The Done Bingeing Podcast

What does a shimmering pool on a hot desert plain have to do with you and binge eating?

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Welcome to The Done Bingeing Podcast. This is the place to hear about how you can pair the emerging brain science about why you binge with powerful life coaching to help you stop. If you want to explore an evidence-based, non-clinical approach to end binge eating, you’re in the right place. 

It's time to free yourself. You have more power than you know. To find out more, go to  www.holdingthespace.co and click Programs

“How do I deal with the urge to binge?” It’s one of the most common questions I get asked.

The experience of the urge can be incredibly tough, scary even. But you’re not alone in this. I’ve put together this episode with nine actionable steps to help you navigate those moments when the urge to binge eat feels overwhelming.

In episode 78, I share nine actionable steps to help you when you’re experiencing urges and cravings, including part of Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory. Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.holdingthespace.co/78.

And here’s the cherry on top: I’ve created a special resource called, Calm in the Crave: Your Pocket Pal When You Need It, just for you. It summarizes everything we’ll discuss here, so you can have it handy whenever you need it. Head over to https://www.holdingthespace.co/calm to download it.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably tried every diet, program or solution you could find—so many of which promised rapid results. I understand the soaring hope as you start out followed by the descent into disappointment when the bingeing returns, because I’ve been there too.

It makes sense to me that you want to stop bingeing right now—or yesterday—forever.

But what I’ve learned from my and my clients’ lives is that living from a place of urgency and pressure for immediate change often leads to exactly the result you don’t want—slower change, no change, or backward movement.

Listen to episode 77 as I talk about the exponential power of tiny marginal improvements, as outlined by James Clear in his book, Atomic Habits. Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.holdingthespace.co/77.

If you’re ready to invest in one-on-one support to help heal binge eating, go to https://holdingthespace.as.me/free30 and get on my calendar for a complementary consult today.

Binge eaters often wonder: Is it safe for me to hope that one day I’ll be able to stop bingeing, after doing it for this long?

I remember wondering this too. Then I’d risk it, try a new approach, and find myself uplifted with hope. Then, when the approach didn’t resolve my bingeing, I’d find myself dropped back into hopelessness, believing once again that freedom was impossible, a place where hope seemed a world away.

Luckily hope isn’t the only thing that can inspire healing. There’s power in holding on to the possibility of healing, rather than clinging to the hope of healing.

Listen in to episode 76 as I talk about how focusing on the plains of possibility offers some respite from the rollercoaster ride of hopefulness and hopelessness. Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.holdingthespace.co/76.

If you’re ready to invest in one-on-one support to help heal binge eating, go to https://holdingthespace.as.me/free30 and get on my calendar for a complimentary consult today.

Depending on where you live, you may be about a month into summer. The summer is fraught with exposure stress for many binge eaters. With more heat comes more beach trips, more pool parties, more shorts, shorter sleeves, higher skirts, undershirts, camisoles, Speedos, and bikinis.

With more flesh to be seen, the spring often brings on a deluge of summer pressure, preparations, and promises. At this point in June, those aspirations may be going swimmingly well or drowning in disappointment. If it’s the latter, or if you want to set a new goal right now, this episode is for you—it’s all about setting intensions, based on the work of Chris Burris, an Internal Family Systems lead trainer and author.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.holdingthespace.co/75.

If you’re ready to invest in one-on-one support to help heal binge eating, go to https://holdingthespace.as.me/free30 and get on my calendar for a complimentary consult today.

Guilt and shame aren’t the same. And it turns out that it pays to understand how they differ and what their relationship is with binge eating.

This episode explains the difference between guilt and shame, why we feel these emotions, and what they often lead us to do. When enough compassion is present, it’s possible to see how our parts that feel guilt and shame interact with harshly critical parts of us that can inflame these emotions, and with a binge eating part that tries to ease the pain and return harmony.

Listen to the episode here: https://www.holdingthespace.co/74.

If you’re ready to invest in one-on-one support to help heal binge eating, go to https://holdingthespace.as.me/free30 and get on my calendar for a complementary consult today.

On my road to recovery, I sometimes didn’t binge for weeks or months. And sometimes all it took to slide back into bingeing was a holiday meal—a slide that could glide on for even more weeks or months. As it turned out, I’d rock like this . . . forward, backward, forward, backward . . . for decades.

This episode is about how sometimes our bingeing can worsen or come back during the holidays, even when we’re celebrating with those we love. If there’s lingering guilt or shame about this, we can feel isolated and reluctant to reach out for help.

Listen in as I talk about how to ease shame and blame about binge eating. Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.holdingthespace.co/73.

If you’re ready to invest in one-on-one support to help heal binge eating, go to https://holdingthespace.as.me/free30 and get on my calendar for a complementary consult today.

This time of year, Ramadan, Passover, and Easter are celebrations that honor what we believe, who we are, and whom we love. There are open hearts and open homes. Whether it’s sharing a tradition, a meal, or a hunt for special eggs, there are many opportunities to nourish ourselves and our relationships.

The promise of renewal is everywhere. And so is food. Food could be right in front of us at a meal or circling in our minds as we wait for a meal. Either way, holidays like these can be both beautiful and challenging. If this sounds like you and you’d like some help to avoid bingeing over the holidays, you're not alone. Episode 72 is for you! Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.holdingthespace.co/72.

If having someone by your side to support you sounds amazing, go to https://www.holdingthespace.as.me/free30 and get on my calendar for a complementary consult today.

In this episode, we briefly review the food feedback loop and take a closer look at pain and desire feedback loops.

If we fear a painful experience enough to escape it with food, our brains note that and determine that the pain is a threat. The more we try to muffle the pain with truffles, the more threatening the pain becomes. We shrink and the pain looms. And when the pain comes again, we’re already laced up and ready to race.

To not live to our full potential is to be alone inside ourselves, to lose hope in possibility, to watch dreams wash away. As Nelson Mandela once said, “There is no passion to be found in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”

Remember Captain Marvel from back in the day when he used to wear red tights with a gold lightning streak across his chest? Well, he just yelled, “Shazam! We have our positive feedback loop.”

Listen to episode 71 of The Done Bingeing Podcast where we go deeper into painful positive feedback loops that are so common among binge eaters and where we ponder the superhero in you. Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.holdingthespace.co/71.

I may not quite be Bat Woman, but if you flash the Bat Signal across the sky, I’ll fly to your side. Go to https://www.holdingthespace.as.me/free30 and get on my calendar for a complementary consult today.

Sometimes it starts like this: We have food that’s concentrated in some way—maybe it’s extra savory, extra crunchy, extra sweet. And we have an amount in excess of what we need. Then we get more from the food beyond an ordinarily enjoyable way to nourish and sustain our bodies—we get an amplification of pleasure and fullness, a spike in energy, and a numbing of any pain that might be hanging around.

So far, so good, perhaps. But what next? When the eating stops and the effect of the food wears off, the amplified pleasure not only goes away, but we may feel a sense of withdrawal from it. The energy spike now becomes an energy drop. And the pain comes back.

Remembering that food gave us the heightened pleasure, increased energy, and escape from pain in the first place, we may go back for more. And now? Houston, we have a problem—a positive feedback loop in which the solution deepens the struggle.

Listen to episode 70 of The Done Bingeing Podcast where I explore three positive feedback loops central to the experience of binge eaters. Get full show notes and more information here: https://www.holdingthespace.co/70.

Want to call Mission Control? Go to https://www.holdingthespace.as.me/free30 and radio in for a free, 30-minute consultation.