Ep #302: When You Just Don’t Care

Hello! I am going to be doing a free training on Zoom next Wednesday, May 22nd of 2024 at 3pm ET. In this training, I’m going to be sharing with you 3 secrets you need to know to stop binge eating and I’ll be going in depth with each one.

You’re going to learn how you’re going to stop binge eating, even if you’ve been doing it for a really long time, even if you’ve failed at stopping countless times, and you’re also going to lean how you’re going to eat delicious foods without bingeing on them.

All of this is possible for you and this training will show you why it’s possible and how you’ll do it.

So come join me for this live training on Wednesday May 22nd of 2024 at 3pm ET. However, I of course understand that not everyone is available at that time so I will be recording it and the recording will be available for a limited time afterward. So to join me live and to access the recording once it’s available, go to coachkir.com/training and register for the training.

I’m so excited to share this with you and help you get to your goal of being completely binge-free.

Now, let’s get into today’s episode topic – when you just don’t care.

Have you ever told yourself, right before you give in to your urge and binge, that you just don’t care?

You don’t care about how you’ll feel, you don’t care about doing this work, you don’t care about what will happen, so you’re just going to eat.

Maybe you’re just feeling really emotional and all you do care about is getting a break from your emotions.

Maybe you’ve worked through several urges earlier in the day and you’re fed up with it so you’re just done and just care about not feeling anymore urges, no matter what it takes.

Maybe you’ve been telling yourself “no” too much, and not for reasons you like, and you’re tired of saying “no” so all you care about is finally telling yourself, “yes,” and finally getting what you want.

Or maybe you haven’t noticed a decrease in the frequency of your binges or a decrease in the amount you’re eating so you’re thinking that what you’re doing isn’t working anyway so you don’t care to do any more of the work.

Whatever the reason, in that moment, you’ve stopped caring about doing whatever it takes to not binge and are caring more about feeling better, feeling comfort, feeling relief, feeling numb, getting pleasure, or just getting a break in this moment.

So you eat.

But then afterward, you realize that you do care, a lot.

In that moment before you decided to eat you didn’t care but now you do.

Outside of the moment, you care a lot about not bingeing and not excessively overeating.

But sometimes, when you’re feeling emotional or are feeling an urge, you tell yourself that you don’t care, because in that moment you just really want to feel good.

In that moment, feeling better is the most important.

So how do you get out of this and not binge? How do you get away from this, “I don’t care” thinking and get yourself to care?

Well, this one can be a little tricky.

Sometimes, what you’ll be able to do is catch yourself thinking you don’t care and then you’ll tell yourself why you do care.

Because you really do care, that’s the truth, it’s not true that you don’t care, you just think you don’t in that moment.

And sometimes you’ll be able to access what you really care about, you’ll be able to tell yourself all the reasons why you don’t want to binge, why it’s important that you don’t binge, and why you do care about whether or not you choose to eat.

Sometimes, telling yourself why you do care will help you to stop yourself from giving in to that urge to binge.

However, sometimes it won’t.

And it really depends on the intensity of your not caring.

The more intensely that you’re thinking you don’t care, the more difficult it will be to talk yourself out of it.

And this is because some of the time, when you are telling yourself you don’t care, you have just straight up decided that you don’t care.

The decision to not care has been made.

It’s not just a thought, it’s a decision.

And once you decide that you don’t care, you are not then going to start doing work on your thoughts.

You have to care about doing the work if you’re going to do it and you’ve already decided that you don’t care to do the work so of course you’re not going to do it.

So if you’re in that place where your not caring is intense and you’ve made the decision that you don’t care, it is unlikely that you’re going to do what you need to do to not eat and not binge.

Now, that doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to switch your thinking from not caring to caring before it turns into a full-on binge, it’s possible that that could happen at any time, and sometimes it does but, just know that when the decision to not care has been made, then you’re not caring.

Now, I don’t want you to think that if this happens to you often then you’re hopeless, that if you often find yourself not caring and trying to get yourself to care doesn’t work because it’s not just a thought, it’s a decision, then there’s nothing you can do.

You definitely are not hopeless and there is something you can do.

There is a way to not let this continually lead you into a binge.

And the way is prevention.

The way is to understand why it is that you get to the point of strongly not caring and what you can do to prevent yourself from getting to that point.

Earlier in this episode, I went through some possible reasons why you might get to the point of deciding you don’t care anymore and because they’re some of the most common reasons I see, I’m going to use those as examples for how to prevent.

If it happens because your emotions are too heightened, then two things can help you. One, if the problem is that your emotions are building throughout the day, so they’re slowly over time becoming more intense, then address your emotions as soon as they come up, as soon as you can, so they don’t build so much. If it’s one thing after another that is causing one emotion after another, don’t ignore them, don’t shove them away, take small moments to acknowledge how you’re feeling and take deep breaths. Basically, you’re taking small breaks to be with your emotions, and begin to process them, instead of letting them build so much that you’re urging for a break.

And two, if it’s not a build up, if say that something happened that has brought up a lot of emotions for you all at once, then it would benefit you to practice feeling your emotions more. When you’re hit with intense emotions and you’re not used to just feeling emotions, you might feel driven to eat to make them go away. But, if you’ve practiced with feeling less intense emotions, and you’ve practiced going through less intense discomfort, then you will build up your tolerance for discomfort. When you build your tolerance, and have become more skilled at feeling less intense discomfort, it will prepare you for more intense discomfort, and you’ll be more willing to go through it instead of giving up on what you want the most because you don’t know how to get through the emotion, or aren’t willing to.

I recently felt some strong emotions when something happened and I didn’t binge because I’ve practiced feeling emotions a lot, and I was willing to go through this discomfort without eating because I’ve gotten good at feeling. I don’t need to give up on what I know I really want, which is to not binge, just because I’m feeling a lot of discomfort.

So if you’re someone who stops caring about how they eat once they feel intense emotions, you can prevent this by practicing feeling less intense emotions so you get more comfortable with feeling emotions and so you build up your tolerance. When you’re good at something, you won’t feel such a strong urge to not do it, you’ll be more willing to do it.

Now, if you stop caring because you’re feeling a lot of urges and you’re tired of working through your urges, and you don’t want to work through them anymore, then you need to explore why you’re feeling so many urges to begin with and get to the root of them. You’re not feeling so many urges “just because.” There’s a reason. If you get to the cause of your urges, then you can work on that reason and not feel so many urges. If you’re feeling less urges, then it will be easier for you to stay in “I do care” mode.

So instead of getting fed up with your urges, get curious about them and address the cause of them. Is it because you’re urging to feel better? Because you’re urging for food that you haven’t been allowing yourself? Because you’re urging for pleasure, fun, or excitement? Once you know, you can work on emotional management, being less restrictive, creating more fun, pleasure, and excitement in your life, or whatever it is you’re needing.

Next, if you’re someone who stops caring because you’re just so done with telling yourself no and so done with not eating the things you want to eat, then eat more of what you want to eat and say yes more. You don’t have to deny yourself so much. You don’t have to say no to the foods you want to eat so much. It’s okay to eat them more often than you are. You’re allowed to eat what you want. And if you are going to say no to yourself, it better only be for reasons that you really, really like, and that are genuinely coming from you and not diet mentality. No shoulds and shouldn’ts, only wants and don’t wants.

If you’re giving yourself more of what you want, you won’t be dying for a yes. If you’re only saying no when you truly want to say no, if you love your reasons for saying no, you won’t get fed up with your no’s because it’s what you want.

And lastly, if you stop caring because you think it won’t matter anyway, if you’re feeling defeated and hopeless, because you noticed there hasn’t been a decrease in the frequency of your binges or a decrease in the amount you’re eating, then just like with the urges I talked about a moment ago, you have to explore why. There is a reason. There is something you need to do differently in order for your eating habits to change. You can figure out what it is and do it differently. And if doing this on your own isn’t working, if just listening to the podcast and applying what you learn on your own isn’t working, if you can’t figure it out on your own, you can get help. I personally offer help in my Stop Binge Eating Program so that is an option for you. And in there, we address so many possible reasons why you might not be improving and I help you to actually improve. It’s doable, it’s possible for you, and when you can see how it will happen for you, you will feel less defeated and hopeless and you will care more.

And when you care more, you’ll do more. And it’s important that you know what you need to do more of and it’s important to know what will and won’t work. So if what you’ve been doing isn’t working, something needs to change. If you can’t figure out what that something is, I encourage you to let me help you in the program.

And there’s one more thing I want to suggest that you do that can help with prevention.

Tell yourself, multiple times throughout the day, why you do care. Drill it into you mind. Keep reminding yourself of why you do care, why it’s important to you that you don’t binge. Create motivation for yourself to care by reminding yourself of your motive.

The more important your reasons are to you, the more you will care.

And the more you bring those reasons to the forefront of your mind, the harder it will be for you to believe that you don’t care.

So you can do things to prevent yourself from getting to the point of not caring.

But, if you do get there, and if you decide you don’t care, and you binge, use this as a learning experience for yourself.

Explore why you didn’t care and what it was that you thought you didn’t care about.

Explore why you chose to not care anymore.

This will all show you what it is that you need to work on to prevent yourself from getting to that place. Then, you can get to work on it.

Alright, so if you can tell yourself in the moment why you do care, and that matters to you in the moment, then do that. And don’t let your brain try to downplay what will happen if you binge. Tell yourself the truth.

And if telling yourself why you do care doesn’t work, because you’ve firmly decided that you don’t care, and so you do binge, learn from the experience so you can work on preventing yourself from getting to that point of not caring.

And last thing before I go, don’t forget to register for next week’s free training, on Wednesday May 22nd of 2024 at 3pm ET where I’m going to share with you, in depth, 3 secrets you need to know to stop binge eating. It’s gonna be awesome. Register to attend live and to receive the limited-time recording by going to coachkir.com/training.

I’ll see you there! Bye bye.