0:00

I won't let my body out be outwait

0:04

everything that I'm made done, won't

0:06

spend my life trying to change.

0:08

I'm learning to love who I

0:10

am.

0:11

A gat, I'm strong, I feel free,

0:14

I know every part of me.

0:16

It's beautiful.

0:19

And that will always

0:21

out way if

0:24

you feel it.

0:24

But your here, She'll

0:26

some love to the mood. Why get there?

0:28

Take you one day and did

0:31

you and die out way?

0:35

Happy Saturday outwait Amy here and I'm here with Leanne

0:37

Ellington.

0:37

Hello, Hello, And that says part five of

0:40

BFB.

0:40

And kind of the joke every week

0:43

is that I can't say binge free brain,

0:45

So I just been calling it BFB because I

0:47

kept going brain free binge. But something

0:50

that just clicked for me was

0:52

that if you say it that way, it sort of makes sense.

0:55

Now go with me on this.

0:56

Yeah, because you're sort of living

1:00

brain free in a bridge. You're not in

1:02

a bitch excuse me, like you're not there's

1:04

no awareness awareness for sure. So you're

1:06

you're not tapping and you're you're like free in

1:08

your brain.

1:09

Yeah. And then when

1:11

you teach your brain this new pattern, your brain

1:13

does the heavy lifting for you and you don't have to use

1:16

that brain space to think about it.

1:17

So now you're brain free. I just wanted to brain

1:20

for other things.

1:20

That's how I've been saying. It actually works. You

1:22

are a justified sister.

1:24

It works.

1:24

It may be a stretch, but really

1:26

what it is is the binge free brain,

1:29

and we've been walking through it. If you miss parts

1:31

one through four, we'll go back and listen to those

1:34

because they all tie into each other,

1:36

and we're wrapping with

1:39

more of the ACC. We're going to

1:41

talk more about the addiction side of our

1:43

brain, and we spent some time on the ACC

1:45

last Saturday, so go listen to that as well,

1:48

But start with the disclaimer because I feel

1:50

like this is a massive topic for sure.

1:51

Yeah, just disclaiming like this is a massive topic,

1:54

and I'm not here to claim that this podcast

1:56

episode is going to be enough to heal

1:58

decades of food and body strug but also really

2:01

reconcile anything that feels like

2:03

addiction or close to addiction. But we

2:05

talked about in part two of this where one

2:07

of the beliefs that comes up alongside binge eating

2:10

and the kind of binge restrict cycle is oh,

2:12

I'm just an addict and we feel this compulsion

2:14

and so one of the things that really you know, going

2:17

down the rabbit hole of the ACC, because we talked

2:19

about how this is a big component. This is where

2:21

your self image lives, This is where your emotional

2:23

pain center really and physiological

2:26

pain receptors live. They live in other parts

2:28

of the brain, but a large majority live in the ACC

2:30

that anterior cingulate cortex. But

2:32

also when it comes to this addiction piece

2:34

of the puzzle, this is an ACC thing

2:37

as well. And when I say addiction, I'm

2:39

really putting it in air quotes, because as

2:41

I mentioned on part two, I believe

2:43

that for my experience, at least it

2:46

was acknowledging that no, I wasn't actually addicted

2:48

to sugar. I was practicing a recipe

2:51

of thoughts and beliefs and behaviors that were causing

2:53

me to use sugar addictively and in turn

2:55

feel like an addict.

2:56

But there is a way to practice using it.

2:58

Non addictively, because the other side of it, too is

3:00

like I don't want you all to ever feel like you can't

3:02

have sugar and miss out on the joys of life

3:05

and all of that. But also it doesn't

3:07

have to be this abstinence conversation

3:09

where you can use it as sugar. Right,

3:11

this is a massive topic, but to understand,

3:14

help you understand a little bit more about why you do

3:16

what you do and really

3:18

bringing it back to Okay, this is not me being

3:21

weak willed or there's something wrong with me, but

3:23

this is an ACC thing and I can really hinpoint

3:26

where in my brain this kind of went awry,

3:28

So we'll just go ahead and dive on in. And by

3:31

the way too, like we're gonna be talking about sugar

3:33

as an example, but maybe you're numbed out

3:35

on Netflix, maybe you feel like

3:37

you can't stop scrolling on social media.

3:39

Right, these same ACC principles

3:41

shopping, yeah, online shopping, all

3:43

of it, these same principles reflect

3:45

that in your brain as well. So basically,

3:48

you know, anything can be a tool or a weapon, and we'll

3:50

just stick with the sugar example.

3:51

Sugar can be a tool of pleasure.

3:53

And connection and all of those

3:55

things, or it can be a weapon of numbing out,

3:57

distraction, filling voids that sugar

4:00

was never meant to fill all of those things. But what's

4:02

happening is in the ACC.

4:04

Okay, because you're a human and if you're listening

4:06

to this and you're a woman, your ACC is bigger

4:08

and more active than it is in men. But

4:11

your brain, your ACC requires

4:14

connection. That's one of the c's of ACC. It requires

4:16

to be connected, both feeling

4:18

connected to yourself but then also feeling connected

4:20

to others. Right, and so when

4:23

you experience that connection, your brain

4:25

elicits oxytocin. It's the safety

4:27

hormone, it's the connection hormone. Okay,

4:29

but what's happening is instead

4:32

of giving ourselves oxytocin, and we

4:34

are living in a world where we are perpetually disconnected

4:36

from ourselves and perpetually disconnected from

4:38

others. Instead, in those moments

4:40

when we our brain is telling us that we need

4:42

oxytocin or we need connection, we're actually

4:45

feeding it dopamine. We're giving it mindless

4:47

TV, web scrolling, online shopping, compulsive

4:50

anything. It's really activities

4:52

that numb or distract our brain. Right, It's

4:54

that over filling it with dopamine. And

4:56

so instead of giving it that oxytocin,

4:59

which it's really crazy, we're giving

5:01

it endless amounts of the air quotes high

5:03

itself, we're giving it endless amounts of dopamine.

5:06

And so we're creating a dopamine serotonin payoff.

5:08

When our brain is literally like knocking

5:10

us on the shoulder saying give me oxytocin,

5:13

it's really craving connection, either to

5:15

ourselves or to others. And this is, by the

5:17

way, when you're not hungry, and so our

5:20

social brain our acc it's

5:22

hungry for oxytocin, but we're

5:24

overfeeding it with dopamine. So

5:26

that's why you might eat an entire bag of chips or

5:28

an entire bag of hookies, and you're like, why am I back in

5:30

the kitchen? Why do I still feel this emptiness

5:33

or this hunger, But I'm not physiologically hungry.

5:35

You're almost like emotionally hungry. It's

5:38

because you're overfed with dopamine,

5:40

but you're still undernourished with

5:42

oxytocin. Your brain still hasn't gotten

5:44

what it's looking for, so it's just this endless

5:46

gap, this endless hole.

5:48

Right.

5:48

So in turn, accidentally, we're

5:51

feeding loneliness and stress

5:53

and sadness and boredom with

5:56

fake connection, with TV, with sugar,

5:58

with netflix, with things that will never filled, the

6:00

voids of boredom, comfort,

6:02

sadness, loneliness, isolation, all of those

6:04

things. And so again, we're perpetually

6:07

remaining overfed but undernourished

6:10

with the one thing our brain is like screaming

6:12

at us to get right connection exactly.

6:14

So is that why in certain

6:17

recovery programs a higher

6:19

power is always connected?

6:20

Yeah? Absolutely, because the other side of

6:22

it.

6:24

Yeah, for me, I guess for

6:26

most people would say, Okay, it's a relationship with

6:28

God, whatever that may be. But I remember being

6:31

in a one particular meeting, but they

6:33

were like, I don't care if your higher power is the tree,

6:35

yeah over there, let it

6:37

be something.

6:38

Yeah like that.

6:38

I guess they were just driving home the point that like

6:41

something has to be bigger than

6:43

you that you were connecting to on a

6:45

daily basis to have purpose,

6:47

hope, direction.

6:49

Absolutely, stuff like that.

6:50

Yeah, And we went into depth in this on the self

6:52

imaging conversation. But part of it is like,

6:54

at the end of the day, if all you're doing is

6:56

valuing and chasing after bank

6:59

balance a scale size, friends

7:01

on Facebook whatever it is, and it's these like kind

7:03

of worldly I just aged

7:05

my niece would be like facebooks for old people.

7:08

But I mean Facebook. Note that we have all

7:11

ages, I mean Facebook

7:13

generation. I also had a cassette player when I was younger.

7:16

So it's all gonna say, I guess so that we're

7:18

you know, sort of hip. Yeah, say you

7:20

know anywhere from Facebook to TikTok there you

7:22

go exactly.

7:23

And the gram nap, yes, snaps

7:25

chat nap is that's still around.

7:26

Yeah, yeah, all the kids Okay, all the kids

7:29

are into that.

7:29

So so when we're chasing these worldly

7:31

pursuits, it's going to end up at the

7:33

end of the day being It's not that goals are

7:36

bad, you know, but like, if that's all we're

7:38

doing to fill our purpose piece of the puzzle,

7:40

or our worthiness or value piece of the puzzle, it's

7:42

going to end up being empty and meaningless, right, And

7:44

that's why it's so important to root ourselves

7:47

in an identity that is bigger than us.

7:49

And we talk about that a lot on What's God

7:51

Got to Do with It podcast? And again, it's

7:53

not making any of those other things bad or wrong,

7:56

it's just like it's probably going to end up feeling

7:58

empty and meaningless if that's all that you're chasing.

8:01

A lot of times, this is what my clients come

8:03

to is they're filling voids. Oftentimes

8:05

they're filling a spiritual void. There's

8:08

filling an emotional void, they're filling a social

8:10

void with food, with Netflix.

8:12

Maybe it's a combination of all of it, and

8:14

what they come to they realize like.

8:16

It's never going to fill that void.

8:18

There's something bigger that I'm desiring

8:21

that's not of this world, you know, or that's

8:23

bigger than me, or that involves purpose

8:25

meaning value beyond these

8:28

quantifiables that I've been chasing.

8:30

So yeah, it's a big part of it. That was a big part

8:32

of it for me, and that is your social

8:34

brain too. I actually go into

8:36

that in depth where the science meets

8:38

the faith piece of the puzzle in an episode

8:41

of What's God Got to Do with It? But that's a big acc

8:43

piece of it as well. There's actual scientific

8:45

studies that showIn that yeah.

8:48

So that way people can just s yeah, there's a

8:50

big yeah, because that's where my skeptic and

8:52

cynical brain needed to see the research

8:54

as well.

8:55

Because that was a big leap for me as well.

8:57

And that's actually where a lot of this neuroscience

8:59

stuff at me in my faith brain

9:01

because I realized that I was trying to you know,

9:03

out diet and outperform my

9:06

own inner cravings as well for just

9:08

feeling lovable and worthy and enough

9:11

as I am. And again that's the oxytocin

9:13

piece of the puzzle. Like when you want to feel connected,

9:15

when you want to have purpose and meaning and feel value

9:17

and worth in your bones, not just in

9:19

your weight, that's never going

9:21

to be filled with dopamine.

9:22

That is oxytocin.

9:24

It's this heart, this safety, this connection,

9:26

this emotional safety hormone

9:29

that can only be felt.

9:30

You can't feed it with the physical.

9:32

It's an inner thing and that's an acc

9:35

oxytocin void that again

9:37

we're trying to fill with food, and that's

9:40

what leaves us feeling overfed but undernourished.

9:42

And yeah, I think that there's so many times where

9:45

speaking of nourishment, I think on

9:47

the actual nourishment side, like what food

9:49

has to offer. Yeah, I was so undernourished

9:53

And this is kind of totally flipping.

9:55

The page a little bit.

9:56

No, it's good, but I was so undernourished

9:58

in things that my body was really craving and needing

10:00

because I just didn't have the space because calorically

10:03

it was being filled with like so much

10:05

stuff that was offering my body nothing. Totally

10:07

drive It's almost as if I'm

10:09

picturing right now in my head like a plant that needs

10:12

water, and I it's almost like I

10:14

was, this is not it, and I love diet

10:16

coke. Okay, this is just me giving you something

10:19

to picture it.

10:20

Given diet coke to a plant.

10:22

Yeah, so like, picture this beautiful plant,

10:24

like when you are taking care of

10:26

it and nurturing it, You're going

10:28

to water it accordingly with

10:30

like water, But right now I want

10:32

you to picture like popping open like

10:34

a leader. Since we're talking about binging,

10:36

might as well make it a gallon whatever of

10:39

diet coke and just dumping it on

10:41

the plants absolutely, like Okay,

10:43

yeah, sure you're giving it liquid in

10:46

your way, but you're not giving it what it needs.

10:48

Therefore, the plant isn't going to function at

10:50

a high level. Or it may even kill over

10:52

and die the next day. And that's an

10:54

extreme that's not what's going to happen to us. But eventually

10:57

it's like a it is a slow burn, yeah

11:00

death. I remember even with the you

11:02

know, we're talking specifically about binging, you

11:05

know, the last five episodes. But for me, there

11:07

was a part of my disordered

11:10

eating, my eating disorder journey where there was bleamy

11:12

involved and it was a slow suicide

11:15

one hundred percent. Yeah, it was in

11:17

one of my mind's also that showed me

11:20

that in She's like, every time

11:22

you participate in this behavior, it is

11:24

a very slow drip towards

11:27

something that could ultimately kill you. And

11:30

so, yeah, it seems dramatic to like picture

11:33

drowning the plant and dit coke in it not

11:35

being alive tomorrow, but you're not

11:37

really living when you're acting in

11:39

this way as well. And I don't

11:41

want you to have any shame around it at all, because

11:44

there is hope. You can't get out and you're not broken

11:46

and nothing is wrong with you. But once

11:49

you do get to healing

11:51

street, like I'm picturing

11:53

myself, like once I made it to a

11:56

more healed relationship with food,

11:58

or once I finally had that, I could start

12:00

to make choices that were actually nourishing

12:02

to me. I could actually eat something and

12:04

know, wow, I actually feel better right

12:06

now, Like this is really good for my

12:09

brain right now, This is good for my kidney right

12:11

now, This is good for my liver, this is good for my

12:13

heart. Because foods do have

12:15

that power. There's a reason why there's

12:17

certain nutrients and vitamins

12:19

and minerals that fuel different parts

12:22

of our body. Like when you eat

12:24

an avocado, it does this, when you eat blueberries

12:26

it does that. Sometimes I would even

12:29

binge on healthy foods, which was

12:31

not going to serve me.

12:33

Well.

12:33

You can have too much of a good

12:35

thing as well. If you overwater

12:38

a plant with good water, it's not

12:40

going to be okay.

12:42

And now I'm starting to really be like,

12:44

why did I do a diet coke and plant analogy?

12:46

But for no, I think it's great to picture

12:48

it like it was helpful to say you would never

12:51

go dump a diet coke on a plant.

12:52

You just found it in percon.

12:53

Yeah, And there's a flip side too, because on

12:55

the opposite of the binge cycle

12:58

comes off in the restrict cycle. And so if

13:00

you're being carb phobic or fat phobic or calorie

13:02

phobic, a lot of our nutrients

13:04

come from carbs, plants and vegetables.

13:07

And meats, you know what I mean.

13:08

And so it's like, but when you're chasing air quotes

13:11

skinny or you're chasing air quotes lean, you're

13:13

not chasing health. You're not chasing vitality

13:16

and nutrients and lurish vitality.

13:19

It's good.

13:19

Vitality is such a good word, and I'm glad you brought

13:21

that back up because it circles back to my original point

13:24

of being when you're so lacking

13:26

in nutrients, you're going to chase anything

13:28

and you're then you're in this pattern of like, why don't

13:30

I feel good?

13:31

Why don't I feel good? Why don't I feel good? Well, you're not literally

13:33

you're not giving your body.

13:34

Anything that it needs other than

13:36

calories, because we do need that. But then it's what

13:39

type of calories? And

13:41

I will say, once you make it to recovery lane,

13:43

yeah, another good analogy, then

13:46

you know you can start to have a little bit

13:48

like you can enjoy some of those things

13:51

that you used to not be able to.

13:53

But then there's no stress around that because.

13:55

You're not feeling dangerous or you know, you're

13:57

feel so out of control. Absolutely, yeah,

13:59

it's huge, And that's where I mean, this isn't

14:01

This could be another series on its own, Like the definition

14:04

of health needs to change because I know, for me, healthy

14:06

I thought was skinny, healthy was lean, healthy

14:08

was small, And oftentimes we're outvoting health

14:11

to chase those things, and we're avoiding nutrients

14:13

not knowingly or we're overeating

14:15

nutrient deficient things. You know.

14:17

So it's this bigger.

14:18

Conversation, but you bring up such amazing points

14:20

because these are the things that we don't think about or we don't

14:22

talk about because there's so much shame.

14:24

ACC ACC know me

14:27

BMV the ACC.

14:29

What's the acronym you have for that? Again?

14:31

Acceptance, connection, and care because that's what your

14:33

brain is really desiring. And it's oversimplified,

14:36

but it's done on purpose because if you're

14:38

filling voids where you are just again over

14:41

fed but undernourished, your brain is

14:43

screaming at you to give it something that it

14:45

really needs and it will never be filled with food

14:48

or Netflix or online shopping.

14:50

Okay, so ACC, pay attention

14:52

to your ACC and your hippocampus.

14:54

Yes, all of it.

14:55

Never forget your hippocampus because

14:58

it will never forget you.

14:59

Wow, and tell me what

15:01

what's the short term? It's hip a campus,

15:04

short and wrong.

15:05

Prefrontal cortex is going to be your short term

15:07

yeah, and it'll work on a short term yeah. And then the basil

15:10

ganglia is where like your long term

15:12

memories live, like where the long term

15:15

habit. Brain Lives is the basil ganglia.

15:18

And Leanne mentioned last week

15:20

a program that she has put together to accompany

15:23

this five part series. So we're

15:25

going to be moving on from it, the BFB,

15:28

but if you want to continue

15:30

your work with it, Land has a

15:32

special thing that she put together for everybody, right,

15:35

yeah.

15:35

And so you know, obviously full transparency

15:37

disclaimer, this will not magically heal

15:39

decades of food and body struggles. But if

15:42

you do want to at least stop the floodgates and really

15:44

start the process of rewiring your brain

15:46

and really take back power from

15:48

your acc that's doing its own thing and

15:51

filling voids of food or filling voids

15:53

in your brain that will never be filled with food. Binge

15:55

free brain is the perfect place to start.

15:57

And so we made it a no brainer by giving you

15:59

a discount code. And the discount code is just

16:01

outway, so we'll link that in the show

16:04

notes and you can.

16:04

He me and you put this together, and you were thoughtful to

16:06

do the code, because I want people to know, like this is a

16:08

gift from you, like you put them together over.

16:10

At Stressless Eeeding.

16:11

Okay, And I'm just making sure I was like,

16:13

I didn't thank you. This is

16:15

great, this is I'm very thankful for you putting

16:18

in the extra effort to offer this

16:20

to people.

16:20

Thank you so much.

16:21

So Yeah, you can head on over to stresslesseding

16:24

dot com slash binge and you

16:26

can find out all the information about that and we'll link

16:28

it in the show notes as well, and then outweigh is

16:30

the code to get a super secret Ninja

16:33

discount code for it.

16:34

Yeah, and we touched on this last week, but just having skin

16:36

in the game when you're committing time

16:39

to something and money,

16:41

because we're not here to sell

16:43

anything or land, certainly not.

16:45

In fact, she was like, are you sure it's okay if I say

16:47

this.

16:47

Like she was very sensitive to that,

16:49

and I appreciated that. But

16:52

even I know that there are times

16:54

early on in my recovery when I was investing in

16:56

something my time and my money, I was

16:59

more And I

17:01

think last week you said, yeah, when you pay,

17:03

you pay attention, and so look

17:05

at it that way. But also, this is not something

17:07

that you have to do at all, but if

17:09

you are able, I would encourage you to check it out. And Leanne

17:11

also has other free resources

17:14

on her website as well that don't cost anything,

17:17

and lean where else can.

17:19

People find you? Leanne Ellington over

17:21

on socials.

17:22

There's a ton of free resource resources

17:24

over on Stressless Eating dot Com, including

17:27

the free masterclass that walks you through

17:29

the exact strategy I walk my clients through to

17:31

help them turn off the part of their brain that's obsessed

17:33

with food and really get the healing process going.

17:35

And then What's God Got to Do with It?

17:37

Podcast we mentioned earlier

17:39

and again that'll be in the show notes

17:42

and we will be back next

17:44

Saturday. In the meantime, in the

17:46

coming week, I'll have a fifth Thing episode

17:48

with Kat coming out Therapy Cat, and then four

17:51

Things next Thursday.

17:52

And Leanne when is What's God Got to Do with It?

17:53

Load up Tuesdays every Tuesday.

17:55

Every Tuesday. Okay, so I'll go check that out.

17:57

Okay, Bye bye,