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Getting Back on Track After a Binge or Overeat

Getting Back on Track
After a Binge or Overeat

Full transcription available at the bottom of this post

This is not the end of the world

In ANY journey there's ups and downs, leaps forward and setbacks.  Why would we think a journey to overcome emotional/binge eating overeating would be any different?  Messing up is totally normal and you should EXPECT it to happen! The real problem is that when we "mess up" we go down the shame and guilt spiral, we decide it's never going to change, we'll always struggle, nothing will ever work, I'm a horrible person, etc. etc.  We get stuck in the "failure" and can't move forward from it.  

The trick to overcoming setbacks is to learn the lesson and move on as fast as possible! Your binge or overeat was just one tiny blip on the entire timeline of your life and the entire personhood of you and the entire journey that you're on. It's just one thing one time. We need to stop making it so big, stop making it mean so much. Stop allowing it to define who you are, or what you're capable of it does none of those things, all of those things are lies. Stop believing in those lies and stop repeating those lies in your own brain. 

What if you could see your binge or overeat experience as an opportunity to learn about yourself? What if you saw it as an opportunity to give yourself some more grace and some more compassion and really understand what it is that you truly need right now? What if you saw this an an opportunity to train your brain to stop being so habitual all the time and make more conscious choices? If you can start to see an event like a binge or overeat as practice to get better, I promise you, you're gonna move forward so much faster. Friend, you can do this. I'll help.

XOXO
Tara

PS. If anything in this episode resonated with you, then share the LOVE! Head to iTunes and subscribe and leave a written review or post a screenshot of this episode in your stories and tag me @tarafaulmann 



Healthy Holidays Masterclass!

Did you know that the average American gains 8 pounds over the holidays? 
If you're worried about weight gain over the holidays, stress eating, or overeating, this masterclass is for you! You're going to learn my best strategies for overcoming emotional and stress eating, how to deal with the overwhelm of the holidays without food.  We'll talk about how your body work. How does stress during the holidays affect your body? How does food choice affect your cravings during the holidays, we are touching on it all. 
You're going to leave that masterclass with tons of skills and tools that you can use simple strategies and actionable steps that you can put into place right away,  and create your plan for Handling the Holidays and staying on track!



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Show Notes & Transcript: 

Full Transcript: 

00:00
Why did I do it? I was doing so good. Why am I like this? I give up. I'll never get this right. When you have a binge or an overeat episode, you often end up feeling frustration, shame, guilt. And often we feel like just giving up, it's never going to work. Nothing's ever going to work. I suck. This is dumb. But friend, setbacks are a normal part of learning and progression. They're gonna happen, but they don't have to derail you. So today, I want to talk about how to get back on track emotionally and physically. When you have a binge or an emotional eat or an overeat. I know this is something especially we need to talk about right now during the holiday season when if we're prone to doing those things and we haven't mastered how to not do those things. We're more likely to do them now during the holiday season. So I want to help you get back on track faster. Let's go. Welcome back to the no nonsense wellness podcast, the place for women who are trying to do all the things and stay healthy, sane and actually enjoy life in the process. 

Hey, I'm Tara, a trained therapist, a life coach, a nutrition coach and a fitness instructor. And I'm on a mission to help you take back control of your mind, health and life. Each week, I'll be cutting through the nonsense and getting real with you. I'll bring you the insight and information you need to take control of your weight and health. Find food freedom, and finally break free from the thoughts that are sabotaging you and holding you back. You my friend are powerful, and the world needs you to start showing up in a bigger way. It's time to get unstuck and start moving forward. So let's pop in those earbuds, tie up those shoes. Let's walk and talk

02:19
Before we get going I'm super excited I made a healthy holidays masterclass for you. So if you are worried about getting off track, putting on weight, losing health, losing progress over the holiday season when things are stressful for a million different reasons. And if you want to learn how to eat without guilt and without shame, I want to teach you and so I made you a special how healthy holidays masterclass. So hop over to tarafaulmann.com/healthy-holidays or just tarafaulmann.com It's right on the front page. Click on that and get yourself into that masterclass, you're gonna love it. I can't wait to hear what you think. So speaking of the holidays, I know that this is a time where if you are in a position where you haven't figured out this whole over eating, emotional eating, stress eating binge eating situation that you've been in, or maybe you have, maybe you've made a lot of progress, maybe you've been in the Healthy Mind Healthy Body program, maybe you've been moving forward, even if you have made progress. holidays are a time where you might get set back a little bit. And I only mean setback in the sense that you might have think thought like, Oh, I got this, like I've got it down and then the crazy stress of the holidays hit and you binge eat or you emotionally Are you overeat or something happens. And so I want to address that because I don't want that to derail you. I want it to be a learning experience for you. I want you to understand how normal that is. 

Setbacks are gonna happen, that things are going to happen. There is no perfect road, there is no straight line to where you want to be. Things going, things are gonna get messed up sometimes and it's totally okay. But it's not okay, if we stay there. It's not okay, if we get stuck there again. And so I really want to make sure that I'm giving you some useful tips today, to help you move past that moment, to help you move past that moment where you're standing in the closet with a bag of cookies like oh my god, I'm doing it again. I want to help you get past that moment, where you sit on the couch and you're so full, you have to unbutton your pants and you realize, oh, crap, I did it again. I really I want you to be able to move past that faster so that you can move forward faster. 

Okay, so the first thing we need to talk about is that when this sort of thing happens, I need you to understand that it's not you that's doing it. It's your brain and and it's really important sometimes for us to just to draw a distinction there. Because binge eats and over eats usually are very largely unconscious behavior. We're not fully aware that we're doing it and that unawareness. I often say is a choice we choose to be aware or unaware we choose to deal with feelings or not deal with feelings. So when we say like, oh, I binged, but it was just I didn't know what I was doing. There is some truth in that. And let me tell you why. When you experience overwhelm, or stress or whatever emotional situation, your conditioned habitual habit has been to reach for food, that's been the solution. Now, your brain likes to do the easiest thing possible, it likes to take the fastest route from A to B, it likes to take the it likes to use the least amount of energy that it possibly can, at any given moment, it likes to make the least amount of choices, conscious choices that it has to because that requires more energy. So most of your day, and most of the things that you're doing throughout the day, is your habit brain running. And so it puts simply, I talked about it like this, you have two parts of your brain in the back is your habit brain. Some people call it reptile brain, I don't really understand that term. That doesn't make sense to me, I call it habit brain. It's the automatic brain, it's just doing stuff behind the scenes, and you're not even fully aware of it all the time. And in the front of your brain is that prefrontal cortex, that's your executive level decision making, right? It's the CEO level of your brain. It's the C suite of your brain. It's where all of your conscious deliberate actions and choices are being made. 

Most of your day is happening in the habit brain in the back of the head, in that habit brain that's just on autopilot at all times. When you experience any emotional stress, or whatever the trigger is for you. And your habit in the past has been to reach for food, do not be shocked that that happens again. Your brain literally is just making the quick connection of like, Oh, she's freaking out, oh, she's stressed, oh, she's overwhelmed, go grab the cookies, grab the chocolate, grab the wine. It's not you. It's not something bad about you. Stop making this a moral judgment about yourself. It's just your brain. Your brain is like, it makes the connection. Oh, she feels like crap, give her some food, it'll make her feel better. Well, guess what physiologically it does make you feel better. Psychologically, in the moment, it does make you feel better, even though later it makes you actually feel worse. You already know that. But your brains just trying to help out and your brain has has an automatic reaction, she feels like crap Quick, give her food, she'll feel better. It's just that your brain has been habitually conditioned to do this. So you naturally revert to that. It's the easiest thing for your brain to do. It's way harder for your brain to consciously choose a thought. It's way harder, like imagine it for a company, right? The back of your brain in the company is just all the cubicle people. They just like click, click, click, turn on your TPS report, click click, click on your keyboard turn in your TPS report, right like, that's the majority of your brain is how its operating. Most of the time, that to operate the C suite functions of your brain that's expensive. Those people are real expensive, you got to pay them a lot of money to make those executive level decisions. It's the same in your brain, it costs way more energy for your brain to make those executive level decisions. So it's going to do them as little as possible. 

You as the CEO of your brain, you have to bring in the C suite level people you have to bring that in, you have to consciously be like call them up for a board meeting to make some choices. So that takes skill that takes practice, because your brain is just going to go to the cubicle people and be like, give me your TPS report, click clack, let's just keep doing the thing that makes sense. You have to teach your brain to think differently about yourself. And that takes a lot of practice. So what you really want to do here is if you do have a binge, or you have an overeating episode, whatever that looks like for you just notice, notice if you reverted to that habit brain, and also know that your habit brain cannot come up with novel solutions. That guy in the cubicle is not coming up with novel solutions. That's what you pay the C suite for. They're the ones who come up with the novel solutions, that prefrontal cortex in your brain that's where the novel solutions come from. So just notice the next time this happens, did this happen as a habitual response? Did it happen without me even consciously making the decision to do that? That's an incredible learning opportunity for you. And then you have the opportunity to actively engage and intentionally engage your brain to make a different choice. Okay? If you start to see all of this stuff as just an opportunity to learn, you're gonna get so much further so much faster. 

And that is tip number two is to really see, I know it seems weird, but to see your binge or overeat behavior as an opportunity And truly, this is why diets keep failing you. This is why you keep going on a diet and going off a diet going on a diet going off a diet, because the fact that you binge or overeat is proof that diets have not ever addressed what really needed to be addressed. So if you have a binge or an over eat, this is your opportunity, this is your chance to deepen your understanding of why this is happening. Why you did it, what was going on that triggered this? What were you thinking? What were you feeling? What was going on that day? Right, you this is your chance to really tune in, if you have not downloaded the free workbook about overcoming stress eating, that would be a really great thing for you to do. Because I run you through some exercises there that are exactly this, it's an opportunity for you to be a scientist of your own mind and body. And to really create so much understanding for yourself about why things are happening, and why they're happening unconsciously or consciously why you're choosing or not choosing different things, and why you're behaving in different ways. This behavior, don't see it as berating yourself, and oh, I'm terrible. And oh, I'm never gonna get past this. And oh, I'm always going to be doing this. And it's always going to be a problem. None of those things are true. What you need to be doing is seeing this as an opportunity to learn more about yourself. Because the more you learn, the faster you grow. And the faster you grow, the faster you get out of this truly.

The third thing I want you to think about is we never take the time to recognize and acknowledge what's actually working, what are the things that we're doing that are working, what are the things that we're already doing well, so if you're someone who has been working for a while, through healthy mind, Healthy Body program, and you feel like you had a pretty good handle on this whole binge eating situation, and then you do it. This is a really great opportunity for you to remember all the things that you've been doing that have been working really well don't just let this one tiny thing this one episode derail you, or distract you, from all the things that you've been doing that are actually awesome, and keeping you on the right track. We get so stuck in this guilt and shame spiral about how awful we are. And we're never going to conquer this and it's always going to be a problem. Wouldn't it be a whole lot more productive for you? If you could do two things, number one, see it as an opportunity to learn. So what can I learn from this episode? What can I learn from this thing that I just did? And then what am I doing really well that I could grow from that I could capitalize on? What are the things that I'm doing that are really working? How could I do more of those things? 

This is a huge opportunity for you. But I want you to see it as such. And you need to recognize and give yourself some credit for the work that you've put in for the things that you've learned for what you're doing that's actually working. And I mean, sometimes it's really small, we only give ourselves credit for the really big stuff. We never give ourselves enough credit for the small things, I was gonna start listing off some small things for you. But now that I'm thinking about it, I don't feel like anything that you might have accomplished as a small thing. I mean, drinking your water or breaking a cookie habit or getting up five minutes earlier or getting 20 minutes more of sleep a night like all of those things to me might you might seem small to you. But to me, I think those would be huge things in your progress towards health and weight loss and wellness and long term. So again, tip number three is just make sure that you are not just focusing on what went wrong, that you also can focus on all the things that have gone right and give yourself some credit for how hard you've been working at

13:44
those things. 

I think I think often when this happens when a binge or an emotional eat, or an overeat happens, we can just give it so much weight, we give it so much meaning we allow it to mean so much about us and who we are and our own worth. And I want to encourage you to like let that crap go. The fact that you just overate or the fact that you just binge again, the fact that you just emotionally ate again, doesn't say anything about you, as a human, you as a person, you as the one who was made in God's image, it says nothing about you, it just as a thing that happened. And the thing that we can learn from and a thing that we can move on from it has absolutely no meaning or bearing on you as a person or your worth, as a person. You got to start giving yourself a little bit of credit here. And really we need to start giving ourselves some grace and some and some compassion for ourselves. If you had a binge episode or overeat or an emotional eater stress, eat or whatever it is, you're clearly going through something right if this happened if especially if you were doing well and not really doing it and then you did again. You're obviously going through something there's always Easily something there, that is a problem. So instead of making it worse, by focusing on the bend or the overeat, give yourself some love and compassion here, you clearly need it. You need to give yourself a nice self hug and say self, how am I doing? What's going on here? What do I Where do I need a little extra love? A little extra compassion, a little extra grace? food's not the answer. I know that. But what is it that I need? Like, you need to really start asking yourself the right questions here. We constantly just go to like, Oh, I did it again. I'm a horrible person, there's more proof. And instead of that we really need to go to Oh, I did it again. What's going on? Why am I feeling like this? What do I need? It is a way different conversation that you would be having with yourself. Now, if I was your coach, this is the conversation that I would be having with you. And what I want you to learn. And ultimately, what I'm trying to teach you, in pretty much every program that I create, is how to be your own coach. And this is the best way to do it. Having a better conversation with yourself is the first step into being your own coach. 

So I hope that this was really helpful, I hope that this will help you get back on track, you might have to listen to it a few times. You might have to listen to it after every time that you binge, or overeat or emotionally eat. But what I really want you to hear from me is that it's just one thing, it was one tiny blip in the entire timeline of your life and the entire personhood of you and the entire journey that you're on. It's just one thing one time. So stop making it so big, stop making it mean so much. Stop making it define who you are, or what you're capable of it does none of those things, all of those things are lies. Stop believing in those lies and stop repeating those lies in your own brain. See this as an experience as an opportunity to learn about yourself. See this as an opportunity to give yourself some more grace and some more compassion and really understand what it is that you truly need right now. And see this as a way to train your brain to stop being so habitual all the time. And to employ those C level decisions. Get those C suite players working and earning their keep. This is all really good practice for you. And so if you start to see an event like a binge or overeat as practice to get better, I promise you you're gonna move forward so much faster. Friend, you can do this. If you need me. I am here for you. I am not hard to find. You just got to reach out and even better get yourself into the Healthy Mind Healthy Body program and membership so I can really help you take this next level. Okay, until we talk again, Be Well. 

Hey, friends, thanks so much for being here. If you found value in today's episode, will you do me a favor and head over to iTunes? Find the no nonsense wellness podcast and subscribe and leave me a review. It would mean the world to me and help other people find the show. And I'd love to connect with you more. So find me on Instagram. I'm @tarafaulmann. Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your stories and tag me. I'll see you over there.
 




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