Binging & Restricting + Off Limit Foods + Breaking the Disordered Eating Cycle

doing good? Michelle's a regular here now Here we are episode four of Michelle's residency here on Outweigh, and I am gonna get into a little bit of my story which we've shared before, because we're gonna talk about binging and how that might look like you're restricting if you deny yourself a binge. And this is just my personal story. I don't know that this will work for everyone, but I was a big fan of Brain over Binge, which is a book that was written by Catherine Hansen, and

it came with the workbook. It was a big part of my recovery, along with Fork the Noise, which Lisa, my co host for Outweigh, whose Michelle is filling in for the last four weeks, but I had to implement all kinds of tools from all over. But because I was in such a binge restrict cycle and even purge at times. The binging didn't happen all the time, but it was something that I had to practice not doing.

And that's through the brain over binge process. Was when I found myself going to the pantry when I knew it wasn't time for food, like I had had enough food, like it was good, I had to go to the pantry and literally just walk away. And I had to walk away from it hundreds of times, probably loably. And the point was to build new neural pathways of like I don't need food right now. But this is not restriction. I'm not restricting myself. I can have this food. I'm

not hungry right now. I don't need this food. I'm walking away. So it was this constant like back and forth. I mean there were some days where I probably walked to the pantry so many times and I would just turn around. But that was part of the process that

worked for me. Now Michelle, being a registered dietitian and having clients that come to you say I was your client, and I came in and I'm like, I don't know what it is, but I go to my pantry and I'm eating like fifty times, and I'm going and I'm

just constantly grabbing for things. It might just be that I'm going to the pantry and eating too much, but then that ultimately for me and my personal experience, would end up in a binge because I'd be like, look at what I've already eaten, So I'm just gonna sit here and eat, and I would get into this zone. It's almost like I checked out and like I was just going through the motions of eating. And so that was a tool that I used to rewire my brain.

What is something that you would have added to my toolbox during that season of my life. Yeah, So something that is kind of similar and different is um thinking about permission and choice. And so what I tell my clients is, you know, you always have the option to do these disordered behaviors, like let's not take it off the table, because then that is going to make it kind of feel more appealing. But if you're having that urge to binge, and what you said about feeling checked

out is really important. If someone doesn't know if they're over eating or binging. That mentality of not being able to stop and feeling out of control is kind of the sign of a binge versus just eating too uncomfortably full or over eating. And so what I like to tell clients is first to make sure that you're eating enough and it's not just a product of restriction, because

that restrict binge cycle is very present. So if you are eating enough and you still are having the binges, then yeah, try and create space, is how I describe it.

So you know, what I've had some people do that they found very helpful is like literally set a timer for ten minutes when you feel that urged to binge, and then use that time to journal or distract yourself in some way, doing some sort of other pleasant activity or think about just notice like what you're feeling and what's driving the binge, and then when the ten minutes are up, then make the choice, so not I'm not going to binge, but then you get to decide at

that time, after you've reflected and checked in with yourself, do I want the food or do I actually need something else? And just making it a conscious choice makes it less compulsive and out of control. And then yeah, giving yourself that power of like, oh I can make this a decision. It's interesting, like our brains, they're so fascinating. I'm turning ear to ear when I say it, because I honestly don't understand much of it when I'm trying.

And I've seen it happen in my brain, and I've seen the difference that it can make, and I what ultimately happened was I started restricting. That's where it first started for me. This is again my story, but at a young age, I started dieting as a teenager, and that restriction, then my brain suddenly was like, wait, what, we can't trust this person. I'm going to take care of you, So you're gonna need to eat and eat

and eat. Next time you give me food, we're eating a lot of it because I don't know when you're gonna give it to me again. And then then that for me, is how the binging started. Was from the restricting and having a list of things I was never allowed to have, and so I was totally disconnected, like there was no yeah mine body spirit connection like it just was. My brain was in survival mode like no

wonder And now that I understand it. I'm like, oh, it's crazy that my brain was literally forming a way to take care of me, right, It just wants us to survive desperately. Yeah, And so I mean what you mentioned briefly was like foods being off limits. That's the other piece of things is making sure that whatever your go to binge foods are, if you don't want to binge on them, are you incorporating them in a healthy way.

So let's say, I mean you mentioned oreos before, and now I'm thinking about oreos, So let's always talking about oreos. So I mean, number one question, are you regular oreos or golden Oreos? I'm regular double stuffed Golden oreos. Double stuffed are my favorite, so I might have to try those. I don't really go for the golden. I try to pick up all the other crazy flavors that are out there. My friend Kat the Fatah, who she's comes on Outweighs sometimes,

but she is also in the same network. She has a podcast called You Need Therapy, and we were doing a podcast about something totally different than oreos, but of course I found a way to bring up oreos and she we had this whole like metaphor for how Oreos they keep adding so many different flavors. It's almost like you go to Target or the grocery store and there's so many different Oreo flavors, and it's like, why did you mess with something that was good? Like Oreos they

had something going like they're good. Fine, you could end at the regular and the golden. We'll give you that. But then there's like double chocolate chocolate chunk chocolate hazel, not like all you know, red velvet. Yeah, there was a mystery one that was like fruity pebbles. Yeah, it's the Oreo company ends up being this metaphor for like we as humans, we keep striving and striving and like

when is enough? Like when are we satisfied with who we are and what we bring to the table, Because Oreo just does not seem satisfied, and so it's kind of like the difference between like striving versus contentment. It was basically our conversation and it all happened because Oreos, Like a lot of conversations in my life start because of Oreos. So back to this conversation, Um, you asked me my favorite, but yeah, Oreos might be something that is a binge food. So where am I incorporating it

into my life? Yeah, So, if you find yourself going to binge on oreos, and then what works for you is to take a pause or to walk away, or to do some journaling or whatever it is. If you never eat the oreos, the urge to bend them probably

won't go away. So then the next step would be maybe the next day, while you're eating your lunch, you have a few oreos as a side with your lunch, and normalize it in the other parts of your life, in the other times of day outside of the bench, so that it loses that emotional charge that oreos aren't

ruling you. Exactly exactly when I first became a mom, I had so many disordered behaviors myself, and I was passing them along to my kids, and I restricted so many things, and I thought I was doing it in the name of hell, my children, We're gonna be so

quote unquote healthy. And I would get so irritated if they would go to like a something at church, for example, where I shouldn't be irritated there, but I would go pick them up and then they would have all this candy and snacks from Sunday school, and I would be like, they didn't even ask me. They didn't even ask me if it's okay to give my kids candy. I'm working

so hard to keep candy out of their life. And then I realized I was making them obsess about candy way more like my kids actually didn't really care that much about candy, but they were caring about it more because I wasn't allowing it. So that also was a huge learning lesson for me. And my kids are so much happier now. My daughter has said multiple times like you're just more cool or I don't know how, she just says that I'm not as strict around food as I used to be, and not just for myself but

for them. And we don't realize sometimes what we're doing, we're passing along to our kids. And then we could we create eating this, you know, fear of foods in our children, when they didn't even have a fear to begin with. We put it there. Yeah, And I don't know if there's research on this, but if you were to look at the variety of foods that kids eat when they're in a home that restricts sugar, for example, of versus when they're not. They probably eat less sugar

when it's not restricted. Like, we're naturally interested in variety,

and so when everything is available, we want variety. Yeah, so just think about that if you happen to be a mom, But then also think about that just for yourself and know that, like I'm sure it makes sense when you think about it from a child's eyes, it literally is the same thing from you and you as an adult listening to this now, you maybe started some of these behaviors as a child because I grew up with diet culture all around me and the restricting all

around me because it's the nineties and everything was fat free and everyone was trying this diet and that diet, and it was very normal for and it still is normal for a lot of moms to quote unquote diet. But I think as a society, we're learning more, we're shifting away from that, and hopefully we're raising up a generation that won't have that as their childhood memories. But I don't know how old are you, Michelle. I'm thirty, Okay, so I'm forty. What was it like for you as

as a child. Well, I mean, I am very grateful that my my parents were pretty flexible with food, so we we had a wide variety of things with some parameters of you know, my mom would not buy the certain types of cereal that had quote unquote too much sugar, but you know, still we had popped cards every now and then and all sorts of things, so I was pretty I don't like the word normal because is there

even a normal. But normal with food growing up, which I think really contributed to having a healthy relationship with food was just like it was always there. It was always normal, there wasn't I mean, yes, I did see people on diet the like weight Watchers was super trendying and kind of all those diets, but for me and my siblings, eating everything made it feel okay, well that's awesome.

I think that's a great example of what that could look like and the well, now what I'm going to be offering my kids and I hope that they grow up to be thirty and they're like, yeah, we kind of just we're able to have whatever. Except for the first year when our mom brought us to America, she restricted and that will be their answer. After that, it got more. Yeah, the one thing for me was white bread.

My mom only did holy read and whenever I went to friends houses and we would have like if I had lunch there and they had white bread, that was like, wow, I got white bread. Never like tell my mom, like we had white bread. So that was the one thing. You know, I always point out to people, and I think we know this, Like when you're at like a kid's party, you can tell which kids don't have access

to the sweets because they're like going for it. And that happens as adults too, like you said, like you notice the people who are st ate to the dessert table at the birthday party, and then it takes away from being able to be present in the socializing. So kind of relating it to adulthood, like if you're not allowing yourself those foods and then you're thinking about it more, then you're not fully participating in your life and everything

else that you're wanting to do. Yeah, I missed out on so many experiences, whether I was binging or restricting because depending on the day, so it was a restrictive day, I would bring my own meal and miss out on whatever maybe someone cooked because I didn't trust it. So therefore I missed out on that connection. And then of course, because I'm eating what I brought, I'm just thinking about everything they're eating, wishing I could eat it. So there

I'm not present. That was a restrictive state. Then if I was in a I don't really care day, so I'm just gonna eat whatever, then I'm focused on eating whatever, and I'm uncomfortable and I don't feel present again. So my hope is for people to find that that sweet spot where you can just be present with the people and and joy the food, whatever that might be, and find joy in that activity, because there's so much time when you're in a binge restrict cycle that you don't

get to enjoy. You may cancel plans, not go to plans again, depending on where are you, where you are in it, and there's so much joy to be had for you, there is and it, and I do wanna validate and acknowledge normalize that it takes some challenge to get there, because I hear from a lot of clients like, well, I don't want to allow myself this food that I don't have permission for it, because then I'll be so stressed out while I'm at that dinner with my friends,

and I just want to be present, and so the initial like working through it and giving yourself permission. And I'm sure you experienced this, like it does create discomfort, but it's the short term discomfort for the long term peace with food. Well, and we had Dr Josh on the podcast. Actually it's been a couple of years now, but I follow him on Instagram and he's he's a

medical doctor, and he was saying about that. You mentioned anxiety in stress around like allowing a food, but the chemicals that you release with the stress around it's like worse than if you would just eat the cookie or whatever. It is, absolutely and so if that just helps you have some perspective on it, give yourself that permission to to try to enjoy it, even if you're not restricting.

What about keeping binge type foods or something that fell into that category for you or I don't even know what we call it, like a trigger food, like a food that you would eat that might lead to a binge. I know you mentioned incorporating it into or making sure it's available to you. You know, that's like one of the steps. How do you feel about keeping it in the pantry. I think it's great. I think for most people it's very helpful to work through that process with

a professional, with a dietician. But I think it's something that's important to do because it just increases that level of full permission. So you know, we want to make it sustainable and achievable, setting yourself up for success. So you might not buy all of your bene foods at once. Maybe you want to work through them one at a time, first focus on one and getting really comfortable with that, then adding another, And the point is to be okay

having it without that compulsive urge to binge it. Then you get to again have that choice and that freedom of like do I want to have it right now or not. So the initial working through it and like normalizing having it at home doesn't mean that you need to have a constant supply of that food at all times for the rest of your life. But then it just is like another thing on the grocery list when you want it, and it's not when you don't. I

went through a phase. I'm not so much there anymore, but as I was retraining my brain, I did a

lot a lot of unlearning and learning. Like at the grocery store sometimes I would go grab something and I'd be like, uh, I don't really mean and then I'd be like, you know what, getting it and I would just throw it in my cart because I and it just was like something inside me just felt so empowering, like throwing it in my cart and that simple act like again, and then I knew I have a choice whether I'm taking that home and I'm gonna put in my pantry, and I have a choice when I go

to the pantry, I'm going to be in control. But like you said, just to back up, it takes a lot of time, and it takes repeat, repeat, repeat. Like I said, I went back to the pantry or would walk away from the pantry multiple times. But I knew what I was doing to my brain, and I trust that I was trusting the process. There might be a different process for other people. But again that book was brain over binge in case people want more info on that.

But I like where this discussion went today. I know not everybody has an issue with binging, but hopefully it's of this episode was helpful to you and then to understand what some other like family members or friends might be going through. Even though now my brain has a choice and I'm in control. For so many years, I was out of control. My brain was doing its thing to try to take care of me, and I was depriving it. It was like, Okay, we're gonna go ahead

and eat eat, eat, eat eat. Like working against each other, Yeah, learning to work with yourself is helpful. Give yourself that that grace for sure. Okay, Well, thank you Michelle for coming on again, and people can find you on Instagram at Yes at Michelle Pillow Pitch Nutrition than for having me and the Pillow Pitch. Yes. We know it's difficult to spell, but we have it in the show notes, so if you're listening to sapvages, go there and you can see their click on it, get it, get all

of Michelle's info. Thank you for coming on for all four weeks and we'd love to have you back again in the future. And in the meantime, y'all can connect with Michelle on Instagram. Thanks so much,