Ep #382: Why It’s So Hard For You To Stop Binge Eating

Hi! Before we get started, I just want to remind you that registration for next Stop Binge Eating Program will be opening in just two weeks, on December 11th of 2025.

If you are so done with binge eating, are so ready to get it out of your life, and want to have a completely different relationship with food by this time next year, then this program is for you.

You can stop feeling so guilty about what you eat, stop obsessing about food, feel more comfortable in your body, feel in control around food, feel better about yourself, trust yourself, and so much more that comes along with stopping binge eating.

Rather than just listening to this podcast and trying to do it on your own, you can get my direct help and you and I will work together to make it happen.

Are you ready to make 2026 your year?

Let’s do it.

Go to coachkir.com/group to get all the info about the program and to get on the waitlist so you can be notified as soon as registration opens on the 11th and you’ll want to sign up ASAP because when you do, you’ll get immediate access to the Stop Binge Eating Course so you can get started right away before the program officially begins in January.

If you have any questions that aren’t answered on that webpage you can email them to info@coachkir.com.

If you’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time, why wait any longer? The sooner you do it, the sooner you get that binge-free life that you’ve been dreaming of.

Alright, now today let’s talk about why it’s so hard for you to stop binge eating.

Stopping binge eating isn’t easy for most people. It does take work and it can be challenging at times. But sometimes we make it harder than it needs to be.

We do things that make a hard thing harder.

Or, things that make what could be fairly easy, to be hard.

So in this episode today, I want to talk with you about the most common things people do that make stopping binge eating even harder for themselves.

The first one is being hard on themselves if they’re not perfect with their eating or if they binge.

They binge and they make it mean that they’ll never be able to stop, and they lose belief in themselves. They mentally beat themselves up about it, bring themselves down, and say mean things to themselves like calling themselves a failure, a loser, weak, or a lost cause.

It is SO hard to be successful and do good things for yourself when you’re doing any of those things.

It is so hard to feel motivated when you’re calling yourself a failure.

It is so hard to feel driven to work on stopping binge eating when you are telling yourself that you can’t do it.

And if you’re being hard on yourself any time your eating isn’t perfect, or if you eat something that was unplanned, or if you eat past full, it could be the same.

You might tell yourself that you’ve failed for the day and there’s no point in trying anymore.

Or that you messed it up so you might as well just keep eating. And, that more eating gets excessive.

And that leads you to give up.

Giving up on yourself when you binge, when you make a mistake, any time your eating is what you consider to be imperfect, is for sure going to make stopping binge eating harder.

It’s hard to succeed with a goal if you keep quitting on yourself. You don’t create consistency, which will stop you from creating new habits and breaking the ones you don’t want to have. You don’t build your skills, including resilience which is such an important skill to have. And you won’t make the progress you want to make.

Quitting on yourself and progress do not go together.

And being hard on yourself is very likely going to lead you into quitting on yourself. I’ve seen it so many times and I would say it’s the number one reason why people don’t stop binge eating.

So if you want to make stopping binge eating easier for yourself, don’t be so hard on yourself.

If you binge, or make any other eating mistake, don’t beat yourself up about it.

Don’t be so mean or cruel to yourself.

Don’t give up on yourself.

Be encouraging, be curious so you can learn something from your mistake, something that you can work on moving forward, and be supportive of yourself. Have compassion, just like you would if someone you love was trying to do something they’ve never done before, something that might be hard for them to do. And of course, be kind.

None of this means that you’re letting yourself off the hook, or are excusing what you did. It just means that you’re deliberately bringing yourself to a more neutral or positive place, rather than a negative one.

You’re not bringing yourself down even more, making it harder for you to get back doing what you want to do, and doing good for yourself. You’re lifting yourself up, which will make it easier.

When my group members start being kinder to themselves, they notice such a big difference in how they show up for themselves, how they feel, and how they behave after mistakes and binges.

They see that being hard on themselves never really helped them or motivated them, and being kinder was so much more helpful.

So do that for yourself too. Make it easier simply by being kinder.

Now, another common thing I see people doing that makes stopping binge eating harder for them is not being accepting of their body as it is right now and not being neutral about their body.

A lot of people who binge eat are not happy with their body size. Their bodies are bigger then they want them to be.

And just like I talked about with being hard on yourself for bingeing or making mistakes, they might be hard on their bodies, saying really mean things about them, hating them, and even giving up on them.

So many people will hate on their body, feel so bad about the body they’re in, and then either eat to make themselves feel better or they feel hopeless and give up on trying to change their eating because they’re telling themselves it won’t make a difference anyway.

So being unaccepting of your body and thinking so negatively about it can lead to giving up on trying like I talked about with the self-talk.

But there’s something else that can happen too.

Most people who binge eat feel urges to binge because they’re too restrictive with food.

Either they under eat, and then their brain urges them to eat a lot to make up for the lack of fuel its received and prepare for the possibility of future under eating, since the fuel is crucial for survival.

Or they deny themselves certain foods, types of foods, certain macro nutrients, basically foods they like to eat that maybe aren’t nutritious or are high calorie or high fat or high carb, and they’ll eventually feel urges to binge on what they’ve been denied of. And if they’re expecting future denial, because they’re telling themselves that they’re only going to eat this food “just this one time,” then they’re going to feel urges to eat as much as they can while they can.

So to stop these urges from happening, they need to eat adequately and fuel their bodies properly, eating when they feel hungry and eating enough to feel satiated.

And they need to give themselves permission to eat the foods they like to eat. Not permission to eat whatever whenever they feel like it. But allow themselves to eat the foods while making decisions for what and when by considering what they’re in the mood for and what is best for their body.

Permission to eat without thought or consideration is not at all what I recommend. Consider your body and how it will feel. Consider what you want, not just what you think you should eat. And the permission means that all foods are options and you have the freedom to decide.

You are not denied anything. You are allowed everything. And this can feel so calming and freeing. There’s no pressure to eat a certain way. And that will remove the urges to binge due to excessive restriction.

But, some people are too afraid to give themselves permission to eat those foods.

Because they’re afraid that if they do, they’ll gain weight.

Or they they won’t be able to lose weight.

They are so afraid of how certain foods will affect their weight, that they’re afraid to allow them back into their life.

And I totally get it. Through the years, we’ve all been told about bad foods, foods that are fattening, foods that cause weight gain, foods that you can’t eat if you want to lose weight.

We’ve be conditioned to believe that the foods are the problem and they will have a negative impact on our weight.

But what doesn’t get talked about enough is how much of the foods need to be eaten to affect your weight.

Because your weight is way more impacted by the amount you’re eating than the food itself.

People will be afraid to eat one, medium-sized cookie because they think they’ll gain weight if they do, or it will stop their weight loss. But one cookie isn’t going to have that big of an impact. Likely, nothing will be affected, or it will have very little impact.

So we don’t need to be afraid to allow and eat the cookie.

But, you might then say that you’re not afraid of that one cookie, you’re afraid that you won’t be able to stop at just one.

And I get that concern. I had the same one for so many years with so many different foods.

But you need to first understand why you have such a hard time stopping at just one cookie.

It is very likely that one of the main reasons why is because you are so restrictive with it.

When you do allow yourself to eat a cookie, is it after a period of denying yourself for so long? So you’re urging to eat a lot of what you haven’t been allowed to eat.

Wanting excessive amounts of something you have wanted but haven’t been allowed to have is normal.

And when you do allow yourself to eat a cookie, are you telling yourself that you shouldn’t, or that you’re doing something bad or wrong? And then feeling guilty about eating it? That’s not real permission. And that guilt will likely cause you to fall into all or nothing thinking, where you think you messed up so you might as well just keep going, and you’ll get back to being good tomorrow.

And when you do allow yourself to eat a cookie, are you only giving yourself permission to eat it today? Because starting tomorrow, it’s forbidden again? So you then feel an urgency, and urge to eat as much as you can now before it goes away again.

People think that the cookie tasting so good is the reason why they have a hard time stopping. But so much of the time, it’s actually them being overly restrictive with it that makes it hard for them to stop.

This is why giving yourself permission to eat the foods you like can help you to stop binge eating. It can stop those urges and the all or nothing thinking.

But that fear of how it will affect your weight can make it scary for you to do it.

You might think you’re helping yourself to control your weight when you’re so controlled with your eating.

But it can actually make it harder if you’re creating all those urges to binge on what you’ve been restricting.

Now, going back to what I said originally, that it’s your lack of acceptance of your body that is making it harder for you to stop binge eating.

To stop binge eating, you need to stop being excessively restrictive with food.

To do that, you need to be willing to possibly gain weight, and probably not lose weight because a lot of the time, when some people stop being so restrictive, they do gain some weight at first. It happens. And it’s part of the healing process. It’s important to allow that to be part of the process if it is in fact part of the process for you.

Because if you don’t, you’ll want to go back to restricting to lose any weight you’ve gained, or you might be in a hurry to lose weight if you’re staying at the same weight you were, and that can perpetuate your binge eating.

And the reason why you are so afraid of gaining or not losing, is because of what you think about your body.

Yes you might be concerned about your health, yes you may have difficultly moving your body when it’s bigger. I’m not going to deny or downplay either of those, because they are in fact real and important.

But for most people, what’s even more important to them, or just as important, is how they feel emotionally, how they are perceived, and what they think about their body.

And their fear of feeling ashamed of their body, of being perceived as lazy, out of control, stupid, undisciplined, or anther adjective like those, their fear of hating their body or being in a body that’s gross, disgusting, flabby, fat, or another word they might use to describe their body, makes them fearful of gaining or staying the same.

They don’t want all the stigma that comes along with it.

They’re so afraid of it that they aren’t willing ease up on the strictness of their eating if there’s the possibility that they won’t lose or will gain.

Now, I’m not going to deny that the stigma exists. Of course it does. People have thoughts about bigger bodies and they have thoughts about people gaining weight.

It’s real.

But, although it can be hard when other people have negative thoughts about bigger bodies and weight gain, what’s going to impact you the most is your thoughts and your stigma.

When you’re the one telling yourself that your body is shameful, or that if you gain weight you are lazy, out of control, stupid, undisciplined, or that your body is, or if you gain it will be gross, disgusting, flabby, fat, it’s going to make you feel so badly about yourself and fearful.

Your words to yourself are going to have the greatest impact.

And this is why it’s so important that your self-talk about your body, at this size or bigger, isn’t so dang negative.

Not only does the negative body talk make you feel so bad, so ashamed, so disappointed, so frustrated, but it can also create a fear that will stop you from doing something that will help you to stop binge eating.

It’s going to be hard for you to be less restrictive with your food if you are terrified of gaining or staying the same.

And it’s going to be hard to stop feeling so scared if you are making your body as it is or are making gaining weight mean such negative things about you and your body.

When you are more neutral about it, when you can acknowledge that it’s part of the healing process, that you’re actually moving in the right direction, that you’re doing something good for yourself, that you’re doing the right thing, and that the weight gain or staying at this weight do not mean anything negative about you, and when you are not using such nasty, negative words to describe your body at this size or bigger, then it will be so much easier for you to do what you’ve got to do.

You won’t have fear blocking you.

So it won’t be as hard to do what you need to do to stop binge eating.

I see it with my clients all the time. Once they accept their bodies, are neutral about them, and don’t make weight gain mean something negative about themselves or their bodies, they are more relaxed about the process, they allow the foods, and they make progress toward stopping binge eating.

And when the time comes that they’re ready, we work on losing the weight they want to lose.

Because they’re not being so negative toward themselves, they’re willing to take their time and do it right, by stopping binge eating first and then working on weight loss afterward.

So that’s why being unaccepting of your body, hating your body, being so afraid of gaining can make it harder for you to stop binge eating.

And you can change all of that by being kinder when you think about yourself and your body.

You don’t have to make it mean such negative things, even if other people do.

And when you are solid in your neutral beliefs, it will be so much easier to let other people think what they think while you are confident in what you know to be true to you.

You don’t have to agree with society. You can believe what you want to believe.

And believing more neutral things about gaining weight during this process, or not losing, will be so much more helpful than being negative.

Now, the third thing I want to talk about that could be making stopping binge eating harder for you is not being willing to feel uncomfortable.

Anytime you’re doing something new, or something different from what you’re used to doing, or something unfamiliar, or are breaking habits, it will likely be uncomfortable.

And stopping binge eating includes all of those things.

If you binge for emotional reasons, you’ll need to practice feeling your emotions without eating, and that will be uncomfortable.

If you’re going to stop eating when there’s a part of you that wants to keep eating, it will be uncomfortable.

If you’re feeling an urge and you’re going to feel it without eating, it will be uncomfortable.

Being less restrictive with your eating, as I was talking about previously, can be uncomfortable at first.

Talking to someone who can help you with your binge eating can be uncomfortable.

Facing your thoughts and feelings that you’ve been avoiding or distracting from by eating food can be uncomfortable.

And if you’re not willing to feel that discomfort, you’re not going to do those things.

And if you don’t do those things, it will be really hard for you to stop binge eating.

So your unwillingness to feel uncomfortable can be making it harder for you to stop binge eating.

Now, you might not want to do it because you’re afraid to, because you’re afraid it will get even more uncomfortable if you do.

But the truth is, if you don’t do the things that are uncomfortable, you’ll stay in binge eating and continue to experience the discomfort of it.

If you do experience the uncomfortable things, you’ll be doing something that will help to stop the binge eating, that will resolve your thoughts and feelings so they don’t keep coming back in the same way, that will help you to break and create habits.

So yes it will be uncomfortable at first, but it will be so worth it if you do it because doing the uncomfortable things will result in you feeling more comfortable in general.

And that’s what you need to be telling yourself.

Tell yourself why it will be so worth it. Tell yourself what good you’re going to get from it.

You’re not feeling the discomfort just to torture yourself. You’re doing it for a purpose. And that purpose is important you to. It matters.

When you have a really good reason to go through that discomfort, you will be more willing to do it.

And when you tell yourself the truth about how it’s going to go, that it’s not going to last forever, and going through it will actually help to decrease it, you’re giving yourself more incentive to go through it.

So whatever it is that you’re not doing because you think it’s going to be uncomfortable, tell yourself why you are going to do it, why it’s so important that you do it.

Give yourself the motive to do it.

Help yourself to become more willing.

Because when you are willing to feel uncomfortable, doing the uncomfortable things, and stopping binge eating will be easier than when you’re resistant.

So, the three main reasons why stopping binge eating can be harder than it needs to be is because of negative self-talk, negative body-talk, and an unwillingness to feel uncomfortable.

If stopping binge eating has been really hard for you, have you noticed any of those playing a part?

If so, I hope that now you have an idea for how you can make it even just a little easier for yourself.

And if you want my help with changing any of those things, and doing anything I talked about in this episode, or really in any episode, then come work with me in The Stop Binge Eating Program. I can help you beyond this podcast and we can talk about what it is that is specifically making it hard for you so you can get personalized strategies and direction. Also, getting help can for sure make it easier to be successful. So that’s another thing to add to the list of things making is harder – not getting help when you need it. Come get help if you need it.

Again registration is opening on December 11th of 2025 and you can get all the info about the program and register by going to coachkir.com/group. And if you have questions, email them to info@coachkir.com.

Alright, that’s all for today, I’ll talk to you next time, bye bye.