Some binges don't start with craving. They start with a battery warning, not a literal one. Obviously your body does not pop up a little notification that says you are at twelve percent. Please plug into a quiet room and a sandwich. Although honestly, I'd find that helpful. But many exhaustion urges begin that way. Not with a dramatic emotional event, not with a specific food obsession, Just with a system that has been running too low for too long. An exhaustion urge is an urge to binge, graze, snack compulsively, order food, or keep eating. That shows up because your system is depleted. It often feels like I am done, I need relief, I cannot make one more good decision. That's what we're talking about today. Not restriction urges, nor rebellion urges, nor. I saw a cookie and now I'm doomed. Urges. But exhaustion urges the urges that show up when your battery is low and food starts to look like the fastest way to stop, soothe, numb and recharge yourself to get through the next few minutes. You might be standing in the kitchen. You might be opening the fridge, closing it, and then opening it again. You might be looking through the pantry, not even because you know what you want, but because you want something. You want relief. You want to feel better. Or maybe you just want to feel less. And a thought comes in. I know this isn't going to help, but I don't care. That thought can feel scary if you're recovering from binge eating, because it can seem like all of your insight disappears at night. You may know about urges, you may know about eating enough, and you might have learned a lot about nervous system regulation. You may know about the binge restrict cycle and how not to negotiate with urges. You may know that the relief from a binge is very short lived, and that afterward you'll probably feel physically uncomfortable, emotionally discouraged, and even more afraid of the next urge. And still, in that moment, your brain says, I don't care. So today we are going to talk all about that state. But maybe not in the way you'd expect, because I don't think the most useful thing is to spend the whole episode talking about how to make your best, wisest, most recovery aligned choice once the exhaustion urge is already on the scene. That's asking a lot, actually. That's asking the most depleted version of you to do the most sophisticated part of recovery. And I don't think that's a great plan. So this episode is mostly about how to stop arriving there so often. Real life is still real life and some days are going to wipe you out. But if exhaustion urges are a regular thing for you, the most effective work may not happen at nine thirty at night when you're in the pantry. The exhaustion urge may show up at night, but the vulnerability and solutions often start much earlier. It may start when you wake up, still feeling tired and tell yourself it's fine. I'll just push through. It may start when you work through lunch or when your lunch is technically healthy, but not really sustaining. It may start when you take no breaks during the workday because you're behind, and then add errands after work because you might as well get them done. And then you come home immediately start dinner, cleaning, answering messages, and trying to be pleasant, patient, and emotionally available even though you have been running on fumes for hours. And then at night, food becomes the first thing that says, here, stop. Take something. Get some relief. It gives your brain something familiar to do. And if you're used to using food for relief. And if you've used food for relief for a long time, your brain has learned that food is a fast exit ramp when your system is overloaded. This is treatable. You can heal from this completely, but healing does not come from demanding that your exhausted brain suddenly become brilliant at self-regulation while standing at the kitchen and completely overloaded. So I want to give you a different way to think about exhaustion urges. Think of your personal capacity like a cell phone battery. Most of us would never look at a phone reading four percent and say, wow, what a weak, lazy phone. Why doesn't it just try harder? What's wrong with it? We don't do that. We understand that when the battery is low, the phone needs charging or the demand really needs to decrease. We close the extra apps, we lower the brightness, we turn on low power mode. We plug it in. If we can, we stop expecting peak performance from a nearly dead battery. And yet, many people treat themselves exactly like that imaginary phone. They notice they're running low and then keep trying to add demands. One more errand, one more email, one more hard conversation, one more workout, And then when they hit evening at that four percent state, they blame themselves for wanting the fastest possible relief. The battery analogy helps because exhaustion urges are low battery urges. They tend to get stronger when your capacity drops and food starts to look like the charger. So the question is not only what do I do when I have an exhaustion urge? The better question is how do I keep myself from getting so depleted that food feels like the only possible relief? A very practical recovery skill is to check your battery a few times a day. Ask yourself, what percentage am I at right now? Then ask the more important question what can I do to keep myself above twenty percent by the end of the day? That twenty percent line is useful because below twenty percent, a lot of people enter the exhaustion urge danger zone. They can still function technically. They can still get things done. Technically, they can still answer the email, make the dinner, have the conversation, etc. but they're not functioning with much flexibility. They're not functioning with much patience. They're not functioning with much access to long term thinking or creativity. Below twenty percent. Most people are not making thoughtful decisions anymore. They're trying to get through the next minute. And if food has been your reliable way to get through the next minute. Of course, exhaustion urges are going to be stronger there. This doesn't mean that you're powerless below twenty percent, but it does mean we shouldn't build our whole recovery plan around being in that state and choosing differently. So how do we protect your battery earlier before exhaustion urges become so loud? One of the simplest ways is to take breaks before you need them. I know, very annoying advice. Terribly unglamorous. Nobody wants this to be the answer. We all want the answer to be something more dramatic and special, preferably something that we can complete and then just check off forever. But breaks matter because they interrupt the momentum of depletion. Many people wait until they're desperate before they let themselves pause. I used to be one. They wait until they're physically falling apart. They wait until everything's done. Except we all know everything is never done. So the real first pause comes through food, scrolling, drinking, snapping at someone, crying in the bathroom, or just collapsing at the end of the night. Essentially, they never choose to take a break until their brain pulls the plug. Breaks are not prizes that you have to wait until you finish the day to enjoy. Breaks are how you remain a person while the day keeps happening and breaks work best when you take them before your nervous system has to file a formal complaint. A break does not have to be a long, fancy, or photogenic endeavor. It can be eating lunch away from your computer. It can be standing outside for three minutes between phone calls. It can be sitting down for five minutes before starting cooking dinner. It could be drinking water, eating a snack, stretching your back, stepping away from people, or doing absolutely nothing for a few minutes where you can squeeze it in. The point is not to create a beautiful, complicated self-care routine. The point is to interrupt the draining before your battery is critically low. Let's say you check your battery at one p m and you're at sixty two percent. Great. You might be okay with the original plan. If you check at three thirty and you're at thirty eight percent. That's not that big of a problem. It's just some data. It might mean you need a snack, a simpler dinner than you had planned. No extra errands and a ten minute break before the next task. Now, let's say you check at five p m and you're down to twenty three percent. Something probably needs to come off the plan for the evening. If you have a great number of things still to do, not because you're lazy, but because you're looking at the battery honestly. And this brings me to another essential skill for preventing exhaustion urges rescheduling or canceling when you are under-resourced. For a lot of people, this feels almost morally wrong. If it's on the calendar, they feel like they have to do it. If they said yes, they must show up. If they planned the errand, they must run it. If they scheduled the workout, they must complete it. And that might mean pushing through sickness, sleep deprivation, emotional strain, overwhelm, resentment, or plain old exhaustion because they believe showing up is always the responsible thing to do. But showing up depleted is not always responsible. Sometimes it's just another way of overriding yourself. This is one reason I have an unlimited rescheduling policy with my clients. Even last second, they all know they can text or email me and we will reschedule the call. Of course, life happens. People get sick, work explodes. Cars do car things. Dogs make choices that affect everybody's schedule. But the policy is not only practical, it's intentional and therapeutic. I want my clients to practice noticing. Whoa! I am not resourced for this today. And communicate that clearly. not with shame. Just. I need to reschedule. For many people, this is an essential recovery skill because binge eating often thrives in the gap between what your body is telling you and what you believe you're allowed to do about it. The body might say, I am exhausted, but the person with binge eating disorder might say, too bad, keep going. The body says, I cannot handle one more thing today. The person with disordered eating thinks, no, don't disappoint anyone. So sometimes exhaustion, urge prevention and binge urge prevention. Looks like sending a text saying, I'm sorry, I need to reschedule. Sometimes it looks like canceling the nonessential errand or moving the workout or ordering groceries. Skip that extra task. You volunteered for leaving the event early. Asking for help or saying, I can't do that today. It's not avoidance, at least not automatically. I feel like I need to make an important distinction between growth, discomfort, and depletion, because yes, sometimes the urge to cancel or reschedule is avoidance. Sometimes the thing that feels uncomfortable feels that way because it matters. Maybe you feel embarrassed to come to a coaching call after a binge. Maybe you're nervous to have that honest conversation. Or maybe you don't want to rest because resting brings up guilt. Maybe you don't want to eat something you enjoy because it feels too vulnerable to trust yourself. Maybe you don't want to ask for help because you're used to being the one who handles everything. These kinds of discomforts may be growth, discomfort, growth. Discomfort often eases once you start, the dread is heavily front loaded before the thing begins. Your brain is loud and dramatic and writing terrible reviews of this experience. But then you begin and something gets softer. You answer the coaching call and remember. Oh, right, I'm safe here. We can talk about this. You start the walk and your mood lifts a little bit. You begin the tough conversation and realize you can stay present. It may be awkward, it may be uncomfortable, but you become more available once you begin. Now, depletion is different when we're facing depletion. Starting doesn't help you bring that depletion right along with you, and you feel it every second. You show up to the call and you are half listening, foggy, annoyed, giving short answers and waiting for it to be over. You go to the social event and you're just resentful and bitter the whole time. You do the workout and your body feels awful, your attitude is awful, and afterward you are not proud. You're just more depleted. You have that hard conversation and you can't listen well or speak well. Or maybe you make the whole thing worse because you didn't have enough capacity to participate with care growth. Discomfort gets easier once you're in it. Depletion gets more expensive the longer you push. That is such an important distinction for exhaustion urges, because pushing through depletion often creates the exact state where exhaustion urges thrive. Growth discomfort asks for support, depletion asks for load reduction. If you're feeling growth discomfort, maybe the answer is to show up. But gently, you might say, I'm feeling embarrassed and I need to go slowly today. Or I'm nervous, but I want to try. You may need reassurance, companionship, a slower pace, or a modified version of the task if it's depletion. The answer is not more encouragement. The answer is fewer demands. Something needs to be simplified, cancelled, shortened, delayed or made easier. And sometimes you won't know which one it is. That's okay. This is not a perfect science, but one helpful question can be. If I made this smaller or kinder, would I become more available to do it? If the answer is yes, you may be feeling growth discomfort. If the answer is no, even if the smaller version feels like it would push you toward collapse, you're probably depleted. Another helpful question is, when I push from this state, what usually happens afterward? If pushing usually leaves you feeling proud, capable, or hey, I'm glad I went. That may be dealing with growth discomfort. If pushing usually leads to you binging, shutting down, fighting, having a migraine, or feeling that you regretted showing up. That's important. Data. That is your system telling you something. And one more nuance. The same activity might cause you growth discomfort when your battery is at seventy percent, but cause you depletion if your battery is already at twelve percent. So when you check your battery, you're not only asking, can I technically complete this? You're asking, can I do this in a way that supports recovery and lowers my risk of an exhaustion urge later? Because technically possible is not the same as a good idea. Another place this matters is after travel or big events or high output days. People often plan the event, but not necessarily the recovery. They plan the trip, the conference, the wedding, the work deadline. They think through the logistics of how they'll get there, do the thing and get home. But they don't always plan for the fact that afterward they may be at fifteen percent battery. Travel disrupts all of our routines, even good travel. Sleep changes, meal timing changes, digestion changes, and the nervous system may stay activated for many more hours than you're used to. Big events are similar. You might be on for hours or even days, and even if you're enjoying it, you can still feel depleted afterward. If an event is emotionally more expensive than a normal day, it probably requires more than a normal recovery plan. That might mean planning an easy dinner for the night you get home. It might mean not trying to grocery shop on your way home from the airport. It might mean keeping the day after hosting your in-laws lighter on your calendar. It might mean having food ready so that you don't arrive home tired, hungry, and surrounded by decisions. It might mean not scheduling intense social plans back to back. It might mean ordering takeout on purpose and not as a collapse. If your battery is at twenty two percent after travel and you schedule unpacking, laundry, grocery shopping, a workout, a complicated dinner, and a long conversation about the budget. Please do not be shocked when the evening self goes looking for fast relief. That's not a mystery. That's a battery problem. This also applies to ordinary days that are simply really packed. Some days become exhaustion, urge days because they contain too much. And this might not be too much by someone else's is standard, but it's too much for your current capacity. Your job. Your errands, the exercise you plan to do, the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning messages, appointments. Any of these might have been fine on its own, but all of them together may be too much. You have a capacity budget. You can spend it intentionally or accidentally. So part of recovery is learning to look at a day honestly and ask, what are the true non-negotiables? What can I move? What could be done imperfectly? Can anything be delegated? What would still have me at twenty percent when I'm at the end of the day? This isn't about becoming delicate. It's about becoming accurate and more realistic. If your battery is low, adjust. Close some apps. Lower the brightness. Plug in. If you check in and you realize you're already below twenty percent, that's time to go into low power mode. This brings us to the very simple in the moment tool I want to offer. For those times when prevention didn't work, it didn't happen. Life happened anyway, and somehow you got into the exhaustion. Urge danger zone. The tool is get horizontal. Yeah. Just don't decide standing up. Do not decide with the pantry open. Do not decide while you are still cleaning the kitchen. Do not decide when you are in motion. Get horizontal first. I'd like you to lie down on the couch or the bed or the floor even. You're not forbidding food. You're not saying no, I can't. You're simply changing your state before deciding from a horizontal position, you can ask, do I want to stay flat? Do I want to go to bed for the night? AM I hungry enough to get up and make myself something reasonable to eat? Or was I mostly looking for a way to stop? Very often people discover that once they lie down, they do not want to get back up. They thought they wanted food and maybe part of them did. But another part of them found that not being upright, available and in motion was actually what they wanted more. Sometimes what you wanted wasn't actually a sleeve of crackers. You just wanted gravity to take over. Again, this is not a trick to avoid eating. If you lie down and you realize, I am legit hungry, please get up and get something reasonable to eat. Sit down, put it on a plate. Feed yourself. That is care. But if you lie down and you realize, oh, I just want to stay here, then stay there. Let that be the answer. Get horizontal. Get yourself to tomorrow. And I want to say this gently. Some of us learned to override ourselves for very good reasons. Maybe rest was not respected. Maybe being easy, useful, or productive was safer than asking for care. Maybe you were praised for pushing through and criticized for needing anything. Maybe you became very good at not noticing your own battery until it was basically dead. So if this is hard for you, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. You may be learning a skill that should have been taught with kindness a long time ago, but we are learning it now. So this week's experiment is called the Battery Check. For one week, I want you to check your battery three times a day, morning, mid afternoon, and early evening. You can write it down if that helps. Or just ask yourself what percentage am I at right now? Then ask yourself what's draining me? What would recharge me even a little? What can I remove, reduce, reschedule, or simplify so I'm not below twenty percent tonight? And then try to make one adjustment. You don't have to make five or ten, just one adjustment. Maybe you take a break from working to eat your lunch, or cancel an errand, reschedule a call, leave the dishes. Maybe you go to bed earlier. The goal of this experiment is not to prevent you from binging. That goal puts all the pressure right back on the most exhausted part of you. The goal is arrive less depleted Recovery is not only what you do when urges hit, it's also a process of removing, simplifying, softening, and protecting before your urges ever have to become so loud. So check your battery. Take breaks before you collapse. Practice rescheduling when you're under sourced. Learn the difference between growth, discomfort and depletion. Plan recovery after things that are emotionally expensive. Stop piling everything onto one day just because technically it fits. And when you're already below twenty percent, don't negotiate standing up. Get horizontal. You're not alone in this. I'm right here with you. And we're going to keep making this make sense. One practical step at a time. If you could use help applying this to your life, your schedule, and your real exhaustion urges, you can learn more about coaching at confidant dot com. And if you'd like to support the show, you can subscribe for five dollars a month and hear lots of bonus content, including recorded coaching calls with my real life clients. Take great care of yourself this week, and if you have any questions, reach out to me, Georgie at gmail dot com. Be well.