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Julie: Hey there, welcome to episode 370 of the Find Your Food Voice podcast. I am Julie Duffy Dillon, registered dietitian and your host. Welcome to our summer minisodes, fellow voice finders. There’s no music or editing, so you’ll notice it’s a little rougher around the edges. It’s just the content we are gravitating toward while in the summer chaos and fun. This episode is all about experiencing a binge after panic hunger.

Julie: Listen to this if you need it in the moment. And one thing I know to be true, binging or out of control eating experiences, they occur as you are finding your food voice. You’ll probably experience more of them as you move away from dieting or try out intuitive eating. It really is okay. Keep in mind, binges or other out of control eating experiences don’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. What I’ve noticed is there’s usually an uptick in binges and they signal repair is happening. I remember reading through a client’s food journal. I saw a starred entry. We had been discussing different types of hunger, meal hunger versus snack hunger. And when I asked him about it, the client exhaled loudly and told me that meal hunger was different. It felt panicky and rushed. Reading through more of the entry, I notice his pencil in binge with a frown face. I looked at him and I could feel his shame from across the room. You didn’t do anything wrong, Paul, I said gently. 

Julie: But this is what my client said. It felt wrong. I felt so calm and in control of my eating that day. I was thinking I was cured, but then I had a rushed lunch and a stressful afternoon in client mediation. By the time I got home, I had my head in every pantry cabinet and just ate right out of the fridge. When I finally stopped eating, I felt guilt and also felt physically awful. In that moment, I wanted to give up, but then I heard your voice telling me I can’t do this wrong. To just notice. It all feels so easy until it isn’t. What should I have done instead? 

Julie: I explained to Paul, and I want you to know this too, these are important experiences to find your food voice. We need these experiences that feel like missteps– but aren’t– in order to know how to take care of ourselves. I told him, this is your data that informs you. I encourage you to notice that swirling judgment about what transpired, yet try not to stay there. I wish these tough experiences didn’t have to happen, but everyone needs them in order to figure out what they need. I asked my client if it was okay to ask some follow up questions and he nodded in approval. I asked him, you mentioned you had a rushed lunch. Do you remember what you had? This particular client told me it was a box catered lunch that had a chicken salad, apple and a roll. He said, thinking back, I remember working on that afternoon’s mediation. I knew it’d be stressful and didn’t feel hungry at all. I tried to eat anyway because I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat during the meeting. I think I picked at the apple and the salad. I didn’t eat the roll. My client wondered, why did I lose my mind when I got home though? I felt such an urgency to eat everything and anything under the sun. I remember thinking that I didn’t have time to cook. I needed to just eat now.  He said, I truly felt like an animal ripping open the cabinet doors. I felt so out of control. 

Julie: Again, I could see the shame he was feeling as he was sharing this with me. It is so hard to admit this, and I wonder if it’s hard for you to admit it too. These are moments that I recognize as so close to the soul. It is usually very protected of information. So whoever you share this with, I hope they are gentle with you when you share it.

Julie: This is what I wanted my client to know and I want you to know too. It sounds like in that moment, your body and brain were overwhelmed with panic hunger. Panic hunger may feel out of control. Many call it binge eating. While I’m not one to correct someone’s description of their eating experiences, I think it’s futile to pathologize something so normal and important for survival. You weren’t doing anything wrong. Rather, you were being a successful human. When our bodies need food urgently, preparing a sensible meal, cue my eye roll please, won’t cut it. You didn’t lose your mind or control. Rather, your body was maintaining it. It sent you clear messages that eating was the absolute priority. Now, I appreciate you did not like this experience and it felt sluggish afterward. I remember my client countered: I don’t want this to happen again. It took me days to recover mentally. I felt physically ill when I woke up the next morning like I was hungover. 

Julie: If I’m catching you right after you experienced a binge or an out of control eating experience like this client experienced, I want to share with you seven important things. If you have experienced it in the past, save this so you can have it when it does happen, because it’s really normal for these things to happen as you are preparing to move away from dieting. So number one, remember panic hunger is normal when your body doesn’t get enough food and or rest. Sometimes you can predict this and sometimes you cannot. Number two, when you notice panic hunger is starting to hit, practice saying this out loud: “This is panic hunger.” Reassure yourself this is normal and you will be okay. When you experience this type of hunger, let yourself eat. Permission is key to healing. Even more, I encourage you to have plenty of ready to eat shelf stable food that you enjoy and feels energizing to you, especially as you’re in your first steps moving away from dieting and restricting. 

Julie: Number three, resist the urge to allow only certain foods during panic hunger. Foods with positive diet culture messaging will leave you unsatisfied, stuck longer and exhausted. Remember, prioritizing your healing, your relationship with food, is healthy. Sometimes eating a cookie or chips or whatever is satisfying in that moment is the healthiest choice. I don’t say this lightly. This is very important while also easier said than done. It’s normal for this to take lots and lots of practice. Number four, reassure yourself after you stop eating that your response to panic hunger is an evolved human trait. Look at you. You are just so complex and savvy. You are a more evolved being. This is absolutely not a weakness. You are being a successful human.

Julie: Number five, once you feel calmer physically and emotionally, go through the last eight to 12 hours. Be curious and compassionate about your self care. Did you have a stressful day? Did you give yourself enough food throughout the day? Did you take any breaks? This may be obvious like it was for my client or it might not. Some of my clients need a number of panic hunger experiences that lead to this out of control eating to find their own themes. Number six, use this new data moving forward. Experiment with implementing more self -care. Did you not eat enough earlier in the day and that came before the panic hunger? Well then experiment with adding more. Did you not give yourself enough break time? Consider adding a few more moments to briefly take deep breaths between meetings. As uncomfortable as they are, panic hunger experiences will build the foundation to know how much self-care you need to add into your day. And number seven, remember, going through these experiences gives you important information on your specific body’s needs. No diet sheet can give you this information. 

Julie: It’s impossible to know this specific type of data without stumbling upon these uncomfortable experiences. Practice permission when they happen, consider the new data and try to move on. Keep in mind, everyone experiences panic hunger. So having these experiences are never failures. It’s just new data and that’s a win.

Julie:  So there you have it. This is episode 370’s minisode all about binge eating after panic hunger. I hope it’s helpful. Save this episode, like I mentioned earlier, for the times when you do need it. And remember, you’re not failing. You are this evolved human being that is learning ways to mend your own relationship with food, no matter how complicated it is. And you need these experiences in order to move forward in that healing place. I will be back for another mini episode tomorrow, so I can’t wait to share it with you. Bye for now.