binge-free-and-worthy

GLP-1s & binge eating recovery: Considerations for Highly Sensitive People (HSPs)

Wed, 06 May 2026 10:23:13 GMT

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Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about writing this particular piece for a while, but I’ve found it hard to start. GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro are still relatively new, and the research is young, especially when it comes to their long-term effects. It’s also a complex topic - you can’t talk about GLP-1s and binge eating recovery in isolation, without also looking at the ways they might support or put our health at risk in other ways.

What I think has been my biggest barrier with this piece is that for the first time, I’m writing about something that I have no personal experience with. I know binge eating disorder inside out - I struggled with it for 14 years before my recovery. I’m also a Highly Sensitive Person, and I know the ways the trait can play into our relationships with food and our bodies. But I’ve not taken GLP-1 medications.

GLP-1s, however, are becoming increasingly prevalent. And the women I’m here to support, perhaps you’re one of them (hi!), are experiencing this on many levels, from “What’s this Ozempic everyone’s talking about?” to “I’ve tried everything to lose weight, my binge eating is out of control, and GLP-1s are my last hope” .

And so I’ve learnt everything I can about GLP-1s, especially in the context of eating disorders (which there is very little research into currently). I’ve also sought out others' personal experiences, and am grateful to have people in my life who are willing to share theirs so openly with me. I’ve given it all time to digest and feel like I’ve got something that I hope will be helpful to those who struggle with binge eating, who resonate with the Highly Sensitive Person trait, and are exploring GLP-1s - either as an answer to weight loss, or recovery, perhaps both.

I’ll also share with you the approach I use to support highly sensitive women in freeing themselves from binge eating - one that addresses the root causes and works with your sensitivity as an innate gift, not a challenge to be overcome.

This is likely the beginning of a longer conversation around GLP-1s, especially as they continue to take root not only in our medical systems but also in everyday culture, particularly around weight and body image. It’s an interesting time to be alive in so many ways, and this medication is certainly playing a role in that.

Let’s explore it together…

Note: This article is comprehensive - feel free to scroll to whichever sections resonate most with where you’re at right now.

We’ll start at the beginning: What is binge eating?

You might be coming to this piece knowing that you binge eat, or maybe you feel that your relationship with food isn’t quite “right” and you’re looking for answers - perhaps wondering whether a GLP-1 medication is the answer. Wherever you’re at, let’s start with clarity.

Binge eating is the act of eating a large amount of food in an unconscious way, usually foods which you tend to avoid or limit, in a condensed period of time and past the point of comfortable fullness.

If you binge eat, you’ll likely be familiar with many, if not all, of these accompanying experiences:

Urges to eat, perhaps for particular foods that get “louder” as you try to ignore them
Feeling like you’ve lost control as you’re going into a binge - maybe as you’re buying or gathering food too
A momentary sense of escapism or relief at the beginning of a binge
Eating in a frenzy, as though you’ve got to get the food in as quickly as possible
Eating to the point of feeling deeply uncomfortable, perhaps even sick
Feelings like regret, shame and guilt following the binge
The need to keep binges secret, hiding food wrappers or money spent from others
The desire to “make up” for a binge - maybe skipping meals, recommitting to a diet or “being good”.

Sometimes binges are planned, such as when you know you’re going to have time alone, but more often than not, they’re spontaneous or opportunistic - when you find you can’t hold off the urges any longer.

When binge eating becomes binge eating disorder (BED)

People can binge eat from time to time without it necessarily being classed as an eating disorder. However, binge eating disorder (BED) is the diagnosis for when binges become a regular pattern.

To receive a diagnosis, you would need to see your doctor or a healthcare professional who will ask about your experiences, mapping them against the diagnosis criteria. My view is that whether you have a diagnosed eating disorder or not, if you feel that your relationships with food and your body aren’t where you want them to be, you’re absolutely deserving of support , and there is support here for you.

Why you might find yourself binge eating

Binge eating and BED can develop for many reasons, which usually come back to one or two core root causes. Perhaps you recognise yourself in one of these, and if you’re highly sensitive, likely both (we’ll get into why more in the HSP part of this piece)…

Root cause one: Feeling “Not enough”

Root cause two: Managing uncomfortable emotions and overwhelm

Food is comforting. It’s an experience that comes along with having a body - we’re rewarded with good feelings when we eat because it’s an essential part of keeping ourselves alive! There’s also an association that’s been wired into us since we were babies - the warmth, soothing and comfort that most of us hopefully received when our caregivers fed us can remain a part of our relationship with food.

And all of this is okay! It can become a challenge, however, when we primarily look to food for comfort or a sense of happiness - when we don’t have other things in our lives that can provide us with this . This is when binge eating can develop. Our need to shut down overwhelm or uncomfortable emotions can turn into that frenzied eating [ 1 ], eating foods rich in carbohydrates, sugar and fat, which can have a soothing effect.

The binge and restrict cycle can also come into play here, when you’re trying to avoid the foods you’re worried will cause weight gain but provide comfort, or when you restrict food after an emotionally driven binge to avoid weight gain.

Okay, so what are GLP-1s?

GLP-1 medications, which you might know by brand names like Ozempic , Wegovy , Mounjaro , or Saxenda , are becoming more and more impossible to ignore. They're in the news, on social media, and perhaps they’ve been coming up in conversations with the people in your life. Developed in the early 2000s to help people manage type 2 diabetes, they've also been approved for weight loss, and are now being explored (though not yet officially approved) for other health challenges such as alcohol addiction and binge eating disorder.

How they work (in simple terms)

GLP-1 stands for "glucagon-like peptide-1", which is a hormone your body naturally makes in your intestines and brain. This hormone has an important job: it tells your brain when you've had enough to eat, it helps regulate your blood sugar, and it slows down how quickly food moves through your digestive system .

GLP-1 medications are "receptor agonists", which essentially means they copy what your body's natural GLP-1 hormone does - like a key that fits the same lock.

When you take these medications, they activate the GLP-1 receptors in your brain and body more than what’s happening naturally, which:

Reduces your appetite and food cravings
Makes you feel fuller for longer
Slows down digestion
For people with type 2 diabetes, helps regulate blood sugar

The medications work in areas of your brain that control both hunger signals and reward feelings around food - which is why researchers have become interested in their potential for binge eating.

Understanding the Highly Sensitive Person trait

Around 20% of us are Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) [ 2 ]; people whose nervous systems are especially attuned to the world around and within us . We’re more sensitive to all kinds of stimulation, from what we receive from our senses like lights, sounds and touch, to inner-body experiences like emotions and thoughts.

This heightened sensitivity is an innate trait, meaning that it’s something that’s a part of us - that we’re born with - rather than learned. It’s thought that the trait is an evolutionary development because having people who are more “in tune” with what’s happening within groups of people and in our environment supports the collective.

It was Dr Elaine N. Aron who first began studying this sensitivity in 1991 and coined the terms Highly Sensitive Person and “sensory processing sensitivity” to describe what’s underlying the trait. She’s the author of The Highly Sensitive Person, which is essential reading for all HSPs!

There are endless benefits to being highly sensitive. We’re all unique in our sensitivities and the ways our gifts manifest - often being especially creative, intuitive and caring, and having the ability to enjoy a richness in simplicity.

Highly Sensitive People and binge eating

Being highly sensitive can have its challenges, however. If you’re reading this, you might be thinking “Well, yeah!”. It can be especially challenging when we don’t really understand our sensitivity or know how to tend to ourselves as HSPs . And in some cases, this can make us more susceptible to things that lead to binge eating. This was my experience, and is what I now support other highly sensitive women in.

Messages around worth

As HSPs, we take in more information from the world and process it at a deeper level - seeing patterns and giving meaning to them. We may take in more subtle messages around weight and worth , both consciously and unconsciously, and when we’re not feeling secure within ourselves (HSPs often really question themselves and their role in the world), make them mean something about ourselves.

This can lead us to believe that if we were just a little bit slimmer, we’d be more lovable and acceptable, and this belief in turn can send us down the path of weight loss. And so we restrict our food; what we eat, how much we eat and when we eat, potentially initiating the binge restrict cycle we looked at before.

Managing our sensitivity

HSPs also tend to be more emotional, as well as empathetic, feeling not only our own heightened emotions, but also experiencing those of others. And because we’re especially sensitive to our environments, taking in a breadth of information and processing it deeply, we can become overwhelmed more easily. It can be a lot being highly sensitive!

If we have an inclination to turn to food for soothing, comfort and a sense of freedom, we might find ourselves creating patterns of binge eating when we’re feeling overwhelmed or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions we’d rather not. Those short moments of relief that come with a binge can be a powerful drive when there’s a feeling you just want to escape.

GLP-1s and binge eating recovery for HSPs: What to consider

Okay, here we are bringing all of these threads together. And again, there’s so much nuance that comes with each of these that it’s impossible to give you any kind of definitive answer as to whether GLP-1s can be supportive for individual HSPs in recovery - it’s going to be different for everyone . Saying that, you will see that I do have some fairly strong thoughts…

Really, what I’m hoping is that I can give you some points to reflect on, helping you to decide whether you want to try taking GLP-1s as part of your binge eating recovery journey, or not.

When GLP-1s might be part of your journey

When you’re managing diabetes alongside binge eating

Managing type 2 diabetes and binge eating simultaneously can be complex, and if this is your reality, that’s okay. You’re managing your physical health needs alongside emotional patterns and beliefs about your worth that have likely been with you for years. For Highly Sensitive People, the blood sugar rollercoaster (crashes, brain fog, irritability) may feel especially destabilising, and GLP-1s may help to smooth out that ride.

As I mentioned above, GLP-1s were initially developed to help manage type 2 diabetes, and they can do this well. However, it’s important that if you’re exploring this path, you find a healthcare provider who understands both diabetes and eating disorders - who won’t prescribe rigid meal plans and has an awareness of how the weight loss effect of GLP-1s may further impact your relationships with food and your body. This type of provider might call themselves something like “eating disorder-informed”.

I also highly encourage you to work with a binge eating practitioner so that you’re addressing what sits below your binge patterns and can move into a place where binge eating is no longer a part of your life. GLP-1s may help your blood sugar levels find stability, but they can’t do this deeper work for you.

When you’re also dealing with chronic inflammation

The ways GLP-1s might not serve your recovery

They’re fueling the narratives around weight and worth

I feel this is one of the most important considerations I can offer you.

At the root of binge eating for many of us is the core belief that “I’m not enough” - specifically that your body needs to be smaller to be acceptable, lovable or worthy. This belief drives restriction, which creates urges that eventually break through as binges. And GLP-1 medications do not address this belief - in fact, the way many of us are seeing them reinforce it.

By pursuing weight loss through medication, you’re operating from the same belief system that created binge eating in the first place: the idea that a slimmer body will finally make you enough.

For Highly Sensitive People, this can tighten the knot further. You’re already taking in cultural messages about bodies more deeply. And you might be feeling the weight of judgment, both external and internal, more heavily. As more and more people are taking GLP-1s, often called “skinny jabs”, another layer is being created - the implied message that carrying weight is a choice is becoming stronger. The message is becoming “Well, if weight is a choice and weight loss is so easy, why are you carrying weight?”.

I know that for many of us, weight loss feels like the ultimate goal. Perhaps it’s the primary reason you’re considering GLP-1s. And I understand that - deeply. We live in a culture that has taught us, pretty relentlessly, that our worth is tied to our weight.

But here’s what I encourage you to consider: Can you genuinely heal your relationship with food and your body while taking a weight-loss medication? Or will you feel like you’re continuing further down a path you’ve been many times before, measuring your worth by your weight?

Weight is often regained

Research shows that most people regain weight after stopping GLP-1 medication. According to one review, approximately 60% of weight loss is regained within the first year [ 5 ]. This mirrors what happens with restrictive diets: rapid weight loss is often followed by rapid weight regain. Some research even suggests that weight returns more quickly after stopping GLP-1s than after coming off a diet [ 6 ].

Around half of people stop taking GLP-1 medications within 12 months, with reasons ranging from side effects, to cost, to simply deciding they don’t want to be taking medication long term. When they do, the health markers that improved whilst on the medication, such as blood pressure, cholesterol and fasting glucose, typically return to baseline within about 1.4 years [ 6 ].

Here’s the question this raises: With everything you’ve already been through with food and your body - the years of restriction, the ups and downs of losing and regaining weight, the emotional toll of constantly trying to control your body - can you go through this again? Or, would your energy be better directed toward binge eating recovery?

I’ve not yet seen any research into the psychological impact of rapid weight regain after GLP-1s, but I imagine it’s huge. When you lose weight quickly on the medication and then regain it (as most people do), you’re right back where you started, except you’re now also carrying the experience of “even medication didn’t work”. This feeling can be compounded when you see others who might be having more “success” with the medication.

Here, the self-worth piece still needs to be addressed. But your experience with the medication may have made this harder, not easier. If you’ve spent months or years relying on a drug for appetite regulation, rather than learning to work with your body’s signals, that’s ground you’ll need to recover when doing the deeper recovery work.

You may further lose touch with your body's signals

Listening to and honouring your body’s hunger and fullness cues is an essential part of binge eating recovery. So is learning to eat meals and snacks at regular intervals, so that your body knows it will be fed consistently. These practices help you rebuild trust with your body after years of overriding its signals through restriction and bingeing.

Hunger also isn’t an enemy to be silenced - it’s a part of being alive in a body. There’s a richness of sensation that comes with hunger, eating and satisfaction and profound information available in these experiences, which can be further heightened for HSPs. GLP-1 medications, however, suppress these signals.

People on GLP-1s report their experience of hunger ranging from a lack of interest in food to an active aversion. When hunger is distorted by medication, you lose access to what that hunger is trying to communicate: when restriction has gone too far, what your body actually needs, where emotional overwhelm is showing up, what beliefs about your worth are driving your behaviours.

“Food noise” - that constant mental preoccupation with what to eat, when to eat, and whether you’ve eaten too much can be particularly intense for Highly Sensitive People. Our deeper processing, ability to sense the subtle internal states, emotional reactivity - all of this can make food thoughts feel overwhelming. And I imagine that GLP-1s’ ability to quiet this noise feels like a blessed relief.

But the reminder here is that “food noise” is information . It’s telling you something important. Silencing it without addressing what it’s trying to communicate is like turning off a car dashboard warning light - without fixing the underlying problem - and hoping for the best.

As a Highly Sensitive Person, part of your recovery journey is learning to work with your sensitivity, not against it or trying to “turn it off”. This means listening to your body’s signals - hunger included - as valuable information, rather than silencing them. There’s profound growth available in learning to navigate your sensitivity in relationship to food, emotions and your body. Growth that this medication prevents you from receiving.

They don’t address the emotional side

While GLP-1s can reduce hunger and food cravings, they don’t address why you might be turning to food for emotional comfort in the first place. The medications work on reward pathways, with research showing that they can help reduce cravings for alcohol [ 7 ], gambling urges and other compulsive behaviours [ 8 ] - not just food. They’re essentially turning down the volume on reward-seeking behaviours across the spectrum.

This can be really helpful, even life-saving for some, and it’s definitely worth acknowledging. However, GLP-1s don’t teach us how to work with our sensitivity and emotions. They sidestep them. And this might be okay, maybe even supportive in the short-term. But again, if you stop taking the medication, you won’t have been practising the emotional and nervous system regulation that is essential to your thriving.

What can be one of the most rewarding parts of binge eating recovery for HSPs is learning about the trait, how it manifests in you specifically and how you can work with it to actually have a deeply supportive relationship with your body - emotions, nervous system and all. The more you understand and work with your sensitivity, the more gifts and glimmers there are to receive from it. This can be missed when you instead opt for the GLP-1 path.

There are health risks

We don’t know the long-term effects of taking GLP-1 medications because they simply haven’t been around long enough for long-term research. What we do know comes from short-term studies, and, increasingly from lawsuits filed by people who’ve experienced serious side effects.

The most significant risks involve the gastrointestinal system: gastroparesis (where food passes through the stomach more slowly than it should, causing nausea, vomiting and heartburn), ileus (lack of bowel movement leading to severe constipation), and intestinal blockage - all of which can be life-threatening if not treated quickly. For anyone with existing gastrointestinal issues, perhaps caused by an eating disorder, there’s potential that GLP-1s could trigger or worsen the symptoms.

As of May 2026, over 3,600 lawsuits have been filed against GLP-1 manufacturer Ozempic (you can find the current figure and more information here ), with approximately 75% claiming gastroparesis, and others claiming vision loss, intestinal obstruction, and other severe gastrointestinal injuries.

The research on GLP-1s for binge eating specifically is in its very early stages. The largest review I’m aware of right now includes just 182 people across five small studies, with the longest follow-up being six months [ 9 ]. There’s also no research on how these medications specifically affect those who are highly sensitive.

If you were to take GLP-1s, this means that you would be taking a medication with known serious risks and unknown long-term effects, for a condition - binge eating - where its effectiveness hasn’t been adequately studied. The invitation here is to question whether you’re really willing to take on that amount of uncertainty?

It can be harder to meet your nutritional needs

There’s a significant financial investment

GLP-1 medications aren’t cheap. At the time of writing this, if you’re paying privately in the UK, you can expect an expense of around £150 - £300 per month. In the US, it’s around $250 - $450. The impact of this cost is going to be different for all of us, depending on our individual finances - but for the majority, this is a significant amount.

I know that private binge eating support can be expensive also, with 1-1 support generally ranging from around £300 - £750 a month. And that’s simply not affordable for everyone - I’m aware that my own services are an investment too. But for those who are able to invest in themselves in this way, the difference is this: GLP-1s tend to only give you the benefits whilst you’re taking them, but 1-1 recovery support gives you tools which can stay with you a lifetime .

Already taking GLP-1s?

If you’re currently taking GLP-1 medications, or have taken them in the past, please know: I’m not here to tell you that you’ve made the wrong choice, not at all.

You made that decision for yourself for a reason. And in all honesty, if GLP-1s were around when my own binge eating disorder was at its worst and I was desperately trying to lose weight, there’s every chance I would have tried them too. Again, that’s not to say that I now know better than you; it’s just what is.

Maybe you’re taking them and they’re genuinely helping you to feel more stable in yourself - that’s wonderful. Or perhaps you’re beginning to wonder whether they’re fully supporting the kind of relationship with food and your body that you actually want for yourself. Both of these experiences, and everything in between, are valid.

If you are questioning where you’re at, and I’m assuming you are in some way if you’ve got this far, these might be reflections you want to give some time and space to:

“In what ways are GLP-1s serving me right now?”
“In what ways are they not?”
“What support, if any, am I receiving for the deeper patterns underneath binge eating?”
“What’s my plan for when I stop taking GLP-1s (if I choose to)?”

You might discover that GLP-1s are giving you relief from binge eating symptoms, with some welcomed weight loss, but you’re worried about the long-term impact on your relationships with food, your body and sensitivity. Or you might realise that you want to address the root causes we looked at before more directly.

And if reading this piece has brought up feelings of “I shouldn’t have started these” or “I’ve made the wrong choice” - please take a breath. That’s not what this is about, and there’s no shame here.

You’re allowed to have tried something and then realised that it’s not serving your deeper healing. You’re allowed to be on GLP-1s and pursue recovery work simultaneously. You’re allowed to stop them when you’re ready, or continue using them long-term.

This right here is a part of your recovery journey. You’re seeking understanding, and that’s beautiful. So you’re not “behind” or “doing it wrong”, you’re exactly where you need to be.

An approach to recovery for Highly Sensitive Women

There is another way forward towards a life of feeling at peace with food and comfortable within your own body - one that works with your sensitive nature, rather than trying to suppress or override it.

My approach to binge eating recovery is built around what I call “The Six Principles of Recovery for Highly Sensitive Women”. These principles, which work together like interconnected doorways, address what GLP-1s cannot: the underlying beliefs about your worth, the patterns in your nervous system, and how these create the relationships with food and your body that drive binge eating in the first place.

A brief introduction to The Six Principles

One: Returning to a Sense of Safety - Lay the solid foundations of your recovery by learning to regulate your nervous system and feel safe within your body. When you no longer need to disassociate with food, binge urges begin to soften.

Two: Tending to Yourself As a HSP - Understand how sensitivity shows up for you and discover what boundaries and resources help you thrive. Start embracing your sensitivity as the gift it is and allow it to deepen your connection with food.

Three: Connecting to Your Innate Worth - Come home to the innate worth that’s always been within you. As you let go of the pressure to fix or prove yourself, you create a more accepting relationship with yourself and your body.

Four: Unravelling Binge Eating Cycles - Unravel the binge cycles that have been keeping you stuck and reconnect to the cues of your body. Learn to listen to what you’re truly hungry for at any given moment (food or otherwise!) and nip binge urges in the bud.

Five: Being Your Authentic Self - Reconnect with who you are underneath the conditioning; beyond comparison, people-pleasing or perfectionism. As you live more in alignment with yourself, binge urges naturally lose their grip further.

Six: Building Sustainable Support - Build support that honours both your sensitivity and your recovery. Learn to ask for and receive the help you need in ways that feel safe and affirming, creating connections that uplift you.

These principles offer inner shifts and skills which stay with you. They’re not dependent on a medication you take regularly. Instead, they become a part of how you navigate your life, your emotions and your relationship with food as a Highly Sensitive Person.

If something here is resonating with you, I’d love to offer you my free guide: “The Highly Sensitive Woman’s Guide to a Binge Free Life” . It’s a deep dive into the ways that binge eating and high sensitivity can play into one another, and the first steps towards recovery that honour your sensitivity.

“Coming across the guide gave me a clarity I hadn’t had before; I had never made the connection between what I was feeling (overwhelm for the most part), and how that triggered my need to binge.

After feeling for years that I was struggling in the dark, trapped in a never-ending cycle, I was able finally to take a step back and see the link between myself as a sensitive person and my relationship with food . Reading about the need to create a sense of safety, I found I was able to begin to shift my thoughts from self-berating, self-loathing ones, to thoughts of compassion and calm.”

- Rebecca W, Reader

You are deserving of binge eating recovery. Recovery that allows you to trust your body again, to work with your sensitivity as the gift it is, and to know, deeply, that you are worthy exactly as you are.

I’m here when you’re ready…

Found this article helpful? Here are some more resources for you:

References

1. Emotion regulation model in binge eating disorder and obesity - a systematic review (February 2015) Elisabeth J. Leehr, Kerstin Krohmer, Kathrin Schag, Thomas Dresler, Stephan Zipfel, Katrin E. Giel

2 . The highly sensitive brain: an fMRI study of sensory processing sensitivity and response to others' emotions (23 June 2014) Bianca P Acevedo, Elaine N Aron, Arthur Aron, Matthew-Donald Sangster, Nancy Collins, Lucy L Brown

3. Inflammation: The Common Pathway of Stress-Related Diseases (20 June 2017) Yun-Zi Liu, Yun-Xia Wang, Chun-Lei Jiang

4. Glucagon-like peptide-1: a multi-faceted anti-inflammatory agent (17 May 2023) Syed Faizan Mehdi, Suma Pusapati, Muhammad Saad Anwar, Durga Lohana, Parkash Kumar, Savitri Aninditha Nandula, Fatima Kausar Nawaz, Kevin Tracey, Huan Yang, Derek LeRoith, Michael J Brownstein, Jesse Roth

5. Trajectory of weight regain after cessation of GLP-1 receptor agonists: a systematic review and nonlinear meta-regression (March 2026) Brajan Budini, Steven Luo, Martin Tam, Isabel Stead, Andrew Lee, Angelica Akrami, Antonio Vidal-Puig, Adrian Park

6. Weight regain after cessation of medication for weight management: systematic review and meta-analysis (7 January 2026) Sam West, Jadine Scragg, Paul Aveyard, Jason L Oke, Lia Willis, Stella J P Haffner, Heather Knight, Danni Wang, Sarah Morrow, Laura Heath, Susan A Jebb, Dimitrios A Koutoukidis

7. Impact of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists on alcohol consumption and liver-related outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis (14 August 2024) Bernardo de Faria Moraes, Gabriel André Pedral Diniz Leite, Gustavo André Pedral Diniz Leite, Igor Boechat Silveira, Nathália Veloso Lana, Guilherme Grossi Lopes Cançado

8. The role of glucagon‐like peptide 1 (GLP‐1) in addictive disorders (2 February 2022) Mette Kruse Klausen, Morgane Thomsen, Gitta Wortwein, Anders Fink‐Jensen

9. The impact of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonists in the treatment of eating disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis (1 February 2025) Hanieh Radkhah, Shiva Rahimipour Anaraki, Peyvand Parhizkar Roudsari, Razman Arabzadeh Bahri, Diar Zooravar, Sara Asgarian, Reza Hosseini Dolama, Ali Alirezaei, Razieh Khalooeifard

10. Nutritional Priorities to Support GLP-1 Therapy for Obesity: A Joint Advisory From the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, the American Society for Nutrition, the Obesity Medicine Association, and the Obesity Society (30 May 2025) Dariush Mozaffarian, Monica Agarwal, Monica Aggarwal, Lydia Alexander, Caroline M Apovian, Shagun Bindlish, Jonathan Bonnet, W Scott Butsch, Sandra Christensen, Eugenia Gianos, Mahima Gulati, Alka Gupta, Debbie Horn, Ryan M Kane, Jasdeep Saluja, Deepa Sannidhi, Stanford Fatima Cody, Emily A Callahan

Disclaimer: The content in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or mental health issue. Do not disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this page.

Image credits

A person holding their hands in a stream of water, Manki Kim (Unsplash)

L a Donna Della Finestra by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Birmingham Museums Trust (Unslpash)

W oman sitting in front of grassfield, Andreas Rasmussen (Unsplash)

Apricot tree, Anthony Levlev (Unsplash)

Short reflection: What your food says about you

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:04:59 GMT

Reading time: 1 min, 30 secs

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

I’ve attached myself to multiple identities when it comes to food.

“The Clean Eater” and “The Vegan Activist” were probably the main ones…

Badges I wore, even if subtly, whilst secretly binge eating.

But I’ve found that -

The less we attach importance and a sense of self to what we eat, and the more in tune with our bodies and connected to food we are, the happier and healthier we tend to be.

If you see yourself in this, it’s hard to skip to the “in tune and connected” bit without looking at the “sense of self” part.

Because when we look at our desire to be enough - to prove our worth, it’s easy to see why food identities can have such a lure.

Perhaps on some level, you want to be seen as “good” or disciplined.

Maybe aligning yourself with the current food trend helps you to feel a part of something.

And all of this is okay and very human!

Especially when you’re highly sensitive and deeply processing all of these messages around worth.

And so instead of asking yourself “In what ways can I be more in tune with my body?” - which is a beautiful question.

A more supportive place to start reflecting might be:
“What am I believing about the food I eat and who I am?”

And then looking at the beliefs one by one, asking:
“In what ways might this belief not be true?”

Because as you begin to loosen those beliefs -

It’s not only easier to tune into your body and connect to food in a deeper way, but doing so doesn’t feel so loaded.

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Sign up to Inbox Reflections - short, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Gentle reminders, thoughtful questions, and steady guidance - sent most weekdays.

Hungry for more? Here are other short reflections for you

Disclaimer: The content on this page is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or mental health issue. Do not disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this page.

Short reflection: When a binge feels inevitable

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 11:22:21 GMT

Reading time: 1 min

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

I used to believe that once I got the urge to binge, that was it.

A binge was inevitable.

Because when you’re really “in it”, it’s as though everything within you is driving you towards that release.

And any tools you may have learnt for how to deal with these moments…

It’s like they’re both hidden from you and you’ve totally forgotten they exist.

So if you can do one thing, see if you can simply slow yourself down.

Slow down your breathing.

Slow down your walking (even if you’re literally walking to get binge food).

And as your body slows, allow your thoughts to slow too.

Because in slowing down, you’re creating just enough space for choice to re-enter.

For a tool to come back to you.

For a different action, even if it’s a very small one, to feel possible.

The binge may still happen (and often does when you’re first practising this).

But you’re showing yourself that it isn’t the only outcome available.

And over time, by slowing down again and again, recalling your tools, and taking small actions…

A binge becomes less inevitable.

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The connection between self-worth and binge eating (and why it especially matters for HSPs)

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 10:31:39 GMT

Reading time: 13 - 16 mins

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A part of being human is experiencing this sense of “I’m not enough”. And for those of us who struggle with binge eating, we’ve usually picked up the belief that “I’d be more lovable and acceptable if my body looked a certain way” - slim, toned and smooth with just the right amount of curves in the right places.

So to try and meet this deeply rooted need to feel enough - to feel worthy - we make it our mission to get the “ideal body”. We go on diets, restricting the amount we eat, the foods we eat and the times we eat. Perhaps we also workout more. And it’s this need to feel enough, along with the belief that when we have that body we’ll be worthy, the steps we take to get it, and the shame we feel when we don’t have it, that create a perfect storm for binge eating.

As Highly Sensitive People (HSPs), we might also feel like we don’t quite fit in with the world, or we might take in these cultural messages around weight and worth at a deeper level, creating more of a vulnerability to binge eating, or weaving the cycle tighter.

If you see yourself within this, we’re going to take a closer look at how you perhaps got here - exploring the ties between self-worth, being highly sensitive and binge eating, and how you can find freedom from binges by both understanding your worth as a HSP, and connecting to your innate worth.

These are the master keys that not only take us towards binge eating recovery, but also a richer and more meaningful life. It’s why I chose to call my coaching business Binge Free & Worthy - the “worthy” part being the core of the work we do together. For me, it was through changing my relationship to worth, especially as a HSP, that I was able to stop binge eating and see the truth of who I really am more clearly.

“Why do I feel unworthy or not enough?”

Before we look at the ways that our sense of worth plays into our relationship with food and our body, let’s take a step back to understand what worth is. Again, this feeling of “I’m not enough” comes up for us all to some degree; it’s a shared experience that’s perhaps not often talked about. And I hope reading this article feels like an exhale because, truly, you are far from alone in it.

Over the last few years, I’ve come to know worth on two core levels: innate worth and self-worth. Both of these are interconnected, where self-worth can fluctuate depending on how rooted you are in your innate worth. Let me do my best to explain…

Innate worth

Innate worth is the intrinsic value, deservingness and lovability that you have simply because you exist. It is universal, unconditional and constant - nothing that you could ever do could impact it (including losing and gaining weight).

This is the realm of the spiritual. Perhaps you’ve had moments where you’ve felt this sense of connection to something greater; a stillness, an opening, a knowing. Maybe a feeling of love and acceptance that is bigger than you. For me, I’ve felt this as a never-ending stream of love that pours into itself and flows through us all. Now I know this might be getting a little “out there”, and we’re about to go a touch further out, but please stay with me!

For many of us, this innate worthiness isn’t something we’re even aware of, let alone actively connecting to. But it is there. If you're wondering, 'Well, why aren't I aware of it?', one belief is that although we are always innately worthy, we veil this truth from ourselves by design - that our souls choose to come to Earth to experience this illusory separation simply for that: the experience.

Another perspective is that part of the meaning of life is to come full circle - to go on this journey of seeking the love and acceptance we crave outside of ourselves, to eventually discover it’s only truly found within. With both views, when we’re open and receptive to our innate worth, and see all the ways we’ve hidden ourselves from it, we clear away the veil.

I realise this might feel abstract or even uncomfortable if it's new to you, and that's okay. You don't need to fully embrace any spiritual idea to benefit from what follows. What I'm really pointing to is this: there's a kind of worth that exists independent of anything you do, how you look, or what you achieve. Some people experience this as a spiritual knowing, others as a psychological anchor, and others simply as a perspective worth exploring. However it makes sense to you is wonderful.

The Sufi mystic Rumi spoke to this unchangeable essence beautifully…

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
― Rumi

Self-worth

Self-worth, however, is subjective and refers to how you perceive value in yourself. It’s influenced by the beliefs we’ve formed from the people in our lives and the wider culture, especially by what we experienced in our early years. It’s all about us wanting to feel lovable, acceptable and therefore safe - what’s actually a really wise survival adaptation.

Because of this, there are varying degrees of self-worth that we can feel, as well as various places that our self-worth is rooted in. For some of us, that’s a lot about how we look - the shape of our bodies and how we present ourselves to the world. For others, it’s more about what we do and can achieve. Usually, it’s a blend of the two.

When we’re disconnected from, or not believing in our innate worthiness, we often do things in order to feel more worthy, or prove our worth to others. This can look like anything from needing to have a full social life, or having perfectly clear skin, to giving more than is supportive to us at work. From this place, we’re trying to control or get more of something to fill the “I’m not enough” void.

However, being rooted in a sense of innate worth helps you to build a healthier sense of self-worth. When you know deep down that you are innately worthy, it’s easier to untether yourself from doing these things that ultimately aren’t you, or don’t serve you. This isn’t about becoming “egoless” or transcending who we are and what we do (ideas you may have picked up from some spiritual teachings). It’s about resting into your innate worth and discovering who you truly are, and how that’s expressed, when you let go of doing to prove.

“Tear off the mask. Your face is glorious.”
― Rumi

“But if I felt innately worthy…”

“What does binge eating have to do with self-worth?”

As we touched on in the beginning, binge eating and binge eating disorder (BED) (which affects around 2% of women in the UK [ 1 ] and 3.5% of women in the USA [ 2 ] at some point during their lives) are often rooted in low self-worth and a feeling of “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not acceptable as I am”. We all have our own patterns around trying to make ourselves more worthy, in our own eyes and the eyes of others. And in the case of binge eating, this can look like trying to get or maintain the body size that we see as the “dream body”.

We believe that when we have that body, everything else will fall into place. That we’ll finally feel good enough, that we'll love ourselves and be loved, and that everything will just be easier. We believe we’ll be safe and secure as a result.

Why we attach worth to our bodies

Worth and body image are so intricately woven in our culture, it’s no surprise that many of us find ourselves here. We’ve been fed the message all throughout our lives that our bodies, beauty, and youthfulness are like a form of currency. And this message unfortunately comes at us from all angles, in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

This perhaps originates from seeds of truth, that firstly, when it comes to the primal need to procreate, we tend to seek partners who are healthy. It’s fundamental to the survival of our bloodline. Secondly, we are drawn to beauty, and therefore, being beautiful can be seen as a form of safety.

However, these survival strategies have become warped over time, to a point where they’re dramatically backfiring on us. They no longer serve us when we associate “health” and “beauty” with the very narrow and outward perceptions we now have. Perceptions that actually create unhealthy and harmful patterns in the pursuit of them. That takes us further away from true vitality and the radiance that comes with knowing your innate worth.

We might also see our bodies as something we can control, or perhaps “should” be able to control. And so when the outside world feels unpredictable and therefore unsafe, our bodies can become the focal point for building our sense of worth.

What's more, in a kind of “cosmic joke” way, our innate worthiness - that which is unchangeable and always within us - can require some of the most challenging and dedicated inner work to experience. Or at least experience in a somewhat consistent way. From here, trying to feel more worthy through things like weight loss, cosmetics, achievements, or anything else can feel like an easier route to take.

The binge restrict cycle

When we attach weight loss to our worth, the impact of food restrictions like diets, fasts or “just being good” can set us up for what’s referred to as the binge restrict cycle . It’s a common cycle that perhaps you’ll recognise yourself in…

Stage 1: You feel the sense of “not enough”, and wrapped up within your self-worth are beliefs around weight. Because of this, you see the answer to being more lovable and worthy as weight loss.

Stage 2: You restrict your food in some way, perhaps reducing calories, fasting or cutting out particular foods or food groups altogether. You may also workout more or more intensely.

Stage 3: Your body sends signals urging you to eat more, or urging you to eat specific foods that you’ve cut out. These signals can be sent for multiple reasons, for example -

On the physical level, you may not be meeting your energy and nourishment needs.
On the psychological level, you may have triggered the “forbidden fruit effect”, where you’ve created more desire for a particular food by telling yourself you can’t have it.
On the emotional level, you may be missing out on a form of comfort or joy that you usually get from food.

And on the spiritual level, you may be restricting a deeper type of nourishment or life force.

These signals are your body trying to keep you safe and alive, and that’s why it can feel like you're fighting yourself. When the signals get ignored, they become louder and more urgent.

Stage 4: Your body eventually feels the need to “take over” and in a frenzy, you binge eat. This usually consists of eating a large amount of food in a short period of time - sometimes even multiple days' worth of food in one sitting. The foods we binge tend to be what we’ve been restricting, or what provides quick energy or temporary comfort. Binges mostly also happen in secret, with measures like food wrappers being hidden or thrown away outside of the home.

Because of the binge and eating a large amount of food in a short period of time, we feel shame, guilt and often an even greater sense of worthlessness. It’s these feelings that create so much secrecy around binge eating and prevent us from seeking support. Instead, we recommit to the diet, perhaps saying, “Tomorrow I’ll start again” or “This time I’ll stick to it”, beginning the cycle all over again.

“What about self-worth, binge eating and being highly sensitive?”

What we’ve explored so far affects many of us, highly sensitive or not. However, this gift of high sensitivity - a trait that around 20% of us have [ 3 ] - when not understood or tended to, can create more vulnerability to developing and staying in binge eating cycles.

I go into the HSP trait and how it can play into our relationships with food and our bodies in more depth in my article “Is there a connection between binge eating and being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)?” , but here are the core reasons connected to our sense of worth.

HSPs sense the subtle and deeply process information

A part of the HSP trait is our ability to pick up on the subtleties in our environment. When it comes to messages about weight and worth, we might be more susceptible to noticing these subtleties - things like shifts in the atmosphere around certain people, or unspoken dynamics at play.

What’s more, HSPs also process information at a deeper level than those considered “typical”, and this includes all of those messages about worth. We’re great at connecting dots and seeing patterns, and so when we’re regularly picking up the message that a slim body = love, acceptance and security, we’re likely to make our own weight mean something significant about our sense of self-worth. Often this happens on the subconscious level - we’re not aware that it’s happening. For example, you might find yourself constantly comparing your body to others, even when you know it’s ultimately unhelpful to you.

Worth can feel even trickier for HSPs

A common experience for HSPs is feeling as though we don’t quite fit in with the world. It can be too loud and fast-paced for our sensitive nervous systems, and often even shames our sensitivity. This can feed into the sense of “not enough” - especially when we don’t have that healthy sense of self-worth rooted in innate worth. And this means we may seek out ways to better fit in, or try to “make up” for our sensitivity.

As we touched on before, our body image is often seen as an easy or obvious fix for our self-worth, sending us down the path of weight loss and “fixing” our bodies.

HSPs may use food as comfort or to deal with overwhelm

Being highly sensitive often means we feel emotions more intensely, both our own and those of others. Plus, with all the stimulation we’re taking in and the deeper processing happening, we can be prone to feeling overwhelmed as well as emotionally burdened. This is where a HSP may turn to food for comfort, to momentarily quieten or escape everything they’re experiencing within themselves.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with eating for comfort - food is comforting, and this is wired into us from birth. But it can create challenges when we don’t have other, more supportive tools to process our emotions and prevent or tend to nervous system overwhelm. Over-reliance on food can lead to weight gain, which in turn can lead to feelings of shame, and of course, “I’m not good enough”, triggering the binge restrict cycle we looked at earlier.

A summary: The connections between self-worth and binge eating

Innate worth is our intrinsic value and is unchangeable
Self-worth is subjective and is influenced by our beliefs and experiences
When our self-worth isn’t rooted in our innate worth, we’re more likely to feel “I’m not enough” and seek ways to increase our self-worth
Body image is often tied to self-worth. We live in a culture that constantly sends the message slim = a worthy and lovable person
When we try to lose weight to get the ideal body, we can trigger the binge restrict cycle

For Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) specifically:

Deep processing and our ability to sense the subtle can make us more susceptible to messages around weight and worth
HSPs often feel like they don’t “fit in”. We may try to increase our sense of worth through the size and shape of our bodies
Overrelying on food for emotional comfort and dealing with overwhelm might lead to weight gain and feelings of shame, again triggering the binge restrict cycle

“How do I experience greater self-worth and freedom from binge eating as a HSP?”

I hope by reading this piece, you can see how your self-worth might be at the root of your challenges with food and your body, and how your sensitivity is perhaps playing into these challenges. But I also hope that you can see the opportunity here…

Because the truth is, you are not destined to feel unworthy and to binge eat forever.

Instead, your sensitivity - when understood and honoured - is your path towards a greater sense of self-worth, and to the peaceful relationships with food and your body that you are already deserving of.

Doesn't that feel like a relief?

A gentle reminder about recovery

Before we go any further, I want to remind you that recovery tends to be a process. As you start to open yourself more to your innate worth, there will likely be days when you feel somewhat steady in it, and days when that old “I’m not enough” feeling dominates. And as you start to tend to your sensitivity more, there will be times when you navigate uncomfortable emotions without turning to food, and times when you find yourself bingeing to soothe.

This doesn’t mean that you’ve failed or that recovery isn’t possible for you. It means you’re human. What's more, the steps that feel like you’re going backwards often hold the information that’ll take you further towards recovery - they can be your greatest teachers when you know how to translate them.

I also want you to know that recovery needn’t be a lonely path where you’re trying to figure it all out for yourself. If you’ve come to this article because you’re worried about your relationship with food and feel any kind of distress, please reach out for help. Whether this is through my support or another route, such as working with a therapist, dietician, your GP or a combination of these, there is so much help out here for you.

A practice to begin connecting to your innate worth

While the journey of recovery involves many layers, you can start connecting to your innate worth right now with a simple practice called Heart Activation Breathing.

This practice can be especially supportive for HSPs, as it helps to calm your sensitive nervous system while bringing your heart and mind into a state of “coherence” where they better cooperate. This will help you to experience that calm, open and expansive state, where the feelings of innate worth and unconditional love often arise.

1. Bring yourself into a quiet space where you can sit without distraction for a few minutes. Gently roll your shoulders back so that your chest is open, and close your eyes or soften your gaze down.

2. Start deepening your breath a little, breathing in and out through your nose and allowing your tummy to gently expand with your inhales.

3. Notice how you feel in this moment. If there are any places within your body where you notice tension, see if you can soften them.

4. Bring your right hand over your heart (your left hand can come on top if you like) and drop your awareness down from your head into your heart.

5. Now imagine that your breath is moving in and out of your heart space. Feel each inhale moving in through your heart and feel each exhale moving out through your heart.

6. Continue to breathe in and out through your heart for a few minutes. There’s nothing else you need to “do” here, but if you notice any feelings like peace, love or joy, allow yourself to fully receive them through your inhales, and allow them to move deeper into your heart with your exhales.

7. Finish your practice by relaxing your hand back down and letting go of the focus on your heart. Here, just notice how you feel - what’s shifted. Then thank yourself for showing up for yourself in this way.

Like all practices, you’ll benefit most when you return to this again and again. I encourage you to create around 10 minutes for yourself each day for this, especially when you're feeling disconnected from your worth or notice the urge to restrict or binge arising.

Your next step: The Highly Sensitive Woman's Guide to a Binge Free Life

Recovery for you as a HSP is unlikely to happen by trying to find the “perfect” diet or master your willpower. It’s more likely to naturally come about when you;

Can create the safety you’re seeking within yourself
Get to know and tend to the gentle power of your sensitivity
Strengthen the connection to your innate worth
Become more true to your authentic self

This is what I'm here to support you further in, and what my Six Principles of Binge Eating Recovery for Highly Sensitive Women - the pathways that I use throughout my work - guide you towards (hint: the four points above are four of these principles).

If what you've read here resonates and you're ready to start walking this path of knowing your worth, owning the gifts of your sensitivity, and saying goodbye to binge eating in the process, I've created something specifically for you.

My free in-depth guide takes you deeper into understanding yourself as an HSP and shows you how your sensitivity, when honoured, becomes your greatest ally in recovery. Inside, you'll explore all six principles that guide lasting freedom from binge eating, with practical ways to apply them to your unique journey.

The guide also includes a powerful bonus practice to help you release those deep-seated feelings of unworthiness and connect more fully with your innate worth. (I'll leave that as a surprise for when you download it!)

“This guide means a lot to me and I’ll be going back and re-reading it plenty of times. There are many parts that deeply resonate and I found the principle about innate worth really enlightening .”

― Ellen Claire Nee, Reader

Whether you've been struggling with binge eating for years or you're just beginning to recognise these patterns in yourself, this guide will help you understand yourself as a HSP and see your worth in a new light, taking those crucial first steps toward freedom.

I’ll see you in the guide…

Found this article helpful? Here are some more resources for you:

References

1. How many people have an eating disorder in the UK? , Beat Eating Disorders

2. The prevalence and correlates of eating disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (1 February 2007) James I Hudson, Eva Hiripi, Harrison G Pope Jr, Ronald C Kessler

3. The highly sensitive brain: an fMRI study of sensory processing sensitivity and response to others' emotions (23 June 2014) Bianca P Acevedo, Elaine N Aron, Arthur Aron, Matthew-Donald Sangster, Nancy Collins, Lucy L Brown

Short reflection: Trusting hunger

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 16:18:02 GMT

Reading time: 1 min

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

If you feel like you can’t trust your hunger.

That if you permitted yourself to eat whatever you want, whenever you want, you’d never stop.

Perhaps your hunger doesn’t trust you .

And I know that can feel like a bit of a blow…

But maybe your hunger has been ignored and overruled too many times.

Maybe it had to take control or grab what it could when it had the opportunity.

If so, now might be the time to start rebuilding that relationship.

To listen to your hunger and get to know all of its little cues.

And to eat with gratitude and respect for them.

Because when your hunger learns it can trust you, you’ll be able to trust it too.

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“Why do I binge eat at night?” (And how you can stop as a HSP)

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 13:31:31 GMT

Reading time: 10 mins

Perhaps you recognise yourself in this picture…

It’s 8pm. You’ve been “good” with your food all day, but you’re still hungry - or not quite satisfied on some level. It’s also been another stressful day, you’re feeling depleted and craving some “you time”.

You start thinking about the food you’ve got in the cupboards, or about popping out for a little treat. But as you try to ignore these thoughts, the familiar pull grows stronger and stronger. You start feeling as though you’re no longer in control of your body, and at some point, you lose yourself completely in a frenzy.

Within minutes, you’ve eaten everything you promised yourself you wouldn’t. You feel so full your jeans are pressing into you and your stomach hurts. The sinking feeling comes almost immediately. Guilt and shame overwhelm you, and in both frustration and desperation, you tell yourself you’ll make up for the binge tomorrow.

And you ask yourself “How did I end up here again?”

This pattern of evening and night time binges tend to happen for a few reasons. Perhaps reading the above and seeing this situation in its starkness, you can already pick out a couple of them; your body’s need for nourishment and energy not being fully met, and turning to food as a buffer for intense or uncomfortable emotions. Maybe a part of you is also seeking food as a means to experience a glimpse of enjoyment or freedom.

For Highly Sensitive People, this pattern can be even more pronounced. Our cultural messages around worth and weight might land more deeply, perhaps you find the sensations of hunger unescapable, or the intensity of your feelings are just too much.

The good news is, recognising this pattern is the first step - and you’ve already taken it. Seeing it with more clarity and understanding is the next, and that’s what we’re doing here together.

For myself, night time binges are something that I got to know intimately during my 14 years of struggling with binge eating disorder (BED) . But by shining the light on what was happening beneath them, and leaning into my needs as a HSP, I was able to find freedom from these binges. What I’m sharing here is what I’ve learnt on my own journey, and from supporting other highly sensitive women on theirs.

Why you binge eat at night

I want to firstly reassure you that you’re not alone in night time binges. Evenings tend to be the most common time that binges take place. In fact, research using real-time data collection has shown that the risk for binge eating is highest around dinner time, with another elevated risk period observed in the late evening [ 1 ]. There are several interconnected reasons why this can happen, which we’ll explore here.

The binge restrict cycle

Binge eating tends to be self perpetuating due to the nature of how we tie up our worth with our weight, and how our bodies can respond to dieting. This is known as the “binge restrict cycle” , which briefly put, goes like this:

Stage 1: You feel a sense of “I’m not enough” and “I’d be more lovable if I lost weight”

Stage 2. You go on a diet to lose weight, perhaps eating less or cutting out particular foods

Stage 3: Your body sends signals asking for more food which get louder and more urgent when ignored

Stage 4: The urges are so overwhelming you “give in” and binge, feeling out of control

Because following a binge, we often have thoughts like “I’m worthless” and “I need to be extra good tomorrow to make up for it”, we continue the cycle, potentially tightening it further with even stricter food rules.

After restricting food throughout the day, and after dismissing the signals from your body asking for more, you might find that these urges are at their loudest, and hardest to ignore, when it comes to the evening.

Blood sugar balancing

If you’re in this place of restriction, if you haven’t eaten enough throughout the day, particularly not enough carbohydrates, you might find that your blood sugar level is low at the end of the day. If this is the case, you’ll likely notice that you feel a little shaky, perhaps irritable, lightheaded and hungry.

Low blood sugar puts your body into a state of seeking out quick energy, especially craving high-sugar foods. Again, this is your body speaking to you. If its quieter messages aren’t listened to, they’ll get clearer, louder, perhaps amounting to those binge urges. This is your body simply doing what it feels it needs to in order to survive.

Accumulated emotional discomfort

When our days demand so much from us, we suppress or postpone our emotional processing. We find our emotions an uncomfortable inconvenience that we don’t want to deal with, or, we simply don’t know how to be with. Oftentimes both.

However, when the evening rolls around, it all catches up with us. Maybe when you return home from work or you get the children into bed, there’s a moment where the discomfort of what you’ve been holding back peeps through. And perhaps by this time of day your nervous system feels so fried that you can’t hold on any more - you need a release.

This is where binge eating becomes an emotional regulation tool, giving a temporary feeling of numbing or soothing. The foods we tend to binge often have those comforting qualities too. And this makes sense, food is comforting - this relationship between food and comfort is wired into us. But it’s when we don’t have these other tools for processing our emotions and tending to our nervous systems that this relationship can become skewed.

End of day fatigue

You may notice that you’re able to start the day with good intentions around your food, but as your energy wears thin - especially if you add the impacts of food restrictions and emotional toil from the day - resistance to binge urges can be depleted. Giving into the binge urges can simply feel easier than taking a step back and reflecting on what they’re telling you.

Enrichment to your day

Sometimes what we’re really craving is something just for ourselves. A moment of joy or sweetness. And when we don’t experience those little glimmers throughout the day, we seek them out in the evening. Maybe from a favourite TV show, a good scroll on your phone, or perhaps food fills that role - the need for a quick dopamine hit.

When you tie in all of the above - the effects of food restrictions, of emotional heaviness and tiredness - what might start out as a desire for a little sweet treat, can turn into a full blown binge.

Why this pattern can be even stronger for highly sensitive women

While the factors we just explored can affect anyone, I’ve found that there’s a particular type of woman for whom night time binges can be an especially pronounced pattern: those who are highly sensitive.

A Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) is someone whose nervous system is more sensitive to stimulation - both from what’s happening in the world around them, and what they’re experiencing within themselves.

It was research psychologist Dr Elaine Aron who first began the study of HSPs and coined the term in the early 1990’s, also often referred to Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS), and found that around 20% of the population [ 2 ] are born with this trait.

How high sensitivity can amplify night time binges

Now that we understand what makes someone highly sensitive, let's look at how this trait and its characteristics can intensify the evening binge pattern we explored earlier.

Messages around weight and worth can land deeper

Remember how we talked about the way feelings of “I’m not good enough” and “I’d be more lovable if I lost weight” can trigger the binge restrict cycle? Well for HSPs, cultural messages including those around worth and weight can be processed more deeply and thoroughly.

Perhaps you’ve had the experience of a colleague or family member making a comment about someone else's body, and this comment really staying with you. And after processing it for a while, you’ve made this comment mean something about your own weight and who you are. Because of this, HSPs may be more vulnerable to falling into the binge restrict cycle, leading to night time binges when the body’s signals for more food have been ignored throughout the day.

Heightened body awareness

You might notice sensations within your body more acutely than others, as part of your ability to sense the subtle. Hunger signals or binge urges may become ignorable after “being good” with your food throughout the day, or other physical sensations like those that come with stress can be deeply uncomfortable and disconcerting, pushing you to seek the relief that momentarily comes with a binge.

Emotional intensity compounds

Earlier we discussed how emotional discomfort accumulates throughout the day when we try and push it away. For HSPs, because you experience emotions more intensely, this accumulation happens faster and can feel a lot. By evening, you might be carrying not just your own emotional weight but often others' as well. That empathy that makes you so attuned to others can be emotionally draining when you don’t have the tools to let it go.

By the evening, you may no longer be able to hold back that emotional intensity, and you binge as a way to try and escape those feelings. Interestingly, it's not just difficult emotions that can trigger this - even positive emotions like excitement or joy can feel "too much" for your sensitive system, leading you to seek that familiar numbing or soothing through food.

Overwhelm takes over

Because HSPs are processing more information and at a deeper level, when it comes to the evening you might not only be feeling fatigued, but utterly overwhelmed and fried. So when the binge urges creep in - again as a response to dieting and not meeting your nourishment needs through the day, to emotional weightyness or the compounding effect of overwhelm - it feels as though there’s nothing left within you to keep them at bay. Bingeing can seem the only, and inevitable option in those moments.

Needed alone time becomes a trigger

Here's a particularly sticky aspect for HSPs: you absolutely need time alone to decompress and recharge. It's essential for your wellbeing. But if you find solitude in the evenings, this can unintentionally create perfect conditions for binge eating.

Most binges take place when we’re alone. In fact, binge eating thrives in secrecy. And when you’re alone during the evening with the day’s overstimulation and emotional intensity being held within your body, that’s when this pattern can develop. You begin to associate solitude with safety, bingeing to self-soothe and the momentary relief that comes with it. Before you know it, your essential alone time has become unconsciously wired to binge eating, turning what could be restorative into a trigger.

A summary: Why you binge eat at night

A physical response to dieting and not eating enough throughout the day
A way to soothe emotional discomfort that has built up
Feeling tired during the evening makes it harder to deal with binge urges
Not having enough joy or time to yourself during the day - “I just need a treat”

For Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) specifically:

Deep processing of cultural messages around weight and worth may make you more likely to diet
Heightened awareness of sensations like hunger can make them harder to override
Additional build up of emotions by the time the evening comes
Feeling overwhelmed by the end of the day
Essential evening alone time to recharge can become a binge trigger

How highly sensitive women can stop bingeing at night

Now you’ve gained this understanding as to why you might be binge eating at night, you’re likely wondering: “how do I actually stop?”.

Here I want to share something crucial with you - and I hope you find it as exciting as I do!

You are not doomed to binge eat because of your sensitivity. Instead, your sensitivity - when understood and tended to - is your path towards a binge free life, and to your most fulfilling relationships with food, your body and worth.

Binge eating recovery as a HSP invites you to understand and build a relationship with your sensitivity, to create a sense of safety within yourself, and to connect to your innate worthiness. Because at the root of your bingeing patterns you’ll likely find a part of you that just wants to feel safe. That wants to feel as though you’re enough. That wants to feel belonging. And this is what my work with Binge Free & Worthy is here to support you in.

If what you’ve read here resonates and you’d like to start taking those steps to reclaiming your evenings from binges, I’ve created an in-depth guide specifically for you…

The Highly Sensitive Woman’s Guide to a Binge Free Life explores the connection between sensitivity and binge eating further, and gently guides you through the six principles that’ll support lasting recovery. It’ll show you:

How to feel genuine safety within yourself as a HSP
Ways to honour your sensitivity while building a peaceful relationship with food
How to let go of feelings of “not enough” and connect more to your innate-worth
Practical steps to unravel binge eating cycles that work with your HSP nature
How to embrace your authentic self rather than trying to "fit in"

"After feeling for years that I was struggling in the dark, trapped in a never-ending cycle, I was able finally to take a step back and see the link between myself as a sensitive person and my relationship with food . Reading about the need to create a sense of safety, I found I was able to begin to shift my thoughts from self-berating, self-loathing ones, to thoughts of compassion and calm.”

- Rebecca W, Reader

Freedom from evening binge eating as a HSP is absolutely possible. I know because I’ve walked this journey myself, and I’m excited to share the insights I’ve received along the way with you.

I’ll meet you in your free guide…

Found this article helpful? Here are some more resources for you:

References

1. Time-of-Day and Day-of-Week Patterns of Binge Eating and Relevant Psychological Vulnerabilities in Binge-Eating Disorder (1 September 2024) Glen Forester, Lauren M Schaefer, Dorian R Dodd, Emily K Burr, Julia Bartholomay, Laura Berner, Ross D Crosby, Carol B Peterson, Scott J Crow, Scott G Engel, Stephen A Wonderlich

2. The highly sensitive brain: an fMRI study of sensory processing sensitivity and response to others' emotions (23 June 2014) Bianca P Acevedo, Elaine N Aron, Arthur Aron, Matthew-Donald Sangster, Nancy Collins, Lucy L Brown

3. Relationship between the temperament trait of sensory processing sensitivity and emotional reactivity (2016) Jagiellowicz, J., Aron, A., Aron, E. N.

Short reflection: Changing the thing vs. changing the thoughts

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 09:52:35 GMT

Reading time: 2 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

“If you can’t change something, you can instead change your thoughts about that thing” has been one of those essential life lessons for me.

And I’ve often found that when I do change my thoughts to be more positive and supportive, that thing that seemed unchangeable also shifts.

To give you an example, I used to believe that I would only be worthy of love, and of anything really, if I was slim.

I spent years in that painful cycle of restriction, bingeing, and punishment - trying to force my body into the version of “worthy” that I was believing in.

Eventually, I began to get the message that my approach wasn’t working.

Yes there may have been times when I was slimmer, where I got those “You’ve lost weight” and “You look well” comments, and when I did for brief, elusive moments feel better about myself, but:

1. Even in these moments, I didn’t yet feel “enough”

2. My worth was so tied to my weight that I was terrified of gaining any

3. I was worried about how damaging the binge eating was to my health

Fortunately I’d also found yoga and meditation, and on these paths, teachings which started to put me in touch with a sense of worth which was unlike anything I’d tried to create for myself.

A sense of worth that is always there.
That is innate within us all.
And that doesn’t waver, no matter what our bodies look like.

Slowly, I began to detach my worth from my weight because I could see that it wasn’t the truth - even if my programming at that time was still trying to insist that it was!

It’s been a long journey, but through practice and experience, my thoughts on worth have gradually changed.

And with that, my relationship with my body has changed too.

Binge eating recovery was possible for me because of this shift, and I’m utterly grateful for that.

So perhaps today, you might notice:

Are there parts of your relationship with food or your body that you’ve been trying hard to change?

And what might shift if instead of trying harder, you changed your thoughts around them?

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Hungry for more? Here are some extra resources for you

Listen in: “Am I a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)?” on the Worthy of Love Podcast

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 10:13:05 GMT

Reading time: 2 mins
Watching / listening time: 1 hour, 8 mins

Worthy of Love Podcast - Self Exploration: Am I a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)? with Lucy Newport

If you’ve ever wondered whether you might be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), or how sensitivity might shape your relationship with food, self-worth, and even love, this conversation is for you.

I recently joined Cilia Antoniou on her podcast Worthy of Love to explore the gifts and challenges of high sensitivity - and how it connects to binge eating recovery. Cilia and I first met back in 2022 in a group coaching program, and I’m so grateful for the friendship and working relationship we’ve built since. She brings such grounded wisdom to conversations around worth, love, and embodiment, and I know you’ll feel that in this episode.

In this conversation, we explore:

�� What makes HSPs highly sensitive

�� How HSPs benefit those close to them, as well as the wider community

�� Some of the gifts that come with being a HSP

�� How high sensitivity and binge eating can be linked

�� What the binge eating recovery journey for HSPs can look like

��Watch this episode of the Worthy of Love Podcast here

You can also listen to this episode where you usually get your podcasts:

Listen to this episode of Worthy of Love on Spotify

Listen to this episode of Worthy of Love on Apple

Listen to this episode of Worthy of Love on Amazon

Insights from our conversation

Lucy: “When I feel the fear it’s really not as I always thought it would be. And I’m always surprised when I’m actually with it, how okay I am with it.”

Cilia: “All of those facets of being human, they aren’t good or bad. And when we allow ourselves to feel all of those facets, then we become more whole and we become more, you know, we step into what you said of really realising like, I’m actually okay. I’m good.”

Lucy: “Something that is very common in Highly Sensitive People, and something that I really relate to, is that when we get overwhelmed, which can happen quite easily, we tend to shut off our senses and feel as though we’re kind of less sensitive because we’re protecting ourselves from this sensitivity that can feel a lot.”

Lucy: “Diversity is something that’s essential to life. And it’s easy for us to see it in nature and understand that we need a diversity in the food we grow because it’s beneficial to the soil and to our health. But in humans, in us, I think we’re getting better at it, but we still struggle to see the benefits of having this diversity.

And when you can understand that, it’s easier to rest into your own gifts. It’s easier to see your own place within the community rather than feeling like you have to fit every box.”

Cilia: “On this show I love talking about healthy relationships and I feel like this is the key to being able to cultivate healthy relationships - it’s relaxing into the truth of who you are.”

Lucy: “When we’re picking up on all of these messages and we’re believing that we’re only loveable and worthy and enough when we look a certain way. It’s detaching from all of that and really connecting to that innate worth that’s within you, that’s within all of us. That is unwavering, unchanging. There is nothing you could do to dampen that worth. It’s just there, it just is.

So really connecting to this so that you can then build a more healthy sense of self-worth on top of that. That really is the root. That is at the base of binge eating and binge eating disorder. You can’t not address that.”

Want to go deeper?

If this conversation around sensitivity, self-worth, and food resonated with you, I created The Highly Sensitive Woman’s Guide to a Binge Free Life for you.

This free in-depth guide will teach you:

��How to create genuine safety within yourself as a HSP

��Ways to honour your sensitivity while building a peaceful relationship with food

��How to let go of feelings of “not enough” and connect more to your innate-worth

��Practical steps to unravel binge eating cycles that work with your HSP nature

��How to embrace your authentic self rather than trying to "fit in"

It includes the six principles that I talk about in this episode of the Worthy of Love Podcast, and has plenty of practical, small steps to get you started.

I’m excited to share these insights with you because I know how painful and isolating binge eating can be. But I also know the peace and freedom that is present when you work with your sensitivity as your recovery path.

If you found this podcast episode helpful, here are some more resources for you:

Listen in: Binge Eating & Sensitivity on the Highly Sensitive and Strong Podcast

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 14:35:09 GMT

Reading time: 2 mins
Listening time: 43 mins

Highly Sensitive and Strong Podcast - Episode 23: Binge Eating & Sensitivity: Healing Food Struggles as a Highly Sensitive Person with Lucy Newport

Do you ever wonder if your sensitivity plays a role in your relationship with food? For Highly Sensitive People (HSPs), the connection between our deep emotions, ability to take in and process information and how we eat can be profound.

That’s why I feel that this conversation I recently had with Daphnie Leigh on the Highly Sensitive and Strong Podcast is a much-needed one. We explored how sensitivity, when not understood or honoured can develop into binge eating and binge eating disorder (BED), and on the flip-side - how your sensitivity can be a gateway to your most nourishing relationship with food.

In this episode, I share parts of my personal 14-year journey with binge eating and anxiety, and offer insights and gentle guidance for your own recovery journey.

Some key takeaways from our conversation:

��Why HSPs can be more vulnerable to binge and emotional eating

�� The roles of shame, nervous system overwhelm, and self-judgment

�� What binge eating recovery can look like for a HSP

�� The power of self-compassion, body-based practices and boundaries

I discovered Daphnie’s podcast a few months ago and loved her grounded, gentle presence and the way she embodies everything she shares about being a HSP in this world.

It was an honour to join her for this conversation, and I hope there’s something inside this episode that supports you - whether you’re just starting to see how being a HSP plays into your relationship with food or you’re in the depths of your recovery.

�� Listen to Episode 23 of the Highly Sensitive and Strong Podcast here

You can also listen to this episode where you usually get your podcasts:

Listen to Episode 23 on Spotify

Listen to Episode 23 on Apple

Listen to Episode 23 on Amazon

Insights from our conversation

Daphnie: “I feel like if we really take the time to tune-in and to pay attention to it, probably all of us can relate to using food to soothe ourselves or to avoid some of our more uncomfortable emotions.”

Lucy: “Food is a wonderful way to soothe ourselves, to calm ourselves. It is innate within us, it’s built within us - it’s not something we should feel shamed for. It only becomes a problem when we don’t have those other tools we can also come to when we’re feeling that we need that comfort or that pleasure or whatever it is we’re seeking from food.”

Lucy: “Whether you recognise yourself in emotional eating or binge eating or you’re worried you have an eating disorder, there’s help out there for everyone, and everyone is worthy and deserving of help.”

Lucy: “When you look at binge eating disorder recovery for Highly Sensitive People, it falls short because it doesn’t honour that depth of emotion and nervous system regulation that’s really needed.”

Daphnie: “Not all Highly Sensitive People are going to struggle with an anxiety disorder, and in the work that I’ve done for years now with people who struggle with anxiety, I don’t think I’ve come across anyone yet that I’ve worked with who didn’t end up being highly sensitive.”

Lucy: “Without having this grounded sense of safety to come back to again and again and again, it feels like you’re fighting yourself, or like you just can’t do the things you know you need to do in order to recover.”

Want to go deeper?

If this conversation around sensitivity, self-worth, and food resonated with you, I created The Highly Sensitive Woman’s Guide to a Binge Free Life for you.

This free in-depth guide will teach you:

��How to create genuine safety within yourself as a HSP

��Ways to honour your sensitivity while building a peaceful relationship with food

��How to let go of feelings of “not enough” and connect more to your innate-worth

��Practical steps to unravel binge eating cycles that work with your HSP nature

��How to embrace your authentic self rather than trying to "fit in"

It includes the six principles that I talk about in this episode of the Highly Sensitive and Strong Podcast, and has plenty of practical small steps to get you started.

I’m excited to share these insights with you because I know how painful and isolating binge eating can be. But I also know the peace and freedom that is present when you work with your sensitivity as your recovery path.

If you found this podcast episode helpful, here are some more resources for you:

Short reflection: Does binge eating need “managing” forever?

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 20:08:48 GMT

Reading time: 1.5 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Whilst out walking with a friend recently, we found ourselves talking about the various challenges we’ve each faced over the years, and they asked me this question;

“Is binge eating something you’ll have to manage for the rest of your life?”

I thought what I shared with them might also be insightful for you, so here’s the paraphrased version…

�� I feel like the way I view myself and the world has shifted so dramatically, it’s unlikely I’d develop a binge eating disorder again.

�� I’m aware of the kinds of things that could trigger me to restrict food again but I definitely don’t need to “manage” those triggers day to day.

(For example, I mentioned how working in an office surrounded by constant dieting talk and body criticism would have really gotten to me in the past, but I don’t think it would now.)

�� If any of those old triggers were set off, I’m confident I’d notice quickly and respond before things escalated.

�� What feels more likely is that I might turn to food for comfort in the short term if something truly tragic happened (hopefully it doesn’t). But again, I trust that wouldn’t snowball into anything more.

So, no - I don’t believe binge eating is something I need to “manage” forever.

But I do think that having self-awareness, staying connected to my needs, and honouring my sensitivity will always serve me well.

If you’re also on this path, I think it’s likely you’ll find this too.

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Sign up to Inbox Reflections - short, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

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Short reflection: A reminder for the part of you that feels “unworthy”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 16:32:26 GMT

Reading time: 2.5 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

This is how I’ve come to understand what it means to feel “worthy” as a Highly Sensitive Person and the roles of innate worth and self-worth within this…

Innate worth refers to the intrinsic value and deservingness that you have simply because you exist.

It is universal, unconditional and constant ��And nothing you could ever do could impact it.

And yes - this includes your weight. No amount of weight loss or weight gain could change your innate worthiness.

Self-worth , on the other hand, is subjective.

It refers to how you perceive value in yourself. It’s shaped by your beliefs, experiences, achievements and relationships - and it can fluctuate throughout your life.

As a HSP who absorbs a lot and processes it deeply, you likely take the messages about “worth” to heart - feeling like you have to perform or be a certain way to feel good enough.

(This is only amplified by feeling different as a HSP and wanting so badly to be accepted and to fit in.)

And because you’re here, I’m guessing your self-worth feels closely tied to your weight.

When you lose weight and move toward your “ideal body,” your self-worth rises. When you gain weight, it drops.

But here’s the thing…

A strong sense of self-worth is important - but it becomes more resilient and less tied to your body, productivity or other people’s opinions when it’s rooted in the unshakeable truth of your innate worth.

Without that foundation, you may find yourself trying to earn your worth - by shrinking yourself, saying yes when you mean no, or pushing through when you really need rest.

However, when you know deep down that you are innately worthy, it’s easier to untether yourself from doing the things that ultimately aren’t you or don’t serve you. This knowing becomes an internal anchor that helps you withstand external pressures.

If this idea of innate worth feels distant right now, you’re not alone. For many of us, it’s something we gradually remember over time - not something we suddenly feel one day.

(For me it’s been a journey of many years, one that I’m still walking in lots of ways.)

But the more you reconnect with it, the less your self-worth depends on your weight, your output, or your performance. It begins to root itself in something far deeper and truer.

And this is where being a Highly Sensitive Person is such a gift.

Because you feel deeply, you can sense the truth of this - you know what I’m talking about.

You can build a relationship with yourself that honours your softness, your values, and your way of being in the world.

Not by earning your worth.

But by remembering it is always here.

Want insights like this delivered to your inbox?

Sign up to Inbox Reflections - short, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Gentle reminders, thoughtful questions, and steady g uidance - sent each weekday.

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Short reflection: Those feels you’d rather not feel

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 11:00:22 GMT

Reading time: 2 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

There’s no point in trying to hide the fact that emotional discomfort is uncomfortable.

Things happen throughout life, big and small, that evoke a whole range of emotions we’d rather not feel. And this is a lot for anyone - especially a Highly Sensitive Person.

Through all of my attempts at avoiding this discomfort - with food, keeping myself busy, scrolling, daydreaming, working, watching shows and everything else - I’ve learnt that;

1. The thought of feeling something tends to be more threatening than actually just feeling it

2. Avoiding discomfort creates more discomfort (my years of binge eating is a perfect example)

3. I’m always surprised how quickly the discomfort subsides when I do feel it

I know this post may be a little heavier than my usual (eek, sorry! ��)

But understanding emotional discomfort is so important and something very few of us are taught. And yet this understanding can actually bring with it much more lightness.

It’s not to dismiss any discomfort you feel or to say that it’s just “not that bad” - not at all.

I know that you’re a deep feeler, that you’re easily moved by your experiences and what’s happening in the world.

It’s to say that despite how uncomfortable something may feel, you are capable of feeling it.

Of being with it and allowing it to move through.

And the more you show yourself that you can feel something without running from it - the more your nervous system learns that you are safe and able to be with what is.

That’s how we build resilience - not by avoiding hard moments, but by meeting them with openness and self-trust.

So if an emotion you’d usually try to avoid stirs within you today, see if you can breathe into it - just a little.

You don’t have to fix it…

Just give it some space and let that be enough.

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Short reflection: Past lives & food scarcity

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 13:37:07 GMT

Reading time: 1.5 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Earlier, I found myself pondering something:

Why is it that some people can restrict food or cut out entire food groups with seemingly little drama, while others end up struggling deeply, even developing binge eating (or bulimia) through restriction?

As I did, I had the thought - half joking to myself - that perhaps those of us who struggle do so because we had to deal with times of food scarcity in our past lives.

And I remembered that the one “past life memory” I have (I did a past life regression with one of my teachers a few years ago) was of me, farming my families land and reassuring my little brother that we were going to have enough food, whilst thinking very differently and worrying about how we were going to eat.

I hadn’t until that point connected the dots between that “memory” and my own relationship with food.

Now whether that was a glimpse into a past life (!), or my subconscious giving me a story, I don’t know - but I find it quite telling!

What may be more likely is that those of us who struggle had a moment, or multiple moments in childhood where we felt like our need for nourishment wasn’t going to be met, and so that set up a track within ourselves where a lack of food = danger. Even if we know on another level that we as adults have access to food when we need it.

Again, I don’t know for sure, and we’ve all had our own experiences with food, scarcity, and safety…

What I do know, however, is that it’s important we;

Let go of diets and restrictive eating patterns
Eat regular meals and snacks
Eat until we’re comfortably full
Choose foods that are satisfying to us
Tend to our nervous systems

All to help create this sense of safety and security within ourselves around food ��

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Painting: The Weeders by Jules Breton

Disclaimer: The content on this page is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or mental health issue. Do not disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this page.

Short reflection: Must…burn…more…calories

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 27 May 2025 16:11:42 GMT

Reading time: 1 min

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

For a long time, exercise for me was synonymous with burning calories and weight loss.

Even when I tried to kid myself that I was exercising for my health, mostly I was trying to control my weight.

(I’m thinking about my early 20s here, when my ED was at its worst and I pretended to love running.)

But a wonderful thing that I recognised is that the more I’ve let go of exercising to lose weight, the more active I am and the more I enjoy it.

In fact, the things that I do now which could be classed as exercise are just things that I do, for the joy of doing them.

I love walking, my yoga practice, roller skating, swimming outside and lifting kettlebells.

And I think that if I started to attach weight loss goals to any of these, my enjoyment of them would go down and my resistance to doing them would go up.

So I want to ask you, how has focusing on weight loss affected your relationship with exercise / being active?

And what activities would you love to do more, just for the enjoyment of doing them?

Want insights like this delivered to your inbox?

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Personal story: What being vegan, then not, has taught me

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Wed, 14 May 2025 16:04:13 GMT

Reading time: 1.5 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Eating some animal “products” again (I still don’t like that word!) after being vegan for 6.5 years has taught me something surprising: a much greater reverence for my food.

Because if I’m going to eat eggs…
Or a piece of fish…
Or something with dairy in it…

I want to appreciate what that means - which really is a lot ��

To express, even in just a moment of reflection, my gratitude for receiving that nourishment.

Appreciating this with foods like eggs, fish and dairy has made it easier for me to do the same with other foods too.

Every piece of food has been on a journey to get to you.

And every journey has been touched by many people.

There’s a lot to feel grateful for here!

Sometimes I forget this, of course.

Sometimes I don’t have the time or energy I want to give to my meal.

But bringing just this little bit of awareness can deepen your connection with food in such a meaningful way ��

So if you’d like, at the beginning of your next meal, give this a try…

(It doesn’t need to take much time. Just a moment.)

Acknowledge:

The different components of your meal
The journey they’ve been on to get to you
What it means to you to be able to eat them

Then send a little gratitude out into the world…

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Short reflection: “BUT if I didn’t feel unworthy…”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 12 May 2025 18:45:31 GMT

Reading time: 1 min

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Is there a part of you that feels like it needs to hold onto a sense of unworthiness in order to take care of yourself or to grow?

Like, if you didn’t have this drive to prove your worth, you wouldn’t exercise, eat foods that support you or do things that challenge you?

I think lots of us do, but for the most part, this is an unhelpful belief because…

When we value something, we tend to take really good care of it.

Way more than something we don’t see as worthy.

And when we truly value ourselves, it’s no different.

What do you value in your life and therefore take good care of it?

If you saw yourself as truly worthy, how would you treat yourself differently?

Want insights like this delivered to your inbox?

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Video Q&A: “How can I find love when I’m scared my body will be rejected?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 06 May 2025 14:31:27 GMT

Reading / watching time: 19 mins

I recently received this heart-opening question from a sensitive woman in recovery from binge eating - and I know she’s not alone.

She asked…

“I want to find love but have been holding myself back because of fear of rejection as my body is larger than I’d like it to be. The way you talk about being a highly sensitive person really resonates and can see how I use food for comfort and also as a buffer to protect me from other people and situations. I’ve also tried so many times to lose weight but I know now it just makes my binge eating worse, and I’m now heavier than ever.

I’ve got to the point where I don’t want to wait any longer for love, but I’m scared that I’ll like a guy but he’ll be put off by my body or I’ll have to tell a potential boyfriend about my binge eating and again, that will put him off. Any advice?”

So in this video, I explore what it means to open yourself up to love when your relationship with your body feels complicated. Whether you’ve struggled with binge eating, body image, or the fear that you have to “fix yourself” before being loved, I hope this supports you deeply.

Quotes from the video

“Most women find themselves binge eating due to dieting. And this is a really hard thing to acknowledge because most of us, we kind of know it, we’re aware that’s the case on one level but we don’t want to fully acknowledge it because we hope that the next diet is going to be the thing that helps us to lose weight and stop bingeing.”

“You don’t have to be fearless to find love, not at all. You just have to be willing to take those steps, with the fear whilst reminding yourself that “I am worthy enough to be seen and to be heard” - this is the real work.”

“The truth is, the right relationship for you won’t require you to force your body to change. What it will require you to do is to show up fully, as yourself, with your heart open.”

“What is also true is that there are many, many - there are millions of people who are in loving, supporting relationships, regardless of the size of their body. And this also includes people, like you, who have challenges and struggles with their relationships with food and their body.”

“Remember that your sensitivity is not a flaw - and I can’t say this enough - your sensitivity and your empathy are going to be gifts that someone really, really values.”

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Personal story: Growth through discomfort

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 05 May 2025 17:07:12 GMT

Reading time: 1.5 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

I’m at a place in my work with Binge Free & Worthy where I know that in order to support more women like you, I need to really put myself out there more.

And to the part of me that just wants to stay small and safe, that still has insecurities, doing so is really scary.

But, this work (in its inner and outer sense) is very much what I’m here for!

So last night I did something I never thought I’d do…

I attended my first Toastmasters event.

If you’re unfamiliar with Toastmasters, it’s all about learning how to communicate more confidently and effectively through public speaking (and it’s very practice heavy!).

I’d decided about a week before that I was going to give it a try, and from that moment up to when I walked through the doors, my mind kept repeating the line;

“It would be really easy to just not go.”

Because it would.

I could simply not go and not put myself through all that discomfort.

But in doing so, I’d be stopping myself from receiving the meaningful growth that comes with moving through that discomfort.

And all this reminded me of the binge eating recovery journey.

How there are many moments where you’re given the choice;
1. To stay where you are with the discomfort that’s become familiar

2. Or to say yes to a new kind of discomfort that may be initially more intense (but often far more short lived) in order to experience the freedom you desire

To be free from binge eating.

To have a peaceful relationship with food.

To feel safe and supported.

To lean into your gifts as a HSP.

To feel at home in your body.

Whatever it is that you’re here for.

If you’re going to feel at least some discomfort either way...

Which one will you choose for yourself?

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“Is there a connection between binge eating and being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 13:31:39 GMT

Reading time: 10 mins

It was later on in my own binge eating recovery that I discovered the term "Highly Sensitive Person" and learnt that I am one. Although it was even later that I really embraced the trait as a part of myself, these insights became a profound turning point in understanding and accepting myself - a crucial step in my recovery journey.

Now, as a coach supporting other highly sensitive women through their recovery, I've become fascinated by the intricate dance between high sensitivity and our relationship with food. So in this article we’re going to explore the question “Is there a connection between binge eating and being a Highly Sensitive Person?”.

First things first, what is a Highly Sensitive Person?

Where does the term “Highly Sensitive Person” come from?

It was Dr. Elaine Aron along with her husband Dr. Arthur Aron who defined the terms “Highly Sensitive Person” and more recently “sensory processing sensitivity”. Their research into high sensitivity began in 1991, with Dr. Elaine Aron’s book The Highly Sensitive Person becoming hugely important in understanding and spreading awareness of high sensitivity (if you’ve not yet read it, I highly recommend you do). Since then many other researchers have delved into studying the trait, ever expanding our knowledge of it.

Being highly sensitive is described as a “trait” because it’s not a condition or a disorder. Instead it’s something that 20% of us are born with and is a form of neurodivergence, meaning that HSPs brain works differently from what is considered “typical”. For example, brain scans have shown that HSPs are more empathetic because they have a higher number of active “mirror neurons” [1] . When a HSP observes how someone else is feeling, these mirror neurons copy the other persons, firing in the same way. Pretty amazing, right?

What does the “DOES” acronym stand for?

In 2010, Dr. Elaine Aron brought together the core characteristics of high sensitivity into a concise and memorable model using the acronym DOES [2] . This model encompasses four key aspects: D epth of processing, O verstimulation, E motional reactivity / E mpathy and S ensing the Subtle.

As you read these brief descriptions of each, you might start seeing links between being a HSP and binge eating, but we’ll explore these together later in this article.

D epth of Processing - HSPs tend to process information at a deeper level than the “typical” person, often reflecting on experiences, elaborating on them, and making connections that others might overlook. This can be conscious but also unconscious through what we might call intuition or gut feelings. Because of this, HSPs tend to take longer to make decisions as they carefully consider options, and can be described as “overthinkers”.

This characteristic extends to their relationships where they value deep conversations and seek meaning in their interactions.

O verstimulation - HSPs take in and process a higher number of sensory details meaning they can become overstimulated and stressed by things that seem ordinary to others. In other words, the same stimulation for someone who is considered “typical” will overload a HSPs nervous system more, in a shorter amount of time. A HSP can easily become overstimulated by things like bright lights, background noise, or busy environments.

What is just as true but may be less obvious is that they may feel rattled when faced with tight deadlines or having too much to do in a short amount of time and often need quiet time to themselves to recover.

E motional Reactivity and E mpathy - HSPs generally experience emotions, both positive and negative, with greater depth. What’s interesting here is that research suggests that Highly Sensitive People particularly react more to positive experiences, compared to negative. I love this because high sensitivity is often seen as a negative by people who don’t understand the trait, when really there are many benefits!

As we touched on before, they are often highly empathetic, readily noticing and being affected by the moods and emotions of others.

S ensing the subtle - HPS are more “in-tune” with subtleties and changes in their environment, from the taste and texture of food to the atmosphere of the room they’re in. They may sense the first changes in the seasons, get greater pleasure from simple things and pick up on more non-verbal cues from others.

When a HSP is overwhelmed however, they can become unaware of both subtleties and the obvious, unable to take in any more stimulation.

So that’s a little introduction to the Highly Sensitive Person, now let’s take a look at binge eating…

What is binge eating?

A binge eating disorder (often referred to as BED) is the medical diagnosis for when the occasional binge becomes a regular occurrence.

Different countries and organisations have their own ways of diagnosing a binge eating disorder. For example, in the USA a manual called Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) [4] is used, outlining certain criteria that someone has to meet in order to be diagnosed.

Wherever you are in the world, when seeing a doctor or healthcare professional, they’ll usually gauge how often the binge eating occurs, the quantity of food eaten, and in what time frame. They’ll also ask whether any compensatory measures are taken after a binge and conduct a psychological assessment to find out how distressing the binges are.

Taking someone’s weight is also commonly included as part of the diagnosis but it’s important to know that someone can binge eat or have a binge eating disorder at any weight, especially as those who binge may have a history of weight gains and losses.

The latest statistics suggest that 2% of people in the UK [5] experience binge eating disorder. BED is also frequently linked with other mental health challenges, such as depression, anxiety disorders and alcohol abuse [3] .

How are binge eating and Highly Sensitive People related?

So here we are, the big question! Now while there currently isn’t any explicit or dedicated research into the connection between being highly sensitive and struggling with binge eating (hopefully one day), I think it is safe to say that there are certainly links and overlapping traits. I’ve definitely noticed these firstly within myself and in many others through my work.

So, let’s explore some of the most common connections, the reasons why Highly Sensitive People might find themselves binge eating…

Deeply processing messages about weight and worth - Society constantly sends messages that connect thinness with worthiness and belonging. For HSPs, these messages can be deeply internalised.

A HSP is more likely to notice every comment about bodies (theirs or others'), every media image celebrating certain body types, and every subtle social reward given to those who meet these standards. It's not that they’re 'too concerned' with these messages, their nervous system is simply designed to process social information more thoroughly.

This deep processing, combined with the perfectionist tendencies common among highly sensitive individuals, can create a heightened vulnerability. Many HSPs turn to dieting as a solution, not just to change their bodies, but as a path to finally feeling “enough”.

But here's the crucial insight: dieting isn't merely about weight loss. It's an attempt to fulfil a need for acceptance that can never truly be satisfied through external changes. The restriction triggers both physiological and psychological responses which result in binge eating. This begins the 'binge-restrict cycle,' which often further damages self-worth and deepens feelings of shame, guilt and inadequacy.

Feeling as though their emotions are too much - It’s not uncommon for HSPs to suppress their own intense emotions due to a fear of being seen negatively or overwhelming others with their feelings - anyone who’s been called “too sensitive” will know what I mean! This emotional suppression can result in a build up of unexpressed feelings that may eventually find release through a binge.

Over analysing food choices - A HSP might find themself not only analysing nutritional content, but also ethical implications, environmental impact, and potential health outcomes of everything they eat. This thoroughness shows a thoughtful nature, however, when applied to daily food choices, can create a mental burden.

In this instance, a HSP might experience what's sometimes called “analysis paralysis”, where the sheer volume of considerations makes even simple food decisions feel overwhelming. In these instances, binge eating might occur as a way to temporarily escape the cognitive burden of constant evaluation and deliberation. The sheer number of factors and potential outcomes considered can become mentally exhausting, lowering resistance to cravings or urges to binge.

Reacting to past diet experiences - previous negative encounters with dieting, such as feelings of failure or intense hunger which have been deeply processed by a HSP can create a fear of future restriction, paradoxically leading to preemptive or reactive binge eating. This is perhaps one of the more nuanced links, but one that I experienced many times.

Necessary alone time can become a trigger - HSPs absolutely need time alone to decompress and recharge, it's essential for their wellbeing. Yet this very necessary solitude can unintentionally create the perfect conditions for binge eating to develop because as we touched on above, binge eating is usually done with secrecy.

Eating alone can gradually transform from a neutral activity into a soothing ritual, especially when we're processing difficult emotions or recovering from sensory overload. The pattern develops: solitude → safety → bingeing to self-soothe → momentary relief. Before it’s realised, this connection between alone time and binge eating becomes wired in, turning alone time into an unconscious trigger for bingeing.

How do these connections draw together?

As you read these connections, perhaps you noticed two central themes emerge. First, the deep processing inherent to the highly sensitive nervous system, whether it's absorbing cultural messages about bodies, analysing food choices, or internalising past experiences, creates a unique vulnerability to binge eating.

Second, binge eating often emerges as an understandable attempt to manage this sensitivity, to find relief from overwhelm, to create boundaries around intense emotions, or to escape the cognitive burden of constant deep analysis. Understanding these connections helps us reframe binge eating not as a failure of willpower, but as an adaptive response to a sensitive system trying its best to cope.

What does all this mean for you?

If you recognise yourself in the descriptions of HSPs and binge eating, and you resonate with the connections between the two, please know that you’re not alone. Through my work as a binge eating recovery coach for highly sensitive women, I’ve learnt that many HSPs struggle with their relationships with food, their bodies, self-worth and sensitivity in this way.

What’s important is that you use the perspectives I’ve shared as a way to shift you away from shame and towards compassion, opening the door to binge eating recovery that honours your sensitivity. Because the very trait that may have made you more vulnerable to binge eating also gives you the profound capacity for aw areness, insight and transformation that makes recovery absolutely possible for you.

If you’re rea dy to get started, my free in-depth guide The Highly Sensitive Woman’s Guide to a Binge Free Life is for you.

This guide will help put you on your path to finally stop binge eating by teaching you:

How to create genuine safety within yourself as a HSP
Ways to honour your sensitivity while building a peaceful relationship with food
How to let go of feelings of “not enough” and connect more to your innate-worth
Practical steps to unravel binge eating cycles that work with your HSP nature
How to embrace your authentic self rather than trying to "fit in"

I’m excited to share these insights with you because I know how painful and isolating binge eating can be. But I also know the peace and freedom that is present when you work with your sensitivity as your recovery path. And I want that for you so much!

I’ll meet you in your free guide…

Found this article helpful? Here are some more resources for you:

References

1. The highly sensitive brain: an fMRI study of sensory processing sensitivity and response to others' emotions (23 June 2014) Bianca P Acevedo, Elaine N Aron, Arthur Aron, Matthew-Donald Sangster, Nancy Collins, Lucy L Brown

2. “DOES” outlined by Dr. Elaine Aron along with evidence

3. National Library of Medicine, Binge Eating Disorder (last update 11 August 2024) Jonathan A. Mars; Aqsa Iqbal; Anis Rehman

4. DSM-IV and DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for binge-eating disorder

5. Action Mental Health, The facts and figures show the scale of Binge Eating Disorder (UK)

Short reflection: HSPs and exercise

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 21:11:33 GMT

Reading time: 1 min

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Most women in binge eating recovery have a challenging relationship with exercise.

And as a Highly Sensitive Person, it’s likely there are extra layers of complexity for you…

Maybe you’ve really pushed yourself in the past, exercising in ways that were too intense for you and further disconnected you from your body, all in the name of weight loss.

Perhaps you feel guilty that you don’t do certain types of exercise simply because they don’t feel good to you.

Or maybe thoughts about how you “should” be exercising stop you from moving your body as much.

If so, there’s a recent piece of research into HSPs and their relationships with exercise that you might find insightful…

The researchers found from those who took part (students and employees at a university in the USA, mostly female) that HSPs are just as likely to exercise as anyone else, but that they prefer less intense exercise.

And that makes absolute sense knowing what we know about HSPs ✨

It’s just one small study, but it totally resonates with me.

How about you?

If so, I hope knowing this helps you to quieten the “but I should be…” thoughts, and enjoy moving your body the ways you like to!

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Short reflection: Your relationship to receiving

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 20:38:27 GMT

Reading time: 1 min

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - short, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

I have a theory that highly sensitive women who struggle with their relationships with food and their bodies have a hard time receiving.

Receiving their sensitivity

Receiving their worth

Receiving their bodies

Receiving nourishment

Receiving support

Receiving attention

Receiving the moment

But I also believe that we have the greatest capacity to receive when we know how to and feel safe in doing so.

Because being sensitive and receptive go hand in hand.

Does this ring true for you?

If so, one of the most profound practices for you might be to simply:

1. Receive as you inhale

Receiving yourself, the moment and whatever is there for you, even if it’s uncomfortable.

2. Release as you exhale

Surrendering and letting it all completely go (this is just as important).

This is my core practice right now, and in fact, it has been for some time. There are many times I still find receiving infinitely hard, but this little practice has benefited me in more ways than I could tell you...

I hope it serves you as much as it's served me.

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Video Q&A: “How do I handle the desire to lose weight now I have food freedom?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 21:15:58 GMT

Reading / watching time: 19 mins

This is a question that Ester emailed me directly and because it’s something that often comes up further along in binge eating recovery journeys, I asked if she’d mind me sharing it and my answer with you all.

Thanks for agreeing Ester! She asked:

“I strongly feel the wish to lose weight now that I’ve gained food freedom and I would really love to hear your experience about this. Do you still face the desire of being thinner, do you have any tips to handle it or do you suggest to just let it go and provide the unconditional love and appreciation that is needed underneath?”

So in this video I share with you my most recent experience of wanting to lose weight, a couple of things for you to work with in your own journey and some words of wisdom from Ester…

Quotes from the video

“On this journey for most of us, we experience these really conflicting thoughts.”

“The less I focused on losing weight the less I binged until eventually I let go of that desire completely and my binge eating stopped.”

“I still feel like for me, there are layers of safety and trust that I need to continue to build up within myself.”

“Ask yourself ‘are these thoughts about my weight supporting my overall health of hindering it?’”

Ester: “That the hurry I had to 'lose weight asap' has now turned into 'okay, I can feel good even in a 'fatter' body, I can handle it, there's nothing to be shamed for, if my body truly wants I am able to lose weight at my pace, there's no hurry, enjoy every step and trust the process'.”

“When you align yourself more and more with the love and acceptance you talked about, you’re aligning yourself more with your authentic self and this will be part of what brings you to where you want to be [in terms of weight].”

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Short reflection: Weight and health

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 16:26:16 GMT

Reading time: 1 min

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Our world is so focused on weight, that it’s easy to forget that good health isn’t predominantly reliant on a number on the scales.

It stretches across all of our systems; the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

And these systems all tie in together, impacting one another.

Good health can include:

A sense of safety
Feeling calm around food
An adaptive nervous system
Acceptance of yourself
A vivid imagination
A good night’s sleep
An active sex drive
A connection to intuition
An ability to express emotions
A lack of aches and pains
Strong boundaries
Feeling inspired by life

You get the idea…

How might softening your focus on weight actually support your health?

And where might your focus be more needed right now?

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Short reflection: The game you can't win

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 11:02:43 GMT

Reading time: 1.5 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - my honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

There’s a game called “enough” that many of us are unknowingly playing but know the rules of all too well.

The game where we believe that our bodies aren’t;

Slim enough

Toned enough

Curvy enough

Smooth enough

Beautiful enough

Anything else enough

And so we do the aaaaall the things to reach that winning destination (the diets, workouts, fasts etc).

But when we reach our goals, that sense of “enoughness” almost immediately disappears… We worry about losing what we’ve worked so hard to achieve, the body shape “trends” shift or we fixate on another part of our appearance.

This reality hit me (again!) on the weekend when I was having breakfast in a London cafe and got talking to a couple of women at the table next to me.

One of them told me that she’d never wear a sleeveless top, no matter how hot it was because she thought her arms were “too skinny”.

This particular insecurity struck me because:

She had the kind of body I would have once done anything for.
So many women don’t like their arms for the opposite reasons - they think they’re too big or soft.

And I felt so much compassion for all women in that moment because there is no winning. No matter how your body looks, if you’re participating in this game, you will feel insecure about something.

I’m not saying that it’s bad or wrong for having moments of insecurity, we all will at times and that’s okay.

What I am asking you is whether you’re willing to spend your life trying to get your body to look “enough”, when “enough” defined by this game doesn’t really exist?

Are you willing to continue playing?

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Video Q&A: “Why can't I do the things I know I need to do?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 11:48:17 GMT

Reading / watching time: 13 mins

Our question this time comes from Sarah and it’s another that I think will be really relatable to many of you. She asked:

“I know the things I need to do to stop binge eating and sometimes I can do them and I feel really good about that. But I just can’t seem to do them most of the time. I want to know how I can get around this because it’s really frustrating me! Thanks for all of your support!”

So, here are my thoughts on this…

Quotes from the video

“If your nervous system is dysregulated, you’re in that sympathetic response, that fight, flight, freeze, it is going to be really hard for you to take any kind of positive action.”

“Perhaps your binge eating is a way that your body is trying to keep you safe.”

“If you’re a highly sensitive or empathic woman, it’s likely that you’ll experience more dysregulation in your system than the average person.”

“Ask yourself the question ‘What do I need to feel safe right now?’”

“You’re not trying to change the thing you’re doing, but changing the awareness in which you’re doing it”.

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If you found this video helpful, here are some more for you:

 Disclaimer: I am not a medical practitioner. This video is meant for informational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. Always check with your registered physician before engaging in informational content.

Short reflection: Revelations from the local swimming pool

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:18:17 GMT

Reading time: 1.5 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

There’s an outdoor swimming pool where I live that I went to a couple of times with friends when I was about 13. People come here to swim but also to hang out and lay in the sun.

What I primarily remember about going back then is how insecure and judged I felt in my body.

I was very conscious that my friends wore cute two-pieces and I had a one-piece - not that I would have wanted to show my tummy anyway.

I felt mortified that boys from school were there and imagined them rating or comparing our bodies.

And I wanted to implode with embarrassment at that dark hair on my legs.

I moved back to my home area a couple of years ago and have found myself at this swimming pool plenty of times during the summers.

And you know what? Two things have really struck me…

1. There are people there of all shapes and sizes who are unique and beautiful in their own way. Seeing women who may not have the “ideal” body we’re told to aspire to just getting on with their lives and enjoying themselves at the pool is incredibly healing. Yes, they probably have their insecurities too, but those insecurities aren’t stopping them!

2. Most of the judgement I felt before came from myself. When I now see other people’s bodies with a whole lot more love and compassion, it’s easier to see my own in the same way. I also realise that when I’m telling myself that my body isn’t good enough to be seen, I’m essentially saying that about other people’s bodies. When I question whether that is true the answer is always “of course not!”, in which case, that can’t be true for myself either.

I'm basically saying that your local pool is likely a great place to expose yourself to the realities of what most people’s bodies actually look like, and that you’re as worthy as anyone else of baring all and enjoying yourself!

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“What’s the difference between emotional eating and binge eating?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 11:32:23 GMT

Reading time: 6.5 mins

Perhaps you’ve found your way to this page because you’ve noticed that you use food to comfort yourself when emotions like stress, sadness and boredom come up. Maybe you’re feeling like your emotional eating is out of control at times and that just worries you more. And perhaps you’ve heard the term “binge eating” and you’re wondering if that’s in fact what you’re doing.

If so, you’re in the right place. In this article, we’ll look at exactly what emotional eating and binge eating are and their main differences. For those of you who resonate with being a highly sensitive person, an empath or someone who just feels things in a big way, we’ll also look at how this sensitivity can play into emotional eating and binge eating.

This is all about better understanding your own behaviour so that you can expand your ability to be with uncomfortable emotions, improve your relationships with food and your body and even get the right support for you on this journey, if that’s what you want.

Now, take a nice long and full breath and let’s explore…

What is emotional eating?

I want you to know that it’s okay if you recognise yourself as an emotional eater and that it’s not necessarily a problem that needs to be fixed. Eating is emotional and it’s wired within us from a young age. Think about a baby being fed; not only are they getting the nourishment they need to survive, but they’re also experiencing closeness, comfort, warmth, love and safety from their caregiver and that’s incredibly powerful stuff!

And as we touched on above, food also triggers neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine which help us to feel good, and that’s no mistake by nature. Eating brings about pleasure so we’re driven to do it as part of our survival. Imagine if you got no pleasure from food at all - eating would feel like a real chore! Again, it’s a part of us.

However, emotional eating can become a challenge when it’s someone’s primary way of dealing with emotional discomfort, especially if they’re going through a tough period in their life and they’re using food in this way a lot. Those who regularly emotionally eat may find that it impacts their health and other areas of life like self-esteem and relationships, creating more of a cycle of emotional eating.

What is binge eating?

Binge eating is when someone eats a large amount of food, perhaps the food that they wouldn’t consciously choose, in a condensed period of time and past the point of comfortable fullness. It can feel like an eating frenzy where all control is lost. During and immediately following a binge one tends to feel a temporary sense of release of relief which is quickly followed by feelings like guilt, shame, disgust and regret.

Often a person will try and “make up” for a binge by restricting their food afterwards. This might mean skipping breakfast the next morning, restarting a diet or deciding to “just be good” by cutting out or reducing certain foods. This however perpetuates the cycle of binge eating.

There are a few reasons why someone will binge eat. Often it’s a symptom of restrictive diets with the goal of weight loss. This is tied to a deep sense of “I’m not enough” and the belief that if they could just lose weight and reach their ideal body size, they’ll finally be happy, loveable and successful (a story we’re often told, but is rarely true in the long term).

So, what’s the difference between emotional eating and binge eating?

Three main factors differentiate emotional eating and binge eating…

The intensity: although emotional eating can feel intense, it doesn’t always involve the loss of control and intensity which is a defining characteristic of binge eating. To an extent, emotional eating is something we all do from time to time; to experience pleasure, to feel reminiscent of people or places or to comfort ourselves after a difficult day.

Root causes: all emotional eating is rooted in wanting to change how one feels. This is to escape uncomfortable emotions, whatever they may be, and perhaps to evoke more comforting feelings like safety, connection, fullness and warmth.

Binge eating can also come from this place of wanting to “numb” from hard-to-be-with feelings, however this isn’t the only root cause. Often binge eating is a symptom of restrictive diets in the name of weight loss. Behind this desire to lose weight is usually a belief that “If I could just be slim then I will be happy, desirable and successful” which if we dig a little deeper can translate to “I will be worthy and safe”.

In many people, especially the highly sensitive and empathic women that I tend to work with, there is some degree of both the emotional side and the self-worth side driving them to binge eat.

Eating disorder: emotional eating isn’t a recognised eating disorder, whereas binge eating, if it’s a regular behaviour which causes distress is. However, if emotional eating becomes a regular pattern to try and regulate how someone is feeling, this could turn into binge eating which in time may become a binge eating disorder.

What does this all mean for me?

My hope is that this article has given you clarity on the differences between emotional eating and binge eating so that you can understand yourself and your behaviour better. And from this place of understanding, I hope you can find the right kind of support for you to take care of yourself and improve your relationships with food and your body.

There are two last things that I want to leave you with…

1. If you’re a highly sensitive person, an empath or someone who feels their emotions in a big way, I want you to know that you’re not doomed to emotionally eat or binge eat. Being sensitive is such a gift and your relationship with food might be showing you where you have an opportunity to expand into your sensitivity and learn how to be with it.

2. Labels like “emotional eating” and “binge eating” are helpful to the extent of finding the best information and support for you, but beyond that, hold them really lightly so that they’re easier to let go. It’s interesting to observe how much we love identifying with labels, even the more “negative” ones. However, growth happens when we allow ourselves to move beyond them.

If you recognise that you binge eat and are a highly sensitive woman or empath, I am totally here for your recovery journey. Take a look at My Offerings page to explore the ways that my coaching can support you, and feel free to reach out to me by emailing lucy@bingefreeandworthy.com .

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Video Q&A: “How can I let go of fatphobic judgements?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 10:58:37 GMT

Reading / watching time: 14 mins

We have a great question about fatphobia from Ester this month who says…

“Hello! Thank you so much, you are helping me a lot in my recovery ❤️ I'd love to ask if you can go deep into the fatphobia trigger, even if I now have a good relationship with food I still feel there's this subtle judgement towards fat and my wish is to be able to look at me and others beyond the physical appearance. I'm on my way lil by lil but I am really curious to know your pov ��”

So in this video, I share with you:

What fatphobia is
Why fatphobic thoughts are so ingrained in many of us
A simple but profound practice to help see yourself and others beyond these thoughts

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The painting at the top of this page is The Pearl by Frederick Sandys.

Personal story: “Normalising” my binge foods

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Wed, 08 May 2024 13:43:34 GMT

Reading time: 3 mins, 30 secs

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

How familiar are you with the “normalising” process in binge eating recovery?

It’s the practice of not only allowing yourself the foods you tend to restrict (and later binge on) but repeatedly having them in your home and incorporating them into your meals and snacks.

The normalising process is all about creating a feeling of safety and peace around these foods, and a deep knowing that if you truly want them, you can have them. When you trust this, binge urges (linked to food restrictions) no longer have a reason to exist and so naturally drop away.

Although I stopped binge eating about 3 years ago now (��), I’m still in the process of normalising some foods, or at least making sure that I really, truly feel no tension around certain types.

(You don’t tend to unravel years and years of disordered eating patterns overnight - though I do believe it can happen!)

And I’ve noticed some things shift for me over the last couple of months or so…

Firstly, pizza (which I held a lot of judgements around) used to be a big binge food for me. I’d try really hard to eat “healthily”, tirelessly making all my food from scratch, but a few days later, I’d find myself compulsively ordering Pizza Hut takeaway on my way home from work. It became a somewhat expensive habit!

Instant noodles were a similar one. Now I LOVE noodles but again they weren’t something I’d allow myself to have at home and enjoy when I wanted. And so they became another of my “go-to” savoury binge foods and I’d often end up down the noodle aisle in Tesco of an evening.

So to make sure that I feel completely at ease in my relationships with pizza and noodles (and don’t find myself slipping back into old habits), about a year ago I decided to have a pizza night and a noodle night every week!

And it worked incredibly well… I’d buy a frozen pizza in my weekly food shop to enjoy after work and before heading out to the roller disco as my “fun Friday treat”. And the noodles I’d have on an evening when I knew I’d be tired and grateful not to have to cook properly, although I’d almost always made a side of greens to go with them.

This continued most weeks until recently when I was writing my shopping list and noticed that I had no desire for noodles that week. There was no want, but also no “but I have to have it” tension. And so I simply planned something else to eat for that evening.

Then a couple of weeks ago I was eating my Friday night pizza and halfway through thought “nah, I’m done with this” and just stopped eating it. I noticed that I was going through the motions and was actually bored of pizza. Again there was no desire, but also no deeper, underlying pull.

I know right now that these two foods are truly “normalised” for me. They no longer have a hold over me because I know and trust that I can eat them whenever I want and that I will again eat them whenever I want (which I doubt will be before too long)!

I wanted to share this little story to show you that no matter how crazy you feel around certain foods and no matter how much you binge on them, you can gradually, with compassion and awareness find peace with them.

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Video Q&A: “How can I connect to my body?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 20:04:39 GMT

Reading / watching time: 21 mins

This month's Q&A video is around the topic of connection (which is one of my favourites!) and comes from Aga with the question “ I’ve been binge eating for over 20 years and at this point feel like I’m completely disconnected from my body all of the time. How can I start connecting to it?”.

In this video, we get into:

Understanding the ways you’ve disconnected from your body
The underlying reasons for this disconnection
The question you can ask yourself in any moment to begin reconnecting
Four simple practices to help bring you back into your body

I’m sorry that parts of the video go in and out of focus - I think I was moving a bit too enthusiastically!

Further resources

Naming your feelings
If you’re intrigued as to why naming your feelings (Affect Labeling) can help not only connect you to what you’re feeling within your body, but also reduce the intensity of uncomfortable emotions, this paper published in 2018 titled “Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling as Implicit Emotion Regulation” goes into it in lots of detail.

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Personal story: “Good legs”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 16:36:07 GMT

Reading time: 2.5 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

While spending time with loved ones recently, someone commented how a particular female celebrity had “such good legs”.

A few years ago this comment would have thrown my mind into a downward spiral, making it mean something about me and my own legs.

2014 Lucy’s thoughts would probably have sounded like; “My legs look so short and dumpy compared to hers… I could never wear what she’s wearing… My cellulite would be on full view… God my thighs have gotten wide… I wonder what their training routine is like… I’ll Google it… Maybe if I cut my carbs and get stricter with my workouts my legs will look more toned… Urgh, summer’s not that far off, I should have started this weeks ago…"

And the underlying feeling would have been “I’m not good enough”.

However, in that moment I noticed how far my mindset had shifted and the comment seemed such an abstract thing to hear.

It’s hard to explain, but it just seemed a strange thing to say and I wanted to ask “what do you mean by good?”.

Of course, I understand that they were pointing out and praising her physical appearance. Her legs ARE beautiful and attractive!

I want to be clear that I’m not saying that beauty and attractiveness are wrong in any way. To be able to see and admire beauty in its many, many forms is a wonderful thing.

I’m saying that when you’re secure within your own worth, someone else’s beauty doesn’t have to change how you feel about yourself.

From this place, you don’t get thrown into a state of judgement, food restrictions and over-exercising that just reinforces your binge eating patterns every time you come across someone who has a “good body”.

Instead, you can see how they’re just another being, like you, living out this human experience as best as they can. And that’s a far more freeing and compassionate place to live from.

What does having “good legs” mean to you?

My loved one’s comment also got me thinking about how “good legs” could mean something so different to each of us anyway…

When my disordered eating was at its worst, I was running most evenings, pounding the London pavements so hard I gave myself knee pain for years to come.

My legs may have been a little slimmer and more toned at that time, but my knees hurt and it affected both my work and the things I enjoyed doing.

(I was also deeply insecure, anxious and bingeing every night. So, not great.)

These days, my legs are larger and softer - yes. But they’re also strong and my knees are pain free.

My legs allow me to enjoy long walks, to have fun on my roller skates, to dig veg patches on the allotment, to connect to myself during my yoga practice, to stand (and dance!) for hours seeing my favourite bands play…

From that sense, I would say that I love my legs and couldn’t ask much more from them!

So, what does having “good legs” really mean to you?

And what do your legs allow you to do that you’re grateful for?

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Video Q&A: “How can I lose weight in a healthy and responsible manner?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:25:03 GMT

Reading / watching time: 22 mins

I’m very happy to be sharing our first Q&A video, with the question “How can I lose weight in a healthy and responsible manner?” from Amber - thanks for going first in submitting a Q Amber!

In it, you’ll hear:

My binge eating recovery perspective on this question
Why you might find it helpful to explore where this desire to lose weight is coming from
How trying to lose weight is perhaps playing a role in your binge eating
Why weight might be serving a purpose for you (and why perhaps weight loss feels like a battle)
My thoughts on dieting and exercise in binge eating recovery
Specific questions you can ask yourself in your own exploration

Further resources

The binge restrict cycle
To more fully understand this cycle, take a look at my guide "What is the binge restrict cycle?” .

Health and weight

I mentioned that recent research has found that the link between weight and health isn’t always as closely correlated as we’ve been told. In other words, an “ideal” BMI doesn’t necessarily equate to health and there are other factors to consider. If you want to learn more about this, here are a few further resources:

The 2020 study titled "Metabolically Healthy Obesity" provides insights into how “metabolically healthy obese” individuals, despite being overweight or obese, may have a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes compared to “metabolically unhealthy individuals” with “normal” weight.
The 2004 study titled "Fitness versus physical activity patterns in predicting mortality in men" found that fitness level was a better predictor of mortality than obesity.
The 2012 review titled “Healthy lifestyle habits and mortality in overweight and obese individuals” concluded that healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality, regardless of BMI.

Nutrition and exercise

If you’re at a place in your binge eating recovery where you feel:

Secure in your relationships with food and your body and have been binge free for several months.
As though focusing on sustainable weight loss won’t impact your relationships with food and your body.
You want to lose weight

Feel free to reach out to me ( l ucy@bingefreeandworthy.com) and I’ll share my recommendation for an online nutritionist and personal trainer who understands the mechanisms behind restrictions and binge eating.

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“What's the difference between binge eating and compulsive eating?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 15:34:48 GMT

Reading time: 4 mins

I imagine you’re here because you find yourself eating large amounts of food in one sitting, even though you’re not hungry for it. Perhaps on one level, you don’t want to be eating that food, but on another, you just can’t seem to stop .

And maybe you’ve heard terms like ‘binge eating’ and ‘compulsive eating’ and you’re wondering, “which one do I do?”.

Firstly, I want you to know that it’s okay that you’ve found yourself here - you’re not broken or bad for eating in this way . Plus, this self-awareness and acknowledgement you have of your eating patterns will serve you greatly in coming back to a more peaceful relationship with food.
Now, relax your tummy, take a long and full but easy breath and let’s look at the definitions and differences of compulsive eating and binge eating…

What is binge eating?

Simply put, binge eating is when someone eats a large amount of food, perhaps the food that they wouldn’t consciously choose, in a condensed period of time and past the point of comfortable fullness. With a binge tends to come a temporary sense of release or relief followed by feelings of guilt and shame. Often a person will try and “make up” for the binge by restricting their food afterwards, perhaps fasting the next morning, restarting a diet or deciding to “just be good”.

There are a few things that play into binge eating. It tends to be a symptom of restrictive diets with the goal of weight loss, the inability to be with uncomfortable emotions and / or this feeling of not being “enough”.

Binge eating disorder is a recognised eating disorder, though a person can binge from time to time without their behaviour necessarily being considered a binge eating disorder. Each country has its own way of diagnosing a binge eating disorder, for example, the USA uses the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR).

What is compulsive eating?
.

So, what’s the difference?

Reading the above you’re probably thinking “Well, is there any difference?!” and really, the key difference is that binge eating disorder is a recognised eating disorder, whereas compulsive eating isn’t. What’s important to note is that not everyone who experiences compulsive eating has a binge eating disorder, in the same way that not everyone who binge eats has an eating disorder.

Through my work as a coach who helps women find freedom from binge eating, I’ve also had conversations with women who consider themselves to be compulsive eaters. When I ask them to tell me about their experiences with food, their descriptions tend to be so reflective of binge eating, that really, it’s just a different label they’re using.

What should I call my behaviour - binge eating or compulsive eating?

This is a tricky one because you likely have your own associations with the terms ‘binge eating’ and ‘compulsive eating’ - perhaps this article is also changing them and you’re experiencing some feelings about that!

You might be someone who sees it as more socially acceptable to say that you’re a compulsive eater because it’s not an eating disorder, per se. On the other hand, you might feel safer describing yourself as a binge eater for that exact reason; it’s a recognised eating disorder and therefore you feel more justified in seeking help, maybe even getting a diagnosis of binge eating disorder from a healthcare professional.

My general philosophy on labels such as ‘binge eating’ and ‘compulsive eating’ is that they’re helpful initially to find the information to help you better understand your experiences, to seek the right kind of support and connect with others on a similar journey. However, beyond this, I believe that labels can keep us stuck within an identity, making it harder for us to move beyond it.

So, whichever label resonates with you the most 1) Hold it really lightly and 2) Know that there is so much support out there for you .

Whatever happens next, you don’t have to navigate recovery alone

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“I want support in my binge eating recovery but I’m scared. What should I do?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 10:12:53 GMT

Reading time: 3 mins, 30 secs

Perhaps you’ve been on your binge eating recovery journey for a little while now. Maybe you’ve read a couple of books, listened to podcasts, followed a few accounts on Instagram and you’ve learnt some tools that have really helped you on your way.

And that is wonderful! Not only do you have the self-awareness to know that something has to change, you’ve also been taking action. So please, celebrate yourself for this!

But maybe you’ve reached a point where you’re still bingeing and know deep down that you’d benefit from working 1-1 with someone, but there’s that underlying fear…

The fear of someone else seeing you and hearing you in all of your “mess”.

It’s a super vulnerable spot to be in!

I get it. I really do.

At the beginning of 2019, I had been teaching yoga for about 8 months and one of my favourite teachers, Naomi, was offering her group coaching programme. It was all about finding your voice and getting out of your own way as a yoga teacher which was exactly what I needed at that point, and I had my heart set on being a part of the group.

The thing was, I really couldn’t afford it.

It was something I’d spoken to my partner at the time Mark about, and in his generous nature and because he also believed that working with Naomi would hugely support me, he booked me four 1-1 coaching sessions with her (which was under half the price of the programme) as a surprise .

And you know what? I had the biggest freakout! A full-blown meltdown…

I just about felt okay about being in a group programme because I thought I could hide within it. I could show up and get what I needed whilst being one of the “quiet ones” in the background.

But working 1-1 with Naomi would mean me fully being the focus. I knew I’d have to be open with her about where I was at, that she would ask me questions about things I’d been avoiding within myself and that I would probably cry on my calls with her.

And that was all so scary to me. I phoned Mark in a panic and told him I couldn’t do it.

Fortunately, after that initial rush of fear subsided (it probably took a couple of days), I was able to take a step back and see how it was my fear of being seen and heard that was keeping me stuck. I began to see what an incredible opportunity working with Naomi was and I actually felt excited (though still also felt sick at the idea)!

I went on to have my four sessions and I’m incredibly grateful that I did. Having someone hold space for you as you let light into some of your most tender spots is such a gift. Yes, there were tears during most of the calls but with them came lightness and clarity.

My Mum also stepped in and paid for me to do Naomi’s group programme (I’m incredibly lucky, I know) so in the end, I did it all! Those 6 months were huge for my growth.

I’m telling you this little story to say that sometimes you’ve just got to do the thing you’re afraid of.

Yes, there will be some periods in your life when it’s not the best time to focus on your binge eating recovery. Yes, not all types of support will be right for you (and you’ve got to find what most speaks to you).

But I’ve noticed that often the thing that I’m most scared of is the thing that I most need.

If you’re ready to take a brave step in your binge free journey, one that’ll give you clarity on where to focus or help you move beyond the patterns you keep repeating, apply now for a R oadmap 1-1 Coaching Session with me.

These heartfelt sessions are a deep dive into your relationships with food, body, sensitivity and your worth and will provide you with your next steps to finally experience the freedom you so deeply crave.

And because I’m excited about this new offering and to work with you in this way, I’m giving the first three women who successfully apply before Friday 23rd February 2024 a free 45-minute follow-up session each!

I can’t wait to support you in your freedom.

Roadmap 1-1 Coaching Sessions

Wherever you are with binge eating, get clarity on your next steps in recovery as a highly sensitive woman

Hungry for more? Here are some extra resources for you

Short reflection: Binge eating recovery for your spirit

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 14:57:02 GMT

Reading time: < 1 min
Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Compared to the infinite stream of love and bliss you’re open to with a single conscious breath, grasping for pleasure from food feels like begging for crumbs.

I have forgotten this fact countless times, and I absolutely will continue to.

But when I feel the little nudge within me and I take that breath, it all comes flooding back.

Here, there is no need to seek pleasure from a moment with food (though eating with this conscious awareness is total magic).

There is no need to change myself because I am already entirely whole and worthy.

And there is no need to numb from my experience because I know I am so supported in being with it all.

This is why I practise; so that I can more easily remember.

And this is why I share; to help you remember too.

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Image: Albion Rose by William Blake

How are you being when you’re eating? A self-observation practice

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 16:51:01 GMT

Reading time: < 2 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Here’s a really simple but insightful self-observation you can try when you’re eating.

Now this needs to be when you’re eating with cutlery in just one hand (so a fork, spoon, or chopsticks) rather than a knife and fork in each.

As you’re eating, just notice what your other hand, the hand that isn’t holding anything is doing.

If you observe that your hand is in a fist shape, notice what else is happening physically in your body.

What are your shoulders doing?

Your forehead?

What’s your breathing like?

How are you holding your tummy?

What speed are you eating?

Then notice how you are mentally and emotionally…

What’s on your mind?

Are you allowing the emotions that are there to be fully present?

What are you thinking about the food you’re eating?

Finally, notice where you’re at spiritually…

Is your heart open?

How connected are you feeling?

How present are you able to be?

And then simply soften your hand and again notice…

Notice what changes?

What shifts on each of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels?

This isn’t really about your hand. It’s about how you’re being whilst you’re eating (but your hand is a great starting point).

I had a moment last year when I was eating a bowl of soup and looked down to see my left hand clenched into a fist.

And in that moment I noticed how closed off and restricted I was in my being.

I noticed that I was rushing through my meal, tense throughout my body, wrapped up in thoughts, cut off from my heart and barely aware of what I was eating.

I then noticed that by simply softening my hand, everything else followed.

My breathing and eating slowed.

My shoulders dropped, forehead smoothed and tummy relaxed.

My thoughts were light and playful.

My heart was full of gratitude for the food in front of me.

And I enjoyed the rest of my meal, feeling satisfied at the end of it.

It’s such a subtle change, but my goodness, what a difference it makes to the entire eating experience.

If you give this little experiment a go, I’d love to know what comes up for you so feel free to share your own experience by emailing me . I promise to reply ��

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Short reflection: Life and weight loss

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Sun, 07 Jan 2024 11:39:16 GMT

Reading time: < 1 min
Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

Life is too wonderful to spend it trying to lose the same 5 lbs over and over again.

It’s also hard enough without this.

There is love, connection, hope, joy and birth.

But there is also heartache, struggle, despair and loss.

And within it all, is you my love ❤️

From this perspective, how does focusing on trying to make your body that bit slimmer seem to you?

These words aren’t to shame you if you’re on a weight loss journey. Not at all.

They’re for you if you want to stop binge eating, to help you question what you’re really here for…

I’m very intrigued as to what comes up for you as you reflect on this and I’d love for you to drop me an email if you feel the nudge to share.

(I’d also gladly share with you what comes up for me if you’re intrigued too.)

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Image: Venus and Anchises by Sir William Blake Richmond

Short reflection: How indulging at Christmas helped me to stop binge eating

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 21:45:14 GMT

Reading time: 1.5 mins
Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

I had a realisation at Christmas a few years ago which played a considerable part in my binge eating recovery. After all the Christmas indulgences, I noticed that my whole being would look forward to eating “normally” or even “healthily” again .

I actually wanted more vegetables, regular meals and to lay off the chocolate.

Do you get that feeling too?

This was a revolution for me because I was used to heavily controlling the food I ate, particularly food that I deemed “treaty” or even more so, “naughty”. I did this because I thought that if I freely allowed myself those foods, I wouldn’t stop eating them.

But each Christmas I’d prove myself to be wrong. My body would always step in and say “ENOUGH”. Usually a day or two before New Year’s.

And from this, I could see how it was instead my restrictive thoughts and behaviours that drove me to binge…

When I opened the fun food floodgates at Christmas I’d go into a frenzy and eat whatever I could whilst it was allowed. Part of me felt like it had to get its fix because come January, I’d be back to a diet, clean eating or “just being good”.

Will I indulge myself this year? Yeah, I will! Food is a big part of my Christmas - it’s a celebration after all. What’s different now however is that I know, deep in my core, that it’s okay.

And that means that there is no panicked frenzy, no guilt and no trying to make up for it. Just enjoyment and acceptance of what it is. I recognise that “enough” signal from my body and enjoy transitioning back to eating more normally for me, knowing that I can eat whatever I want whenever I want.

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Wintering and death cycles

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:05:39 GMT

Reading time: 3 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

How are you at resting?

I don’t mean the scrolling on your phone / watching TV type of “resting” (which is usually stimulating and distracts you from yourself).

I mean resting where you’re doing nothing, or at least very little. Maybe that’s watching the sunset, doing a little yin yoga, relaxing in the bath or watching the birds do their thing from your window.

Most of us aren’t great at resting for a couple of reasons:

We’re so jacked up on stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, that it’s hard (but all the more essential) to slow down.
When we stop doing and rest, we’re often faced with the things within us that we’ve been avoiding.

Rest, the thing many of us are craving, just feels really uncomfortable. And maybe at this time of year, when the days are at their shortest and darkest and much of the natural world is wintering, your being is calling out to slow down too.

A couple of weeks ago I set the background on my phone to an Instagram image from @moon_body which reads “Resisting death cycles blocks growth”. When I first read this it struck such a strong cord of truth for me.

Death cycles are those periods in your life where you are asked to stop and let go. They often follow times of busyness or change when you need to rest, tend to your energy and recalibrate.

And they are, as the quote reminds us, essential for growth.

I put these words on my phone’s background because I knew that I was avoiding a death cycle (I’m as human as anyone else). I knew because I was feeling stagnant, resistant to what was showing up for me in my life, and using the word “should” with myself a lot.

I LOVE this time of year. I love Christmas, cold winter days, gazing at the Christmas tree, and seeing my family. I love the sense of magic and peace that I feel when I do pause to absorb it all. But I also find it a lot, especially when my body is asking for me to slow down but there are things to do and people to see!

Each December I seem to get a bad cold. It’s kinda become a joke with myself. And this year I decided that it wasn’t going to happen. I told myself that it’s not possible for me to catch a cold (if there is anything I’ve learnt in recent years, it’s the power of what we tell ourselves), took an echinacea tincture regularly and ran the “Defense” program on my Healy from time to time.

And you know what? Last week I got that cold! In the thick of it, I realised that I will continue to get a cold every December until I actually allow myself to rest, properly rest, during the month . My body experiencing a cold currently serves too much of a purpose; it forces me into a place where I have to surrender to rest.

Just like that, as I came out the other side of the cold after resting I had such clarity. I received messages (or perhaps they arose within me) about what to focus on next in my life and where to put my attention in my work. I feel like I can and I want to do things. I’ve even written three articles in three days (this being one of them) when before I had nothing to say or no energy to say it. No forcing inspiration, no mustering energy. Just flow.

Why am I talking about all of this? What does any of this have to do with binge eating recovery?

Because again, “Resisting death cycles blocks growth”.

And I want to ask you, how does this play into your relationships with food and your body?

How do you use food when you’re in that place of resistance?

What growth around your binge eating recovery might you be blocking?

Also inspired by the audiobook of Wintering by Katherine May, which I’ve listened to throughout this December.

Title image is Winter Moon at Toyamagahara by Hasui Kawase.

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Short reflection: stop looking for things to “fix” you

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 08:31:50 GMT

Reading time: 1 min

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections — my weekday emails for highly sensitive women who are ready to stop binge eating.

How many times have you tried something new and thought “This is it! This is the thing that’ll stop me from binge eating”?

And then felt disappointed that it didn’t, brushing it off as you keep your eyes peeled for the next “thing”.

I did this countless times ; with books, a retreat, different diets, counselling, spiritual teachings, travel, breathwork techniques, journaling… When I did my yoga teacher training I even secretly hoped it would be the thing to finally end my binge eating.

(And I of course still catch myself doing this with other “fixes”).

It’s not that none of these things were helpful. Most of them were invaluable parts of my journey and I use many of the tools and practices that I learnt ALL THE TIME.

But I’ve realised that it’s not helpful to expect any one thing to be *that* fix.

And that instead each thing will have something for you within it; a lesson, a deepening of an understanding, a spark of inspiration that’ll help you to grow and move along your path.

Two questions you might find helpful when trying something new in your BE recovery:

“What is here for me?” (Because not everything will be.)

And “How is this connecting me to my own medicine?”.

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"What is the binge restrict cycle?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Sun, 26 Nov 2023 16:10:40 GMT

Reading time: 5 mins

I believe this cycle is more prevalent in our culture than we know.

It’s a pattern that many women unintentionally find themselves in when trying to take control of their weight through what they eat. And because it’s a pattern that’s surrounded by feelings like guilt, shame and failure, those of us stuck in it often keep it a secret.

Maybe that’s why you’ve found yourself here. Because you have an idea of what this cycle might be, but aren’t exactly sure how it fits in with you or your loved one's relationship with food.

The secrecy around binge eating is so unfortunate because in keeping these experiences to ourselves, we’re denying this deeper connection to one another and the support and healing that can come with it.

The ‘binge restrict cycle’, also often referred to as the ‘binge eating and restricting cycle’ generally has four main stages , though, of course, these will vary from woman to woman, person to person.

In this short guide, we’re going to explore each of these stages and how they play into one another.

The cycle in a nutshell

Here’s a short video briefly explaining each stage in the binge restrict cycle:

Now you’ve got this overview, let’s dig in a little deeper…

Stage one: A sense of “not enough”

This is how the binge eating and restricting cycle usually begins; you feel a sense of “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not worthy enough” or simply “I’m not enough” and feel that if you could just lose a bit of weight or reach your ideal body size, you’d be fixed.

That you would be whole.

In this first stage, you’re believing that your worth and the way your body looks go hand in hand which simply isn’t true! And it’s okay if you’ve believed this for most or all of your life. This is what many of us have been taught by our society.

(My work is all about showing you there is another way!)

Stage two: Dieting for weight loss

Stage three: Urges for food

Because of these restrictions, you begin to notice your body urging you to either eat more food or to eat certain types of food. This happens on both a physical and a mental level.

At the physical level, you may not be giving your body the energy that it needs to do all of the incredible things it does. Or you may not be giving yourself the full range of nourishment you need, especially if you’re cutting out a whole food group like carbs or fats.

And so your body urges you to eat because it’s simply trying to survive (and dare I say it, thrive!).

At the psychological level, we want what we can’t have. As soon as you say “I’m not eating that” you are likely creating this tension within yourself where you want it more. And the more you can’t have it, the more you want it and so again you get these urges to eat that particular food.

This is often referred to as the forbidden fruit effect. Can you see how this has played out in your life both with food and other things you’ve wanted but told yourself you can’t have?

These also explain why it is that once you “give in” and start to binge, you don’t stop until you’re uncomfortably full. Because this part of you that’s urging you to eat knows that once the other part of you that restricted “wakes up”, it’ll put those rules back in place.

Stage four: Binge eat

You reach this stage after repeatedly ignoring the messages from your body to eat either in general or to eat a certain food. You go from potentially being able to eat and enjoy some of what it is you want to feeling as though you’ve been possessed as you rush home from the supermarket to hide away and binge.

What tends to happen after a binge is that you feel guilty or disappointed in what you’ve done and try to “make up for it”.

And so you restrict your food again, maybe even making your food rules tighter in an attempt to make sure that you don’t have a repeat of the binge. It’s that “my diet starts tomorrow and this time I will be good” moment.

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“What do I need to know about investing in binge eating support?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 30 May 2023 10:30:29 GMT

Reading time: 8 mins

At some point in our binge eating recovery journeys, many of us will decide that we can’t or that we don’t want to go it alone any more. And I know that the decision to get support often isn’t an easy one. It can bring up all kinds of stuff. Perhaps you’ve experienced this with thoughts like “I’m not worthy of help” and “I can’t afford it” or have felt scared to make a potentially life-changing commitment.

I know this because these are the same barriers that stopped me from getting the support I needed in my own journey, even though I was scared that I’d never be able to stop binge eating on my own. In recent years, however, I have invested in myself in lots of ways. And I use the word “invested” rather than “paid for” because it really is that. You put money into support and, if you made the right investment for you, you get so much more out of it!

I’ve made small investments into myself like one-off workshops and I’ve made larger ones like a 6-month group mentorship. I’ve made investments purely by myself and other times I’ve asked my family if they can help with the cost. I’ve deeply regretted an investment and I’ve been incredibly thankful for others. I’ve been through it all and I’ve got a lot of lessons to share…

In this guide, we’re really getting into the money and energetic sides and saying “yes” to your recovery by investing in yourself. If you’re at the earlier stages and just starting to look into support, I recommend that you read these two guides first: “Which Type of Binge Eating Support is Best for Me: Counselling, Therapy or Coaching?” followed by “What Level of Support Do I Need to Heal from Binge Eating: 1-1, Group or Self-paced?” .

Find your “inner yes”

Know you’re worthy of support

You might feel like “who am I to get help?”, especially when other people around you have had challenges in life but haven’t reached out. Or, you might feel like other people are way more deserving of help than you. Perhaps you feel like you’re only worthy of a bit of help, like an online masterclass, rather than working 1-1 with a coach.

I’ve particularly felt this myself when working with high-level coaches, as though I’m not special enough to be worthy of their time. Let me tell you, this belief is bulls**t and it’s hugely limiting you!

If you feel this way, leaning into your innate worthiness may be a big part of your binge eating recovery journey. There’s more on this in my article “Why do I feel unworthy or not enough?” .

“I want it but I can’t afford it”

Ask if there’s a payment plan

Many counsellors, therapists and coaches offer payment plans to make their work more accessible. That usually looks like paying for a programme or a number of sessions over the course of several months. Some might also offer scholarships for those who really can’t afford their work but who they see would very much benefit from it. Sometimes this is free access to their online programme, other times discounted 1-1 sessions.

In my 1-1 coaching I offer payment plans as well as a limited number of scholarships at 50% off. If there’s someone else you want to work with but they don’t advertise payment plans, reach out and ask them if it’s a possibility. Again, the worst they can say is no.

See if there’s another offering

If there is someone who you really want to work with but you can’t afford their 1-1 support, have a look at whether they have an offering at a lower price. This may be group coaching, an online programme or a masterclass and although it may not be as impactful, it’ll give you some of the information or tools you’re looking for. You can always explore working 1-1 with them again in the future if it’s still something you want.

You can also reach out and ask if it’s possible to do just a few sessions with them around an area you particularly struggle with. I’ve put bespoke packages together for clients before and I know there will be others who’ll want to support you in that way too, if they can.

S t r e t c h yourself a little

Making an investment in yourself is part of the transformation. It’s a way of committing. A way of expanding into the next level of your recovery. Because when we spend a relatively large amount of money on something, we tend to want to get the most from it and it shows us that we believe we’re worthy! This ties in with the above points about being able to afford support, but is a little more subtle…

Consider this for a moment; you have a steady income and are able to save £250 a month for the bigger things in life you desire. You want to get help with binge eating and have a choice of buying an online course which sounds great and costs £55 or buying another course which also sounds great and costs £650. Which do you think you would devote yourself to and show up for more? Which do you think would have the greater impact on your binge eating recovery?

This is a sticky point for some because we also have all kinds of beliefs that play into our relationship with money. Personally, I used to believe that support should be either free or really affordable. But now I see that we need different levels of support at different prices to serve people at different stages in their lives and finances. Having things given to us for free can sometimes be a disservice to us. There often needs to be an exchange. I’d also want to pay someone to help me knowing that they themselves are well-resourced and able to fully show up in their support, rather than having a burnt-out nervous system from trying to make ends meet.

Again, this is a little stretch I’m talking about. Not one which is going to break you, but one which makes you feel expanded and excited by the possibilities! And what this little stretch is will be completely unique to each of us.

Don’t rush

Celebrate yourself!

Investing in support is a HUGE step in your binge eating recovery and one that absolutely deserves celebrating! Plus, when you celebrate your steps forward regularly, you’re literally wiring neurons together within your brain and creating pathways which make taking future steps forward easier ��

Celebrate in your own way, whether that’s sharing your excitement with a loved one, taking yourself on a day trip, dancing to a favourite song, or anything else that amplifies your “yes”!

I really hope this guide helps you to come to the best binge eating support choice for you, and that you feel confident when you make that investment. Now, over to you…

Whatever happens next, you don’t have to navigate recovery alone

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Short reflection: My biggest body image lesson

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 14:29:50 GMT

Reading time: 3 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

This is a story about something I’ve known about body image for a few years, but that an experience last Christmas helped me to understand even more deeply. And it’s an experience that I think about all the time...

Alongside coaching and building Binge Free & Worthy, I currently have a part-time Supervisor role in a women’s fashion store. What’s been really interesting about this job is that it’s given me even greater insights into the relationships between women and their bodies. Because whilst I’m suggesting outfits and being on hand at fitting rooms, these women often share with me the insecurities they have about their bodies. And believe me, I’ve heard many since starting this job 7 months ago.

I’ve had a mother of the groom in tears, telling me that she’s never felt so much pressure to look good in all her life. I’ve had a woman telling me how much weight she’s lost and how much she’s trying to lose before her holiday by eating just once a day. I’ve had a new mother buy an outfit that’s too small for her to “motivate her to get her old body back”.

Sometimes these comments are really hard to hear. And I know we’ve all been there. If you have thoughts like this regularly that’s okay! I have too. This story isn’t to shame anyone, but to help us see what really matters when it comes to body image.

This experience taught me three things:

True beauty, for a large part, is an inside job . What you feel about yourself, about others and about life shines through.
The way that you feel about your body affects how others also feel about you. If you’re feeling comfortable in yourself, others will more likely feel comfortable around you. Your energy speaks louder than words.
When you’re loving and accepting of yourself, you reflect that back out . Others will also feel more loving and accepting of themselves and will feel even more drawn to you!

I hope this little story has shown you a different perspective on body image. I hope it’s helped you to see that you don’t need to force your body to look different in order to be lovable. And I hope it’s helped you to see where your next steps may be in your own journey towards a more accepting relationship with your body.

Now, I invite you to reflect on the different people you’ve been around and how they’ve felt about their bodies…

How do you feel about specific people when you’re in their company?

How do you feel about yourself when you’re in their company?

Play with these questions as you interact with others, it may surprise you what comes up…

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"Is it good to feel hungry?"

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 16:17:27 GMT

Reading time: 3 mins

Originally shared as part of Inbox Reflections - honest, heartfelt emails to support your binge eating recovery as a highly sensitive woman.

I was on my morning walk yesterday and hadn’t yet had breakfast. Sometimes I eat it before my walk, sometimes not. It simply depends on how hungry I’m feeling each morning. About halfway through my walk, however, I noticed that my tummy was rumbling and that I was actually pretty hungry. I also didn’t have any food with me. In that moment, the phrase “It’s good to be hungry sometimes” popped into my head.

I imagine I first heard this phrase from my parents, an innocent reassurance when I was complaining that I was hungry in the back of the car or out on a walk. But as I grew up, this phrase got intermingled with diet messages and I believed that hunger was “good” because it meant weight loss. I began to purposefully restrict my food and made myself hungry because I wanted to be slimmer. And as I did this, I developed a binge eating disorder.

“But it is good to feel hungry, right?”

The answer to this question is: it depends. It depends on how hungry you are and for how long. It depends on how often you’re this hungry. It depends on what your relationships with food and your body are like.

Let’s consider this hunger / fullness scale for a moment:

There are of course benefits to allowing yourself to become a little to moderately hungry before eating; a 4 or 3 on the scale. On the most basic level, if you’re hungry, your body is prepared to efficiently take in, digest and metabolise your food. You even enjoy your food more if you’re actually hungry for it!

But if your hunger is more of a 2 or 1 on the scale, you’ve probably noticed that these are the times you’re most likely to binge eat. Feeling low on energy, heachachey and hangry isn’t fun either.

You may be wondering “what about intermittent fasting? That’s good for us isn’t it?” but that’s a whole other topic for another time. Ultimately, if you binge eat, I don’t recommend fasting because you want to focus on creating a sense of food security - a deep knowing that you can eat whatever you want whenever you want. And fasting, for most of us, doesn’t support this.

Feeling “safe” to be hungry

Now, back to the story about feeling hungry on my morning walk. I had that thought “it’s good to be hungry sometimes” and with it came a very momentary sense of “it’s okay that I’m hungry because it’s good”. Following that came a spiralling of thoughts (all within about 6 seconds!) with that dieter's voice like “hunger = weight loss” and “maybe I’ll go as long as I can without eating”. These thoughts instantly put me in a place of feeling restricted and in a way, panicked. The same panic that used to drive my binge urges.

Fortunately, I’ve gotten very good at catching these thoughts quickly and reminded myself of what I know to be true; that in that moment, it was safe for me to feel hungry .

It was safe for me to feel hungry because I’d only just started feeling that way.

It was safe because I was a 20-minute walk from home and I had food waiting for me there.

It was safe because I knew that the feeling of hunger alone wouldn’t drive me to binge eat.

It was safe because I trust that I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want.

Because of this mindset shift, I was able to acknowledge my hunger, feel okay about it and even relax into the moment. This is the freedom in binge eating recovery that I absolutely revel in! In the end, I got to enjoy the most beautiful walk - the first sunny morning after days of rain and a satisfying breakfast which I appreciated when I returned home.

I wanted to share this reframe from “it’s good to feel hungry sometimes” to “it’s safe to feel hungry sometimes” because I know that for some of you, that dieter’s voice will be there too. And I hope this helps you feel calm in those moments on your recovery journey when hunger strikes, and you’re not able to eat right away. That might be because you’re in a work meeting, you’re driving or you’re at a friend's and snacks aren’t on offer. This is life and it happens!

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Personal story: Why I'm no longer vegan

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 10:48:54 GMT

Reading time: 12 mins

This is not a piece I ever thought I’d be sitting down to write. For years, I was what I’d refer to as a “vegan vegan”; someone who took veganism very seriously. Living in London I was doing street activism weekly, I attended animal rights marches and volunteered at a farm animal sanctuary. I took part in a vigil, bearing witness to pigs arriving at a slaughterhouse by the lorry load, looking into their eyes and seeing the pain and terror there. It was absolutely haunting.

Veganism was a huge part of my life and I wanted to help create a world which no longer treated beautiful, sentient animals as a commodity, a product. Although that sentiment is something that’s still very much in my heart, my perspective has very slowly shifted over the last 2 years, and to the surprise of myself and those close to me, I can no longer say that I am vegan. How can that be? Let me explain…

Why I’m sharing this

A family member suggested that I don’t talk about this online, that instead I quietly get on with my life, eating whatever it is I feel I need to eat. As tempting as that is, there are three reasons why I really do want to put my experience out here:

I help women with their relationships with food and their bodies and I can’t do that fully if I’m not being open and honest about my own relationships with food and my body.
I especially help women who relate to being highly sensitive and / or empathic because that’s my experience of life too. I believe that these deep feeling and compassionate women are more likely to be vegan or aspire to be vegan than the average person because it’s in their caring nature. And I believe that there will be many who have had or will have a similar experience to mine, and will benefit from me sharing what I’ve gained from it.
As a vegan activist, I played a role in other people deciding to become vegan. I feel it’s only right to share the truth about how my beliefs have changed.

There will be people reading this who will feel angry at me, disappointed even. I know because in the past I watched, read and listened to other people telling their stories of why they’re no longer vegan and I felt outraged. I felt like they were betraying the animals and doing the vegan movement an injustice. I felt like they should have just tried harder; that all they needed to do was find the right balance of plant foods and supplements to be able to leave animals off their plates.

There will be those reading who believe animals and their “products” are essential to human health. That vegans have got it all wrong and think it’s no wonder veganism wasn’t sustainable for me in the long term.

There will be those who wonder “what’s the fuss? Why does this even need to be written?”.

And there will of course be everyone in between. Wherever you sit, I’m grateful you’re here and I hope this piece opens a new perspective or understanding within you.

Why I became vegan

It all changed with eggs

I’m telling you all of this to show you that deciding to eat animal products again wasn’t an easy or light decision. It started in April 2021 when I had been fully vegan for over five and a half years. I had breakfast with a friend, avocado on toast (a solid favourite of mine) but they had a poached duck egg on top of theirs. As I watched them cooking this egg, I had two realisations which totally shocked me:

My whole body was saying “I want that egg”.
I noticed that this wasn’t a new message from my body. It had been an underlying ask that I had been suppressing for months.

I didn’t tell anyone this at the time. I thought that I would be able to “fix” my body's needs without having to ever eat an egg. A couple of days after this discovery I moved to Mexico with my ex-partner Mark until the end of the year. I changed the supplements I was taking and looked into what nutrition eggs delivered, eating more sunflower seeds for folate and making protein-rich quinoa and lentil soups, for example.

Mark had never been vegan and most mornings he had fried eggs for breakfast. Again, my body was saying “I want those eggs” and some days I had to fight the urge to stick my finger in the yolk and lick it off.

It went on like this and I didn’t eat an egg. I did however stop talking about veganism on Instagram because I was no longer sure that it was the answer for many of us. During my time in Mexico, I’d also done some of my deepest inner work and had been binge free for months by the end of 2021. It was at this point I realised that I wanted to help other women to stop binge eating, and I started to move from teaching yoga to 1-1 coaching. I also knew that I couldn’t teach others to listen to their bodies whilst so blazingly ignoring my own.

After returning from Mexico I told Mark, my Mum and my Dad about what I’d been going through with eggs and they agreed that yeah, I should probably listen to my body. Although I had come to that decision myself already, a little part of me wanted to have that validation - especially from my Mum who is also vegan.

Finally in February 2022, over 10 months after realising I was needing eggs, I had my first one. I bought the fanciest organic and free-range eggs I could find and I sat with them; thanking the eggs, the chickens who laid them, the farmer who gave their care and Mother Nature for being the ultimate provider. And I had a single scrambled egg with toast.

In the moments I was eating that egg, I felt the deepest gratitude from my body. It was like it was saying “Yes! Thank you! This is what I’ve been asking for all of this time!”. It tasted a little funny - metallic - but the sense of relief I felt was overwhelming. Over the week I ate the rest of the 5 eggs and feeling sated, didn’t have any more for a month or so. When my body told me it wanted eggs again I’d buy another box, and it went like this for the rest of the year.

Next came fish

Then there’s the liver

It was pretty much at the same time as the fish that I noticed my body was wanting liver. I kept being shown an image of a liver in my minds-eye with that visceral feeling of “I want this please”.

Again, it took me a long time to get there but very recently, I bought some Ox liver from my local organic and regenerative farm. When it arrived I was surprised at how un-squeamish I felt when I slid it out of the package and rinsed it off. I sat with the liver, thanked it, thanked the cow, thanked the farmer, and thanked Mother Nature.

I had expected to have a similar awestricken experience as I’d had with eggs and fish but honestly, the smell, texture and taste of the liver made me wretch. I just couldn’t swallow it. And so I now have a tupperware full of liver in my freezer.

Despite this, I’m still getting the same wanting from my body and I’m not too sure what I’m going to do with this information right now. Thoroughly researching beef liver capsules is on my “to-do” list and I wouldn’t be surprised if I eat beef in another form this year. I’m sharing this because I’m still very much in the process of figuring some of this out for myself.

My views on veganism now

I was very much identified with being vegan. We usually say, “I am vegan” rather than “I eat a vegan diet” or “I follow a vegan lifestyle” because it is a part of who we are. There is pride in being vegan. So when I found that my ideals weren’t aligning with the truth I was experiencing, that was really hard. By my own moral standards I was becoming a “bad” person.

Sitting with this, I came to see how I’d been putting my ideology in front of my biology, and as nice as an idea it was - it wasn’t “it”. I had been ignoring the fact that I am an animal myself, and in trying to bypass that, I had lost part of my connection to the natural world. This spun me out a little, because I thought veganism was bringing me closer to animals and to the planet. But it was disregarding my biological truth; that I am as much a part of nature as anything else.

My relationships with food, my body and nature have only deepened over this time. The reverence and gratitude that I feel when I eat an egg or a piece of fish almost bring me to my knees, and this is something that I’m incorporating more and more into all of my food - not just those from animals. It’s what I call “devotional eating” - connecting to and giving gratitude to my food and where it came from as I’m shopping for it, preparing it and eating it. It’s a practice and something that I’m far from mastering, but something I’m very much feeling called to.

I do still feel the ways that we predominantly farm, kill and eat animals lack the love, respect, and devotion they deserve. This is where we’re out of relationship and harmony. We have lost the connection to the animals on our plates. Some might say “well how can you have love for an animal but also eat it or its eggs and milk” and this is very much where I was. But I can now see how these can be two sides of the same coin. It’s brutal, I know and I wish it wasn’t this way, but it is life.

I don’t have the answers, but I feel that small, local and regenerative farms are the closest thing we have to this right now (unless we homestead) and I’m grateful to those who farm with a strong relationship with their animals and with nature. This is a vast and nuanced topic which is beyond this piece today but is something I’m interested in exploring more.

Right now I’m eating about one egg every other day which is organic and free range via the local regenerative farm that I get my vegetables from. I’m eating wild caught fish roughly twice, every other week though I don’t have such a satisfactory source to buy it from (the supermarket is having to do). And I’m eating these very much on my terms - I likely wouldn’t eat them out or want someone else to cook them for me.

I am also open to my views changing again and again, as life presents me with new experiences and perspectives. Maybe I won’t feel the need to eat eggs for years at a time. Maybe I’ll begin to eat meat weekly. Maybe dairy will become part of my life. Maybe I’ll be vegan again. I really don’t know. All I do know is that I have to keep listening. Listening to my own body, and to the little nuggets of wisdom we all receive when we’re open to receiving them.

I think that is all any of us can do. To stay open and continue to cultivate relationships with ourselves, with animals, with land and nature in all its forms which are based in both love and truth. And to be loving and accepting of ourselves and others as we navigate this path.

If you got this far, thank you for reading. This was a cathartic exercise for me, but I really do hope my experiences can offer some helpful insights to you.

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“Why do I need to stop trying to lose weight for binge eating recovery?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 15:23:31 GMT

Reading time: 6 mins

If you’ve been on the binge eating recovery path for a while, it’s likely you’ve heard that an important part is letting go of weight loss as a goal. And I know this is such a hard thing to be told for most of us. You might really want to lose some weight! So, in this guide, we’re going to look at why letting go of weight loss can be such a pivotal step in recovery, and how you can make peace with it.

Okay, so - why?

There are lots of reasons why people binge eat and develop binge eating disorders. One common reason is linked to the pursuit of weight loss and what’s known as “the binge and restrict cycle” . This cycle begins with a belief that we are unworthy or not good enough and that we will be more acceptable and lovable to ourselves and others if we lose weight.

What then happens is that we restrict our food and exercise more with the goal of weight loss. This can look like dieting, fasts, counting calories and macros, “just being good”, intense exercise and tracking calories burnt. After a period of restriction, we usually experience physiological and psychological urges for food (such as regularly feeling unsatisfied when eating, lack of energy, and panic when you don’t have snacks with you). When these signals get ignored they get louder and louder until we “give in” and binge.

After a binge we usually feel bad about ourselves, recommit to our weight loss goals and the cycle continues. If you are someone who has been in this cycle for a while, perhaps you’ve noticed that just having the thought that you ought to start trying to lose weight triggers a binge. This is part of ‘mental restrictions’ which can also include labelling foods as “good” or “bad”, feeling shame about what you’ve eaten and the other ways you talk about food and your body in your head.

Pursuing weight loss can be a distraction

What’s more, it’s widely acknowledged in the scientific community that long-term weight loss due to dieting and restrictive eating is uncommon. A 2018 meta-analysis of 29 long-term weight loss studies found that “more than half of the lost weight was regained within two years, and by five years more than 80% of lost weight was regained” . A 2016 study that followed the contestants of the reality TV show “The Biggest Loser” over 6 years after the show finished has some interesting insights on this (it blows my mind that this show even existed). They found that the bodies of the contestants were actively fighting weight loss, slowing their metabolism right down. After the 6 years the winner of the series was using 800 fewer calories at rest than expected, every day.

Of course, it’s worth noting that not everyone who diets, fasts or restricts their food in any other way is going to start binge eating. But many of us do have complex relationships with food and our bodies. The results of a 2020 survey by House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee [UK] found that 61% of people aged 18+ feel negative or very negative about body image all the time. That’s a lot of suffering right there, much of it unnecessary. How do you feel when you consider the amount of time we collectively spend judging and trying to change our bodies instead of enjoying what we have? It’s pretty heartbreaking.

Still feeling the resistance?

You may also be thinking “but I need to lose weight for my health”, and of course improving your overall health is what this is all about. Again ask yourself that question: “has focusing on weight loss helped you to improve your long-term health, or has it taken you further from it?” Remember that health isn’t just about your physical body; it’s about your mental, emotional and spiritual states too. There are plenty of ways that we can improve our health, without it being all about weight loss. Paradoxically, taking the focus away from weight loss and over to other areas of your health may even lead to long-term weight loss.

Remember that here we’re talking about binge eating recovery. You may find that down the line when you no longer binge eat and you’ve made peace with your body, you do want to lose some weight. I believe that long-term weight loss, without messing up your relationship with food and your body is possible for many, but is a whole different conversation for another time.

What to focus on instead?

When you let go of weight loss as a goal, suddenly there is a whole lot more headspace and time to focus on your binge eating recovery. There are plenty of different paths to recovery and everyone’s is different so it’s helpful to spend some time understanding what’s behind your binge eating. One way to do this is to start exploring what’s behind your binge urges in the moments that you experience them and notice what patterns come up.

Do you binge when you’ve been around certain people or to a particular place? Is there a typical time of day you binge and if so, what happens in the lead-up to it? Do you binge when you’re trying to avoid certain foods? Do particular emotions such as boredom or anxiety trigger binges? Explore and use your reflections as your starting point.

If you resonated with the idea that your desire to lose weight stems from underlying feelings of unworthiness or not being good enough then diving into this will be key in your recovery. This often isn’t easy work because these beliefs can be so embedded, but my goodness, it’s incredibly worthwhile work which will touch all areas of your life!

Of course, if you feel overwhelmed by this information or know you’ll need support, reach out and get it from a therapist, counsellor or coach who specialises in binge eating. I have a guide to help you find the right type of support for you , as well as a guide to help you find the best level of support .

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Painting at the top of the page: The Three Graces, Rubens

Disclaimer: The content on this page is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or mental health issue. Do not disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this page.

“Someone I love struggles with binge eating, how can I help them?” Part 2: an interview with my ex-partner

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 12:45:43 GMT

Reading time: 13 mins

It’s always hard learning that someone you love is experiencing challenges in their life, especially when it’s something as pervasive and often misunderstood as binge eating. Most of us aren’t trained therapists or experts on binge eating and so it’s okay if you’re unsure of how best to support them. It’s wonderful that you’re here and looking to understand!

This article is a very open interview with my ex-partner of 12 years and now close friend Mark, from the perspective of being in a romantic relationship.

In it, he’s not only sharing how he supported me in my recovery, but he’s also being very honest about how my body image and binge eating impacted our relationship. This isn’t easy for either of us to share, but in doing so we really hope it’ll help other couples to not make the same mistakes we did.

If you’ve not already, I recommend you read these two pieces which this article follows on from before going further:

“Someone I love struggles with binge eating, how can I help them?” Part 1

"How do I tell someone I love about my binge eating?" Part 2: an interview with my ex-partner

We both hope that these combined resources will help you feel understood in the position you're in, and even more importantly, prepared and reassured that you can be of great support to your loved one.

Lucy: “Thanks for agreeing to answer some more questions, Mark. Firstly, what are the most important ways you feel you supported me when I was struggling with binge eating and my body image?”

Mark: “I feel like this is really a two-part question: 1) about your body image, which I knew about from fairly early on; 2) about your binge eating, which I knew about towards the last part of our relationship.

On the body image side (mostly from before I knew about the binge eating) :

I encouraged and partly paid for you to go to counselling, which you said helped you with your anxiety, and that seemed to be the case from my impression of how you were. I knew that all of these things are linked, so that was quite a good step forward.

When you needed it, I gave you respectful privacy (at what I felt were the right times). This was purely an instinctive thing on my part, e.g. if I felt you were more / less vulnerable that day I’d make more / less effort to either be looking elsewhere or out of the room when you were undressing, and so on. Probably this was an area that an early visit to a relationship counsellor could have helped me be better at (more on that soon). A shorter way of saying all this is that I tried extra hard to consciously practice being empathetic.

On the binge eating side:

I think I was good at realising and accepting (with zero blame or negativity towards you) pretty much immediately after you told me about your binge eating that fixing something of that nature was going to take longer to resolve than my previous expectations, when I thought it was “just” anxiety and body image issues (I say “just” because they’re obviously both still very unpleasant to suffer from).

I also quickly came to the conclusion that my previous approach, although devised with the best of intentions and with the knowledge I had at the time, wasn’t quite right, and that I needed to give you even more space to work through this yourself, with only subtle and occasional helpful suggestions. Of course, different people work in different ways, so the best thing to do is keep calibrating with your partner whether you’re handling things in a style that they feel is helping them the best.

Linked to my previous point, I accepted that there would be a longer term impact on our sex life and other aspects of our relationship than I’d previously anticipated. I decided that as long as I felt there was a gradual step forward in progress every year (realising there would be ups and downs along the way) then I could train myself to handle those challenges for the greater long-term good.

On the other hand, I was open with you - in what I felt was a clear but considerate way - that there were problems in our relationship that needed fixing. So I tried hard to balance being open about the impacts on our relationship with being empathetic with your situation. Not easy to do!

Relating to both body image and binge eating, I tried to be empathetic, sensitive and tactful about things I said, so as not to indirectly or inadvertently make you feel bad. I don’t mean talking about your appearance, but more about topics of general conversation and how I phrased things. To be clear, I didn’t feel like I was treading on eggshells or anything like that. It wasn’t a significant effort or challenge :)”

Lucy: “This isn’t an easy question, and you’ve mentioned some already, but what challenges did my binge eating disorder bring up for you and our relationship?”

Mark: “There were a mixture of impacts: some days you were down, or lacked mental energy, because of what you were going through. Our sex life was significantly affected. I also felt guilty at times about my eating behaviour, as I don’t think that always helped you (reader: I definitely like a sweet treat and those were the main moments when my empathy wasn’t there) .

During more difficult periods, these challenges caused me severe existential angst about our relationship, e.g. does a couple need a significant sex life to have a long-lasting relationship when the other aspects are mostly so amazing? Or the frustration of having days where I had lots of mental and physical energy but you didn’t. I had a few rather tortured periods wrestling with these things.

I never held any of this against you at all, but it still impacted our enjoyment of and energy for life at times.

The way I dealt with my existential angst was by likening it in my head to if you had been in a really bad car accident and various aspects of our relationship had been negatively impacted by you having a (purely hypothetical!) terrible physical injury. Would I have just ditched you in that situation? No! And society would have very reasonably regarded that as awful behaviour. I strongly believe we should apply that principle to any kind of accident or illness - whether they be mental or physical. After coming up with this strategy of managing my feelings and frustrations I got into an okay-to-good situation where the bad times were less bad, and they happened less often.

Ultimately, you having a binge eating disorder, combined with me not knowing fully until 8 years in, did put us on the path to the eventual breakup. But, as I explained in the first part of the interview, all of this started due to bad luck, and I did (and do) feel that the way things worked out was perfectly understandable. No blame here. That’s one of the valuable things that can come from this interview: I believe if we’d seen this sort of advice within the first 4 years of our relationship then we might well have made very different decisions that had a better long-term result. Now we only have hindsight, so neither of us should be blamed for that. I hope that others can learn from our experiences and be as happy as they can be :)”

Lucy: “I believe that communication is really important here but I also know that historically, as our dear reader can likely tell, communication wasn’t my strong point! You on the other hand were much better. What’s worked well for you when it comes to these difficult conversations?”

Mark: “Lucy will probably roll her eyes affectionately at hearing this for the millionth time (in a myriad of different contexts) �� But, in my experience, being open is either the most important or equal-most important part of having a successful relationship that lasts more than a few years. The main analogy I use for this is that having a difficult conversation is similar to getting vaccinated against a serious disease: it’s unpleasant and inconvenient, but if you don’t get that vaccination then it will likely turn into a case of you having the full-blown disease. The same principle applies to difficult conversations and the impact of not having them.

Taking the plunge is by FAR the hardest and most important part. Yes, it wasn’t one of your strengths to do that (although, reader, you should know that Lucy has many different talents and strengths) , but when you eventually told me about your binge eating you did an amazing job.

Another way of thinking that’s helped me have difficult conversations better than anyone I know is that years ago, by luck more than skill, I stumbled across the truism that we’re effectively being selfish if we don’t tell someone something they don’t want to hear - especially if it involves the other person having a weakness, making a mistake, or similar. Because the reason for us not doing it is usually that we don’t want to feel bad about making them feel bad. But we owe it to them to do that! That is exactly what we should do when we care about someone.

Keeping these principles firmly in our minds in everyday life makes taking the plunge into having a difficult conversation so much easier! I say easier because it’s still not easy. But the difference is huge.”

Lucy: “Being there for someone who is struggling with binge eating can be challenging. What did you find supportive for yourself, whilst you were there for me?”

Mark: “I mostly kept everything to myself to respect your privacy but I did - with your general permission - tell a couple of friends and family some of what was going on. It was very good of you to say you were okay with me doing that. I appreciated it so much, and it did help during the most difficult period for me personally.

Other than that, I tried to take enough time to process my thoughts and feelings, to get clear in my head what I wanted, how I could deal with things, and how I could support you in the best way. Definitely do make time for these activities if you are trying to support a loved one with a binge eating condition. It’s so important!”

Lucy: “What positive things did you learn about yourself, me and our relationship through this time?”

Mark: “I wish I could give you a deep and ground-breaking answer! But I don’t think I ‘learned’ anything, per se, about me, you and our relationship. I think how you and I handled things just reinforced in my mind some of the best and most positive things we had: e.g. being caring, empathetic, and other very nice characteristics of our dynamic.

Though it did effectively reinforce the thing I’ve always said, which is that the most important thing anyone can do in a relationship is to be open, and to have difficult conversations as soon as possible.”

Lucy: “What’s the biggest piece of advice would you give to someone who’s wanting to help their loved one with binge eating?”

Mark: “I’m going to cheat and give three!

Get professional help as soon as you discover about your loved one’s binge eating. Whether it be from a counsellor, a binge eating specialist, or ideally both of them and more. Work on building extra knowledge and skills to be the best you can be at performing that supportive role. The same applies to you both as a couple.
Be incredibly open (though tactful) about your thoughts and feelings, and encourage your partner to do the same. If you don’t feel fairly uncomfortable at times with how open you’re making yourself be then you’re almost certainly not being open enough and are storing up major problems for the future. Please be brave and both say as much as you can!
Give your loved one space to work through things at their own pace. We can’t force people to solve these sorts of problems, and we can’t solve those problems for them. They have to be ready and, ultimately, they have to do it themselves. Though of course do give plenty of moral and practical support in ways that suits what they want; and do be brave if things are clearly in a place where the other person needs to be told something they don’t want to hear. Just sanity check your feelings and method of communication to make sure you’re doing the right thing in the right way (that will truly help them overall).”

Lucy: “I know that lots of this hasn’t been easy to talk about so thank you from the depths of my heart for being so open. Is there anything else you’d like to share?”

Mark: “No, thank you. I feel like your questions got all the key points out of my brain :)”

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"How do I tell someone I love about my binge eating?" Part 2: an interview with my ex-partner

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 20:32:14 GMT

Reading time: 12 mins

As you consider telling someone you love about your experiences with binge eating, questions often come up like “how should I tell them?”, “When’s the right time?” and “What do they need to know?”. This is why I created my guide “How do I tell someone I love about my binge eating?” Part 1 where we look at how to have this often vulnerable and difficult conversation.

But other types of questions also come up; the more nagging questions like “how will they take it?”, “Will they think of me differently?” and “Will it affect our relationship?”. Of course, everyone’s relationship is different and we each have our own ways of dealing with challenges, not to mention ideas about what binge eating actually is .

Even so, I thought it would be helpful to give you another perspective and ask my ex-partner and now close friend Mark some questions about his experience when I told him about my own bingeing. At this time we had been together for about 8 years (we went on to be together for over 12 years) and I had been bingeing for at least 10 years.

This is an incredibly open and oftentimes vulnerable conversation and it’s taken a lot from us to be able to put it into the world. However, we both feel these are some of the most important insights we’ll ever share and know they’ll help many people. It had to be done!

We’re coming at this interview from the perspective of those who were in a romantic partnership, but lots of what we share can be applied to other types of relationships too, like close friends and family. We hope this will help you to feel more reassured about bringing up the subject with your own loved one, and have a more positive and productive conversation…

Lucy: "From what we both remember, I gave you some glimpses of insight into how insecure I felt about my body and my strained relationship with food from 2-3 years into our relationship. However, it wasn’t until 8 years in that I explicitly told you about my full experiences with binge eating.

You remember more about that day than I do, so can you set the scene, please?"

Mark: Some context for the reader: at this point in time Lucy and I were living in London, in houses about 10 minutes walk from each other. We’d recently spent 5 months together travelling around South-East Asia and were now working on our own business projects from home during most daytimes. We frequently met up on benches in front of the docks near Lucy’s house to have a chat and spend a bit of quality time together.

"I still can picture everything about it so vividly.

On that day, I had a clear sense that you were very nervous, and you quickly broke into telling me that you had a problem with binge eating. I’ll leave out my emotions and reactions for this question, as that’s a whole topic in itself, and will focus on what you said and how you said it.

You told me in full detail the extent of what your binge eating routines were. About often going to the supermarket twice a day, despite having not much money at all, and buying a shocking amount of junk food and consuming it in a single sitting after each of those shopping trips.

You then described how you’d started binge eating in your teens when you went to the shop at break times, and also mentioned that you’d been bulimic for roughly a year in your early twenties.

From almost immediately after the beginning of the conversation you were crying. It didn’t feel right to invade your space while you were telling me something so important, but as soon as you’d finished I put my arm around your shoulders and we cuddled up as I replied.

People were walking past throughout (it’s a reasonably popular area for walks) but I vividly remember not caring about them at all. I’m sure you were the same."

Lucy: "What did you know about binge eating and binge eating disorder at the time, if anything?"

Mark: "Next to nothing. Just some stories on the news about the occasional famous person (e.g. I think Princess Diana said she had been bulimic at some point), and there was nothing practically useful in those stories - just gossip or sensationalism."

Lucy: "What do you think I did well when I told you about my experiences?"

Mark: "I’m not sure whether you were holding anything back, but it certainly seemed like you were being very open - I was pleased (though sad) and proud of you for that, and still feel that way now. You weren’t afraid to say things that probably felt embarrassing, like the amount of food and money involved in your binges. Again, I was and am very proud of you for that.

It was good to hear as much detail as possible - I just wanted to understand. Partly to be able to empathise with you, and partly to hopefully be able to help and be supportive in the future. You held yourself together very well, which helped you to be coherent and convey the message in an effective way."

Lucy: "I’ve grown a lot since then and I’m sure I would do things differently now. What do you think I could have done to help you understand me and what I needed better?"

Mark: "This is the hardest thing to share, but please be clear that I don’t mean it in a negative or blaming way. Also, there are plenty of things I would have done differently in hindsight, so I can hardly say this in a negative manner, only in a constructive, supportive and caring (though difficult) way of hopefully helping you, and helping others in similar situations…

If, somehow, we could go back in time and get you to change what you did, it would have been to tell me explicitly about your binge eating much, much earlier. As in, years earlier. I know you feel you partly did that after 2-3 years, but if you did attempt to do so then it was in such a way that I had zero idea that you actually meant binge eating.

We were in a partnership, and it could have made a big difference to helping you heal faster if we’d worked together on it from near the beginning with the actual core issue in mind. For example, I helped you to go to a counsellor for anxiety, but it turned out I was working in a direction that wasn’t getting to the core of your problems, even if it did help in some ways.

Also, given the significant impact on our sex life of your weight gain hitting your self-esteem and confidence, which eventually played a large part in our breakup (though that was totally amicable, for the record - to the readers of this!), not knowing the main reason for that weight gain - and your mental health challenges - until 8 years in meant it was almost impossible for us to fix it and change the direction our relationship had taken. I’m still sad about that, though there’s truly no blame or anger, I promise :) - I truly do understand why it was so difficult :)

It’s worth pointing out that my weight gain must have played a part too, despite your protestations to the contrary - which I feel bad about because I regard that behaviour by me as selfish, as opposed to you having a medical condition, which wasn’t your fault.

***With all this in mind, I would just plead with anyone suffering from binge eating to be open as much and as early as possible. Nice and caring people will understand***

A good way of thinking about things like this is that when you’re in a partnership it will work so much better when both sides understand the important things that are going on with the other person. Sometimes the partnership can’t work quite right when that knowledge isn’t there, which I think is one of the bigger things that happened to us.

But in terms of what you actually told me on the day, I think you did very well. You probably couldn’t have done much better, really! :)"

Lucy: "I would agree with that. It’s exhausting hiding binge eating from anyone, let alone the most important people in your life. I think at this point I felt utterly relieved, especially by the fact you received it all so well.

How has your understanding of binge eating changed since that time?"

Mark: "I didn’t realise how prevalent it is, or about the potential triggers. A shockingly high percentage of my female friends said they’d had troubles with binge eating after I told them about you (only after you’d made it public, not before, to be clear!) So my experience with you has made me more aware of binge eating and more empathetic toward people who suffer from it."

Lucy: "Thank you so much for sharing your perspective! I really appreciate it and I know this is going to help many people. Is there anything else you’d like to add?"

Mark: "Not really :) You asked very good questions and drew out all the key points :) As I always say: I am very proud of you for overcoming binge eating, and for everything you have done to help others with binge eating issues."

Mark has also kindly answered more questions in my guide “ Someone I love struggles with binge eating, how can I help them?” Part 2: an interview with my ex-partner. This interview is aimed towards someone whose loved one is struggling with binge eating but I do recommend that you read this one too, before sharing it with them.

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“How can I help my binge eating recovery this new year?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 15:12:48 GMT

Reading time: 6 mins

Many of us look forward to the turning of the new year; the feeling of starting afresh as we get excited about what we want for the year ahead. There comes a feeling of hope as we enter January - “this is the year I’ll sort out my eating and lose weight” we whisper to ourselves.

And so this can be an especially challenging month for those who binge eat for two main reasons:

1. Resolutions to lose weight through dieting, clean eating, fasting or “just being good” can keep you stuck in a binge and restrict cycle.

It works like this; you feel insecure about your body so you restrict your food to try to lose weight. Your body's physiological and psychological survival instincts kick in which urge you to eat. When these urges are ignored they build up until you eventually “give in” which results in a big eating blowout; a binge. You then feel bad that you binged, that your dieting efforts were for nothing, so you continue to restrict food and promise yourself that you won’t binge again.

This is a cycle that can go on and on and on until you do something different to break it ( my free mini-course will help you with this ).

2. You are more susceptible to emotional eating and binges

Stress, boredom, loneliness, anxiety and insecurity are all high in January and that can be hard to deal with, especially if you’re a tender-hearted or highly sensitive woman. And if you’ve historically used food to avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions, it’s likely you will now too.

Even if you’re just feeling a bit low and depleted, food can be a source of comfort and energy. And that’s okay by the way!

A simple “I’m going to stop binge eating” resolution is unlikely to help you here I’m afraid, it’ll take some deeper work to move through and release those underlying thoughts, beliefs and emotions ( my free masterclass will take you through a 5-step proces s ).

I know so far I’ve painted January as an “all doom and gloom” month but I really don’t see it that way. And I actually believe that it can be a month of great healing for your relationships with food and your body.

Here’s how…

Go slow and be gentle

Along with the points above, there is so much noise in the world right now. There is diet and exercise messaging everywhere; on social media, in TV adverts, magazines and even in the supermarket. Everyone seems to be telling you that now’s the time to lose weight, to eat light or clean or try Veganuary and exercise more intensely. And that you’ve got to be doing, doing, doing to get the year off to the best start.

So if you’re craving quiet time and rest over dark early mornings at HIT classes listen to that. If your body wants to eat heavier wintery food rather than salads and smoothies, embrace that and know that it’s not only okay, it’s completely natural!

Let go of what you think you “should'' or “shouldn’t” be doing, and start listening to what you actually need. Also, acknowledge the challenges of January and know that you are doing your best with what you have and what you know.

Be kind and gentle to yourself always, but especially now.

Take time to reflect

If you feel drawn to inner reflection, here are 10 questions for you. Although most of them might not seem to have anything to do with binge eating, food or your body - trust the process. It all comes back to how you’re relating to yourself.

This might be a good time to get your journal out but if you don’t get along with long-form writing, answer the questions aloud, noting down any new insights. Just please give yourself time and space to really feel into and answer these questions however you interpret them…

What have I noticed the most over the last year?

What have I not noticed or been avoiding?

Have my values changed? Or are they changing?

What do I need to forgive myself for?

What parts of myself have I not been accepting or loving?

How can I bring more acceptance and love here?

Who have I been?

Who am I becoming?

What is my greatest resource? How can I protect it?

What are the three most important things for me to remember this year?

I hope this article helps you to approach the new year a little differently, in a way that is truly supportive of you and your binge eating recovery.

If you feel the need for more support in your journey, I’m currently taking on new 1-1 clients. You can learn about my 1-1 coaching here and email lucy@bingefreeandworthy.com to book your free exploration call.

Whatever happens next, you don’t have to navigate recovery alone

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“Someone I love struggles with binge eating, how can I help them?” Part 1

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 14:56:20 GMT

Reading time: 8 mins

Perhaps your partner, child or close friend has told you that they binge eat, or maybe you’ve picked up on some of their behaviours that point to binge eating. And you of course want to be there for them, however you’re just not sure what to say or how best to support them.

That’s okay! In this guide, we’re going to look at what you need to know about binge eating, and how you can help them in the most loving ways.

Understanding binge eating

Generally, many people are unfamiliar with binge eating, especially as an eating disorder so don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t know much about it, if anything. And binge eating has lots of misconceptions around it too; we often believe that the person struggling just needs more willpower or should be able to snap out of it.

But neither of these things are true. People who binge are often incredibly disciplined, but there are two parts of them batting it out; the part that needs the binge and the part that wants to recover. And this inner battle can cause a lot of suffering.

Getting a good understanding of binge eating is a great place to start. I’ve written a guide looking at what binge eating and binge eating disorder are , so I highly recommend you take a look at this.

Beat is the UK’s leading eating disorder charity and has a great page explaining binge eating disorder here too.

It's also helpful to know that most people keep their binge eating a very guarded secret; there can be a lot of guilt and shame surrounding it. And so this person has likely shared this with you from a vulnerable place and is trusting that you will have their best interests at heart.

Ask them how they want to be supported

Allow them to let go of weight loss as a goal

An important part of binge eating recovery for many people is to intentionally stop trying to lose weight.

There are lots of reasons why people binge, and one of the most common leads to what’s known as “the binge and restrict cycle”. This starts when someone feels insecure about their body, particularly about the size and shape of it and diet or restrict food in order to lose weight. For some, this dieting can trigger a very real and urgent physiological and psychological need for food, and this can lead to a binge. The cycle continues when they then feel the need to “make up” for the binge, and so continue to restrict their food, again driving them to binge. To be able to break this cycle they need to let go of the desire, for now at least, to lose weight.

When they stop trying to intentionally lose weight, it also gives them space to work on healing their relationship with their body. This might look like learning to accept and love it exactly as it is, eating for true nourishment as well as pleasure, and exercising to feel good.

Be patient with them

In my experience and from what I’ve witnessed in others, binge eating recovery can take some time, though of course not always. Some people binge eat for years and so there might be a lot of unlearning that needs to take place, whilst rewiring new thoughts, beliefs and habits.

Recovery also isn’t a one-size-fits-all. They may have to try several different approaches until they find what works best for them and this can include working with more than one professional. There may also be tough patches where they seemingly slip to point zero in their recovery, but this is part of it and can be used as an opportunity for understanding themself better. It’s all information and it can all be helpful, if allowed to be.

Give them space

The hard truth is that recovery for most people isn’t easy. It takes big, fundamental change, self-inquiry and reflection and this can be really uncomfortable for many reasons. One of the best ways that you can support your loved one is to give them the space that they need to do this important work in their recovery.

Show them they are loved

Make sure you’re also supported

If this loved one is leaning on you a lot, and you’re finding it a challenge, that’s okay. Perhaps you also need support. Do you have someone that you can talk to, either someone close to you or a professional? If you feel as though the help you’re giving is too much, or you’re out of your depth, communicate this to your loved one. Perhaps now would be a good time to look into the right external support together.

Remember there is never any shame in reaching out and asking for what you need.

Reflect on your own relationship with food and your body

Keep an open conversation going

Binge eating can be a very hard thing to talk about, especially if someone doesn’t feel like they’re making the progress they want. Your loved one bringing it up in the first place likely took a lot of bravery and so help them by keeping the conversation going. Keep it light, open and touch base regularly.

A couple of helpful opening questions you might want to ask include: “What, if anything, has been coming up for you [in your recovery] lately?” and “Last time we talked about binge eating you mentioned X, how’s that been?”.

I hope this guide has helped you to feel better prepared to support your loved one. My ex-partner and I have co-written an interview-style article as a part-2 to this one, which I'm sure you'll find helpful. Mark was with me through the majority of my own 14-year challenge with binge eating, and so is sharing his own invaluable experience and advice. You can read it here .

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“How do I tell someone I love about my binge eating?” Part 1

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 07:36:14 GMT

Reading time: 7 mins

Telling someone you love that you binge eat can be an incredibly vulnerable and scary thing; whether that’s a parent, partner, adult child, close friend or anyone else. I remember getting to the point in my previous relationship where I felt like I couldn’t keep my bingeing a secret any longer. And that had a lot to do with the fact that I needed support. I needed to let someone in and I was terrified at how I’d be received.

Perhaps you’re in a similar place and know that part of your recovery is allowing someone close to you in. If so, I really do honour you and these very brave steps you’re about to take.

The most important thing

In this guide, I’m going to share some things for you to consider when telling this person about your binge eating, but that’s what this is; a guide. I’d love for you to take a little time for yourself and reflect on your relationship with that person, the ways that you feel it’s best to share with them, and what you’d like from your conversation.

Get clear on why you’re telling them

Before opening up to someone about your bingeing, firstly know within yourself what you want from the conversation. Do you simply want them to understand what’s going on for you? Or are you also wanting support from them? If so, what kind of support do you need; emotional, accountability, financial or something else? What does this support ideally look like?

Knowing the answer to these questions will help you to be clear, ask for what you need and overall feel more satisfied with your conversation.

How to tell them

Wherever possible, I recommend that you tell this person about your binge eating in person. This hopefully means that you can experience yourself being listened to (many of us just want to be seen and heard), and it also makes it easier for them to ask questions. Although it’s scary, once you start talking it might be easier for you to open your heart to them and really allow yourself to share from this vulnerable space.

If you want to cry, let it come and express the emotion behind what you’re going through. This type of sharing might seem messy and uncontrolled, but that’s okay. Sometimes you’ve just got to let it out! And it’ll help this person to understand where you’re truly at.

I know that speaking in person isn’t always possible, and in that case, you might want to speak over a voice or video call. However, if you really feel that you won’t be able to say what you want, either in person or on a call, you can always write a letter or an email. You might find that this helps you to form what you want to share in a more precise and constructive way. In fact, writing out what you want to say might be a helpful exercise, whether speaking to this person or not. Reading what you’ve written allowed to your person can also be a great way of sharing.

Finding the right time and place

Have resources ready

There are a lot of misconceptions about binge eating, and most people don’t know that binge eating disorder is even a thing! Therefore I recommend that you have some information to hand in case they have questions or need more clarity about what you’re going through.

My article “What is binge eating disorder?” might be a helpful page to have ready, as well as the Binge Eating Disorder page from BEAT, an eating disorder charity here in the UK.

You can also send them these resources to look through in their own time, especially if they express that they want to understand more about binge eating.

Avoid the blame game

Be compassionate towards yourself, and them

This point links with the one above. As you go through this process of opening up and sharing these often uncomfortable and personal stories with others, please be really kind to yourself. You are doing your best with the tools and awareness that you have right now.

Also, know that what you’re sharing may come as a shock to the person you’re talking to, especially if you’re close and they had no idea about your binge eating. They may need some time to digest what you’ve said and to fully understand you, so try not to expect too much from them right away.

Feel and share your appreciation

This may seem like such a small thing, but gratitude is powerful and we all want to feel appreciated! I am assuming here that your conversation at least goes reasonably well, so acknowledge how it feels to share and let this person know, along with your thanks.

Even if it’s just for a few seconds, thank yourself too! Really allow that sense of gratitude (and perhaps the relief you’re feeling!) to permeate through your body. You are doing a brave thing and that’s absolutely worth celebrating. This is important because our minds love to focus on the negatives, so practice being with and feeling the good stuff too. Let it in.

Keep the conversation going

With these difficult-to-have conversations, it can be tempting to shy away from having them again. But I’ve learnt just how important it is to keep them going and to take action on whatever your next steps are. You don’t want to get stuck here so keep the momentum going.

To have a more open dialect about binge eating and your experiences, normalise the subject . Bring it up in smaller ways and in everyday conversations. This can be anything from “I’m less likely to binge later if I enjoy dessert out with you now” to “I experienced binge urges yesterday and I didn’t act on them. This is a huge step forward for me!”.

I’ve also interviewed my ex-partner of 12 years as a follow-up to this guide, sharing our personal experience from when I told him about my own binge eating. It’s full of helpful insights which you can read here .

I do hope these resources support you in telling the person or people you love about your binge eating, and that you’re feeling more reassured and prepared.

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“What is binge eating disorder?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 12:59:35 GMT

Reading time: 3 mins

If you’ve found yourself on this page, it’s likely that you think you have a binge eating disorder, or that someone you love does. Perhaps you’ve been told that you do in fact binge eat and you’re trying to understand the behaviour better.

Either way, I know that you might be feeling worried, frustrated or perhaps even scared, and that’s okay. Take a full breath, relax your tummy, open your heart and let's look at binge eating disorder together…

What is binge eating?

Why do people binge eat?

There are many reasons why someone might binge eat. One common cause is that it’s a reaction to being on a weight loss diet, or any kind of restrictive diet, whether that’s restricting calories, food groups or particular food items. The reason this often happens is twofold; your physiological and/or psychological instincts are kicking in!

Physiologically your body is driving you to consume large amounts of food, often food with a lot of energy because it’s not getting what it needs - it’s in survival mode. Psychologically we often want what we can’t have, and if it’s food that you enjoy that you’re not allowing yourself, your mind might be rebelling.

Bingeing can also be more emotional, with food used to numb out uncomfortable feelings or situations. These are just two common reasons which you may recognise, but bingeing can also be a response to trauma, depression or feeling insecure in your body, to name a few.

What is a binge eating disorder?

What this all means

Whether or not binge eating is diagnosed as a disorder for you or someone you love, I don’t think it matters too much. If you feel like your eating has become a problem, is out of control or is causing health worries, you are absolutely worthy of support to get your relationships with food and your body to where you want them to be. Thankfully, there is plenty of help out there.

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“Should I be “anti-diet”? 4 reasons why not

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 14:43:49 GMT

Reading time: 7 mins

If you’re looking to get help with binge eating, it’s likely you’ll have come across the term “anti-diet”. You may even have noticed that many binge eating co aches, counsellors and therapists refer to themselves or their method as anti-diet.

The anti-diet movement is opposed to “diet culture”. In a nutshell, diet culture refers to the underlying collective beliefs that many of us hold; that thinness equates to health, attractiveness and being a “good” person. In a sense, being thin has become a moral virtue. This in turn has led us to our obsession with scrutinising our bodies and dieting to lose weight.

And if this is the stage you’re at, I encourage you to get angry. Rage it out. Go throw some paired socks at your wall and shout into a pillow!

But then slow down and take a breath. Let’s look at the anti-diet movement in another way…

Why I don’t believe anti-diet is the way forward

It may surprise you to know that as someone who had a binge eating disorder for 14 years and now helps other women to free themselves, I’m not an anti-diet coach. And I feel like a rebel in the binge eating support world because of this.

It was around 2017 when I learned the term anti-diet, and like a good student of intuitive eating back then, I rejected everything about diet culture (principle 1 of 10 is “reject the diet mentality”). Part of me felt like “yes, this is it! This is how I’m going to stop binge eating”. However, another part of me felt like something here was missing.

It took me a couple of years of consuming all things anti-diet - books, podcasts, Youtube videos and Instagram accounts from anti-diet dieticians and educators, to really uncover these four reasons within myself…

Reason 1: Be for, not against

Reason 2: The movement creates yet more shame

I agree with the anti-diet movement when it tells us that thinness doesn’t equal health. Heath is a very broad term and there is so much that contributes to us being well and feeling good. You may even have heard of the “ Health at Every Size ” or “HAES” community, whose aim is to de-emphasise weight loss as a health goal.

What I have found, however, is that the anti-diet movement can create an environment where wanting to pursue wellbeing through the food we eat is made wrong. It’s not something that is outrightly said, but instead is an undercurrent of many of the conversations around food and health from the anti-diet perspective.

This can be easily argued against by those who are part of the movement because it’s not what anti-diet is meant to be about. But the truth is, many of us do feel as though we’re not allowed to focus on eating nourishing foods in our binge eating recovery. This is something that I felt, and know many others have from both coaching and personal conversations.

In binge eating recovery you want to take away the shame and guilt for eating what you truly desire and need. Not just move the shame from eating “unhealthy” foods to eating “healthy” ones.

Reason 4: Anti-diet can be a helpful stage, but it’s not the goal

Contrary to the previous points, I do believe that for some of us who have been really wrapped up in diet culture, anti-diet can be a helpful stage as part of binge eating recovery.

Getting angry at and rejecting diet culture can have its place. You may need to go through this stage in order to leave behind old dieting, restrictive eating and obsessive exercise patterns. But that’s all it needs to be, a stage.

I like to think of this just like the 5 stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Grief may be a very alive emotion in your recovery - grief for the loss of time or health, for your old self, the body you always wanted or the fun you missed out on… To get to acceptance and recovery, you have to move through each stage, anger being one of them.

So what is the right way?

Diet culture isn't the way forward, but neither is anti-diet. And you know what, that’s okay! There is a middle path paved for you. I’ve found that letting go of the goal of weight loss in recovery is a key element, but creating peaceful and loving relationships with food, your body and life are too.

In the beginning, this likely will look like reintroducing foods that you’ve previously restricted or viewed as “bad” so that you take away the fear and shame of eating them (my free mini-course will help you with this). You may have noticed that when you tell yourself you’re not allowed to eat something, you really want to eat that thing, and it’s what you often end up bingeing on.

Once you’ve done this healing work around those foods and they no longer hold power over you, it becomes more of a choice as to whether you want to eat them or not. You don’t need to feel bad for supporting your health through the food you eat, in the same way that you don’t need to feel bad when you choose to enjoy an ice cream with your friends.

I hope this article provides a helpful perspective to you, whether or not you’ve resonated with the anti-diet movement. I know this can be quite an emotive topic and so I really encourage you to explore it for yourself; take in some other people's perspectives, and see what feels right to you.

I’d also love to hear your thoughts about anti-diet - we can all learn something from one another so please leave a comment below.

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“What Should I Know Before Seeing My Doctor for Binge Eating Support?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 14:23:52 GMT

Reading time: 5 mins

I feel it’s particularly important to make this guide because although it’s getting better, binge eating disorder often isn’t very well understood or recognised, even by our doctors. Going to see a GP about your bingeing can be a really vulnerable thing and I know the feeling of being dismissed by a doctor after opening up in this way.

So, I want you to understand the realities of taking this route, whilst helping you to get into the best possible position to receive that support.

Most of the information is based on our health service here in the UK, but I hope there are also parts that are relevant wherever you are in the world.

Why visit your doctor

If you have come to a place in your binge eating journey where you feel ready for support, that is wonderful and I’m celebrating you for taking this step! Maybe you’ve started looking into your options and have seen that there is plenty of support available online and in person, in the form of therapists, counsellors and coaches.

It is however a simple fact that not everyone can afford or wants to go private in their binge eating recovery and that’s okay. It’s what our health service is for after all.

If that support is there for you and you want it - you should absolutely reach out and take it!

What the NHS can offer you

Getting prepared for your appointment

Information

As I mentioned at the beginning, not every doctor is clued up on binge eating and so it may help you to have some information with you to back up your case. This will require a bit of “reading the room” and tact during your appointment, as you probably don’t want to come across as though you’re telling your doctor how to do their job!

I recommend simply having the NHS binge eating disorder overview page loaded on your phone so that if needed, you can show them why you believe you need support with this.

Another great resource that you could have to hand is the Beat binge eating disorder overview. Beat is the UK’s eating disorder charity, founded by the Eating Disorders Association.

Expectations

If you want to get support via your doctor for binge eating then have a referral as your goal for the appointment. Go for that goal, but also set your expectations. Know that:

You may not be offered a referral on your first visit.
The level of support you want may not be given to you.
You may have to wait a significant period of time to begin treatment.
They may tell you to lose weight which is not a form of treatment in itself. This is stated by NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) in their 2017 guideline for psychological treatment for binge eating disorders [3]. NICE outlines evidence-based recommendations for healthcare and you can also show this resource to your doctor if needed.

Be good to you!

In the lead up to your appointment, acknowledge that you are doing a really brave thing. Celebrate yourself and take as best care of you as you can.

During your appointment

After your appointment

You got referred

Great, I am so happy for you! Remember that there are tons of resources out there (including lots of free support) to help you in between now and your treatment beginning. You can also use this time to think about what you most want to get from your treatment so that you can clearly communicate this during your first session.

Make sure you’re also available for any scheduled calls or appointments in relation to your referral. There can be a waitlist to get this treatment and I know people who have lost support due to missing a single call. You don’t want that to be you!

You didn’t get referred

I’m really sorry that you didn’t get the support you need right now. I know how disappointing and frustrating it can feel. But, there is no reason why you can’t try again. Seeing the same doctor for a second time may help them to realise how important it is that you get help, or a different doctor might refer you straight away.

Whatever happens, don’t give up on the idea of recovery. If you don’t get anywhere with the NHS, there is lots of support out there. Maybe that looks like making the most of the free support, binge eating recovery books, paying for a low cost self-paced online programme or going all in with a therapist, counsellor or coach.

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References

NHS binge eating disorder treatments: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/binge-eating/overview/
Professor Christopher Fairburn’s work with pioneering NHS treatment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Fairburn
NICE psychological treatment for binge eating disorder in adults: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng69/chapter/Recommendations#treating-binge-eating-disorder

“What Level of Support Do I Need to Heal from Binge Eating: 1-1, Group or Self-paced?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Wed, 08 Jun 2022 08:57:18 GMT

Reading time: 4 mins

As you begin your research into binge eating help, you’ll likely come across facilitators who offer different types of support (like coaching, counselling or therapy), as well as different levels of support.

To learn about the different types you’ll want to read this guide: Which Type of Binge Eating Support is Best for Me: Counselling, Therapy or Coaching?

On this page, however, we’ll be exploring the main advantages and disadvantages of 1-1, group and self-paced support so that you can decide which is best for you right now…

One-to-one (1-1)

This is the highest level of support you can receive. Because you're working directly with your counsellor, therapist or coach, they can completely tailor their support to you and your unique needs.

1-1 advantages

Sessions focus on your specific challenges and goals.
You have accountability from your facilitator to show up and take action.
They can help you find the tools and techniques that most benefit you.
Sessions can often be arranged at times convenient for you.
With a good facilitator, you might feel that you are being truly seen and heard and as vulnerable as this can be, it can also be incredibly healing.
Because of all of the above, you likely have the highest chance of binge eating recovery.

1-1 disadvantages

It comes with the highest level of investment.
You may have to wait for space to become available and their session times may not be convenient for you.

Group

Self-paced

This level is usually an online programme made up of videos and tasks which you complete at your own pace. It’s unlikely that any of the content will be tailored to you but it can be a really effective way of making huge progress in your recovery with less of an investment.

Self-paced advantages

It comes with the lowest level of investment.
It’s an amazing way to work with the top / your most desired counsellor / therapist / coach etc without paying a lot or having to wait for them to become available.
You can start working through the content as soon as you sign up.
It’s completely flexible around your schedule and you can work through the programme at your own speed.
You’ll often have long term access to the programme so you can revisit areas if needed.

Self-paced disadvantages

Because support is more general, you may not get the level of help that you need.
There may be parts of the programme that are irrelevant to you.
You may not be able to get help with questions and challenges that come up for you.
There is a lack of accountability from others and more of a need for self-motivation.

Some final thoughts

As someone who has received 1-1, group and self-paced support I want to add that no one is necessarily better than the other. We are all unique and need different support depending on where we are in our journey. You’ve got to look at the advantages and disadvantages as part of the bigger picture, including what type of support you want as well as who you’d like to work with.

The “who” is specifically important. Getting binge eating support is a vulnerable thing and you want to make sure that you feel like you’re being truly understood and held in that support.

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“Which Type of Binge Eating Support is Best for Me: Counselling, Therapy or Coaching?”

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 10:45:00 GMT

Reading time: 5 mins

Deciding to get support is a huge step in your binge eating recovery. Because you’re reading this I’m assuming that you’re at least considering help and I’m so happy that you’re here!

I know it can also be quite an overwhelming step. There are so many different people offering different types of support that it can be hard to figure out where to start or what’s going to be best.

That’s what this guide is about - looking at the main types of binge eating recovery support so that you can more easily decide what is going to be right for you.

First things first: get specific

Before we look at the different levels and types of support, it’s worth knowing that there are many great coaches, therapists and counsellors out there, all with their different areas of interest and expertise. This means that not everyone is going to be equipped with the knowledge and tools to help you with your binge eating recovery. And that’s okay! We needn’t expect every facilitator to be able to help with every concern.

In my experience, I’ve found that binge eating help is actually quite niched. There is sometimes well-meaning advice given such as “completely avoid the foods that trigger your binges” or “follow this diet to lose weight” which can be quite damaging to recovery.

Therefore I recommend working with someone who specialises in binge eating, or at the very least has had significant experience in this area.

There are lots of people like myself who solely help people with binge eating. But if there is a particular therapist for example who you’ve worked with in the past or feel drawn to, don’t be afraid to ask them about their experience and the techniques they use.

Next, get even more specific!

What type of support is for you? The main three

Okay, you’ve now got an idea of what you specifically want help with, let’s get into the three main types of support on offer for binge eating.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is a type of talking therapy that helps you become aware of and deal positively with the underlying thoughts and feelings that are causing you to binge eat. The aim is to teach you ways to change your more unhelpful patterns and improve the way you feel.

CBT very much focuses on where you’re at in your journey right now. It helps you to recognise your day to day challenges and shows you how to break them down so they’re more manageable. For example, you may learn helpful steps that you can take when you’re feeling insecure about your body.

If you are referred for help by your GP in the UK, it’s likely that you’ll be receiving some kind of self-paced programme based on CBT or group CBT sessions.

Counselling

Counselling like CBT is talking focused but is often less directive. Counsellors are usually great question askers and listeners, asking open questions to encourage you to understand yourself better.

For example, they may ask you questions about what tends to happen before you experience binge urges, so you can begin to recognise patterns within yourself. From this, you can more easily choose a different route when you notice a particular pattern coming up for you.

A counsellor may offer you techniques or advise you on steps to take, but they are not there to tell you what you should think or do. With their guidance, you are able to find your own path forward and away from binge eating.

Coaching

Other types of support

Somatic Therapy

‘Soma’ is the Ancient Greek word for body. Where CBT and counselling predominantly work with your mind, somatic therapies focus on your body. This can be anything from helping you to calm and take control of your nervous system in those moments you want to binge, or release emotional tension held in your body.

Somatic Therapy includes many practices such as breathwork, meditation, yoga, shaking, tapping and dance. Many types of facilitators may include somatic therapies within their sessions, or you can look to work specifically with a somatic therapist who specialises in binge eating.

Nutritional Therapy

It might be helpful to work with a nutritionist if alongside binge eating you also have other conditions such as digestive or hormonal issues. They’ll be able to run tests to help find out what’s going on with you and equip you with personal dietary and lifestyle advice to help with your overall wellbeing.

It’s helpful to be aware that nutritional advice can trigger binges. So if you think it would be helpful to work with a nutritional therapist, make sure that you work with someone who truly understands binge eating.

Hypnotherapy

Hypnosis is when you’re put into a trance-like state where you are highly focused and suggestible. It’s all about working with your subconscious mind and reprogramming unhelpful thoughts, beliefs and behavioural patterns. In terms of binge eating, this can be really helpful for getting to and healing the root causes of your bingeing.

There are of course other types of support that you can receive to help you with your binge eating recovery, what I’ve included here are some of the most common and beneficial paths.

Finding “the one”

I hope this guide helps you to make an informed decision about what kind of support will best help you in your binge eating recovery. You may even decide to work with more than one type of facilitator for a multi-faceted approach.

What I believe is most important is that no matter whether you decide to work with a counsellor, therapist, coach or someone else, you feel like the specific person is a good fit for you .

And only you can decide whether they are or not…

When you come across someone who you think could be for you, I recommend you follow them online for a little while; sign up for their emails, watch their videos and browse their website. Get a feel for them, what they offer and how they can help you.

After a while, you might see that this person may not be for you, or you’ll get a “yes - this person is speaking my language and I want their help!”

What’s important is that you listen to that yes, you reach out to them or their team and you take that next step ❤️

Whatever happens next, you don’t have to navigate recovery alone

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6 Ways to Not Let Calories on a Menu Trigger a Binge

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 09:32:03 GMT

Reading time: 3 mins

If you live in England, it is now mandatory for all restaurants with 250 or more employees to display calories on their menus. This is basically all the big chains, and smaller restaurants are also being encouraged to do the same.

These new rules are coming into effect to “improve the nation’s health and tackle obesity levels” and are “part of the government’s ongoing commitment to level up the nation’s health” (taken from the gov.uk website).

There is a lot that I could say about this but that’s not the focus of this article.

I want to focus on what you can do to significantly reduce your chances of being triggered and bingeing when coming face to face with calories on a menu.

So, read on or watch the video below…

1. If you struggle with binge eating, this news will likely make you feel stressed and anxious. That’s okay. Let yourself feel whatever feelings are coming up for you right now. Take a few moments to breathe slowly and fully as you let those feelings move through you.

This is important because suppressing these feelings now could trigger a binge before you’ve even gone to a restaurant and seen a menu.

2. Mentally prepare yourself before going to a restaurant. This could include creating a phrase that you repeat to yourself like a mantra, maybe something like “It’s safe for me to eat what I want, when I want” . As you say this to yourself, really let the words sink in and allow yourself to feel them.

3. You can also prepare yourself by making sure that you’re feeling calm and steady within yourself before going to a restaurant . This could include using practices like meditation, shaking, visualisations, breathwork, tapping and yoga. Remember, everyone I work with in my 1-1 Binge Free & Worthy coaching programme gets life time access to on-demand practices like this.

5. Know that your binge triggers aren’t your enemy. Yes it’s really disappointing that calories on menus are being enforced but, that feeling you get when you see the amounts of calories is shining a light on exactly where you have healing to do in relationship to food and your body. That’s a great thing to recognise!

6. Remember that health is so much more than calories in and out. Health is also about having fun, connecting with other people, spending time in nature and getting sunlight. It’s about good sleep, proper rest and living in alignment with who you really are!

I really hope these tips help you to feel calmer when choosing your food. Mostly I hope they help you to avoid binges, whether that’s in anticipation of eating out or when you’re alone after your meal.

Do make notes on your phone or save this for the next time you’re heading out to a restaurant so you’re well prepared.

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My Binge Eating Journey

bingefreeandworthy@gmail.com (Lucy Newport) — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 14:23:01 GMT

Reading time: 13 mins

Whenever I’m learning from or working with a coach, I want to know all about their own experience. I want to know who they are as a person and what they’ve been through to understand why they now do what they do.

So, with this being my first Binge Free & Worthy article, I thought the best place to start would be to share my own 14-year binge eating experience with you…

In this, I get into how my binge eating disorder developed, why it turned into bulimia and my journey to breaking free from binge eating once and for all.

I’ve also recorded a video where I talk about all of this really candidly, so if you prefer, you can watch that here ��

Where It All Began

Although I first started binge eating at 16, looking back further, I can see three traits within myself that I believe lead me to bingeing.

Trait 1 - I Was Highly Emotional

I have always been what I call a “big feeler”, a sensitive person who experiences their thoughts and emotions in a very physical way. I’ve felt like this since I can remember and often joke that I had my teenage years from about 5-8 because my emotions were so explosive! I felt a lot of anger, frustration and regularly had tantrums.

What I really lacked through my childhood and teens was a process to express and let go of these emotions in a constructive way. And so, food became a comfort blanket for when I wanted to soothe or try and block out those big, uncomfortable feelings.

My First Binge In a Tesco Toilet

When I turned 16, I decided that I wanted to lose some weight. Puberty had happened and I wasn’t feeling so great about the new curves around my tummy, hips and thighs. I didn’t go on a particularly strict or extreme diet, I simply decided that I wasn’t going to eat so many treats; mostly cake, crisps, chocolate and biscuits.

And so I didn’t. My mum even supported me by creating “the jar” - a special jar where £1 would be placed at the end of each day that I didn’t eat a treat - and I was going for those £6-£7 weeks!

I can’t even remember if I particularly lost much weight at this time. I do however remember thinking about food a lot more, and the feeling of tension that came with all of the self-judgements around food and my body.

I was a prefect at school and one of the benefits of this role was being allowed to leave the gates at lunchtime. My friends and I often went to Tesco and one day, when we were walking back, the urge to eat something sweet and “off-limits” became too much that it took over me.

I told my friends that I had forgotten to get something that my mum had asked for from Tesco, and that I was going to go back alone and get it. I could feel a real sense of urgency as I quickly walked back, and when I arrived at the supermarket, I went straight to the bakery section.

I didn’t think about it, I just picked up two bags of cookies (those really delicious Tesco Finest triple chocolate ones) hoping that no one else from school would see me. I paid for them. I walked into the ladies toilets. I locked myself in a cubicle and I binge ate all 8 cookies in a rush of desperation.

This brought on a huge sense of relief, but as soon as I finished that last cookie, all the feelings of guilt and shame came rushing in. I felt like I had been really bad - that I had acted like a criminal. And so I hid the evidence in the toilet bin, quickly got back to school, and told myself that I had to do better, that I had to eat less to make up for what had just happened.

But really, this was just the very start of it.

From Bingeing To Bulimia

My binges continued in this way for about three years until I left home. I would feel insecure about my body and so limit what and how much I ate, only to then binge whenever I was alone and could get food.

At 19 I moved to London to follow my dreams of working within the music industry and actually did what I’d consider to be “ordered eating” (the opposite of “disordered eating”) for those first couple of months. I enjoyed my new freedom of going to the supermarket and making what I wanted when I wanted, and I naturally lost some weight.

However, pretty quickly the stress of working within this industry got to me, and I turned back to food. After 9 months of becoming more anxious and my overall wellbeing dwindling, I decided that I wasn’t cut out for the music industry and left my job. This was a really low point for me because I was leaving behind what I thought I wanted for the last 5 years. I felt like I had failed and I had no idea what I’d do next.

My self-worth was bruised and a part of me felt that if I got my body to finally look a certain way, then I’d feel happy.

At this point, I was binge eating a lot to numb out the emotional discomfort and to combat that I restricted what I ate throughout the day. This became a vicious cycle of not eating much during the day and having huge evening binges when I was alone. Because my weight was still going up, I felt I had to do something more, and so I started taking laxatives in the evenings before going out for a run.

I disguised running as being all about my health and fitness when in reality there was nothing healthy about what I was doing to myself. Really, I was stuffed full of 4-5 days worth of food, laxative cramps kicking in and running until my fitness watch said I’d hit a certain amount of miles or calories burnt.

A Wake-Up Call

That went on for about a year. What really struck me about this period of my life was that for a small window, I was noticeably slimmer and would get comments from friends and family saying “how well I looked” and complimenting me on my weight loss. On one hand, this was the validation that I was after all along, but on the other, I was anything but “well” and didn’t feel I could tell anyone.

I had a few scary evenings where after bingeing and taking laxatives, I was lying on my bedroom floor in so much pain that it felt like an organ was going to burst or fail.

I knew that if something like this did happen, I’d have to call myself an ambulance and explain to them what I had done to myself. That felt too shameful, and I thought that if it came to that, I’d rather let myself die. It seems dramatic to write now, but back then, it’s where I was at.

This realisation, as well as my knees being in pain constantly from pounding the London streets, I stopped taking laxatives and I stopped running.

By this time, I had also enrolled on a visual merchandising diploma and was starting to feel excited about my future again.

But The Bingeing Didn’t Stop There

At 22, I had finished my year of studies and got a really great job straight away. However, I was having regular panic attacks and got diagnosed with a chronic anxiety disorder. I was given anti-depressants, which I ended up coming on and off 3 times because I didn’t like how I felt numb to life when on them. I was also bingeing as much as ever and feeling the pressures of my body to be slim, especially now working in the fashion industry.

Over the course of the next few years, I got serious about dieting, or as I would call it, just “being good”. I did Weight Watchers a couple of times, fell into the world of clean eating and developed orthorexia (an unhealthy focus on only eating healthy foods). I followed exercise plans, did juice cleanses, apple fasts, intermittent fasting, drank detox teas and everything else that was popular at the time.

I also weighed myself most days, kept a notebook of all of my body’s measurements and took countless “before and after” photos.

During this whole time, I was still bingeing and my weight fluctuated a fair amount. There were brief moments where I was a UK size 10 (where I wanted to be), but mostly, I moved between a size 12 and 16.

It wasn’t all bad though!

A period of huge personal growth

When I was 27, Mark and I left our jobs and London to go travelling in S.E. Asia for 6 months. This definitely brought on a lot of personal growth for me, especially when it came to food and bingeing. By this time, I had been vegan for 2 years and finding food that wasn’t just rice and a few veggies at times was challenging. And because Mark and I were together pretty much all of the time, I couldn’t have those secret binges.

My last month overseas was in Bali doing my yoga teacher training. This was a beautiful experience that amplified my growth and when I returned to London, I was excited to begin teaching yoga.

Although my relationship with my body was far more compassionate by now; I had let go of food restrictions, stopped weighing myself and moved my body for the sake of feeling good, I still felt insecure.

I felt now that I was a yoga teacher, there was a whole new expectation placed upon me of what my body should look like and be able to do. Part of me also hoped that practising and teaching yoga a lot would help me to just “fix” the last of my bingeing, or that it would lead me to lose weight.

Finally saying goodbye to binge eating

At 28 I had been binge eating for 12 years and was so, so ready to let go of the last of my eating disorder. By this stage, it was mostly habitual and any sense of relief or comfort that it used to provide wasn’t really there anymore.

I wanted help with these final steps, someone to tell me where I was still stuck or going wrong. And what I really wanted was help from someone who specialises in binge eating - either a coach, a counsellor or a therapist. I knew that getting help privately would mean me having to ask my family for help with paying for it and I didn’t want to do that. Not because I was worried about asking for financial help so much, but because I’d have to be open about my experience, which I’d mostly kept to myself.

Instead, I decided to go to my GP in the hope of getting referred to someone who could help. And this too made me feel incredibly vulnerable, but I went and sat in tears as I told my doctor everything.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get what I needed from that appointment. My doctor didn’t even acknowledge the reason I went. She sent me for blood tests and when they came back, another doctor I spoke to said there was nothing about binge eating on the notes made from my appointment.

And honestly, that made me feel crap. To open up in that way after all of this time to someone who you believe will help you, to then not even be heard, feels really invalidating.

So, I decided that I had to help myself. That I had to now do everything I could to end my binge eating once and for all.

Some last thoughts

This isn’t how I wish to have recovered. I wish that I had gone and got the help that I needed many years ago. But, I am very happy to be in a place now that if it wasn’t for my work as a binge eating coach, I wouldn’t really think about binge eating at all. It’s no longer a part of my everyday experience and it feels so good to be able to write that!

What has been even better is discovering and embracing more of who I am at the core; allowing myself to be more me (not a version I hope will be more likeable) and fully enjoying the things I love.

I really hope that you have gotten something useful from reading this. Maybe it’s knowing that you’re not alone in your experience. Or perhaps seeing that it is absolutely possible to recover from binge eating, no matter how much a part of you it may feel right now.

If I can recover, so can you.

I am sending you so much love and wish you all the best in your own recovery.