Why Dieting Makes Binge Eating Worse (The Truth About BED) with Michele Audish | Ep. 504

In this episode, I’m exploring the binge eating cycle, why restriction and shame can keep it going, and how self-compassion, emotional acceptance, and rebuilding trust with food and your body can support recovery.

In This Episode, We’ll Talk About:

• Why binge eating is not a lack of willpower and why trying harder to control food can sometimes make the cycle stronger.
• How the restrict → binge → shame → restrict cycle develops and why regular eating can be an important part of breaking it.
• How I learned to look beneath the urge to binge and ask, “What am I actually needing right now?”
• Why uncomfortable emotions and “food noise” don’t have to disappear for you to make choices that support your recovery.
• How self-compassion and acceptance can help us respond differently to cravings, urges, shame, and difficult body image thoughts.
• Why recovery is ultimately about repairing your relationship with food, your body, and yourself, not finding the perfect diet.

Breaking the Binge Eating Cycle: Why Restriction, Shame, and Food Rules Keep You Stuck 

If you have ever struggled with binge eating, you may have been told that the solution is simple:

Just stop.

Stop eating so much.
Have more discipline.
Find the right diet.
Cut out sugar.
Try harder.

But if it were that simple, people struggling with binge eating would have stopped a long time ago.

In this episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit, I sat down with Michele Audish, an associate therapist at my private practice who specializes in OCD, anxiety, and binge eating disorder. Michele also brings her own lived experience as someone who has recovered from binge eating.

Together, we talked about what is really happening inside the binge eating cycle, why restriction often makes the problem worse, and what recovery can actually look like.

And one of the most important things I want you to take away from this conversation is this:

Binge eating is not simply a willpower problem.

Recovery isn’t about becoming better at controlling food. It is about changing your relationship with food, your emotions, your thoughts, and ultimately, yourself.

What Does the Binge Eating Cycle Look Like?

One of the things Michele described so beautifully is just how consuming binge eating can become.

Food can take up an enormous amount of mental space.

What am I going to eat?

Should I eat breakfast?

Was that too much?

What am I allowed to have for dinner?

I shouldn’t have eaten that.

I’ll do better tomorrow.

For many people, this eventually becomes a cycle:

Restriction → Binge → Guilt and Shame → More Restriction → Binge Again

After a binge, you may tell yourself:

“That’s it. Tomorrow I’m starting over.”

Maybe you decide you’ll skip breakfast.

Maybe you’ll cut out sugar.

Maybe you’ll start another strict diet.

Maybe you decide that because you’ve already “messed up” today, you might as well keep eating and start fresh tomorrow.

It sounds logical in the moment.

But that restriction can actually set the stage for another binge. Michele explained how the cycle can intensify as someone responds to binge eating with more and more restriction.

Binge Eating Isn’t the Same as Occasionally Overeating

We all sometimes eat beyond fullness.

You might go to a birthday party and have more cake than you intended. You might eat a big Thanksgiving meal and think, Oof, I am FULL.

That alone isn’t binge eating disorder.

With binge eating disorder, Michele explained that someone may consume a large amount of food within a relatively short period of time and experience a profound feeling of being unable to stop. The experience can feel compulsive, even when another part of you desperately wants the behavior to end.

And afterward, there can be tremendous distress.

Shame.

Guilt.

Negative body talk.

Promises to “be better” tomorrow.

Sometimes even panic.

Binge eating can also be incredibly secretive. Someone may be struggling intensely while the people around them have no idea.

Sometimes You’re Not Actually Searching for Food

This was a big realization in my own recovery.

There were times when I was physically full.

Really full.

Sometimes I even felt sick.

And yet, I was still searching for something.

I wanted food to create a feeling that wasn’t physical fullness.

And I couldn’t always tell you what that feeling was.

This is where recovery can get really interesting because we can begin asking:

What am I actually needing right now?

For one person, food might temporarily soothe anxiety.

For someone else, it might offer relief from loneliness.

It might distract you from uncomfortable thoughts.

It might give you pleasure when you aren’t allowing yourself pleasure anywhere else.

It might soothe boredom, sadness, anger, stress, or shame.

The goal isn’t to shame yourself for having used food this way.

Instead, we can become curious about it.

What has food been doing for me?

And then:

Is it still doing that job effectively?

Your Cravings Can Sometimes Tell You Something

During the episode, I shared something I discovered while doing this work myself.

Sometimes I would want crunchy foods when I was angry.

I wanted to crunch, crunch, crunch.

There was energy there.

And that opened the door to another question:

How comfortable am I expressing anger?

Other times, I wanted sweets because I wanted pleasure.

Then the question became:

Where else am I allowing myself to experience pleasure?

Sometimes the answer was that I wasn’t.

I didn’t feel like I deserved it, or pleasure felt indulgent or wrong.

This is one reason binge eating recovery can become about so much more than food.

We start getting curious about the needs underneath the behavior.

Food May Have Made You Feel Safe

One of the most powerful parts of my conversation with Michele was talking about why binge eating develops in the first place.

These behaviors don’t usually appear out of nowhere.

At some point, they may have helped.

Food may have provided comfort during a difficult childhood, relationship, school experience, stressful period at work, or another painful season.

Michele shared something a client once told her that really struck both of us: food doesn’t talk back.

Food can feel reliable.

It is there.

For someone who feels lonely, misunderstood, overwhelmed, or emotionally unsafe, that reliability can be incredibly powerful.

Part of recovery can therefore be acknowledging:

This helped me once.

And also:

It isn’t helping me in the same way anymore.

We don’t have to turn food into the enemy in order to change our relationship with it.

Why Dieting Can Keep the Cycle Going

This is one of the biggest misconceptions about binge eating disorder.

People often assume the solution is another diet.

But if restriction is already part of the binge eating cycle, adding more restriction can keep feeding the very cycle you’re trying to escape.

I know how this worked for me.

Tell me I can’t eat sugar?

Suddenly I am thinking about sugar all day.

Tell me I can’t have bread?

Now bread has my full attention.

The food noise gets louder and louder until eventually the restriction becomes incredibly difficult to sustain.

And then when the binge happens, it becomes evidence that you “failed.”

So you restrict harder.

And the cycle begins again.

This is why binge eating treatment isn’t simply weight-loss treatment. Michele emphasized that the focus is on repairing the relationship with food and with yourself rather than finding the perfect diet.

Regular Eating Can Be an Important Part of Recovery

One of the most frightening parts of my own recovery was learning to eat regularly.

I had learned CBT-E, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy used for eating disorders, and regular eating was part of the work.

This was scary.

Because after a binge, my brain wanted to say:

“Okay. I’ll just make up for it tomorrow.”

But recovery asked me to do something very different.

Eat tomorrow anyway.

Not because I had “earned” the food.

Not because yesterday had gone perfectly.

But because my body still needed food.

When we go too long without eating, it can become much harder to recognize hunger and fullness cues and make intentional decisions around food.

Michele described this as “closing the loops” that can lead to binge eating later. If you spend the entire day restricting and arrive at nighttime extremely hungry, you’re creating conditions in which another binge may become much more likely.

What Do I Do When the Urge to Binge Shows Up?

This is where so many of the skills we talk about for OCD and anxiety overlap with binge eating recovery.

You’ve eaten regularly.

You’re working on reducing restriction.

And then it’s 9:30 at night.

You’re alone.

An uncomfortable feeling shows up.

Your brain says:

Food.

Now what?

One of the first skills Michele recommends is self-compassion.

Instead of immediately trying to get rid of the feeling, we can practice acknowledging it.

“I’m really sad right now.”

“I’m anxious.”

“I’m lonely.”

“I’m bored.”

And then we practice something incredibly difficult:

Allowing the feeling to exist without immediately fixing it.

You Don’t Have to Respond to Every Thought

This is where Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, can be incredibly helpful.

Your brain might say:

“I want tacos.”

Okay.

That’s a thought.

Your brain is allowed to produce that thought.

You don’t have to make it disappear before you can continue with your evening.

The goal isn’t necessarily to eliminate “food noise.”

In fact, becoming desperate to eliminate every food-related thought can create another battle inside your head.

Instead, you can practice noticing the thought and allowing it to be there without automatically responding to it.

You might call a friend.

Listen to music.

Watch something you enjoy.

Engage with something that matters to you.

Not because you are frantically trying to distract yourself from an “unacceptable” feeling, but because you are learning:

I can experience this urge and still choose what I want to do next.

Michele explained that even after the binge behavior stops, the thoughts about food may continue for some time. That doesn’t mean recovery isn’t working. The brain may need time to learn that a thought or urge no longer requires the same automatic response.

My Goal: Feel Without Abandoning Myself

I have said this many times, and it applies beautifully here.

My personal goal is to learn how to have any thought and any feeling without abandoning myself.

That doesn’t mean I enjoy every emotion.

It doesn’t mean everything suddenly feels comfortable.

It means there isn’t a feeling I need to run away from in order to be okay.

There isn’t a thought I must eliminate before I can live my life.

And there isn’t an urge that automatically gets to make my decisions for me.

That can be incredibly hard when an urge feels enormous.

But we can learn how to feel difficult things more kindly.

Shame Is Gasoline on the Fire

We also have to talk about shame.

Because binge eating doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

People may receive comments about their body, weight, food choices, or appearance from family members, partners, friends, and society.

“Are you sure you want to eat that?”

“Have you tried this diet?”

“You just need more willpower.”

Those comments don’t necessarily motivate recovery.

They may actually intensify the shame that is already keeping the cycle alive.

Michele described guilt, shame, and negative self-talk as “gasoline on the fire” of binge eating.

And this is why self-compassion isn’t some fluffy add-on to recovery.

It’s important work.

Body Image Is Part of This Conversation Too

For many people, binge eating isn’t only about their relationship with food.

It is also about their relationship with their body.

Diet culture and fatphobia can reinforce the belief that gaining weight makes someone less worthy, lovable, healthy, disciplined, or valuable.

That fear can fuel restriction.

Restriction can fuel binge eating.

Binge eating can fuel shame.

And around and around we go.

Michele emphasized the importance of working not only on accepting thoughts and feelings, but also on challenging internalized beliefs about body size and reconnecting with actual body sensations such as hunger and fullness.

Recovery Isn’t About Finding the “Right” Body

I want to plant a seed here.

You can learn to have a different relationship with your body.

That doesn’t mean recovery is rainbows and butterflies.

But when you’re deep inside binge eating, it can feel impossible to imagine not hating your brain or your body.

I want you to know that relationship can change.

Michele shared that today, she focuses much more on what her body allows her to do: walking her dog, traveling, playing guitar, singing, moving, and participating in her life.

And this leads us to something incredibly important:

The goal of binge eating disorder recovery is not weight loss.

The goal is repairing your relationship with food and your body.

Food Is Not the Enemy

Food has no moral value.

Eating something doesn’t make you “good.”

Eating something else doesn’t make you “bad.”

You can enjoy food.

Food can be pleasurable.

You can even be a foodie.

Recovery doesn’t require you to stop caring about food.

Instead, we’re working toward a place where food doesn’t have to carry the enormous emotional weight it once did.

Where you’re eating regularly.

Where you’re learning to recognize hunger and fullness.

Where you’re reducing shame about what you eat.

Where you’re allowing your emotions to exist.

Where food gets to simply be food.

Secrecy Feeds Shame

One final piece Michele emphasized is the importance of allowing yourself to be seen by safe people.

Binge eating can be incredibly secretive.

There may be hidden food, hidden wrappers, secret stops for food, or enormous effort put into making sure nobody knows what’s happening.

But secrecy can fuel shame.

Shame can fuel restriction.

Restriction can fuel binge eating.

Breaking that secrecy with the right person can be an important step.

That might be a therapist.

It might be a trusted person in your support system.

It might be an eating disorder support group.

The goal isn’t to tell people who will judge, monitor, or shame you.

It’s to find safe support so you don’t have to carry the entire struggle privately.

Binge Eating Recovery Is About More Than Food

If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this episode, it’s that recovery is not about finally becoming disciplined enough.

It is about understanding the cycle.

It is about reducing restriction.

Eating regularly.

Learning your body’s cues again.

Making space for uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.

Practicing self-compassion instead of shame.

Understanding what emotional needs the binge may have been trying to meet.

Questioning the beliefs you’ve learned about food, weight, and your body.

And getting support.

There may have been a time when binge eating served a purpose for you.

We can honor that without allowing it to run your life forever.

You can learn a new relationship with food.

You can learn a new relationship with your emotions.

And you can learn a new relationship with your body.

Recovery isn’t about controlling yourself harder. It is about learning how to care for yourself differently.

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Transcription: Why Dieting Makes Binge Eating Worse (The Truth About BED) with Michele Audish

Kimberley: So you have been told the solution for binge eating or binge eating disorder is just to stop, like, to just stop, simple, and it should be that easy, but it’s not. What we know about folks who have binge eating is they get stuck in a cycle that makes it so difficult to stop. And today, I have the most amazing guest on the show, the amazing Michelle Audish, who is one of the staff who works at, for us in our clinic in Calabasas, and she is here to share an amazing nuggets of information and hope and empowerment.

 

So thank you for being here, Michelle.

 

Michele: Thanks for having me. I’m so honored to be here, and very excited. 

 

Kimberley: I have been so excited for this episode. It’s a little different than what we’ve been doing recently. I think we’re really doubling in today, really talking about the cycle of binge eating. Um, I know I have had personal experience with that.

 

I think a lot of folks who have anxiety, anxiety disorders may struggle with this, so I think this is actually gonna be a topic so many people sort of resonate with. Do you wanna share anything that before we get started with some questions? 

 

Michele: Yeah. I just wanted to share a little bit about myself. Like Kimberly said, I’m an associate therapist at her practice, specializing in OCD, anxiety, and especially binge eating disorder.

 

I also really love working with very, like, creative, artistic type people who have perfectionism problems. But binge eating is sort of, pun intended, my bread and butter- … for sure, because I myself am a recovered binge eater, and I’ve had every eating disorder under the sun, and binge eating was the one that really took so much of my life away from me, more than any other type.

 

And I’m extremely passionate about helping people get their lives back from this specific disorder. 

 

Kimberley: So that’s… I mean, this is maybe even information, Michelle, I haven’t heard from you today, so I’m so excited to really get into it with you. Let’s sort of start with really what it’s like to live inside the body and the mind- Mm

 

of someone with binge eating. Can you kind of share, like, what is that like f- and what was it like for you? 

 

Michele: Torturous, for sure. It was really, really difficult. It consumed- probably 95% of my thinking on a daily basis. I woke up thinking about what I was gonna eat for breakfast. I would toil away about that, um, because I would want one thing, but no, that’s not healthy, so what if I just, like, skip breakfast?

 

And then, oh, but what am I gonna have for lunch? And then what am I gonna have for dinner, and what about these snacks? Like, I was constantly thinking about where I was going to, like, get my next hit, basically, like get my next meal from. And I had such a perfectionistic viewpoint about every meal needing to be just, like, the best thing I ever ate.

 

And because of that, I ended up just in a really horrible cycle of, like, always chasing food and always thinking about it, and then when I would binge afterwards, so much shame, right? And so this is the cycle. Like, you toil away about what to eat. You eat it. Oftentimes it doesn’t really feel that good, and emotionally and physically.

 

So then you develop a lot of shame and guilt, and you go, “Oh, no, I’m gonna be better next time. I’m gonna be better next time. Well, I already messed up today, so I guess I’ll start tomorrow on, like, a new strict diet. I’ll restrict, I’ll restrict, but today I guess I already messed up, so might as well keep binging,” right?

 

And then you feel worse and worse and worse, and then you restrict more and more and more in response to these binges, and it just keeps you locked in this really, really hard cycle of restrict, binge, guilt, restrict. 

 

Kimberley: Right. For me, I remember all of what you just shared, and there was this additional component of it wasn’t even that I, I, I was full.

 

Like, I didn’t need to eat. In many cases, I felt ill, but I felt like I was trying for this feeling. Like, and I can’t really describe it, if I’m gonna be completely honest. Like, I can’t really describe what the feeling was, but it was a fullness that wasn’t physical. Um, you know what I mean? It was, I was already full.

 

I, I’d already eaten. I probably felt so ill and horrible that I had eaten way more than I needed to, but I was still going for this feeling from food. I don’t know if that resonates with you at all. 

 

Michele: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think what that feeling is, and identifying it, is a really important part of recovery, right?

 

Like, getting into the depths of why each individual person has this hole that they’re trying to fill with the food, right? For some people, it is this guilt and it’s shame-based. For some people, they can’t stand having anxiety, and they wanna soothe the anxiety. For other people, you know, like people say, “Oh, I’m like a boredom eater,” but people can binge because they cannot tolerate the discomfort that comes with, like, being alone with their thoughts and not doing something, right?

 

So getting to the bottom of what that specific thing you’re looking for is, and then identifying that food is not gonna fill it- Right? And instead thinking of all the other things that maybe would be a better choice and actually help you heal your relationship with food and yourself and your own emotions.

 

Kimberley: And that’s it. It is the recovery, and we’ll get to this soon, I know, but the recovery is that relationship with food and with the emotions. Like, the big step for me, and I, and I know we’ll get here and w- I wanna slow down, but I will just say, like, it wasn’t really about food in the end for me. It was about so much more than food.

 

Um, and that shocked me, I think, in the process, and I think it really shocks clients because they’re like, “No, if I could just figure out how to not eat or not do this, if I had more discipline or more motivation, then I wouldn’t have this problem.” Um, a- and there’s a huge learning curve that goes with that.

 

Michele: Absolutely. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. So I think before we get into this any further, let’s get really clear on what specifically we’re talking about, and we all overeat sometimes, right? That’s a normal part. We talked about, you know, Thanksgiving is a normal time when we, as a culture, might overeat. Um, but that’s different for the folks with binge eating disorder.

 

Can you kind of give us an understanding or a comparative of what can be considered binge eating disorder? 

 

Michele: Yeah. For binge eating disorder, people with BED eat an excessive amount of food in a very short period of time, right? So, like, within a two-hour period, we’re eating the equivalent of, like, way more than a meal, a lot of snacks, a lot of things, and a lot of variety of foods for some people.

 

Mm-hmm. Where, okay, they start with one thing and that didn’t hit Good enough, and so now we’re moving over to this type of thing. We’re moving over to the candy, but the candy’s not hitting, so now we’re moving over to the chips. And oftentimes people with binge eating actually do end up combining a lot of foods that, like, people normally wouldn’t eat together, right?

 

Because you’re searching for that feeling, right? And you’re like, “Surely one of these foods-” Yeah … will fill that hole. Um, but it ends up being a lot of food in a very short period of time, and people with binge eating disorder feel completely out of control in this experience, right? Like, they want to stop so badly, but they cannot stop.

 

It is very compulsive in that sense, in that, like, part of them knows they don’t wanna do it, they shouldn’t be doing it, but that feeling that needs to get soothed is so strong that they can’t stop. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? And then afterwards, the amount of guilt and shame is, is clinical. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? People really, really, really beat themselves up.

 

They’ll cry. Some people have panic attacks afterwards. They say really horrible things to themselves, a lot of negative self-image talk, a lot of negative body talk. “I’ll be better tomorrow. I, I don’t wanna do this anymore. I just gotta find the right diet.” Like, a lot of distress. So much distress. Whereas, like, okay, if you overeat at Thanksgiving, you might, like, have a stomachache and be like, “Eh, not my favorite feeling in the world,” but you don’t beat yourself up too hard afterwards.

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Yeah. Right? You go out with your friends and it’s someone’s birthday and you eat a piece of cake and your tummy hurts a little bit ’cause you ate too much. You’re like, “Nah, okay. Maybe next time I just won’t have so much cake,” right ? Right. But people with binge eating disorder, they’ll go to dinner with the friends, they’ll eat the cake, and then they’ll go home, and because they don’t feel fulfilled, on the way home they’re hitting up the McDonald’s.

 

They’re hitting up somewhere else. It’s very secretive, too. Yes. A huge aspect of it is the secrecy, where a lot of binge eaters, people in their lives don’t really know. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: And for the people who do know, they don’t really understand- Yeah … which I’ll talk about more later. And then with binge eating disorder, it’s different from bulimia and other types of, like, eating disorders because there’s no actual purging behaviours.

 

Kimberley: Mm. 

 

Michele: Right? Like, people tend to not overexercise in response. They don’t throw up or purge. They don’t take laxatives, things like that. And so instead, like, they have to sit with that fullness, um, instead of trying to get rid of it. Yeah. They… I, I don’t really like this wording too much because there are compensatory behaviours- Yes

 

typically the next day where we’re restricting a lot, where we’re like, “Now I’m on a new diet.” But it is slightly different than, like, immediately engaging in purging behaviours. Um, and then, like, anyone can get binge eating disorder. Yeah. That’s what I really want to make clear. There’s not actually a very clear demographic of people who get this disorder.

 

Everybody pretty much has access to food at all times. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: The, the fortunate people, of course. But anyone can feel like food is the answer to their, like, emotional soothing. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. And I think that’s so interesting because, um, for me, I wasn’t a consistent binger. I had anorexia and compulsive exercising, so that was my primary.

 

And sometimes I would get into this cycle of restricting, binging, restricting, binging, and then I would fall out of it. And I do… I notice a lot of my clients who have had bulimia might fall into the binging and bulimia, and then fall out of it into just binge eating or so forth. So I think it’s important that it can switch and sway in many different areas.

 

I’ve also heard a lot of folks in… This is, like, very niche down, but folks who’ve recovered from, let’s say, OCD or phobia or depression, and as they’re recovering they start to notice a shift towards binging. So they’re not doing their compulsions anymore. Maybe they’re engaging in other behaviours. But this newer problem is showing up.

 

Really, it’s morphing- Mm … into something else. Have you noticed that? 

 

Michele: I definitely have, and I’ve heard a lot of that in substance abuse recovery as well. People who stop drinking, who stop taking substances, they, a lot of them develop, like, a sugar addiction. Don’t love that wording, but that’s what they call it.

 

And I think if people are switching over to binge eating from a different type of compulsive soothing behavior, it is a sign that they actually haven’t healed fully their relationship with their own emotions, right? They haven’t really fully healed their relationship with suffering and having a hard time, right?

 

Because we’re still looking for something to self-soothe instead of moving towards more productive and helpful and values-based behaviors. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. Uh, absolutely. Now, what are some of the misconceptions folks have about binge eating? I know from a lot of thing people I talk to or family members will say, “Well, it’s just a discipline issue,” right?

 

Like, you just don’t have the discipline to stop. And that always makes me wanna, like, rage because people with binge eating disorder have tried everything to stop. Like, this is by no means lack of trying. So what are your thoughts on some of the misconceptions people have about BED? 

 

Michele: I, I think the biggest misconception is one, how many people have it.

 

Like, people do not recognize how common this eating disorder is. It is the most common eating disorder. I was looking at statistics yesterday, and one of them said that if you combined the amount of people with anorexia and bulimia, there’s still more people with BED than that, right? It is the most common eating disorder, um, but people don’t really recognize it because of what you’re saying, right?

 

Like, this idea that it’s a lack of willpower, that people with binge eating disorder are just lazy, that they, um, don’t actually want to take care of their health, that they don’t wanna lose weight. It’s a really complicated issue that people have really boiled down to weight talk and dieting talk. And in my practice with binge eaters, at the beginning especially, we throw all of that out of the window, right?

 

Like, you’re healing the relationship with yourself and with food. And I, I’m not a weight loss coach, right? Like, I don’t view binge eating disorder treatment as weight loss treatment. Right? It is specifically about healing that relationship with the food. And I think the other misconception is, like, that shaming people with binge eating disorder will get them to, like, do it, right?

 

Every single binge eater I know, um, who I’ve worked with, who I know in my personal life, said that, like, the, the shame that parents especially give to children, um, at a young age is, like, really impactful into developing binge eating later in life. Like, if you grow up with parents who are constantly like, “You’re overeating, you’re overeating.

 

Don’t do that. You need to stop,” um, it can really create a complex relationship with food. So I think the biggest things are this idea that you lack the willpower, that you’re lazy, that you haven’t found the right diet yet. Oh, so and so did keto. Your aunt did keto and lost X, Y, and Z, so you should try that.

 

Oh, you already tried that seven times? Paleo then? You know, like 

 

Kimberley: I think you just hit the nail on the head, which is those are the attempts people make to stop binge eating that make it worse. 

 

Michele: Yes. That’s the restriction. 

 

Kimberley: The, the more … If someone said to me, and I was in a binge cycle, to stop sugar, the food noise, the, the, the hyperfocus I would have on trying to get through the day without that would mean I will end up eating more sugar that evening.

 

Like, it’s guaranteed for me. Like, if I’m a bread girl, I could eat bread every day, all day if I could. If you told me, “Oh, you’re addicted to carbs, and so the solution is, like, to break the addiction of carbs by not having bread,” you can guarantee I’m gonna eat all over bread tonight. Like, that’s just the way that my body worked or my brain worked.

 

I, I think you hit it on the head is that is the biggest misconception, that the solution is to diet. 

 

Michele: Yes. And every single binge eater I know has tried all of them. All of them. And some of them have found success in concept for a specific period of time, but because they were so restrictive, then they start binge eating and they’re on a binge eating arc, and then all of that sort of gets undone in their mind, right?

 

And then we’re back in the cycle in sort of a bigger sense. Not like a daily sense, but, like, months at a time. 

 

Kimberley: I think what you’re saying, and I think this is where it gets complex, we’ll sort of slow down here a little, is we understand that the restriction leads to more binging.

 

Now, as you know, I have a private practice. I have six amazing therapists in Calabasas, California. However, we do not take insurance. Now, if you are looking for insurance-covered OCD or BFRB treatment, I wanna let you know about NOCD. NOCD provides face-to-face live video sessions with specialized licensed OCD therapists.

 

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Now, the cool thing is NOCD is available in all 50 US states and even internationally, and they accept most insurance plans, making it affordable and accessible. We love that. Now, if you think you might have OCD or you’re struggling to manage your symptoms, you can book a free call. Just click the link in the show notes at nocd.com.

 

I am honored to partner with NOCD. I want to remind you that recovery is possible. Please do not forget that. Now, big hugs, 

 

Michele: and let’s get back to the show 

 

Kimberley: And that could be every day. It could be, you know, going on a six-week cleanse and then you return back into the cycle over that six-week period. Like, what do you think is happening or what do you know is happening in the brain of someone when they’re in that cycle?

 

Like, why is it that Aunt Janet can go on a diet and stay on one, and a person with binge-eating can’t? Or why is it that some people can find sort of that rhythm that doesn’t require a binge, and folks with binge-eating struggle with that? 

 

Michele: Such a great question. I think it comes back to what we were talking about in terms of trying to fill that emotional hole with food.

 

Kimberley: Mm. 

 

Michele: Right? It’s the relationship to the food, and, and some people, they just have, like, a way more casual relationship with food- Yeah … and eating. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: It, which is honestly, like, so confusing to me as someone who has had eating disorders, right? Like, there are people who do walk around and they’re like, “I don’t really think about food that much, and I don’t really care what it tastes like.

 

And, like, I just like to do my hobbies, and it’s easy for me to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and it’s the same thing every day,” or relatively, like, balanced in their mind. And they don’t fall into that, like, shame spiral about food. And when they fall off the wagon, um, they just sort of get right back up and they’re like, “Well, uh, that, I, I ate a piece of cake and I was at a birthday party, and that’s fine.

 

So now I’m gonna, like, move on with my time,” right? And in some ways, some people can be on these diets, right? But relatively, like, few people can sustain them. That’s true, right? Yeah. But not everyone who falls off of a diet meets criteria for binge-eating disorder. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? Yeah. I think what ends up happening is do you go sort of in the complete opposite direction with the food?

 

Mm. You go from restricting and dieting to now we’re eating these excessive amounts in short periods of time, developing guilt about it. Whereas people, like, go on these diets, they lose a lot of weight, and then they’re like, “Okay, I hit my goal. I’m just gonna sort of eat normal now,” right? 

 

Kimberley: What’s so interesting for me in the work with a client with binge-eating, and this is sort of, even folks listening can reflect on this themselves, is we’ll also often talk about, like, before you binge, what is it that you’re wanting?

 

And they’ll be like, “Food,” right? And we’ll be like, “Okay, if we didn’t have food, like, what is it emotionally that you’re needing?” Often they don’t know what that is, but through some exploration we can start to notice, like, f- and this was a big part of the treatment for me is like, “Oh, you want chips? Like, why chips?”

 

And I’m like, “‘Cause I’m angry and I just, like, wanna, like, crunch, crunch- Mm-hmm … on something. Like, rrr.” Yeah. “Like, I wanna wrestle into something.” Or it’s like, “Oh, no, it’s sweets. I wanna feel, like, pleasure.” And then it’s, then it was this exploration of, “Well, let’s talk about your anger. Do you express anger well?”

 

“No.” Were you given permission to express anger? No. Like, let’s talk about pleasure. Where do you get pleasure? I don’t allow myself to have pleasure. Mm-hmm. That feels like it’s wrong, or it feels like it’s too indulgent, or I don’t deserve it. Mm-hmm. And then through the process, and I found this with clients, there’s sort of this beautiful learning and getting to know people’s deeper needs.

 

Is that the process you see your clients go through or is it different? 

 

Michele: It, it is a lot of that, right? I obviously am a CBT OCD specialist, so I do a lot of behavioral activation change type stuff, like response prevention basically. But the response prevention might reduce the behaviors, but it doesn’t get to the bottom of like why we are engaging in the behavior, and that part is actually my favorite part- Yeah

 

of working with binge eaters, right? Because there is a reason for it. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: You know, people develop these habits, these binge eating habits, because it created safety for them somehow- 

 

Kimberley: Yeah … 

 

Michele: at some point in their life, right? Whether it was in childhood, high school, college, whatever, a hard relationship, a hard time at work, it created something that made them feel safe and soothed and sort of seen in many ways.

 

Yeah. I, I had a client say something like extremely profound to me once, which was like, “Food doesn’t say anything back to you.” 

 

Kimberley: Mm. 

 

Michele: Right? It’s just there for you. Mm-hmm. It is reliable. 

 

Kimberley: That gives me goosebumps, right? That actually kind of makes me wanna cry. And it’s true. Yeah. You know? And I think it’s true for folks like who are lonely, right?

 

Yeah. Who don’t feel like they get understood. Maybe they have all these people around, but they still feel lonely or unders- misunderstood, or- Yeah … it is, it is a friend that is reliable. Yes. 

 

Michele: But also an enemy in many ways- Yeah … right? In, in your mind. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? And the more we start to view it as an enemy, the more we try to fight it, and then we restrict, and then we restrict.

 

And part of the binge eating work, honestly, is to like, I mean, I’m not a parts work therapist really, but like acknowledge that part of you that felt safe with this, acknowledge that the food helped you in many ways, but it’s not helping you anymore. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Like, it’s just not doing what it used to do, which I, I know from my own experience, like the more you binge eat, it’s, it’s sort of like a tolerance thing- Yeah

 

where like the more you binge eat, the less it works. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? Yeah. The, the returns are so diminishing. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: For me, it got to the point where like I had maybe .5 of a second of pleasure in the whole entire two and a half, three-hour binge, right? Yeah. And whereas before I was like, “This is great” Yeah … the whole time.

 

Yeah. And then after I would really beat myself up, and that’s when I knew I needed to stop. 

 

Kimberley: Right. 

 

Michele: That’s when I knew like, this is actually useless to me. 

 

Kimberley: When I was, um, I was trained in CBT-E, which is the eating disorder version of CBT. Uh, through Oxford University. I would think I was still, as I was learning this, still sort of in early recovery, and a big part of the treatment that they use is you have to sort of eat regularly as a part of your treatment for binge eating.

 

And I remember for me that being terrifying, because if you binged, at least you were constantly saying, “Well, I’ll just won’t eat tomorrow.” But a part of my sort of recovery in my own treatment and then learning this was like, “No, we’re going to actually have you eat regular, healthy,” like not healthy, like super healthy, but like for you, what would be a reasonable amount of food to help feed your body.

 

Because if you go for too long without eating, your satiation cues get all out of whack. You don’t know when to stop. That was a scary process, to binge and still commit to eating the next day. 

 

Michele: Mm-hmm. 

 

Kimberley: It was rough. 

 

Michele: Yes, absolutely. And I talk about, like, closing these loops with my clients of these are the places where we made choices that are gonna lead to binging down the road.

 

Yeah. And not eating regularly is one of those main loops that has to be closed, because I’m sure you’ve experienced this, but when you get so hungry, you’re like, “I can’t think straight. If I don’t put calories in my mouth immediately, I’m about to pass out. My blood sugar is on the floor,” basically. And when we are making decisions from there, that is prime binge eating time.

 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Kimberley: Yep. 

 

Michele: And so if we can reconnect with our hunger and fullness cues, eat regularly, keep our blood sugar stable, it helps so much. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Because most people, from my experience and what I’ve heard, binging at night, that is typically when it happens, ’cause you haven’t eaten all day, right? You’re like, “I’m restricting.

 

I’m restricting. I’m doing good. Oh, no, now I’m so starving- 

 

Kimberley: Right … 

 

Michele: that, uh, forget it. I’m just gonna… I’ll start tomorrow.” 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: And then we’re back in it 

 

Kimberley: It is. I mean, that’s why we’ve kind of called it, like, this sort of like it makes it worse. Like, this cycle we get stuck in, in the moment it feels like the logical solution- 

 

Michele: Mm

 

Kimberley: right? Like, if I’ll just eat a whole ton and then I’ll, I’ll restrict tomorrow. Uh, uh, it, it feels, and then I’ll be on track, like- Yeah … after that. It feels so logical. Now, okay, let’s talk real time then. So somebody has taken your advice. They’re starting to listen to their body more, eat during the day, fulfill their, the nutritional needs that don’t have to be pure, fancy- Mm

 

you know, all organic blah, blah, blah. It’s just food, right? And there’s no good or bad. We take the good or the bad out. Then comes then they are feeling this emotion, and they want it gone. They want it filled. They want it displaced, whatever it might be. Mm. What might they be having to do in that moment when they’re alone, they’ve got nothing to fill that spot?

 

What skills and strategies would you encourage them to use? 

 

Michele: I take a page from your amazing book with self-compassion, right? Like, with the binge eating, there’s sort of, like, two parts to it, right? Like, we have the behaviors Uh, oh, this is so CBT of me. We have the behaviors, and then we have the thoughts, right?

 

And when we’ve reduced the behaviors, and for me, like I stopped binging and I hadn’t binged in a year, but I was still torturing myself mentally, right? Because I was unable to accept the food noise was there. I was like, “I’m still thinking about food all the time. Surely I must not be recovered, even though I haven’t binged in so long.”

 

And the thing that helped me the most was learning acceptance and commitment therapy. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? Learning that you can have any thought under the sun, and it doesn’t mean anything, right? It’s just there, and if we can learn to let it be there and be compassionate towards it, right? And say like, “Look, I’m, I’m sitting here and I feel really sad.

 

I feel really anxious. I feel bored,” whatever the feeling is. Instead of saying, “I need to get rid of it,” what if we lean into it, right? Which I’m sure people who listen to this podcast have heard. Lean into it and say like, “It’s okay for me to have this feeling and have it be here without me doing anything about it, and instead turning my attention to something else that I care about.”

 

Like turning on your favorite music video, going and watching some YouTube, like calling your friend, anything else, right? It’s okay to struggle. It’s okay to have pain. It’s okay to think about food. I think this concept of like food noise being the devil has been like bit pushed a lot lately in like, “I need to get rid of this food noise.”

 

Yeah. And in order for that to actually happen, you have to like accept that it’s gonna be there for a while. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? Like your brain is rewiring itself to know like… ‘Cause before, when it would spit out these thoughts, you would immediately respond to them, right? And then we’re like strengthening that, that loop in sort of an obsessive compulsive way of like, okay, when my brain spits out, “I want tacos,” I go and I get tacos, right?

 

But for a long period, even after you’ve stopped giving in to like the actual picking up the food and eating it, your brain is still gonna spit that stuff out. Yeah. And that’s okay. That doesn’t mean you’re not in recovery, right? And so can we allow that to be there and like not be judgmental to it because we know that guilt and shame and negative self-talk are like the gasoline- Yeah

 

on the fire of binge eating. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? So if we can reduce that, it makes a huge difference. 

 

Kimberley: For real. It’s funny that you mention like, oh, they’ve probably heard this on the podcast, but that’s the beauty of those skills, is- Mm … you can switch over from different disorders and use- Yeah … the same skills.

 

Like I always say, and I’ve said it a million times, like my goal, my personal goal is to learn to be able to have any thought and any feeling without abandoning myself. That is my personal goal. I don’t push that onto my clients. That mightn’t be their personal goal, but that is my personal goal and my mission here, like to help people to have…

 

There’s no feeling you can’t have, there’s no thought you can’t tolerate. Yeah. And I think it’s great that this also applies to this intense urge that can be washed over us in, you know, 9:30 at night when you’re alone with the refrigerator light, you know what I mean? Yeah. It’s so hard. And, and I’ve even had clients say, “Oh, I get it.

 

I’ve done that with other, you know, with OCD or with depression or whatever, but this one is about feelings, and this one makes, makes me feel like I’m gonna break in half.” Like, and I think- Yeah … that that is that we aren’t really taught to feel very well or kindly. 

 

Michele: Yeah. And on top of that, people around you, especially with the binge eating, they shame you, right?

 

So it’s not only, like, your negative feelings, it’s the negative feelings people have about your body, about what you eat, right? Mm. And so it becomes just, like, this evil soup, right? Yeah. That we have to learn to sort of coexist with. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? 

 

Kimberley: So it’s, like, culturally reinforced- Oh … to hate ourselves for eating, to hate our bodies for eating, to hate ourselves for craving.

 

Michele: Mm-hmm. 

 

Kimberley: Um, I think that’s the additional layer here for these folks. 

 

Michele: Yeah, absolutely. And I also don’t want to gloss over the way that fatphobia really influences this specific disorder- Mm … this specific eating disorder. Um, I don’t know the statistics on how many people with binge eating actually are overweight or obese, but I imagine a lot of people do gain weight from binge eating ’cause they’re not purging, right?

 

And that’s what happened to me. I gained a lot of weight. I’m chill with it now. It’s fine. Love myself, love my body. But, you know- You’re absolutely stunning People were so weird about it. Yeah. Right? Like, people are like, “Are you sure you wanna eat that? You shouldn’t be eating that.” Uh, also like, “What if you tried this diet?

 

Have you tried this one?” Like I said earlier, right? And like, there’s so much shame from people around you, but also society, right? Society says that fat people basically have no worth. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? Every- they make so much money off of shilling diets and diet pills and all sorts of different things, um, that…

 

And the messaging is like, “You just don’t have enough willpower. Just do this thing. Just restrict more and more and more, right? Buy my thing- Mm-hmm … buy my diet, buy my workout plan, right? You just haven’t tried the right thing yet.” And then people spend so much money on these things. They develop so much shame about it, you know.

 

And s- so much of that restriction mindset is fueled by internalized fatphobia of, I don’t want to gain weight, ’cause if I gain weight, X, Y, and Z, like, I’m not worthy, right? So, so much of binge eating is fueled by internalized fatphobia, societal fatphobia, and I think when it comes to binge eating clients, I’ve never met one who doesn’t also have body image issues.

 

Kimberley: Mm-hmm. 

 

Michele: Right? It’s not just about the food. It’s about your relationship to your body through food. 

 

Kimberley: Yep. 

 

Michele: Right? And in so many ways, people become very disconnected from the actual sensations of their body. Mm-hmm. They can’t tell when they’re hungry. They can’t tell when they’re full. Um, and it’s, it’s sort of just like a sinister way to live sometimes.

 

Yeah. So if we can get people to like, one, accept themselves, accept their feelings, accept their thoughts, but also like, sort of dismantle a little bit of this internalized and societal fatphobia, and let go of that as the fuel to, I need to restrict because I can’t be that way- 

 

Kimberley: Yeah … 

 

Michele: it makes a huge difference.

 

Kimberley: It does. And, and not feeling watched. Like, feeling watched- Mm-hmm … is anxiety-provoking, and some people binge when they’re having anxiety, and so the- Yeah … the being watched is making it worse. The, the telling them to diet is actually creating the cycle ’cause you’re, you’re telling them to do the thing that’s making the disorder continue.

 

Um, which is, again, I think it’s great that you’re bringing this up because I think really what it touches on is ideally the whole family system becomes a part of the recovery in, you know, parents not commenting anymore, you know- Mm-hmm … you know, partners learning how to support them when they’re having an urge instead of maybe shaming them or making them, uh, feel like it should be really simple.

 

So I think- Yeah … you’re really bringing on how it’s, it’s the disorder in their brain and it’s their everything going on, but it’s also coming from the outside, like any eating disorder. Yeah. We’ve covered so much in such a short amount of time. Is there something that you feel we haven’t touched on at all or enough?

 

Uh, is there something you really, like, I, I said this with Alex when she was like, “If we could hold the shoulders of someone with BED,” um, what would you tell them? 

 

Michele: Food is not your enemy. Food has zero moral value to it. Food is food. You can enjoy it. It can be an important part of your life. Like, I’m still a foodie.

 

I’m a recovered binge eater, but I love food, right? I just don’t binge anymore. Um, and you don’t have to live in secrecy about this. There’s so much shame, so much throwing away trash in the middle of the night at the gas station, making sure nobody sees, right? But if you can allow yourself to be seen by the right people, whether it’s a therapist, whether it’s a support system that you have that you know won’t judge you, be open and honest because the secrecy just fuels the shame- 

 

Kimberley: Yeah

 

Michele: which fuels the eating, which fuels the restriction, which fuels the eating, and it’s just a horrible cycle, and you don’t have to break out of it alone. If anything, you probably won’t be able to. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? There are so many resources. I do wanna plug NEDA, uh, the National Eating Disorder Association. They have free support groups.

 

Kimberley: Wow. 

 

Michele: So many free support groups that I utilized myself when I was really in the throes of my recovery, um, and so many resources on their website. Like, go take a look at it and see that you’re not alone in this, and know this is the most common eating disorder. You probably know someone else who has this problem, right?

 

And if you can be open and honest about it, maybe they will be, too. 

 

Kimberley: Hmm. I love that. I think for me, the only thing I would add, and maybe you even wanna, like, chime in, is you can learn to love your body. A- and that’s so foreign. Like, I never want this episode, this podcast to be like, “Oh, you’re gonna be so cured, and there’s gonna be rainbows and butterflies on the other-” Yeah.

 

Like, I don’t want it to sound like that. But I know when you’re in the midst of a cycle of binge eating, you hate your brain and you hate your body. You’re disgusted by it, right? Like, this is the feeling. But I do wanna sort of plant a seed, and I feel this way, of like, you can actually learn to kinda love your body.

 

Mm-hmm. And be like, “Yeah, it’s, it’s not like the… So I’m not like a, a model, but pretty cool. Like, it’s a pretty cute body,” right? Yeah. I think that is a part of this process that’s possible for people. I don’t know if you have any feedback or thoughts on that. 

 

Michele: Yeah. I mean, I did it myself. It is… I currently live in a plus-sized body that at the beginning of my binge eating, I would have been like, “No way.

 

I cannot be like that,” right? “I cannot look like that.” And now, like, I just love the way that I, I look, and I care about my actual physical body, right? Instead of, like, how it looks to other people. Thinking about f- food as fuel so that my body can do stuff that I like to do. At the peak of my anorexia, and we could do a whole other episode about that, I literally was so thin and I couldn’t do anything.

 

I would just sorta, like, lay around. But I was like, “I’m laying around and I’m skinny.” You know? And now it’s like I, I can do all the stuff that I really wanna do. I can walk my dog. I can go walk around on vacation, you know? Like, I can walk on my walking pad. I can play guitar. I can go sing. I can do whatever I wanna do with my body, right?

 

And I don’t hate it. Yeah. And the truth is, is like I don’t want people to think that … Like, the goal of binge eating disorder is not to lose weight. 

 

Kimberley: Yes. 

 

Michele: It’s to repair the relationship with food and body. 

 

Kimberley: Yes. 

 

Michele: And that is how you live free of it. Yeah. It’s not finding the right diet. It’s not finding the next thing.

 

And restriction is not healthy, right? Mm-hmm. People equate thinness with health so much that they’re like, “No matter how I get there, that means I’ll be healthy,” right? But restriction is extremely unhealthy, and it is so bad. You are tr- you are basically overriding all of the things your body was naturally born to do.

 

Mm-hmm. Evolved to do. So letting go of this idea that like it’s healthy to be restrictive is one of the core things that I want people to understand. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. 

 

Michele: Right? The same way binge-eating is not healthy, restricting is not either. 

 

Kimberley: Mm-hmm. 

 

Michele: So the happy medium is like how can we get you eating regularly? How can we get you not shaming yourself for what you eat?

 

Um, and really tuning into your body cues about when you’re hungry and when you’re full, and accept your feelings. 

 

Kimberley: Yes. Oh my gosh, you’re amazing. This has been so helpful and so cool. And I do, the more I talk about it, the more I’m like, oh, this is so overlaps with so many things. B- again, like people with BFRBs have binge eating disorder.

 

Like, it’s- Mm-hmm … it’s such a huge part of all of these cycles. So tell us where people can find out more about you. Um, and even you’ve mentioned NEDA, but if they wanted to work with you, where would they get ahold of you? 

 

Michele: Um, I am on Kimberly’s website, because I’m so lucky to work for her. So if you go to Kimberly’s website and hit the About Us, Our Team button, I’m on there.

 

You’ll see me. You’ll recognize my face. Um, I also do have an Instagram. It’s called Rock & Roll Therapy. It’s, like, rock, period, and, period, roll, period, therapy. I’m on there. Um, and I also have a website, but I’m on Kimberly’s, so that doesn’t really matter. Check me out there. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah. You’re, you’re doing such beautiful work.

 

I am so proud of you. 

 

Michele: Thank you. Yay. 

 

Kimberley: Yeah, you should be so proud of yourself. It’s just so wonderful. You’re doing such amazing work, all the team. I’m just so lucky.

 

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