Ep #147: Binge Eating Success Story – Allie

Hello! Today on the podcast you’re going to hear from Allie, another binge eating success story!

She went through my Stop Binge Eating Program and came out on the other side a completely different person and I just had to have her come on and tell you her story.

As you’ll hear, her success began from listening to the podcast but then in the program, she was able to learn and practice the tools she needed to have in order to truly change her eating habits, really change her thinking so she’s thinking so differently not just about food and eating but so many things, and create long-lasting success.

I’m so excited for you to hear her story because I have no doubt you will be able to see some of yourself in her and relate to her.

So, without further ado, here’s Allie!

Kirstin:

Hello, Allie. Welcome to the podcast. How are you?

Allie:

Thank you for having me. I’m good.

Kirstin:

Good. I’m so excited to have you here. Tell everybody a little bit about yourself, who you are, your background with eating, food, your weight, all of the things.

Allie:

Okay. I’m Allie. I live in the UK. I have been struggling with food for as long as I can remember, since I was a little kid, and in the last three years it got really bad and I felt like I’d tried everything and I was panicking. And I was about 20 kilograms over what I felt was normal for me and I couldn’t see any way out.

Kirstin:

Why do you think it was so bad during that time? What do you think was going on that made it that way?

Allie:

Well, the last few years we had a huge change. We’d been overseas, we moved back to the UK three years ago and I think I was really stressed. And I didn’t know how to handle that stress and my go-to had always been food. And I think I just used the only tool I knew and I just kept eating to cope with anxiety and stress.

Kirstin:

Yeah. So how often do you think that was happening for you?

Allie:

It got to the point, it was almost every day. And I felt totally out of control and like it was controlling me. And the minute the thought was in my head, that was it, I would go to the shop and I would buy those binge foods, always binge foods. And I’d go home and I’d eat them. And it was supposed to be my reward, my reward or my comfort. But even then I knew it didn’t actually feel that good, but I didn’t know any other way. It was the only way I knew to deal with how I was feeling.

Kirstin:

Yeah. And how was it affecting your life? So you were using it as a way to reward yourself and comfort yourself, but what was it actually doing for you?

Allie:

I was piling on weight. I was outgrowing all the clothes that I really liked. I lost my confidence. I felt that everywhere I went, the first thing people could see was my weight. I knew it was affecting my health. And then there was the sense of the whole secrecy behind it and the shame. And I would go around the supermarket, buying these things, thinking if anyone sees my basket, they will think that that’s for my family and knowing it wasn’t, it was just for me. And I was going to go sit at home and eat it all. And so I think it was just that whole secret life and not feeling like I could talk to anybody about it because nobody would understand. It was a horrible time and it was really scary.

Kirstin:

What were you doing or were you doing anything to try and stop doing it?

Allie:

I had tried diets. I’d gone along to diet clubs a few times. I’d read books. I’d come up with these plans, “On Monday, I’m going to start doing this and I won’t eat sugar and I’ll cut my calories.” And I’d tried lots of things like that. I’ve tried logging everything. I’d tried going to 12 step groups. I’d tried so many things and a lot of what I was trying was just like, “I’m going to try harder. Next week I’m going to try harder.” Nothing worked.

Kirstin:

Even when you say I’m going to try harder, it’s like, “What is it that you’re trying harder to do?”

Allie:

Yeah.

Kirstin:

It’s like, “I’m trying hard to not binge, but what does that mean?”

Allie:

Yeah. I just thought I’m just going to keep putting on this weight forever, when’s this going to stop? Am I going to end up a hundred kilos over what’s a healthy weight? When is this ever going to stop? What’s going to happen? It was terrifying. I felt I had no control anymore over food, over my body and my body just didn’t feel like mine. Just utterly terrifying.

Kirstin:

Did you believe that you would be able to stop gaining weight and stop bingeing and do all of that?

Allie:

I don’t think I did because I felt like I’d tried everything and nothing had worked. I just thought, “This is it. I’m stuck like this for now.” I didn’t know what to do.

Kirstin:

So then you found something to do, right?

Allie:

I did. I can’t remember how I found your podcast. I must’ve been Googling or something, came across your podcast, and for the first time ever something made sense. Everything you said, and I still find this when I listen to your podcast, it just makes sense. It was like you knew everything that was going on in my head and my life. It just makes sense. And so I think for about a year, I just listened to the podcast and that changed. And I was able to stop bingeing through listening to the podcasts. It was just so practical and normal and you didn’t make it weird. There was no magic trick or yeah, for the first time ever, it was just like finally there’s hope.

Kirstin:

So what do you think was the most helpful thing for you just listening to the podcast and getting the tools through there to help you to stop bingeing just in that period of time?

Allie:

Well, you talked about things like if you restrict yourself too much, you’re going to binge. Obviously you’ll binge because you’ll feel like you’re depriving yourself, which made complete sense. And you talked about joy foods and fuel food, I’d never heard those terms before. It just made so much sense. They weren’t good and bad foods, it was joy foods and fuel foods. And you talked about how thoughts equal feelings and how we can change our thoughts about things. You talked about body image as well, which was really helpful. It feels like a long time ago now.

I didn’t just listen to them, I took notes every time. I would sit there with my journal and I would write it all down because I knew then it would go in because it was just so valuable to me what I was learning. And it was a slow change. We’ve talked about neural pathways, and I think it’s when you’ve got a neural pathway that’s been strengthened over 20, 30 years, it’s not going to change overnight, but slowly my new ways of thinking now are becoming more and more normal to me. My default setting now is not to cope with food at all, it’s to look for other ways. And I feel lie my eyes are really open now to when my brain is going, “Oh, you could eat to fix it.” My brain’s like, “No, you don’t do that anymore.” It’s amazing, the way my brain has changed, the way my thinking has changed is huge.

And that hasn’t just impacted my eating. I have a much better handle on my finances and my time. And I’m just generally happier and more content in myself. I’m certainly not obsessed with how fat I am or every time people see me it’s the first thing. I just don’t feel like that anymore. I feel like I’ve got more of a grip on reality and less just relying on how I feel about things and believing that, believing the feeling.

Kirstin:

Why do you think stopping binge eating has created all of that amazingness for you?

Allie:

Well, so one of the big things I think is that there’s no more secrecy or shame, so I don’t need anymore to eat in secret because the amount I eat is more of a normal portion now. And if I do decide to eat an entire tub of ice cream, well, I’m just going to go ahead and do that maybe sometime. But I just don’t have that shame or secrecy anymore so that’s made a big difference. Also the physical feelings, because it doesn’t work. Eating to fix your feelings, doesn’t work. And now I have something that works, but then you still feel crap, you just also feel sick. That’s the other big thing, I feel free from it as well. I felt totally trapped by binge-eating and by food, by obsession with food. And I don’t feel like that now. I feel like it’s just, it’s not perfect. It’s definitely not perfect. There’s still work to do, but I know I can do it now and that’s the difference.

Kirstin:

Which is such a shift, because just a moment ago, you were telling me that you didn’t believe that you would even be able to stop bingeing and stop gaining weight. And now you have such high belief in yourself. What do you think caused that shift for you?

Allie:

Well, so I listened to the podcast for about a year and it was great. And then I heard you talking every so often about sign up for the program and I thought, “Oh, I don’t know. It’s a big commitment.” Because I just thought, “I need something more. The podcast is great, but there’s no community at all. I don’t know anybody else who is going through what I’m going through and thought I just feel I need a bit more input.” So I took the step and signed up for the program, the coaching program, and it was absolutely brilliant. I’ve learned so much from that. And the worksheets we do make you apply it to your situation.

I just feel like we got six months of not just listening to your videos and being coached, but actually practicing. You get six months to practice all of it. And I think that’s what makes those neural pathways stronger because you’ve got six whole months and it’s quite intense, but in a good way, because there’s plenty of material to do week after week. You’re just practicing it all the time, but that definitely made a huge difference for me. I don’t know. I feel like I got a bit stuck just listening to the podcast. I needed something more than that.

Kirstin:

Yeah. Just taking it to the next level.

Allie:

That’s exactly it.

Kirstin:

And also when you and I had worked together, I get to point out your blind spots. I mean, we did so much coaching.

Allie:

That’s so true. It’s like you can see things that I can’t see like my thing about feeling like the first thing everyone saw about me was my weight. And you rightly pointed out, “No, Allie, that’s the first thing you see about yourself.” And I thought, “You’re right.” And now it’s not the first thing I see about myself and I know it’s not the first thing other people see about myself. I’m actually a fairly average size and I’m bigger than I want to be, but it’s not the first thing people notice about me. And even if it was, that’s up to them.

Kirstin:

Sp what were your thoughts about your body before? Because I know that you made a shift in how you’re thinking about your body. What were your thoughts before, when you would see your body as the first thing?

Allie:

I hated it, all I ever saw was fat. I would really cover myself up and hide and I would dread going to any big social occasion, not that any of us would be able to for the last 18 months, but I’d dread going to anything because I’d think, “What am I going to wear?” And also I felt like every time I put something on, I’d think, “That makes me look fat.” It’s like I was trying to only wear clothes that would make me look thin. Well, I’m not thin, I’m curvy and I’m a bit heavier than I want to be and so now I wear clothes that just flatter me for how I looked now, rather than feeling I can only wear things that make me look two sizes smaller, which means there’s not an awful lot you can wear really.

Kirstin:

Yeah.

Allie:

So I don’t do that now. And I really, I hated my body. I really struggled. I just, I felt like I was trapped in someone else’s body. And I just don’t feel like that now. I actually don’t think about my body so much now. I get out the clothes I’m going to wear and I wear things I like wearing. I still wouldn’t feel confident enough to wear a bikini at the beach, but that’s fine. And if that never comes, it actually doesn’t matter.

Kirstin:

It doesn’t, you can just wear a one piece.

Allie:

Yeah, exactly.

Kirstin:

We don’t all need to be wearing bikinis.

Allie:

No. Especially not after having lots of babies. So it has really changed, yeah.

Kirstin:

Yeah, so how do you think your view of your body was affecting your eating?

Allie:

Well, I think I felt bad about how looked and so I would eat to comfort myself, which of course is that vicious circle of feel miserable about being overweight, eat, become more overweight, feel even more miserable. Then I’d feel really bad as well because I’d be thinking, “I’m going to eat more healthy, I’m going to lose weight, I’m going to do this diet or whatever it was.” And then I’d binge and I’d think, “I’m right back to square one.” Or I’d have a week of dieting and I’d be really good for five days and then I’d solidly binge for two days at the weekend and feel really awful but somehow that was how it was supposed to be. And it felt like the message I was getting from people all the time was that that’s what you do. You diet, you really restrict for five days and then you’d binge. It just didn’t make sense to me and it wasn’t good for me.

Kirstin:

There has to be a better way, right?

Allie:

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Kirstin:

Yeah. So how do you think you made that shift? How did you make that shift from where you were with your body then and where you are now?

Allie:

It was through the coaching with you. Definitely. You made me see what was actually going on and that it was my thoughts that were causing my feelings. And that’s one of the biggest things from the program was the thought model. I loved the thought model so much. I frequently use it with all the members of my family. I think we could use the thought model for this. Oh. But it’s so good. And it’s really simple. I’ve had counseling before and I’ve done CBT. But the thought model, which is a similar kind of thing, but it’s just really straightforward and I love that. It took a little bit of time to get my head around it, but now I challenge my thoughts all the time. It’s almost natural for me to just challenge any negative thoughts that come into my head, which isn’t to say that I’m super smiley, happy, all the time, but I do know now that I can challenge those thoughts.

Kirstin:

Yeah. And that’s the goal, to not be super happy all of the time, it’s just not realistic. Just like you were talking about with your body, the goal isn’t to be super positive and thinking that your body is amazing and beautiful and perfect all of the time, but just not hating on it and just being okay with where you are and being okay in the size that you are. And again, not trying to wear smaller clothes to look smaller because that really just makes you look bigger when you wear clothes that are too small for you. It doesn’t make sense.

Allie:

I think also, I think I said earlier, just more in touch with reality now. The reality of the size I am, the reality of where I want to be and they’re just they’re numbers really. And those numbers indicate it’s better for my body if I’m a healthy body weight, but that’s it really, it’s a practical health thing. And the same with the thoughts, just challenging them, thinking, “Hang on, that’s not true. That’s not true. What is actually the truth in this?” And then basing my feelings on that. Like I said, I’ve had therapy before and it has helped, but I think this has helped more plus the six months of practicing it and the thought model we practiced a lot. That’s the massive thing, isn’t it? To keep practicing that thought model that’s just helped hugely.

Kirstin:

Yeah. So you mentioned that you use the thought model with your family. What was that like doing this work and balancing your family life? Because your family is not easy.

Allie:

It’s big, it’s complicated, it’s messy, like so many other people. But I just felt it was a priority. And there were times when things were busier, I would get up an hour earlier in the morning because I wanted to do this and very quickly, very early on, I could feel the benefit. Plus if I’m going to commit to something for six months, I’m going to do it and I’m going to get value out of it. I’m not going to commit to it and then do it half-heartedly because what’s the point? I’ve paid for this and I’ve committed time to this. I’m going to do it. So it really was a priority to me and my husband was brilliant. When we were homeschooling, he’d keep the kids out of the lounge when I was doing my coaching work. So I think it was just making it a priority. And I often think when I think I don’t have time to do something, I think, “Well, I had two hours to watch Netflix so probably I did have time to do it.” It’s how you choose to spend that time.

Kirstin:

Right. What’s the priority? Watching Netflix or watching a coaching video or listening to a coaching call or doing a worksheet. And I think that’s one of the reasons why you were so successful because not only were you super committed to doing the work along with the podcast, but you were super committed with doing the work for the program as well. Like you said, you prioritized it, you made it important on your list of to do’s because it was important. And now all the other things that are on your priority list and on your to-do list are so much easier to do because this big thing is out of the way now. You took six months to get it out of the way and now it’s gone and now you can focus on other things.

Allie:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That’s so true. And I’d listen to the coaching calls and hear you coaching other people, which was really helpful, but also hear other people say, “Oh, I do this.” And I think, “Oh, that’s a really good idea.” And somebody else was saying, “If I can’t listen to the coaching call live, I listen to it straight away the morning after while I’m getting ready in the morning.” And so sometimes I’d sit and write notes from the coaching call and other times I’d think, “I just want to listen to it so I’m just going to listen to it in the car.” So sometimes it’s just fitting things in when I could, but I still try and make time now to check in regularly with how I’m doing with food.

And I make the time still planning every day. It’s very rare that I go to bed without having plans and prepared the night before, because it’s easier in the morning. It’s easier to make the good choice in the morning when it’s all there ready. So I still make time to do that now, even though the six months is done, I want to keep doing that because in some ways it’s only six months. It took me 30 years of things I wanted to change so I can’t just say, “Right, six months, that’s done. Oh, well it’s not a hundred percent fixed. I’m not a hundred percent better, that’s it.” So I feel like, again, it’s still a priority. It’s still a priority to keep going and keep practicing the things that I learned.

Kirstin:

Yeah. Yes, yes. And that’s what I tell people. It’s not just doing the work for six months and then we just throw it all out the window. You keep doing it, it just gets so much easier.

Allie:

Yes, definitely.

Kirstin:

And once you stop bingeing, well then the next goal is to maintain not bingeing. And after a while you don’t necessarily feel the urges to binge and it’s not really conscious effort to do it, but you still do want to put some thought and effort into how you’re eating day to day. So you’ve moved on to working on emotional eating and overeating, which is the next step after binge eating. We stop binge eating and then you move into not overeating. And now you’re moving into weight loss, which is super exciting. So what’s going on with you now? Now that you’re in this space.

Allie:

I finally, after a lot of trial and error, it was great to have six months to do that and hear what other people were doing. But after lots of trial and error, I finally found an eating plan that works really well for me. So I got the foods that I’m going to eat and it’s balanced and healthy. And physically, I feel really good because I’m eating so well. It has enough flexibility to fit in with my life, which is good. So I think it’s just experimenting with things that if it doesn’t go how I planned, I don’t beat myself up about it. So say I ate more at breakfast than I wanted to, I just think, “Well, I’m just going to eat what I’d plan for the next few meals.” I’m not going to not have lunch now. I’m just going to eat what I planned.

And I just feel peaceful. I never thought I’d feel like that. And it’s amazing because actually it used to be, if I overate one day, I’d restrict the next and I remember you talking about that in one of your podcasts. And it’s like you’re punishing yourself which makes you feel so miserable. So then you just want to eat even more. And now I don’t have that, I’m like, “Oh, well I ate a bit more for that meal than I’d intended to. Oh, well that’s one meal, back to normal.” So I feel like just my thinking has just changed so much around food.

Kirstin:

So much less drama.

Allie:

Yeah. Yeah.

Kirstin:

It’s really what it is. It’s just not a big deal. We make it into such a big deal. I overate, it’s the end of the world, I blew it. But it’s not, you just ate extra food.

Allie:

Yeah.

Kirstin:

Let’s just move on. I mean, take a moment to figure out why you did it. I mean, you have a lot of insight now into why you do overeat if you overeat. But if you’re a beginner at this, you just take that moment to look back, why did that happen? So that you can figure out what to do better next time. No beating yourself up is necessary. No guilt is necessary. We just get curious and then we get to work.

Allie:

And I really don’t like the feeling of being over full anymore. I think maybe it reminds me of in the past, but I really don’t like that. I don’t really like snacking because I like to be hungry for my main meals. So in the past I would’ve snacked quite a lot, but then I’ve learned that if I do that, I won’t actually enjoy the meals that I’ve planned. So it’s just really changing it. Like you say, it’s no drama and it used to be as well that I had to have these particular diet foods in the house all the time. Some of which didn’t really resemble food. And now it’s just, if we don’t have that, I just think, “Well, I’ll find something else. I’ll have something else until I can get to the shops. It’s not a problem.” So yeah, it’s definitely just really changed. And even at the beginning of the program, there were times I still wanted to binge or still wanted to, particularly in the sweet stuff. But I just don’t very often feel like that now, which I never thought would happen.

Kirstin:

Yeah. So even though you had stopped bingeing really before the program started, you still felt the urges. You still had that desire for it. You still didn’t know exactly how to not binge. You were doing it, but I think what we were able to do together in the program was help you really understand why it was happening and how to make it not happen.

Allie:

I learned how to deal with my feelings in a different way and I’d never learned that. I had had therapy and that helped me a bit, but this time I really learned. And I learned that often you just have to feel those feelings and that nobody had ever said that to me before. Feel the feelings, it won’t kill you. Who knew? And that just really, really helps me. And we learned, it’s funny, it’s a six month program on stopping binge eating, but it’s not all about food because it hits up the causes behind it. And we learned so much about dealing with those feelings. And at what point do you distract yourself and should you never distract yourself and what happens when you just go through feeling it. And an even shock of anything, what about just feeling hunger, which also for most of us in the wealthy West will not kill us. That was really helpful as well.

This morning I was going for a run and I suddenly had this huge hunger pang before I was going for a run. And it was before breakfast and I thought, “Oh gosh, should I eat something? Because I’m going for a run, should I?” And I thought, “No, you haven’t planned to eat yet. Don’t eat anything before you go out. And if you do find that you’re really tired while you’re out, then learn from it, maybe walk for a bit, not a problem.” And I was fine. That hunger pang actually went quite quickly and I was fine. I forgot about it. And that’s another thing, learning what hunger feels like. I’ve learned that for me hunger and stress feel quite similar. So if I find I’m hungry in between meals, it might actually be stress and not hunger. If I wait for a while. I’ve learned what hunger actually feels like. What real actual hunger feels like.

Kirstin:

How do you tell the difference? If stress and hunger feel the same? How do you know which is which?

Allie:

Because if I’ve had a good breakfast and I’m hungry an hour later, it’s unlikely to be hunger and it’s often if I’ve got a particular appointment or something I’m really quite stressed about. So it took me a while to figure it out. Physically, it does feel slightly different, but they are very similar. So I just go, “Well, it can’t be hunger. I ate a good meal an hour ago, two hours ago, it can’t be hunger. So I’m just going to have some water, wait and see what happens.” But on those occasions, when perhaps I’ve done a bit more exercise and I am actually hungry, I just think, “Well fine then I’ll have something to eat.” If I am really hungry, then I can either wait, but if it is a while till the next meal or if we’re eating later or something, then I’ll just grab a healthy snack. It’s not a big deal.

Kirstin:

Yeah. So instead of just feeling that sensation, whatever it is, and jumping to the conclusion that it must be hunger, you actually take that moment to feel it and look into it. See if it feels more like hunger, if it feels more like stress and then get logical about it, “Did I eat? Do I have something coming up that I might feel stressed about?” And just taking that moment to look into yourself and question yourself and explore what’s going on. Instead of just saying, “I feel this way, must be hungry. Let’s go eat.” Which is what so many of us like to do.

Allie:

It was almost like I used to just react. And so now if I had an early lunch and we’re having a late dinner or something, and I find I am really hungry at three, four o’clock, in the past, it would be something unhealthy I would have gone for. Very often now, I’ll either make some toast or have some fruit or yogurt or just something quite simple because it is actual hunger and I want to feel that hunger, whereas in the past it was just wanting sugar. So that’s really changed. If I’m really hungry then I’m not just going to deny myself and go, “No, you’ve got to wait for another three hours.” What would be the point in that? But I don’t just reach for sugar anymore. That’s really changed.

Kirstin:

That’s so good.

Allie:

But we do have it in the house. I currently have a freezer full of cake. So we have from various events and things, or the kids have baked and they’ve made too much, and it’s gone in the freezer and we’ll get it out at weekends and enjoy it. But I no longer think, “Oh my goodness, that’s in the cupboard.” And get that that’s in the cupboard, that’s in the fridge and it’s all you can think about. It’s like it’s calling you. Well, that doesn’t happen anymore and I never thought that that could not happen. But I do have to say, it’s still not perfect because it’s not, I’m still a work in progress, but I’m fine with that. I know I can do it now and I’m doing it so I’m fine with that.

Kirstin:

And you’ve made so much progress. We’re all always a work in progress.

Allie:

Yeah.

Kirstin:

And you’ve already made so much, which is just amazing. It’s so good.

Allie:

I feel like I’m learning every day. So one of the things you mentioned, which I love is curiosity, especially when things don’t work out how we thought they would and rather than beating myself up, now there’s a lot of curiosity. “Oh, actually that breakfast didn’t seem to fill me up as much as I thought it would. What could I perhaps add to it?” Just approaching it like that. And again, when I do get on the scales, it’s just a number. So I don’t let it destroy my week or derail me or anything. I just approach it like, “Yeah, okay. Maybe I did eat a bit more cake than I thought or actually yeah, I eat really well.” But it is just a number and that number for me does signify becoming healthier, but that’s it. It’s no longer about confidence and it’s no longer about how I perceive people perceiving me or how I perceive myself, it’s just not about that anymore.

Kirstin:

I love it. So what would you say is the biggest difference between your life then and your life?

Allie:

I know how to deal with difficult feelings now and stress and so I don’t need to eat to fix that. So because of that, I’m able to focus on eating to lose the weight that I want to lose because the eating is no longer bound up in obsession or restricting or punishing myself, I can actually focus on becoming healthier. And it’s just that freedom. Just that sense of being free from being trapped by food and obsession with food. And I think that was more than one thing.

Kirstin:

Well, I didn’t want to overwhelm you with the question so I figured I’d just ask for one, but you can give me as many as you want. I mean, you’ve already given so much in just this last 30 minutes or whatever, it’s so good. So what would you say to someone else who had lifelong eating issues, was deep in bingeing for three years or even longer and were just doing what you were doing and they have a lot of doubt about whether or not they’ll be able to stop too? What would you say to them?

Allie:

I would say definitely do the coaching program, but commit to it. Don’t sign up for it and then, “Oh, well I’ll give it a try.” Sign up for it and give everything to it, do it wholeheartedly and really commit to it because it’s worth it. You’ve got to put the work in because there is no magic wand, but it is absolutely worth it. And the other people I met in the group that was really helpful, the chat channels and things were really helpful, but yeah, definitely do it.

Kirstin:

How did you think that having the group aspect of it was helpful for you?

Allie:

I was really skeptical. I was skeptical about the group coaching. I thought, “Oh, we’re supposed to listen to this group coaching if you’re not being coached.” But actually I loved it. It was so helpful because actually you’d be coaching somebody else and the rest of us listing would be like, “Yep.” So it was actually super helpful. I learned just as much from hearing other people being coached and just as much from seeing other people’s wins and other people’s challenges and struggles and encouragement, I learned just as much from all of that. And the weekly questions you’d post as well. I learned so much from other people’s answers, but also there was finally for me that sense of community. All these people get me, we’re all here for the same reason. Our stories are different, but we’re all here for the same reason. I’d never had that before. So that group aspect of it was really, really helpful. And everybody was so encouraging, really celebrating each other, which was just, it was just lovely.

Kirstin:

It’s so nice to have other people that get it and that can lift you up and be supportive of you in ways that are actually supportive of you because people that haven’t been through it, they try, they really do try to be supportive, but it’s just not always in the ways that are actually supportive of us.

Allie:

Yeah. It’s really not sometimes. It was just super helpful and people just got the things you were struggling with. It was brilliant.

Kirstin:

Yeah. So any other words of wisdom that you haven’t shared yet that you would like to share? Anything that comes to mind?

Allie:

I don’t think so. I think your podcast, the way you coach, just makes sense and lots of diet programs, you have to eat weird kind of foods, or you have to cut out all of this or you can only do this. There’s all these ridiculous rules. And then when you finally maybe lose the weight you want to lose, you go back to normal. Whereas everything you say just makes sense. It’s just common sense really and it’s healthy. That’s the other thing, it’s healthy, holistically speaking, it’s healthy. So I’m not sure that was a word of wisdom.

Kirstin:

Well, final words I guess we could say. Final words.

Allie:

Yeah, just all of that.

Kirstin:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. You really are such an inspiration. I just, after talking with you on that last coaching call that we had, I needed to share your story with everyone.

Allie:

Thank you, Kirstin.

Kirstin:

Because I just need more people to share their stories and inspire other people so that they can believe that they can do it too. We can see their story in your story and see what kind of shift you’ve made and-

Allie:

I think it’s possible for anyone to do it. I just think-

Kirstin:

I agree with you. So thank you for saying it as well. It’s not just me saying it everyone. Allie says it too.

All right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here and I am so looking forward to seeing how much success you’re going to have in the future too, because you’re going to, it’s going to keep happening.

Allie:

Thank you, Kirstin. Thank you.

Kirstin:

You’re welcome.

Heck yeah Allie!

Her transformation is amazing and I love how amazed she is by her own transformation!

She may not be a perfect eater but really, who is? And it’s so great to hear how comfortable she is with her eating, her feelings, and her body now.

So good.

She’s a true example of what commitment, prioritizing, and practice can create and I hope she’s inspired you to go all in on your commitment to stopping your binge eating too.

So much change can happen when you make the time to apply what you learn on the podcast but, if you want to take it to the next level like Allie did and do this work with me, join the next Stop Binge Eating Program.

You’ll be doing it with other people who understand what you’re going through, who you can relate to, and who you can talk about this work with. You’ll be able to coach with me so I can point out your blindspots and share perspectives with you that you may not be able to see on your own. And I’ll give you all the tools you need to stop binge eating and as you practice using them, I’ll be there to help you if you have any challenges along the way.

Go to coachkir.com/group to get all the info for the next program that will be starting in July 2021 and registration for the program will open up on June 22^nd.

I’ll see you there.

Bye bye!