Binge Eating Masterclass - The 4 Reasons You Binge and How to Overcome Them | DFIO Ep.254
About Today’s Episode:
Thank you for being here, I am PUMPED for today’s episode! I am calling this the “Binge Eating Masterclass” and I am going to give you the EXACT breakdown of why you're binge eating and how to stop it.
Based on the conversations I have been having—and the things you guys have said you’re struggling with—I think this is a great time to take a deep dive into this topic.
This isn’t going to be surface-level advice like, “don’t keep junk food in the house.” No, we are going to go into the 4 specific reasons you are binge eating and how to tackle and overcome them.
There’s a ton to get into, so let’s dive right in!
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Introduction & about today's episode
2:54 Our sponsors
6:46 Why you need to get to the other side of binge eating BEFORE focusing on weight loss
14:17 The 4 reasons you binge eat
15:35 Binge eating based in hunger
18:35 Binge eating based in restriction
29:36 Binge eating based in emotion
38:03 Binge eating based in identity
43:07 Closing thoughts
43:47 Wrap-up and how to apply for coaching
Transcript (click to expand)
Ep. 254 Binge Eating Masterclass
.pdf
Download PDF • 116KB
The Binge Eating Masterclass | DFIO Ep.254
0:00:00.0 Jared Hamilton: We all have an inner child, and you're basically giving the middle finger to your inner child. You're saying, "you're not allowed to feel this in my presence." "You're not allowed to be sad around me." "Your emotions are invalid." What would happen if you said that to a kid? It would fuck them up. And here's the crazy part, you would never say that to the kids in your life. You would never say that to the friends in your life. You would never say that to anyone you give a damn about.
0:00:25.5 Jared Hamilton: What's going on friends? Welcome back to another episode of Dieting From The Inside Out. If you are new here, welcome to the show. My name is Jared Hamilton, and I am pumped that you're here. This is so cool. I never take for granted that you're here on the show, and thank you for being here; it means a ton to me. Now, today is a really cool episode because, I'm calling this basically the binge eating master class. This is a solo episode, so I'm gonna try to keep it a little bit shorter, but I think, just with the conversations I've been having and with the things that you guys are saying that you're struggling with, I think right now is a beautiful time to give you the exact breakdown on why you're binge eating and how to stop it. This is literally going to be the binge eating master class. And let me just say this, especially if you're new to the show, this is not just, "hey, just get the trigger foods out of the house," or "hey, just be more mindful" or "just go on a walk." That is such surface level bullshit that doesn't help anyone.
0:01:16.1 Jared Hamilton: In this episode I'm gonna quite literally show you the four reasons you are binge eating. All four specific ones, binge eating, in my experience is boiled down to four very specific reasons, and then I'm gonna show you how to address each of these reasons and give you the exact plan, essentially, on how to go tackle your binge eating so you never struggle with it ever again. I'm whipping out all the stops on this one, so I hope you get a lot out of today's episode.
0:01:38.2 Jared Hamilton: Now, before we get into all the goods, let's do a little bit of housekeeping. Number one, if you are not subscribed to the show, be sure and subscribe to the show. The show... It's quite literally everywhere now. It is on all the platforms that podcasts can be found on.
0:01:50.4 Jared Hamilton: We have all the episodes on YouTube right now, so especially like these cool guest episodes I've been doing. If you wanna actually watch the interview between me and my guests, you can do that now on YouTube. We have the podcast website up right now, so if you go to dietingfromtheinsideout.com, not only is all that stuff there, all the resources are there, all the show notes are there, but now, we even have the entire show for every episode transcribed into a blog format. So if you don't, let's say like listening to the shows or watching the shows, or let's say you just want the cliff notes or whatever the case may be, those are available now too. So we have a lot going for you with the show right now, so be sure and everyone check all those resources out. But number two, if you are not subscribed and sharing this show with other people, like you are doing them a disservice, 'cause if you find value in this and it's helped change your life, you quite literally have a responsibility, in my opinion, to share this with others. I view this the same way as like, you found the waterfall and you know a bunch of people that are thirsty, it's your responsibility that you get them to the waterfall and not just keep all the water for yourself. So be sure and share this with someone, it would mean a ton to me and it will help everyone else out as well.
0:02:56.0 Jared Hamilton: So now, before we get into the episode, definitely a big thank you from the sponsors of the show. Sponsor number one is FlexPro Meals because your boy is a lazy bastard. In all seriousness, I love FlexPro so much because it fills so many gaps. Because my thing is, in the day and age in which we live, everything is predicated off convenience, right? This is why drive-throughs are a thing, like gas stations are a thing, which is why protein bars, protein shakes, snack-sized things are all a thing because so much of our day-to-day, cell phones, Amazon Prime, the whole nine yards is predicated on convenience, and if what you're doing is not convenient, you're more than likely not gonna do it and you're gonna fall short. So that's the thing with FlexPro that I love so much because with them, I don't have to think about my food because my day is so all over the place.
0:03:41.4 Jared Hamilton: I know your day in most cases is all over the place between kids and groceries and your partner and overtime and school and all the stuff, a lot of times our nutrition falls short. A lot of times our, which means our goals fall short, but just having some of these meals in your fridge ready to go that meet your goals, that taste amazing, that are made by a chef, that are cheaper than going to the drive-through, it's just like a no-brainer. So definitely check them out; all the info is below. Also you can go to flexpromeals.com, but I wanna save you money because that's dope, and you can use my code HamiltonTrained, and yeah, you can get 20... I think it's 20% off, which is pretty cool. So definitely check them out.
0:04:18.8 Jared Hamilton: Next sponsor is 1st Phorm. As always, I'm wearing one of their shirts because it's the majority of the clothes that I own now, and they're some of my favorite clothes ever. But anyway, big thank to 1st Phorm, because as we all know, guys, supplements are not like the end all be all; one of the things I love about 1st Phorm is they'll be the first ones to tell you that. I will be the first one. They'll be the first one to tell you that you should not be basing your entire program and what your results are made up of on just supplements, because it's just not how the game is supposed to go; they're called a supplement for a reason. So the beautiful thing with 1st Phorm is when it comes to the supplements, they're just for filling holes in your nutrition and in your day-to-day in your program that you're not getting with food.
0:05:00.6 Jared Hamilton: So with 1st Phorm, it just makes it really, really simple and easy because you know exactly what you're getting. Unfortunately, so much of the industry is extremely unregulated, wow words are hard today, I guess, and a lot of bullshit gets under the radar because of just how unregulated it is. No companies are required to do third-party testing, they don't even have to be FDA approved, like all the different kinds of things. And I'll go so far to say the FDA is kind of a joke anyway, but that's a topic for a whole another discussion. But essentially, anyone can start a supplement company out of their basement and put whatever they want and it will be a long time before they get caught, and I just hate to see you go get the cheapest thing you can find on Amazon and it turns out it's not safe, it's not effective; the doses aren't right, and it's not studied and it's got all these issues.
0:05:46.3 Jared Hamilton: So that's the thing that I love about 1st Phorm, is they check all the boxes and they treat their people well, and it's some of the best stuff that you'll find. And I just love knowing that I can send our clients there and they're taken care of completely with all this stuff. So if you need help with supplementation, if you... It's something that you have in your program, but you wanna make sure you're taking the best that you can, definitely go check them out. I have a link in the description below, and it will help you out a lot. So I appreciate you. Thank you so much for all of that.
0:06:11.7 Jared Hamilton: Now, let's get into the show because this is gonna be a big one. This is gonna be a show... An episode that you're going to want to listen to probably several times, sorry I'm getting my notes pulled up to help keep me on track a little bit. Because I'm gonna throw a lot at you. Usually, this is one of the subjects that when I get brought in to do like podcasts or speaking or Facebook groups or whatever the case is, this is one of the biggest things that I get brought in to talk about, and most people are like, it's gonna be probably like drinking out of the firehose for you. So if you're taking notes, you're gonna want to or you're gonna wanna at least go back and listen to this, 'cause this is gonna be a pretty deep one because... Here's the thing with binge eating. Before I get into the tactics and strategies, I need to frame this properly for you because it's a big deal. So why does it even matter to get on the other side of binge eating? There's a few reasons.
0:07:00.5 Jared Hamilton: Number one, you're never gonna make it to your goal, and number two, it can take over your whole life. One of our clients just reached out and gave a really nice testimonial talking about how she's finally got on the other side of binging because she's coaching with us but she was... She really elaborated like she couldn't do anything in her life because binge eating took control of it. She couldn't go out to eat with her friends or date night.
0:07:21.6 Jared Hamilton: She couldn't do all these different things, there's all these other... These passions and things that she wanted to do, but all her energy and bandwidth and all this other stuff was binge eating and how it was debilitating, all these different things, and now it's over and now her whole life has opened up because she's removed this mental weight of binge eating, not only this mental weight, but then physical too, because, I'll be honest with you, binge eating is a hell of a calorie deficit. So it's such a big deal, not only... Because if you're listening to this, I'm assuming you may struggle a little bit at some capacity with binge eating or a lot, and at the end of the day it can be totally debilitating. It will eat up your entire mental bandwidth and your emotional state and can cause a lot of problems, especially when we get deeper into this. 'Cause the two first reasons for binge eating are what I would call more surface level, but then the last two are really deep, and if you really struggle with the last two, it's no wonder you are mentally exhausted and it's quite literally taken over your whole life.
0:08:20.7 Jared Hamilton: So binge eating is a big deal. But then from a weight loss perspective, I'll be honest with you and I'll just say it bluntly, if you do not get on the other side of your binge eating, you'll never get to where you wanna be. I mean, think of it this way; if your goal is to save a shit ton of money, but you uncontrollably spend your money every fucking day, well then how do you ever think you'll be able to save your money? You won't. So it's the same thing here. If you have any goals of body composition or weight loss or looking better, feeling better, your clothes fitting better or being confident in your own skin or any of these kind of things, but you struggle with binge eating, you will never make it until we fix this. I'm just being honest with you, okay? So here's the thing. This is why we need to do at first. What most people do wrong when it comes to binge eating is, and the way that we handle it is we handle it first. So I like to give you an idea. When we coach people, inside of our coaching program, we have a three, and this is not...
0:09:12.9 Jared Hamilton: I'm not just gonna get into talking about coaching, I'm just giving you context. When we coach people, our coaching program has three specific stages. Well, stage two is where we do the fat loss stuff, right? Stage two, we call it boring fat loss, because that's how fat loss is supposed to be. And that's when we can actually focus on inches coming off, pounds dropping, looking better, feeling better, that kind of stuff, but our stage one is the name of the show, dieting from the inside out, because if you do not... Like I said, if you do not get on the other side of your binge eating, nothing else matters.
0:09:41.8 Jared Hamilton: But where people go wrong is they say, "oh no, I have vacation here in two months, I wanna get really lean," or, "well, I really wanna lose weight now, and then once I lose the weight, then I'll focus on the binge eating and the inner game." Well, that doesn't work, that's like saying, "I'm gonna cheat all my way through high school, then in college I'm gonna get my shit together." That just isn't the right way to go about anything.
0:10:07.5 Jared Hamilton: So it's the same thing here, because if that's you, if you're like, "no, I'll figure the binge eating out later," well, what do you think is gonna happen when you lose the 30 pounds? Binge eating is going to bring it all back. But here's the scary part. Every time you yo-yo like that, every time you lose 10, gain 12, lose 30, gain 35, you're doing a couple of different things; you're building insane amounts of negative momentum, you are making it so much harder to lose the weight and keep it off every time you relapse with your yo-yo dieting, because the mind craves and gravitates to what's familiar and you're just giving it a stronger case and more familiarity, but then number two, it also fucks your metabolism over every single time you do that, when you go like bing, bing, bing with that. So we have to address binge eating first because for those that don't, this is one of the reasons you stay dieting for years or, if not decades, is because you go, oh, I'm just gonna lose the weight now because I'm impatient, if we're being honest, you lose the weight, but then the binge eating causes you to gain it back, then you're frustrated, pissed off, and even in more of a sense of urgency, well, okay, I'm gonna do it for real this time. Then I'm gonna stop the binge eating and then that never happens, and you just gain and lose the same 10 pounds for 10 years.
0:11:17.4 Jared Hamilton: So that's what I'm gonna show you how to fix. So step one for you, when you're going through this binge eating side of things, like fixing it, you are not allowed to focus on weight loss yet. Now, I know some of you guys that are listening, your heart just dropped into your stomach and you're like, what the fuck? Understand this. You need to give yourself permission while you are fixing your binge eating and your inner game problems to, dare I say it, gain some weight.
0:11:41.6 Jared Hamilton: Now, here's the thing though, let me just say this, I'm not saying just 'cause you focusing on binge eating, you're not just gonna go gain all this weight. Here, let's be honest, if you struggle with binge eating, you've been gaining weight. If you've been struggling with binge eating, you haven't been making progress long-term in your weight loss, you've been bouncing back and forth for a long fucking time.
0:11:57.2 Jared Hamilton: So I think it's really logical to not focus on weight loss because the more you focus on weight loss and forget your binge eating, the more weight you gain because you are binge eating. Well, does it not make more sense logically to maybe hold off on weight loss, fix the binge eating, and then once you do that, then we can go into weight loss, and it's really not that big of a deal. Think of it this way; here's my favorite analogy. Would you ever move into a home that has no foundation? It's a dumb fucking question, but just hear me out. Would you ever move into a house that has no foundation? Well, I doubt it, but why? It's probably because you know that it's a matter of time until the house will cave in on itself. Right, that's how structure works.
0:12:40.8 Jared Hamilton: Well, here you are trying to build your transformation house, your fat loss house, if we wanna call it that, but you are... You don't have a foundation because you binge eat and you emotionally eat and you sabotage and you have horrible relationships with food and all this bullshit, but you're like, no, let's just put the walls on the ceiling up, it's fine, or just move into this house anyway, and the house is crumbling and you're like, no, it's fine, let me just redo the dry wall, it doesn't have a foundation, right, it's like having a house being built and the builders go, hey, it's gonna be a little bit because you're... We have to get the foundation and you go, it's fine, just put the walls and the ceiling up, it's good. That doesn't fucking work.
0:13:16.1 Jared Hamilton: Foundation first, because without a foundation, you have no right to put the walls and the ceiling on. Yes. Would you agree with that? Probably nodding your head. So it's the same thing here. If you have no mental and emotional foundation and you're binge eating and having all these fucking issues, you do not have the right to lose weight yet. We get this happen all the time with coaching. This is quite literally how our coaching program works, is you are not allowed to go into stage II until you you complete stage I. Until we are on the other side and making all this progress with binge eating, emotional eating, sabotage eating, all or nothing mentalities, identity, food relationships, the whole nine yards, there is literally no reason to go into fat loss because you're gonna fuck it up. Right?
0:14:00.0 Jared Hamilton: That's how I want you to start viewing this. This is why we have to get on the other side of the binge eating first. We're not even worried about all the other bullshit right now; this episode is just about the binge eating master class. Okay. So I know I'm already at... Fuck, I'm already at 13 minutes. Alright, I'm gonna try to make this not too long.
0:14:16.4 Jared Hamilton: So four reasons for binge eating, here's how this is gonna go. For those that are taking notes, I'm gonna give you the four reasons for binge eating right now, and then I'm going to then dive into each of the four. Because some of you guys that are listening, it's one of those things where you may just... You may be reason number one person, some of you may just be number four, or you may just have one of these issues. Or some of you may be a combo platter where it's like, holy shit, I do all of those. That's, all the reasons hit home, or you may be two of the four. So it may not be just one or two, it could be all four, maybe three, maybe just like I said, the one. So pay really close attention, take your notes and we'll get into it.
0:14:53.2 Jared Hamilton: Alright. So four reasons for binge eating right here. Binge eating based in hunger, binge eating based in restriction, alright, binge eating based on it being emotionally driven, and then binge eating based on your identity. Those are the four. Hunger, restriction, emotionally driven and identity. Alright, so here's the thing. The first two are very biological, the first two are very quickly fixed in most cases. Like when we work with clients, the first two we can fix usually on the faster side, not all cases, but just 'cause everyone's different, but the first two definitely can be fixed faster.
0:15:29.4 Jared Hamilton: The second two take a little bit longer because they're deeper, they have more conditioning, they have inner child bullshit attached to them usually. Alright, so the first one is hunger. Binge eating based on hunger is quite literally, you just let your hunger get too high. That's it. There's a few ways this happens, like for those of you that think 1,200 calories is the magic number, then you wonder why you're fucking up your pantry at midnight every night, it's because your hunger is just too high. It's a very animalistic response because you're just hungry. There's nothing else to it. You're just hungry. We see this a lot, where let's say... Let's say you're one of those people who... Let's say you're going on date night tonight, so you starve yourself all day because you wanna conserve calories, but then it backfires 'cause you go bat shit crazy at the Mexican restaurant or wherever you guys go to dinner. Or let's say some of you that let's say have a lunch break at work, and let's say you forgot to bring your lunch because you didn't have a FlexPro Meal, or let's say you forgot to bring your lunch or you worked through lunch, or whatever the case is.
0:16:22.8 Jared Hamilton: So then by the time you go home from work, you're like, oh, dear God, I'm just so fucking hungry, then you're just, for some reason, pounding random things like Saltine crackers or you eat like an entire bag of pretzels or stuff that's not even that good, but you're just like, why am I eating this? So that's a big one, is you just let your hunger get you high or you have a tendency to say like, oh, I don't need it, I'm not that hungry, and you like somehow take fucking hunger as a badge of honor. It's fucking stupid.
0:16:49.5 Jared Hamilton: So we see this a lot with people who don't eat just enough in general. If you're the person who's like, oh, a handful of almonds is a meal, or, oh, just a scoop full of peanut butter is fine, or I'm just gonna have a salad everywhere I go. I'm gonna have maybe a whole 50 calories on that plate every time I eat. The reason you're binge eating, if this is you, is your hunger just gets too high. It doesn't have anything to do with restriction, it doesn't have anything to do with your emotions, it doesn't have anything to do with your identity. It's just you are a hungry individual. So the answer is, don't let yourself get that hungry.
0:17:19.9 Jared Hamilton: So then I would ask, so your strategy is, well, when does this normally happen? Oh, it only happens when you forget to bring your lunch at work? Is it when the weekends hit and you have events planned and you don't wanna eat all day 'cause you're conserving calories and then it backfires? The strategy for this one is not to just will power yourself through hunger and cravings, the answer is to just don't let yourself get that hungry. If we put your hunger on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 is stealing pizza from children and one is completely satisfied, well, maybe about a three, three and a half, four. Maybe you should... Don't let your hunger get above that; you're like, you know what, I am a little bit hungry, boom, eat.
0:18:00.9 Jared Hamilton: Don't let your hunger get to a 9 out of 10 where you're drop kicking toddlers to take their pizza. Okay, I know it sounds dumb, but for those that struggle with this, you know what I'm saying. So don't let your hunger get that high; that is a strategy. So whatever that looks like for you, put a plan in place, whether it be a food schedule, whether it be, you always have things like protein bars, 1st Phorm makes the best protein bars ever by the way, protein bars in your purse, granola bars in places, sandwiches at home, whatever the thing may be, put a plan in place where your hunger cannot get out of control, because then we stop this thing at the root cause.
0:18:35.0 Jared Hamilton: Okay. Hunger is... Like I said, hunger is pretty easy. Number two, it's restriction. So when it comes to binge eating based on restriction, the adage I like to say is, if we stop the restriction, we stop the binge. Okay, here's where most people go wrong. Let me just say this. How to know if your binge eating is based in restriction is what you're eating. Actually, let me take a step back. Like with the hunger and with binge eating based in hunger, this is where you'll notice you'll binge on just about anything, like anything and everything. You'll eat whatever, because it's a hunger response. Now with restriction, this is where what you binge on changes, okay. If you notice you only binge on the foods that you're not supposed to have, that's where you know this is a problem. If you don't binge... If you're not gonna binge on a turkey sandwich or a chicken salad, but you're binging on cookies, cake, ice cream, pie, chips, things like that. If you happen to restrict the things that you're binging on, this is screaming at you. Okay, here's the thing, this is where we stop the restriction, we stop the binge.
0:19:36.2 Jared Hamilton: This is where a lot of people... We see this would happen when, like let's say a craving and someone says, "Oh, I don't need that," first of all, don't ever say that ever the fuck again. Here's my biggest issue with when people say, "Oh, I don't need it", you don't need two eyeballs, two kidneys, taste buds, you don't need sight at all, you don't need hair, you don't need makeup, you don't need paint on your walls, you don't need heat and AC in your house. There's a lot of shit you don't need, but you have because it makes you happy. And there's nothing wrong with that. So when you're sitting there going... When you're sitting there going, "Oh, I don't need the cookie."
0:20:07.6 Jared Hamilton: You're right, you don't, but that doesn't mean it's bad to have, but you're saying, "No, I don't need the cookie. I really want the cookie...
0:20:13.2 Jared Hamilton: No, I don't need it. And you do that for a week, it's no wonder you slam the entire pack of Oreos. You see what I'm saying? Stop saying that, there's a lot of things you don't need but that... Just 'cause you don't need it for survival doesn't mean it's bad to have it. Come on. So this is why the word like cravings usually come into place. Usually, people who struggle with restriction-based binge eating have a horrible relationship with food and they get rid of all the foods they love. This is where you view food as good and bad, this is where we usually view the healthy food, the unhealthy food, this is where you have the diet food and the cheat day food. This is usually when someone's like, "Alright, I'm on a diet no more pizza and beer for me," that's the problem. The issue isn't, we need to white knuckle through harder with the binge when you wanna binge; the issue is we need to ease up the restriction. Here's the thing you have to understand, for those listening. With all of these, the all four reasons for binge eating, the answer is not to go more will power and more white knuckling when you feel the urge to binge. To be honest, I don't care if you binge; I care about let's address the front side of it, so the urge to binge just disappears. I don't want you to have to white knuckle through it and have to will power and discipline your way through it; I wanna just get rid of the urge to binge in general. Alright. So... Actually, hang on.
0:21:29.1 Jared Hamilton: I just remembered something to add to my notes at the end. Cool, okay. So when it comes to the restriction-based binge eating, it's pretty simple; to stop the binge, we stop the restriction. 'Cause if you notice, what foods don't you binge on? You binge on chicken breast [chuckle], you binge on rice and broccoli, you binge on salad, probably not. Because those aren't special. Those aren't restrictive. You can have those in abundance like a mother fucker. The foods that you binge on are the ones where you're like, "I'm not supposed to have it," the ones... Those are fattening, those are fat storing.
0:22:03.3 Jared Hamilton: Those are cheat day foods; those are the ones where you restrict all during the week and then you fuck it up at the end of the week, or till as long as you can fucking take it. This is how we fix this, how we do this with clients, we have them eat those foods every single day. Here's how we fix this, I'm gonna quite literally give you one of the best strategies we give clients all the time. This is what I call the gas station method. Okay? Here's how we fix it 'cause right about now... 'Cause that's a simple fix. It's like, "Oh, you wanna stop the restrictive-based binge eating, stop the restriction and the binge will stop. There's like three of you that will go, "Oh, okay, and then you're good," but the rest of you will go, "Jared, I can't eat just a few chips."
0:22:39.9 Jared Hamilton: "I can't eat just two Oreos, I can't have one or two donuts without smashing the whole pack." Cool, I get it. So that's actually... That specific problem is a neuro pathway issue in your brain; we're talking about deep levels of neuroplasticity and things like that, like neuro-chemistry and all these different things. Because, here's why this is happening, if this makes you feel a little less crazy, because I get it, I understand I've been there, done it, where I could not not go ballistic on the whole thing of donuts, right.
0:23:10.2 Jared Hamilton: Here's the reason why, your brain, please hear me when I say this, your brain is just a record of the past. That's all it is. Your brain is nothing about a record of the past, and it just views the past as tried and true law, essentially.
0:23:24.0 S2: So if every time you've had the donut and you proceeded to smash all of the donuts or you had the Oreo and you ate all the Oreos, or you were like, "I'm just gonna have a handful of chips and you killed the whole family-sized bag of Doritos, 'cause that's a lot of fun, or if you smashed a whole pizza when you didn't mean to, your brain just goes, "Okay, I guess we can't control ourselves." That's it. That's why you feel that way. That's why when you have the one piece of pizza and you're like, fuck, and you eat the whole thing, or whatever the foods, it's because your brain is just triggered, like "This is just what I do." It's just like breathing; this is just what I do. So here's what we need, you have to understand this. The reason you struggle is because your brain and your nervous system crave familiarity and is just looking for the familiar past, so how to change this, we just need to create a new familiar passed.
0:24:09.0 Jared Hamilton: What if your brain had all the evidence of self-control, what if your brain had all the evidence of complete freedom? Well, you don't have that right now, more than likely, but I'm gonna show you exactly how to get it. This is this right here, I'm telling you, guys, people pay so much money for what I'm about to tell you. We have people who quite literally join our coaching program just for this one thing right here, and I'm gonna show you exactly what it is. So here's what happens, here's what you're gonna do. Most people right about now, they make a good first step, but then they fuck the rest of it up. So when it comes to restricted based binge eating, they go, "Oh, I'm gonna get all the trigger foods out of the house."
0:24:46.9 Jared Hamilton: Well, first of all, labeling that food a trigger food is not gonna heal that relationship with food, it'll be like my... Me telling my wife, "Hey, bitch, go make me a sandwich?" That's not gonna help things. The label has fucked you up, is fucking you up. So there are foods currently that you struggle with, that's how I'd word it. There are foods that you are temporarily struggling with, the chips, the cookies, the cake, whatever it is. Step one, clear the house of those foods; this is step one. Most people end all be all here and then they wonder why they binge eat at the restaurant or whatever. So step one, get all the foods that you're currently having a hard time with out of the house, because we need a clean slate and we need to have you be able to go address these foods on your time, okay. Now, every single day, here's what I want you to do, every single day, I want you to go to the gas station or the grocery store and get a single size serving of whatever the food is, just pick one. Let's just take chips, for example. Most people I know have like trouble with chips and they can't just have a handful or a serving or two servings, they smash the whole bag of Lay's.
0:25:48.7 Jared Hamilton: Usually only drunk Jared has done that [laughter]
0:25:51.8 Jared Hamilton: But here's the thing though. But here's the cool thing, that every store and gas station cells single-sized servings of every food you could possibly want, so let's just take a vending machine size bag of chips. So you're gonna clear the house of the chips because you cannot binge on what's not there. You're gonna go to the gas station or grocery store, buy one of the single size serving, bring it home, you eat it and enjoy it. Because here's what's happening up here, in your brain, your brain is going, "Holy fuck. We're gonna do it again. She's having chips. We're gonna go batshit crazy. Why did we not go batshit crazy? 'Cause you're gonna eat the 150-calorie bag of chips, and your brain's gonna have a mini panic attack, it's gonna go, "Wait, why didn't she binge? We always binge."
0:26:35.5 Jared Hamilton: Your brain at this level doesn't know you don't have chips in the house, you just, the big bag, your brain just knows, we're eating chips, we binge on chips. You can do this with any food, you can do this with pizza, go buy a single slice of pizza, bring it home, eat the slice of pizza. And your brain's gonna go, here we go, why didn't we eat the whole... Why didn't we eat the whole thing of pizza? Candy bars are the best of this. If you normally would smash a whole bag of candy, go by a piece... A candy bar, a 300-calorie Reese's cup, whatever. Go buy it, bring it home and eat it, because you cannot binge on what's not there, so even if you have the worst self-control ever, you go buy it, don't eat it yet, bring it home, you can go purchase one thing. You have that level of self-control. And if you...
0:27:17.1 S2: I'll be honest, if you don't think you do, you're lying to yourself. You've done this all the time. If you needed to go pick up like a Reese's cup for someone's, like to throw in a birthday gift, you would buy that for them without going batshit crazy on yourself or whatever the case is. Go buy the one thing, bring it home.
0:27:32.8 Jared Hamilton: It's gonna be... And here's the thing, be okay with spending more money on it, 'cause right about now people go, "Oh, Jared, well, it's more budget-friendly to buy them in bulk." Yeah, but you're gonna eat it like a fucking asshole, so it's not very budget-friendly, so don't. So that's what you're gonna do, pick the food that you struggle with every single day; go to the grocery store, grab it, bring it home, eat it and enjoy it. Track it in your calories if you want. Because here's what's gonna happen. Your brain is going to go, why aren't we binging on this? And then you're gonna do it... Tuesday, the next day, go to the store by the single bag of chips, or the single candy bar, bring it home, eat it. Your brain's gonna go, "Why the fuck is she not binging?" We always binge. You're gonna do that for the next 30 days. You're gonna literally go buy 30 candy bars in a row, 30 mini bag of chips in a row, 30 pieces of pizza in a row every day, because what's gonna happen is at the end of the month, you're gonna have now a mini-track record of you ate the food you struggled with and now you have proof you have self-control. There's no arguing with that.
0:28:30.9 Jared Hamilton: You have... You literally just ate a slice of pizza, a candy bar without going batshit crazy, you'll have 30 instances of not binge eating on food that you thought you binged on, that you don't have control over. And then the other thing is gonna happen, at the end of the 30 days, you will have lost a little bit of weight or you will at least have not have really gained any weight. Most people right about now are like, "Oh yeah, my clothes are fitting a little bit better, yeah, the scale dropped like a pound. Now, my friend, you have what's called irrefutable proof, and it'll be like God snaps His fingers and goes, "Oh, okay."
0:28:58.9 Jared Hamilton: Because when you have that irrefutable proof of the food that you used to binge on because you thought it was bad and you lost weight, you're gonna have the epiphany moment, you're gonna have the, "Oh, I see what Jared was talking about. Oh, yeah." And you'll be free, quite literally, you will be free in that moment, it's the dopest thing ever. Now, here's the hard truth, most of you aren't gonna do it, most of you are gonna do it for like a day and say it's stupid, and then not do it, but for the three of you that are gonna do it, good job. Like you're welcome. So that's how to fix the restrictive based binge eating; you stop the restriction, you stop the binge.
0:29:30.9 Jared Hamilton: But then that's one of my favorite ways, the gas station method is one of the ways we teach clients how to start this. Okay, next. This is where it gets deep, it's emotionally driven. When you're binge eating and it's based in, you're emotionally driven... You know, I almost wonder if I should have broken this episode up into two parts. We'll go ahead and finish it, but I almost wonder if I should have broken it up into two parts. So I'll give you the shorter version of this, of the emotional eating one, 'cause I could make a whole training on this. So when your binge eating is based in your emotions, it's because at the end of the day you're trying to suppress your emotions with food; this is otherwise known as stress eating, emotional eating, anxiety eating, lonely eating, whatever, it's when... The reason you're binge eating is because you are hiding your emotions or distracting from your negative emotions with food, like your brain wants a dopamine hit or whatever the case is, it's when your boyfriend broke up with you, you wanna go eat. You had a bad day, you're gonna go eat, you're overwhelmed and anxious, you go eat. It's because you're getting a little bit of, a little bit of a break from those emotions with food.
0:30:30.1 Jared Hamilton: Two problems with this. Number one, you'll never lose weight. Imagine, again, if your goal is to save money, but you struggle with emotional spending, like Amazon Prime and Walmart and just maxing out your credit cards every time you have a bad day, you'll never lose the weight. Number two, it's also, emotional suppression never made anything better. So if you're at scale emotionally for the next decade, you will slowly become emotionally numb in general, because we can't just numb to the negative emotions; we numb to the positive ones, numb is numb. When I had my knee surgery, when the doctor just cut me open, I didn't feel it because it was numb, I wouldn't have felt a massage either, right? Because, yeah, 10 years from now, emotionally suppressing with food, you may not feel anxiousness, worries, depression, whatever, you won't feel that as much but you also won't be as happy, you won't feel joy, you won't feel present with your kids, right. This is why you're supposed to feel these emotions, but when you eat in an emotional fashion, you are hiding the emotions with food. Let me give you... Here's an example. Ask yourself this, if this was anyone else but you, would you have the person emotionally eat?
0:31:40.3 Jared Hamilton: As in if your kid was playing in the front yard and their dog got hit by a car and they're sad and overwhelmed and all this stuff, would you immediately go, "Hey, buddy, here's some cereal, act like it didn't happen." No, no. It's, "Hey, here buddy, here's some cereal, get out of my face." Of course not. If your best friend's husband cheated on her and she's venting to you and just wants to be heard out and just wants to cry with you, what would you do? You're probably not gonna go, "Oh, I'm only here for the good time. Shut the fuck up. Get out of my face. Here's some more cereal." You would not do that. Right, none of you would do that. What would you do if your kid's dog got hit by a car and he was upset? You would probably hold him, you would probably cry with him, you would probably say, "It's okay, buddy, I'm gonna miss him too." If your friend's boyfriend cheated on her and she wanted to talk to you and vent to you, what would you do? You'll go, "Uh-huh? Oh yeah.
0:32:26.9 Jared Hamilton: What'd he do? Uh, what an asshole." You would listen, you'd be there, you'd hold space, but when it's you that's feeling not so hot, you're anxious, you're worried, you're depressed, you're sad, you're lonely, you're confused, you go, "I'm not allowed to feel like this," and you go fucking dive bomb into ice cream. That's what you're doing. This is why this is such a big deal.
0:32:45.9 Jared Hamilton: That's some inner child shit right here, right there. We all have an inner child, and you're basically giving the middle finger to your inner child, as saying, "You're not allowed to feel this one in my presence, you're not allowed to be sad around me. Your emotions are invalid." What would happen if you said that to a kid? It would fuck them up. And here's the crazy part; you would never say that to the kids in your life. You would never say that to the friends in your life. You would never say that to anyone you give a damn about. Fuck, half of you, if you got a homeless person come up to you and want to vent, you would listen. Your hair dresser had a bad day and wants to vent to you, you would listen, but when it's you, you act like you're a fucking degenerate piece of shit and you're like, "You're not allowed to feel," like get the fuck out of here. So here's how we fix this. Again, this is a whole multi-hour long talk in itself, but I just wanna give you the reasons for binge eating and how to get, some tactics on how to stop them. Here's how we fix the emotionally driven binge eating; you need to hold space for your emotions, separately from food.
0:33:47.4 Jared Hamilton: Because let's be honest, you're an emotional being, you agree to that? You're an emotional being. Telling an emotional being to not be emotional is arguably like telling us not to breathe, it's just not a good idea. It's not even practical. So you need to be... So if we look at this and say, "Well, what's the next three decades of my life gonna look like, or till the day I die? Will I have bad days? Well, yeah. Will I have ups and downs emotionally? Well, yeah.
0:34:12.1 Jared Hamilton: Well then wouldn't it be a good idea to have a plan in place on how to handle these emotions separately from food? Probably. So here's how we do this; you need to, in short, hold space for what you feel. Treat this shit like it's the exact same thing if it was a child or your best friend, but here's a... But you may be siting there going, well, Jared, I don't know how to hold space. What the fuck does that even mean? With clients, we teach two ways to do this; we meditate and journal. Okay, I'll give you the short answer. Meditation is just sitting in silence, as in, if you get upset, you need to go sit with it. You need to go sit and let yourself be upset, just kind of like if a toddler is throwing a temper tantrum, you just let them do it, or if your little kid's dog got hit by a car and he's sad, you just let him... You hold him and you let him be sad, you don't suppress the sadness, that doesn't work. So you need to let yourself feel. Feeling is healing, and there's a corny saying, but it's true, you need to let yourself feel. This is why my favorite thing to do is if a client gets triggered by the skill, get triggered and go sit with it. Just sit and go, it's okay to be here, telling the emotion, it's okay to feel like this in my body, telling yourself that.
0:35:18.0 Jared Hamilton: When you're triggered and super emotional, it's just part of that is eager to be seen and heard, not to be fixed necessarily even. You may be sad or anxious 'cause your voice struggles with anxiety. But when I get anxious, I don't just go, "Oh, I gotta get rid of this and distract, I used to do that. But you know what I do now, I go, this thing needs to be seen, and I just sit with my anxiety, I just go, It's okay to be anxious. It's fine. You're welcome here. And guess what? Anxiety, ironically dissipates because what happens when you face, like let's say fear? Fear is a negative emotion that we, like in the same realm as all these others, what happens when we face a fear? It starts to dissipate. What happens when we run from fear? It gets worse. You know, the number one things that's... All the emotions you're running from, like emotional eating, stress, worry, anxiety, whatever, you know what makes them worse? Is trying to get rid of them and they're not working. So how we do this is either sit with it in silence, now, a lot of you won't do that because it's overwhelming, which means you need to do it more, or my favorite is to journal about it, you need to just sit with it and actually write about it.
0:36:17.3 Jared Hamilton: As in writing, "Well, today was a terrible day, I'm feeling really anxious and I'm really overwhelmed, I'm not quite sure what to do, but now that I'm thinking about, I'm actually feeling kind of sad... Write it out, don't judge it. If it's in your mind, on your heart, in your gut, get it on paper. What's in needs to come out, because a few things that'll happen, number one, you realize how illogical it is, so half of you will have epiphany and you're like, "Huh, that's interesting," I guess that doesn't make sense, does it? And you'll be good.
0:36:44.4 Jared Hamilton: The other parts of you will go, "We'll just get it out," it's like venting, you're just writing... You're not sending this anywhere by the way, you're not sending this... The journal entries to your coach, you're not sending them to anybody, you're literally gonna fill up a note book and then throw the note book in the trash. It's like going to the bathroom.
0:37:00.0 Jared Hamilton: Think of it. That's actually a really good analogy. Think of processing your emotions like going to the bathroom, right? Because we eat every day, we're going to have to go to the bathroom. But imagine if every time you had to go to the bathroom, you went, no, I'm not supposed to feel, and you held it for days and weeks and months. That'd get really bad really quick. But we know it's part of the process of going to the restroom or like taking a shit every day and taking a piss and going to the bathroom. It's just what we do because we eat food every day. It's part of being human. So you don't let it get bad and you stay regular. It's the same thing here. Most of you guys are emotionally constipated. Be emotionally regular. Make it part of your routine every day to journal, to sit with yourself in silence. What comes up, let it be there and it goes away. So that's how we fix emotional eating. That's the short version.
0:37:44.0 Jared Hamilton: We hold space for the emotions instead of going to food, 'cause that's now your new coping. Instead of going to the pantry or the the freezer for coping with the negative emotions, you're instead going to go journal or sit with it. And so now that's A, a calorie deficit, and B, it's now not suppressing your emotions and actually healing in a very therapeutic like way.
0:38:04.2 Jared Hamilton: Now the third... Oh, I'm sorry. The fourth reason for binge eating, I know I'm flying through these. I really wanna help give you guys all of these in one place. The fourth reason for binge eating is your identity. It's based in who you think you are. Because, let me put it this way. If who you... Actually, hang on, let me take a step back and make sure I say this right. If your identity is made up of things that you don't like about yourself that you're trying to fix but it's who you think you are, you'll never get on the other side of it because your brain won't let that happen. Here's what like... I mean, think about it. Your brain is only about self-preservation. Well, if who you think you are is, I'm a binger, I'm an emotional eater, I'm a whatever, well, then you start to make progress on it. Your brain's not threatened. Your mind is literally threatened and your subconscious goes, oh shit, they're getting on the other side of their binge eating. Well, they already think they're a binger, so we gotta make them binge again.
0:38:57.6 Jared Hamilton: This is why the stories you replay in your identity and who you think you are is so important, which is why we need to fix this first. Identity work is some of the first stuff we do inside coaching, is because if you do not fix your identity, you always sabotage to it. That's what happens all the time. So this is how we fix this. If your binge eating is based in your identity, if you think that's just who you are, you identify with it, you will always unconsciously go back to it because you are 90% unconscious every day. Your actions are subconscious 90% of the day. Because what always comes true is who we think we actually are. So we have to change that. Now you may be sitting there going, well Jared, I don't know how to change my identity because... Here, I'll put it this way. Just because you struggle with something doesn't mean it's who you are. You did not come out of the womb struggling with binge eating, okay?
0:39:42.3 Jared Hamilton: And even if you did, you are... Here's the thing, you have no responsibility to be the same person you were five minutes ago when you wanna change yourself. We see this happen with everyone else, right? You see someone who struggled with drugs their entire life and then they wanna get clean and you're like, hara, let's go. You see someone who didn't take care of their family all of a sudden get their shit together and wanna take care of their family, and you're like, let's go. But then it's you that's struggling with binge eating forever and then you're like, I wanna get on the other side of this, and you're like, no, it's just who I am. Stop. Have the same standard for yourself as you have for everyone else or at least fucking treat yourself the same. Do you see what I mean? So it's one of those things where if you want to truly get on the other side of your binge eating, and it's an identity thing, we have to change your identity because our actions always act in congruence with who we think we are. So if you don't change your identity, your actions will always fall to the lowest level of what your identity is at. It's a game changer when you realize this.
0:40:35.7 Jared Hamilton: Now you may be saying, well Jared, I don't know how to fix this. Well, number... There's a few ways. Number one, change your terminology. Stop saying I am and the thing that you don't want about yourself, I don't care if it's currently true. Okay? Here's the other thing. There's a difference between binge eating and binger. You realize binge eating is a verb and binger is a noun. Binge eating is just something you did. Binge is something you did. Emotionally, ate is something you did, just like I put headphones on. Binger is a person, place, or thing. It's who you are. So you gotta be careful the terminology that you use. There's this old saying, if you lie to yourself long enough, you'll start to believe it. Then most of you guys have been lying to yourself every fucking day and now you believe it and then you wonder why your actions now act in congruence with that. That's half your problem.
0:41:21.3 Jared Hamilton: So here's how we change it. I want you to actually... Here's my favorite analogy with this. You need to decide who you want to be on purpose because most of you stay the version of yourselves that you are right now because somehow you got here. But you can change that. Now, you may be saying, Jared, I don't know how I can just change it. Well, first of all, you have to identify who you actually want to be on your terms. Here's how we teach clients this. We teach this in my academy as well. I call it the coma letter. So in short, I want you to pretend that you are going into a coma tonight. I want you to pretend like your doctor is like you're having a brain surgery and your doctor is like, yo. So I gotta do this brain surgery on you tonight, and there's a 50/50 chance I might hit the reset button. There is a 50/50 chance you'll have no recollection of who you are when you wake up.
0:42:08.3 Jared Hamilton: So I would write a letter to yourself telling yourself everything about you and your life and who you are. So if that happens, you can read it when you wake up. Have fun. I don't know about you, but I would write that letter, right? And I don't know about you, but I would write the most superhero motherfucking letter of my life. I would... Because here's the thing, if you wrote that letter, I doubt you're gonna write, I've struggled for the last 30 years with my weight. I'm not confident. I'm a binger. I'm a struggle bus person. Oh, I have the worst self image ever. I hate myself. You wouldn't write any of that bullshit. You would write the most superhero letter ever. Here's the crazy part. That's who you are. That's your potential. That's who you were created to be. That's like the version of you that you're supposed to be. So here's the thing is you don't have to have a brain tumor to write that letter. You can write it now.
0:42:57.4 Jared Hamilton: We have all... We literally have clients write this all the time. Write that letter. That's your new identity. Now I want you to hold your actions to that identity and that's how we change that. So those are the four reasons for binge eating right there. This is why I told you in the very beginning, this is not a matter of like, "oh, just get the trigger foods outta the house, go on a walk and be more mindful." That's bullshit. That's entry level, that's amateur shit. I'm teaching you how to be a professional at changing your struggles. This is why, like if I'm being honest with you, this is why we're so good at changing people's lives inside coaching. And again, this is not a coaching pitch, I'm just being honest with you. This is why, because it's this kind of shit that we do. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. But this is the kind of shit you have to do if you actually want a diet from the inside out and change your fucking life.
0:43:40.1 Jared Hamilton: So those are the four reasons for binge eating; based on hunger, based on restriction, it's emotionally driven and it's based on your identity and that's it. Hope you got a lot out today's episode; I appreciate the fuck county for being here. Don't forget all the things I have in the description for you 'cause there's a lot. If you're new here and you're not quite sure where to get started with this stuff, I have my free course called the Fat Loss Checklist. It basically simplifies the fuck outta weight loss and make you go, oh, I didn't know it could be that simple or easy. So that's down there.
0:44:08.9 Jared Hamilton: Access to my Facebook group is down there. I have a Facebook group called Fat Loss Simplified. It's the most beautiful home base of a community of people who get it, who are working on themselves and trying to do better. And guess who's in that group? Me and my team. If you guys like this kind of content, I put so much shit like this in there, like so much shit. To give you an idea, over Christmas, I did a series called Jared's 12 Days of Christmas and it was literally 12 days straight of just identity work. That's the kind of depth I go in this group with. So if you like this kind of content that solves these kind of problems, you'll wanna join us there. The link is down below; it's free to join.
0:44:42.3 Jared Hamilton: Also, if you are really ready to take this to the next level and you are tired of all this stuff and you don't wanna have to go through this by yourself or the thought of going through all four of those is like debilitating, which means you're not gonna do it, and you want a higher level of coaching, accountability, certainty, and a plan and someone showing you exactly what to do, so you don't even have to think about it, you can totally apply for coaching below. I'll leave a link down there below and I have a special place in my heart for my podcast listeners because it takes a special person to come on and listen to me rant for 45 minutes. So to incentivize that and just show my appreciation. For those that apply for coaching from the podcast, go to the front of the line when it comes to coaching. And I'm also giving about $4000 worth of extras for free if you get accepted into the coaching program. But we have to accept you first. We don't just take anyone with a credit card, we have to make sure we actually think we can help you and whatnot.
0:45:35.4 Jared Hamilton: And that is it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already. If you can leave me a review, it would mean a ton and nothing else. My one biggest ask is share this episode. God, you have to understand, if literally you shared, like, have you... I don't know if you've seen it going around, like there's a trendy thing on social right now where if someone like looks at their following, they're like, huh, if 20,000 of you paid me $2, I could pay off my truck, whatever. Here's the thing though. If every one of you, and I'm not asking for that. I'm asking if all of you guys share this episode, the show would instantly double, triple or quadruple instantly if you shared the episode. I'm not asking for money, I'm not asking for anything. I'm only asking for you to share this if you got value out of it. I put a lot of time, energy and money into this show because I want to help you. I wanna see you change your entire life, and my one ask is to share the show with just one person who you think could need it or post it like on your story or something like that, that'd mean a ton. Otherwise, I appreciate you being here. I love the fuck out of you. Thank you for everything. Talk to you soon.
[music]
Why You Need to Get to the Otherside of Binge Eating Before Weight Loss:
There are a few reasons you need to get over binge eating before tackling weight loss:
Number one, if you don’t deal with your binge eating, you’re never going to make it to your goal.
Number two, it can take over your whole life.
We just had a client give us a testimonial about how she has finally gotten over binge eating now that she is working with us, but she really went into a lot of detail. All her bandwidth was taken up by binge eating—she couldn’t go out to eat with friends or follow her passions because it had taken over her life. Now that it’s over, her whole life has opened up.
Binge eating can be debilitating and if you struggle with this, it’s a big deal.
When we get into the reasons for binge eating, the first two, I would say, are more surface-level, but the last two are deeper reasons—and if you struggle with those, it’s no wonder you’re mentally exhausted.
Now, regarding reason number two—I’m going to be blunt—if you’re binge eating, you’re not going to lose weight.
For example, if you want to save money, but you uncontrollably spend your money every day… how do you think you’ll ever be able to save?
You won’t.
It’s the same with binge eating.
If you have goals to look better in your clothes, feel better about yourself, lose weight, etc., you will never reach them if you do not stop binge eating. That is why we need to handle it first.
In our coaching program, we tackle binge eating first. Stage two is where we start to focus on fat loss—on losing weight, losing inches. Stage one is “Dieting from the Inside Out,” because if you don’t get over your binge eating, you will not reach your goals.
People do it wrong, though.
They have a vacation or something coming up in a few months, and say “Oh, I want to get really lean,” or “I really want to lose weight now and then I’ll deal with the binge eating.”
That doesn’t work.
When you lose weight without dealing with binge eating first, what happens is your binge eating brings it all back. Every time you yo-yo—lose weight, and put it back on—you build negative momentum.
You make it harder to lose weight and keep it off because the mind craves and gravitates toward what is familiar.
And it fucks your metabolism over. Every time.
It becomes a vicious cycle of gaining and losing the same weight for years.
THAT is what I am going to show you how to fix.
Now, when you are in this stage of fixing your binge eating, you are not allowed to focus on weight loss and you need to give yourself permission to gain weight.
I know, some of you guys are like, “what the fuck?”
I am not saying that you will gain weight.
But let’s be honest—if you are struggling with binge eating, you aren't making progress in your weight loss long-term.
You’ve been bouncing back and forth and overall gaining weight. It logically makes sense to stop focusing on weight loss, fix the binge eating, and then get back to losing weight.
Think about it this way: would you ever move into a home that has no foundation?
It’s a dumb fucking question, but think about it.
No, you wouldn’t, because you know it would only be a matter of time before the house caves in on itself.
It’s the same with binge eating and your weight loss transformation. You have to make progress with binge eating, emotional eating, and self-sabotage BEFORE you focus on fat loss.
The 4 Reasons You Binge Eat:
I am going to give you guys the four reasons first and then dive into each of them. You may struggle with one of these, all four, or some combination.
The four reasons are:
Binge eating based in hunger
Binge eating based in restriction
Binge eating based in emotion
Binge eating based in identity
The first two are very biological. When we deal with this in clients, they can usually be fixed faster.
The second two take longer because they’re deeper and typically have inner child issues attached to them.
1. Binge Eating Based in Hunger
This is quite literally when you just let your hunger get too high.
For those of you who are eating 1200 calories and then raiding your pantry in the middle of the night and you wondering why…
It’s because your hunger is too high. You are just hungry.
An example of this would be:
You’re going on date night tonight, so you starve yourself all day to conserve calories—but then you go crazy at the restaurant.
Another example is:
You go to work but forget to bring your lunch, or just work through lunch, and then you get home and do something like eat an entire bag of pretzels or a box of saltines and wonder, “why am I eating this??”
We see this a lot with people who don’t eat enough in general. This would be like if you just eat a handful of almonds as a meal or just have a small salad everywhere you go.
If this is you, the reason you are binge eating doesn’t have anything to do with restriction. It doesn’t have anything to do with identity or emotion—you’re just hungry.
The answer is: don’t let yourself get that hungry.
Think about when this normally happens. Is it because you’re forgetting your lunch? Are you trying to conserve calories all day because you have an event?
If you put your hunger on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is stealing pizza from children, and 1 is completely satisfied, when you get to a 3 or 4, and think “I’m a little hungry,” go ahead and eat.
Whatever that looks like for you, put a plan in place.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a food schedule, protein bars in your purse, sandwiches, whatever—put a plan in place where your hunger can not get out of control.
2. Binge Eating Based in Restriction
When it comes to binge eating based on restriction, when we stop the restriction, we stop the binge eating.
How do you know if your binge eating is based on restriction?
When your binge eating is based on hunger, you’ll binge on just about anything. When your binge eating is based on restriction, what you’re eating changes.
If you notice you are only binging on the foods you’re “not supposed to have,” that is how you know this is your problem—if you notice you aren’t binging on something like a turkey sandwich but you ARE binging on cake, cookies, and potato chips.
If you’re binging on food that you happen to be restricting… this one is screaming at you.
We see this happen when someone has a craving, and they say “Oh, I don’t need that.”
You need to stop saying that.
You don’t need heat and A/C in your house, but you have it because it makes you happy.
If you tell yourself you don’t need the cookie—and you do that for a week—it’s no wonder you eventually slam the entire pack of Oreos.
This is where people view foods as good and bad—they have “diet foods” and “cheat day” foods.
The issue is not that we need to white-knuckle through the urge to binge, the issue is we need to let up on the restriction.
Willpower and white-knuckling through the urge to binge is not the answer. We want to address the reasons why you are binging so the urge to binge goes away completely.
So, if we stop the restriction, we stop the binge.
How we fix this with clients is we have them eat those foods every day.
Some of you will hear me say “stop the restriction,” and you’re good, but I know a lot of you are thinking, “but Jared, I can’t eat just a few chips, or cookies, or whatever. I have to smash the whole pack.”
The specific problem there is that you have a neural pathway issue in your brain.
The reason this happens is because your brain is just a record of the past and it views the past as tried and true law. So every time you have eaten the whole box of doughnuts—or an entire pizza—your brain thinks, “this is what we do.”
Your brain craves familiarity. You don’t have a record of self-control around those foods—so we need to create one.
A lot of people take a good first step, but then fuck it up.
People think, “Oh, I’ll get all of the trigger foods out of the house,” but you labeling those foods as trigger foods is not going to help your relationship with them.
The label is fucking you up.
For foods you currently struggle with, step one is to clear the house of them. We need a clean slate.
Then—every single day—go to the gas station or the grocery store and get a single-serving size of one of those foods.
Let’s take chips, for example: you go to the store, buy one of the single-serving-sized bags, eat it, and enjoy it.
What will happen is your brain is going to have a mini panic attack. It’s going to think, “Oh, here we go. We are going to binge again,” but what happens is you don’t binge—because you can’t binge on what isn’t there.
Your brain is going to wonder why you didn’t binge.
Even if you have the worst self-control ever, you can go buy one serving of something, bring it home, and then eat it there.
You have to be okay with spending a little more money on it now because you can’t buy in bulk since you don’t have the self-control.
You do it again the next day and every day for 30 days. After 30 days, you will have evidence that you have self-control with a food that you used to struggle with.
You will also find that you have either lost weight or at least not gained any weight. Most people will find that their clothes are fitting a little better.
You will now have irrefutable proof that those foods are not “bad.”
3. Binge Eating Based in Emotion
I’m going to give you the short version of this because I could do an entire episode around emotional eating.
If binge eating based on emotion is your problem, you are binge eating because you are hiding your emotions or distracting yourself from your negative emotions with food.
It’s like your boyfriend broke up with you and you want to go eat or you had a bad day and you want to go eat—it’s because you are getting a little bit of a break from those emotions with food.
Not only will you never lose weight this way, but emotional suppression has never made anything better.
At scale, if you emotionally suppress for the next decade, you’ll suppress the negative emotions, but you’ll suppress the positive emotions too. And even though you aren’t feeling the negative emotions, you aren’t feeling the positive emotions either.
When someone you care about is anxious, worried, or depressed, you support them emotionally.
If you had a kid and their dog got hit by a car, you don’t tell them, “here’s some cereal, now get out of my face.”
You would probably feel those emotions with them, tell them it’s all right, and that you’ll miss the dog too.
But when it’s you that’s upset… all of a sudden you aren’t allowed to feel that way.
Here’s how we fix this: you need to hold space for your emotions.
You’re an emotional being—you’re going to have good and bad days—so you need to have a plan in place to hold space for your emotions.
The way we have clients do this is through meditation and journaling.
To meditate, you sit in silence. If you’re upset you go and sit with it. You need to let yourself sit with it.
If you’re triggered and super emotional, it’s a part of you that needs to be seen and heard.
You sit and tell yourself it’s okay to feel this way.
I have personally done this with anxiety.
I used to try to suppress my anxiety, but now I sit with it and say “it’s okay to be anxious,” and what happens is it dissipates.
A lot of you are going to find sitting in silence with your emotions hard because it’s overwhelming—which means you need to do it more.
The other thing you can do is journal about it.
Write it out, don’t judge it.
What’s in needs to come out.
It’s like venting.
You are writing privately—these journal entries aren’t being sent to a coach or anything like that.
You’ll fill up a notebook and then throw the notebook in the trash.
A good way to think about it is like going to the bathroom:
Because we eat every day, we have to go to the bathroom. If you didn’t eliminate, things would get really bad, really quickly.
Most of you are emotionally constipated and you need to get emotionally regular, so make journaling—or sitting with yourself in silence—part of your daily routine.
Making space for your emotions through journaling or meditation is your new way of coping with your feelings.
4. Binge Eating Based in Identity
If your identity is made up of things that you don’t like—but who you think you are—you’ll never get on the other side of it.
Your brain is all about self-preservation.
If you think, “I’m a binger,” or “I’m an emotional eater,” and you start to work through it, your brain will feel threatened.
Your brain will want to make you go binge again.
This is why the stories you tell yourself and your identity is so important.
Identity work is some of the first things we do inside coaching because if you don’t fix your identity, you will always sabotage it.
If you think you are a binger, and you identify as one, you will always go back to it because your actions are unconscious 90% of every day.
That’s why the thing we think we are is what always comes true.
We have to change that.
Just because you struggle with something doesn’t mean that’s who you are.
When we see other people struggling, and they want to change, we’re always like, “yeah, let’s go!”
But when it comes to ourselves, it becomes, “no, this is who I am.”
You need to stop that. Treat yourself the way you treat others.
Our actions always act in congruence with who we think we are.
To change your identity, number one, change your terminology.
Stop saying “I am” and the thing you don’t like about yourself.
Binge eating is a verb, and “binger” is a noun.
Binge ate is something you did.
Binger is a person, place, or thing—it’s who you are.
You have to be careful with the terminology you use.
There’s a saying, “if you lie to yourself long enough you’ll start to believe it.”
You need to decide who you want to be on purpose—on your terms.
We do an exercise with clients called the “Coma Letter.”
In short, you pretend you are going into brain surgery and your doctor tells you that there is a 50/50 chance he hits a reset button and you will have no recollection of who you are when you wake up, and that you should write a letter yourself to tell you about your life and who you are.
If it were me, I’m writing that letter and I’m writing the most superhero letter of my life.
If you wrote that letter, you’re not going to write, “I'm a binger, I struggle with my weight, I hate myself.”
You’re going to write a superhero letter about your life.
And here’s the thing: that is who you really are.
That is the person you are supposed to be.
You don’t need a brain tumor to write that letter.
You can do it now—and that’s your new identity.
Now, I want you to hold your actions to that identity.
Closing Thoughts:
This is not a matter of getting the trigger foods out of the house and starting walking more—that’s entry-level.
What I want to show you is how to be a professional at changing your life. This is the kind of stuff you need to do if you want to diet from the inside out and make lasting changes to your life.
FREEBIES & SPECIAL OFFERS:
‣ Special Coaching Offer calendar link for only podcast listeners: https://calendly.com/connoryoungman_/application-call-from-the-podcast
‣ Join my free Facebook group & get all my trainings: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fatlosssimplified
‣ Get my [Free] Fat Loss Check-list Course: https://bit.ly/FatLossCheckList
‣ The best supplements for weight loss video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfjByg4Zr_Y
‣ 1st Phorm Supplement Training (from our Facebook community): https://bit.ly/3hkBuLF
‣ Get FREE shipping on 1st Phorm Supplements: https://1stphorm.com/?a_aid=realjaredhamilton
‣ Use promo code HAMILTONTRAINED for 20% off at: https://www.flexpromeals.com
FIND ME ON:
‣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realjaredhamilton
‣ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jaredhamilton
‣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realjaredhamilton
‣ Contact
----
Post-Production by: David Margittai | In Post Media
Website: https://www.inpostmedia.com
Email: david@inpostmedia.com
© 2023 Jared Hamilton