives your mind something immediate taste, texture, chewing. For a little while, the world narrows again. This is a valid need. The need to be free from work worry is completely essential. The need to stop mentally rehearsing tomorrow is valid. But if food is your only off switch, then we need to build another off ramp. Maybe that means a work shutdown ritual, like write tomorrow's first three tasks on a sticky note. Close your laptop, say out loud. Work is closed. Maybe it means changing your clothes when you get home. If we do not give ourselves any transition, food might become the transition. This is also why other coping tools can sometimes feel disappointing at first. Someone might say, okay, Georgie, I tried taking a bath. I tried journaling, I tried going for a walk, I tried breathing, I tried calling a friend. None of them work. I still want to binge and I believe them. Sometimes those things don't feel like they work, especially if they're being brought in at the very last second when the urge has already gotten huge and your system is already desperate. Because by that point, the binge may function like a fire hose. It's intense. It's immediate. It floods your system with sensation and relief and permission all at once. It comes in at the eleventh hour, when the pressure has already built up so much that something dramatic feels necessary. And then we compare that fire hose to one small coping skill and say, see? Nothing else works. But maybe the real problem isn't that nothing else works. Maybe the real problem is that the need is getting ignored for too long. A gentle stream of water throughout the day may have worked beautifully before the fire got that big. A little rest earlier might have helped. A little freedom earlier might have helped a little pleasure earlier. Might have helped a little more food earlier. Might have helped. But if we wait until the whole system is in flames, of course, a tiny cup of water is going to seem ridiculous. This is why recovery is less about finding one perfect replacement for binging and more about changing the conditions that make binging feel necessary. We're not looking for one polite, little coping skill that can compete with the fire hose at midnight. We're looking for ways to lower the pressure long before midnight. We're looking for ways to let your needs have a voice before they have to scream. Now I want to pause here because I can imagine some listeners may be thinking, okay, what if I discover that binging is doing something really important and I don't have another way to meet that need? First, that is not failure. That is a useful information. Sometimes the need underneath the binge is not something you can solve in one evening. Sometimes it points to large things a relationship where you don't feel safe being honest, a job that is draining you, a caregiving role with no relief. A life with too little pleasure. A long history of having to ignore your body or an old wound around comfort and deprivation. We don't have to pretend those things are small, but we don't have to wait until your whole life is fixed before recovery can begin. We can start by saying, ah, this binge has been doing something for me, Sometimes that alone reduces shame, because I'd hate for someone to think I'm disgusting. I'm out of control. Why can't I just stop? When the story is actually. Something in me has been trying to get help. Something in me has been trying to get relief. Something in me is trying to get my needs met. I might need more tools, more support, more permission. But I'm not just randomly self-destructing. This is a very different place to start from So here is the experiment for this week. After a binge, if one happens. Ask one question. What did this do for me? or if you have an urge, ask yourself, what is this trying to do for me? And then if you have a little room, ask one gentle follow up. Is there a way I could meet even ten percent of that need a little sooner? Think of it as the gentle stream instead of the fire hose. We're not waiting until the need becomes an emergency and then demanding that one coping skill compete with a binge. We're letting a little relief, a little pleasure, a little rest to enter the system earlier. And if you don't know the answer to some of these questions yet, that is okay. I do not know. Is allowed. Curiosity takes practice. Especially if you're used to meeting yourself with criticism. Curiosity is a win. We're not trying to interrogate you. We're just trying to understand the system that you're living inside. Because the long term goal isn't just fewer binges. The long term goal is a life where binging is no longer required to keep you going. If you want help applying this to your own eating patterns, your own urges, and the specific role binging has been playing in your life, I'd love to support you. You can learn more about coaching at Confident Eaters dot com. And if you have a question or want to reach out, you can email me through the site. Be sure to leave your email address so I can get back to you. And if you'd like to support the show and listen to real life coaching sessions, you can subscribe to the paid version of this podcast. Either way, I'm so glad you're here and I'll see you next time.