Ep #373: Should You Keep Your “Binge Foods” In Your Home?

Hi! Next Wednesday, on October 1st of 2025, at 12pm ET, I’m doing a free training where I’m going to share 3 Secrets You Need to Know to Stop Binge Eating.

You’re going to learn how you’ll stop binge eating after having done it for many years, how to stop feeling urges to binge eat, and how to eat delicious food without bingeing on it.

These are three things I hear people asking about quite often so that’s why I’ll be covering them in this training.

So if you want help with those things, then come to the free training.

As I said, it will be on October 1st at 12pm ET and you can register for it by going to coachkir.com/training. Come live if you can but, if you’re not able to make it live there will be a recording that you can watch but, you have to be registered to get access to it and it will only be available for a limited-time.

So register now. Coachkir.com/training.

Alright, now onto today’s topic – should you keep your binge foods in your home?

And by binge foods, I mean foods that you typically binge on or foods you’re afraid you’ll binge on.

I get asked this question a lot.

And the answer isn’t a simple yes or no.

Because, there isn’t one right answer for everyone and, the answer might change for you.

So let’s talk about it.

People ask this question, and think that not having their binge foods in their home would be useful because they’ve seen themselves binge on those foods so many times when they have brought them into their home.

They see a pattern and think that if they don’t bring the foods home then the pattern will break.

It makes sense, right?

I mean, I definitely thought that during the years I was binge eating. That’s why I kept making “Do not buy” lists. I thought that if I didn’t buy the foods then I wouldn’t binge.

But, I did binge.

Either I’d find a different food, or foods, to binge on, and maybe then add those to the list.

Or, at some point I’d just say, “screw the list” and buy the foods anyway.

Making that rule, that I would not allow myself to bring those foods home, wasn’t the solution. It may have helped me for a very short time but at some point, a binge would happen.

So if you find that that same thing happens to you, then please know that avoiding certain foods isn’t the solution.

Now, having said that, I’m not saying that you should then just bring those foods into your home.

If you are not mentally prepared to bring them in, and aren’t in a useful mindset, then binges could just keep happening.

Binges could happen whether you bring them in your home or you don’t.

So, to answer the question, “should I bring them into my home?” you have to assess whether or not you’re ready to.

For some people, they feel so scared to bring them in. They’re terrified that they will binge on them and they have no idea how to not binge on them.

If you don’t feel comfortable having those foods in your home, then you of course have the option of not bringing them in….for now.

And I want to repeat, “for now.”

At some point, learning how to be around those foods is going to be so helpful for you.

I don’t want any of you to be living in fear of certain foods forever, and you don’t have to.

You can learn to be more comfortable around those foods, and wouldn’t it be so nice to be?

You’d feel so much more relaxed and calm when you’re in the store, when you see those foods, when someone offers you those foods, when they’re on the food table at a party or holiday, or when someone even talks about those foods.

If you never learn how to be around those foods then you won’t feel relaxed and calm. You might instead feel scared, conflicted, confused, panicked, sad, or powerless.

So, how do you become more relaxed and calm with those foods around and not feel so scared?

You do it by changing what you think about those foods, what you think about eating those foods, and what you think will happen if you eat those foods.

You’re also going to understand and address why you’ve been bingeing on those foods when they’re in your home.

So let’s start with the second thing, why you’ve been bingeing on them.

We tend to want to eliminate the foods because we see them as the prob lem.

We might think that we can’t stop eating it.

Or we’re going to want more and more and more and never be satisfied with just a moderate amount.

Or we won’t be able to stop thinking about it.

But have you ever wondered why you’re like that?

There’s a reason, and it’s not just because the food tastes so good.

It’s either because you’ve been too restrictive with that food, or other foods, or because you use food to control your emotions.

That’s the real reason.

So if you’re going to bring those foods into your home and not binge on them, and not think about them all the time, and not feel out of control with them, then those reasons need to be addressed and resolved.

Let’s first talk about the restriction.

If you force yourself to not eat those foods, and you do want to eat those foods, then your desire for them is going to build up. The more you deny yourself, the more you’ll want them. You’ll start to think about them more and urge for them.

So when you do finally buy them and eat them, you’re not eating them from a place of mild desire, you’re feeling an urgent desire. And you’re going to eat very differently and think very differently, when your desire is mild vs urgent. Mild desire eating is going to be calm while urgent desire eating is going to be faster and, well, urgent, and you’ll likely desire more in quantity than with the mild. And you’ll likely think about it more than with the mild. You’re going to want more and more and more making it hard to eat less.

Then, to add to that, you might be telling yourself that you’re only eating them today, that tomorrow you won’t eat them, and you won’t buy them again. So, you’re creating a new restriction and it might make you feel a new urgent desire to get rid of the food so it’s not there tomorrow, and you might choose to get rid of it by eating it all rather than throwing it away. And if you’re not thinking about getting rid of it but just the fact that you’re not going to allow yourself to eat it tomorrow, you might feel the urge to eat as much as you can while you can.

What’s so interesting is that you might want to get rid of the food so you don’t binge on it but then, you get rid of it by bingeing on it. Bingeing happens because you’re creating urgency to get rid of it.

What I just described is one of the main reasons why people have such a hard time with certain foods. They keep taking away permission to eat them, which makes them want to eat all of it.

So if you stop taking away permission, then you won’t have that urgent desire to eat it all.

So, it’s not going to be helpful for you to bring your binge foods into your home if you’re still being too restrictive with them. If you do, you’ll just keep going back and forth between never eating them to then excessively eating them. You’ll go back and forth between feeling restricted to feeling free and when you go back and forth between those, you might take full advantage of feeling free and go way overboard. And if you’re wanting to get rid of the food, you might eat it all so it’s not there the next day.

Now, people tend to think that by buying those foods they’re proving that they’re allowing the foods and are giving themselves premission.

But that’s not entirely true.

If you’re buying those foods and are telling yourself that you only get to eat them today, that the food is dangerous, that you’re going to binge on the food, then you’re not really giving yourself full permission. You’re still thinking of them as “bad.” You’re still thinking you shouldn’t eat them. You’re still being too restrictive in your mind.

Real, unconditional permission and allowance means that you are fully okay with you eating them and that you don’t see eating them as a problem.

And what can help you to get yourself there is acknowledging, again, that the food isn’t the problem.

The food isn’t going to make you feel urges to binge.

You being overly restrictive with the food is what will cause you to feel urges to binge.

So if you’re going to bring those foods into your home, then the excessive restriction and the back and forth between allowing and not allowing needs to stop.

What also needs to stop if you’re doing it, is using food as your main way to handle and control your emotions and to feel good.

Many people get into the cycle of feeling uncomfortable emotions, eating to feel better, continuing to eat to keep feeling better, then feeling uncomfortable emotions, eating, and repeat.

Any time an uncomfortable emotion is felt, they run to food. And it’s hard to stop because they know that if they stop, they’ll be back to feeling that emotion, and they want to keep eating to keep feeling better, or good, or numb. They want more food to feel more good feelings.

And when an uncomfortable emotion is felt, they think about food a lot, because food is their way out of it.

And a big problem with this is that the emotion doesn’t actually get resolved. It just keeps getting avoided and ignored when the person is eating food. And because it doesn’t get resolved, it keeps resurfacing and along with that unresolved emotion comes other ones because we are humans that feel uncomfortable emotions.

If you don’t handle emotions as they come, they will stay or keep coming back and will be compounded with the new ones that come up as you live your life.

The emotions will keep happening and so will the excessive eating.

And if you don’t have a better way to handle your emotions, then you’re going to keep bingeing on that food when you bring it into your home. Not because the food is there but, because eating is how you deal with your emotions.

So if you want to not binge on that food, you need to handle your emotions differently.

You need to do something that will actually help you to feel better.

It might be doing something you enjoy, or moving your body, or resting.

It might be meditation, journaling, or talking to someone.

It might be confronting someone about something that’s bothering you.

But ultimately what needs to happen is a change in your thoughts.

You feel how you feel emotionally because of what you’re thinking. Your thoughts cause your emotions.

So if you’re really going to change how you feel then you need to change what you’re thinking which could be your opinion about something, your perspective, or how you’re interpreting something.

Eating food isn’t going to do that, it’s just going to distract you from what you’re thinking.

But you might wonder, if part of this is emotional for you, why do you keep eating certain foods in your home more excessively than others?

It’s simply because you get more pleasure from those certain foods.

If you’re feeling down and want to feel happier, you’ll likely go for a more highly palatable food.

If you’re feeling bored and want pleasure, you’ll likely go for a more highly palatable food.

So your desire for a good feeling, for pleasure, is showing up as a desire for that particular food that is going to be more tasty to you. You think that the tastier the food is, the more pleasure and good feelings you’ll get.

So you might blame that food but really, it’s your strong desire for pleasure or a good feeling that is making you think about that food since you see that food as what will provide you with what you’re wanting.

It’s not the food, it’s what you think that food will do for you. You think it will give you what you want. And if it doesn’t, you might keep eating it, thinking that at some point it will, but if after several bites, and several foods you don’t get it, you’re not going to get what you want from that food. You need to find it elsewhere.

So along with just it being an uncomfortable emotion issue, it can also be a pleasure seeking issue.

So, if you want to stop bingeing on those foods in your home, eliminating them isn’t the answer.

Not being overly restrictive and not using food as your only way to handle your emotions and feel better is the answer.

If you’re not doing those then you won’t binge on them.

You won’t have those urges to binge that are caused by being too restricted for so long.

You won’t have those urges to binge on the food before you take it away again or to binge on them to get rid of them.

You won’t have those urges to binge in order to change how you feel and to feel better.

And without those urges, there will be no binges.

Once you can see that the food isn’t the problem, then you don’t have to be so afraid of it.

The food isn’t the reason why you think about it so much, or have a hard time stopping eating it once you’ve started.

It’s the excessive restrictions, lack of other emotional coping skills, and it’s the way you experience pleasure and get good feelings.

I said earlier that part of what needs to be done is changing what you think about those foods, what you think about eating those foods, and what you think will happen if you eat those foods.

And part of that is recognizing that the food isn’t the problem here. If you’re thinking that the food isn’t the problem, and that the food isn’t going to make you binge, and that if you work on what’s really causing the binges, then you won’t binge if you eat those foods.

So it’s shifting into thinking that eating the foods is okay, that you’re allowed to eat them, that you can eat them again tomorrow and any day that you want to, and that eating them won’t inevitably cause a binge or cause overeating.

It’s shifting what you believe about yourself and your ability to not binge and overeat on them. And you are more capable than you think. Just wait until you see how much your eating will change once you address the real problem here.

It’s shifting into thinking that it’s just a delicious food rather than thinking it’s bad, or even thinking it’s a “binge food.” Just by calling it a binge food, you’re already causing yourself to feel resistance to eating it, or maybe even fear about eating it or having it around.

So let’s drop the labels, let’s stop calling them “binge foods,” “bad foods,” “dangerous foods,” “forbidden foods,” or anything like that. Call them by their name. Call them joy foods, fun foods, pleasure foods. It’s going to make it so much easier for you to feel comfortable around them.

And if you have a hard time changing how you’re thinking about those foods and changing what you think will happen if you eat those foods, keep reminding yourself of the real problem here and make sure you’re actually working on the problem.

The problem isn’t just going to go away, you need to be intentional about it and put effort into solving it.

You can be okay with having the food in your home.

But before you bring it in, work on your thoughts about the food, work on giving yourself unconditional permission to eat it, and work on handling your emotions and finding pleasure in a better way.

Then when you feel ready, bring them in and practice being around them, practice eating them, practice being permissive and practice handling your emotions and getting pleasure without it.

You can do it. You can have those foods in your home. With a few changes that don’t involve banning them from your home, you will eat them in moderation, at home, when no one is around.

Alright, so I hope that helps you to decide what to do about having thos e foods in your home and I hope you understand what you can do be more comfortable with having those foods around.

And don’t forget about the free training I’m doing next week on Wednesday October 1st at 12pm ET. What I will be talking about in that training will be related to what I’ve talked about today so you’ll be able to get even more help with this. So register at coachkir.com/training, come live if you can, or you can watch the recording that will be available for a limited time.

I can’t wait to see you there.

Bye bye!