WHY You’re BINGE EATING and How to STOP for Good using Evidence Based Psychology Hacks with Dr. Supatra Tovar

In today’s episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, we will be chatting with Dr. Supatra Tovar, a registered dietitian, a clinical psychologist, and the author of the new book, Deprogram Diet Culture: Rethink your Relationship with Food, Heal your Mind and Live a Diet-free Life. We discuss why people tend to binge after dieting, and all of the compensatory mechanisms that prevent weight loss and encourage binge eating. We discuss some of the biggest cognitive distortions that cause binge eating and disordered eating. We also talk about how the principles of CBT can help you reprogram your disordered relationship with food by using mantras, anchoring behaviors, and habit stacking. We close off with how to prevent disordered eating or binging relapse and I give some actionable examples of how to incorporate these CBT principles into your life. References: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2771095 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19751081/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24686957/ https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/43099/1/Harris_%26_Epton_2009.pdf https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19025270/ Check in with today’s amazing guest: Dr Supatra Tovar Instagram: @drsupatratovar Website: drsupatratovar.com Book: Deprogram Diet Culture: Rethink Your Relationship with Food, Heal Your Mind, and Live a Diet-Free Life Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✨ Reach Your Weight & Health Goals — Without Dieting! Pre-order The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, Abbey’s revolutionary additive approach to eating well. Learn how to boost satiety, stabilize blood sugars, reduce disease risk, and improve your relationship with food — all while getting the best nutrient bang for your caloric buck. With 400+ research citations, cheat sheets, evidence-based actionable tips, meal plans, and adaptable recipes, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is the only nutrition bible you’ll ever need. 👉 Pre-order today! 🛒 Where to Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble Amazon Kindle Apple Books Google Play Kobo Apple Books (Audiobook) Audible abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✉️ Subscribe to My Newsletters: Abbey’s Kitchen Newsletter 📘 Check out my FREE E-Books: Hunger Crushing Combo™ E-Book Protein 101 E-Book 👋 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchen TikTok: @abbeyskitchen YouTube: @AbbeysKitchen Blog: abbeyskitchen.com Book: The Mindful Glow Cookbook • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 🎧 Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen — and leave us a review! It really helps support the show ❤️ 💬 If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review — and let me know who you’d love to hear about next! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:24Speaker 01

  Espolon Tequila, 40% alcohol by volume, 80 proof. Copyright 2026, Comparia America, New York, New York. Drink responsibly.

• 0:30Speaker 02

  We create a taboo food. We say it's off limits. The body's telling us, no, no, no, go eat it. And the mind is also telling us, oh, my gosh, I can't wait to go off this diet so I can have this. And ultimately, in the middle, usually of a very restrictive diet, the person will, you know, break, go off the wagon and binge.

• 0:55Abbey Sharp?

  Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good.

• 1:10Abbey Sharp?

  Something that I feel is like always keeping me up at night is all the red herrings that diet culture has set up to distract us from what actually really matters when it comes to our health. You know, like, most of the discussions we end up seeing online are like centered around a very singular superfood ingredient in like kale or the dangers of an additive in your cereal. But balanced, healthy eating, and conversely, disordered eating, is influenced by a lot more than just the ingredients on our plate. The distorted beliefs that we hold about bodies, the fears that we have about food, and our attitudes about our self-worth,

• 1:54Abbey Sharp?

  all influence our health-promoting and health-destroying behaviors long-term.

• 2:02Abbey Sharp?

  Today, I'm joined by Dr. Supatra Tovar, a registered dietitian, clinical psychologist, and author of the new book, "Deep Programmed Diet Culture: Rethink Your Relationship With Food, Heal Your Mind, and Live a Diet-Free Life." Dr. Tovar has helped countless individuals overcome their struggles with binge eating, dieting, and disordered eating through her unique therapy approach. So, we're going to be talking about the reasons why you may be overeating or binge eating. We'll be discussing some common cognitive distortions that contribute to destructive eating patterns, and we'll chat about how to use the principles

• 2:42Abbey Sharp?

  of CBT-like mantras and anchoring patterns to shift your eating behaviors for good. Quick note that we will be talking about disordered eating and weight loss today, so if that is not supportive to your journey, maybe sit this one out and I will catch you next week. Also, a reminder that the information in this episode is never a replacement for personalized healthcare, and I would love if you would follow or subscribe to the podcast and leave me a review, because as a new podcast, it really, really does help me out. Alright, folks, let's get into it.

• 3:24Abbey Sharp?

  Well, thank you so much, Dr. Tovar. It is such an honor to have you on, and I read the book. I loved it. And, you know, while, of course, I will always recommend people try to access a dietitian therapy team when they can, when struggling with their own relationship with food and body issues, this is just such an amazing resource and amazing place for folks to start or to pick back up on that. So, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. So, in the book, you talk a lot about how dieting can ironically actually contribute to weight gain over time for a lot of folks, particularly when there's a binging component

• 4:05Abbey Sharp?

  going on. Can you talk about that cycle for a moment, and the typical triggers that you see for these common binging behaviors across the ED spectrum?

• 4:17Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. Uh, well, restriction, when the body finds itself in restriction, especially if it's extreme restriction, which most of these diets promote, most of these diets suggest a level of caloric intake at around twelve hundred calories, which is really not enough to fuel even a toddler. Right. So the body then is evolutionarily designed to have some warning signals go off when we're in this extreme restriction. And it goes through a whole bunch of processes that try to ensure that you up the caloric intake. And the first of them, and among others, is

• 5:02Speaker 02

  it really ramps up your hunger hormone, growling. And so you're just starving. So that's what most people experience in the beginning of a diet is like, oh, my gosh, this is about half the calories that I used to intake, what is going on? And all that person can do is think about food. Because when hunger hormones go off, it's not just, you know, your belly grumbling, it's like everything, your brain telling you, you're hungry, you're anxious, you get lethargic, you get foggy brained. So it's, the body is signaling, I'm in danger. And when we ignore this for a long enough period of time, that starts to kind of dampen out. But then the body starts to go through a process where it's trying

• 5:44Speaker 02

  to conserve as much as possible. And it's a process called the body energy partitioning system, basically is kind of tracking how much fat, how much lean muscle, and how much water the body has. And it's trying to maintain those same proportions to take you back to that same weight level once the restriction is ended. And it's, it's, it's designed to protect you. And I think that that's what people don't understand. And, and people are desperately fighting against thinking, if I can just have enough willpower, then I will lose this weight. And what ends up happening, yes, you may lose fat and muscle and water, but the body

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Body is really desperately trying to hold on, especially to the fat. So what you see with thermogenesis, thermogenesis is actually adaptive. It's not the same all the time. And a lot of people get this confused with metabolism. But thermogenesis is your body's ability to burn off fat. And what happens when we're in extreme restriction, and this is because of the caveman times when it was mostly famine and a little bit of feast. It's holding on. So the thermogenesis begins to be suppressed. So it's holding on to your fat stores, most especially because those are the most calorically dense, uh, energy, uh, cells. So your body is working against this diet the whole time.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  And while your ghrelin especially is like pretty high, it starts to create all of these cravings. And that is, I think, at the core of the binge cycle. Because we create a taboo food, we say it's off limits, the body's telling us, no, no, no, go eat it. And the mind is also telling us, oh, my gosh, I can't wait to go off this diet so I can have this. Right. And ultimately, in the middle, usually of a very restrictive diet, the person will, you know, break, go off the wagon and, and binge. Especially if they're prone to binging as a behavior. And it's often mostly a coping type of behavior. It's going to where, you know, in seeking comfort.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  And then you have a binge, then you have this cycle of guilt and shame. Because the person internalizes the failure of this diet as their fault. Rather than as the body is trying to protect me and keep me safe. Right. And so I think that is, you know, at the main core. And so what I teach people is that, and when you look at that in terms of psychology, you know, uh, uh, that's essentially a cognitive distortion. That we make food good or bad, right? And it, or, you know, it's a binary thing. Uh, we are good or we are bad. And what I like to encourage people to do is actually meet in the middle. Right.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  And to make all foods on the table. When we actually do not restrict food and we say, I can have this food whenever I want.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  But I'm gonna listen to my body and I'm gonna allow my body to tell me what it needs. We we've grown up not trusting our bodies. And when you actually learn to trust your body and you listen to this hunger hormone and you also eat slowly enough so that your body is registering the food in your uh in your stomach and eating to the point of satisfaction, but not over fullness. You're actually signaling to the body, I am safe. And when you do that, the body then goes into a parasympathetic nervous reaction as opposed to a stressed out sympathetic nervous reaction.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  And when we're in the parasympathetic nervous system, that's when our body can digest food. That's when our body utilizes food in the best way. And thus, your body's saying, okay, I'm not, you know, in danger. So I can actually continue thermogenesis. And that's actually how you burn off fat stores.

• 9:58Abbey Sharp?

  You know, it's it's so interesting because people don't realize that dieting, especially when it is done in an extreme way and feels restrictive and and comes with all this baggage and emotions and mental gymnastics. Diets are stressful on the body.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:13Abbey Sharp?

  And right, like you said, um, you know, stress is also very much correlated with weight gain for a multitude of reasons.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:22Abbey Sharp?

  But, you know, yeah, that cycle that you that you described, that restrict, binge, guilt, repeat, repent, that cycle is very hard for a lot of people to break. And it shows up in so many ways that we have basically normalized it in our society. Uh, the best example I can, I always see is the cheat day, right? Like the elusive cheat day where, again, the the whole idea is to restrict, restrict, restrict, restrict, and then Friday night comes, let's eat all the things. And of course, when the floodgates open, you can't just have one slice of pizza. You have to eat three pizzas plus the garlic bread and the beer.

• 11:02Abbey Sharp?

  And and so, of course, you're just constantly training your body to not acknowledge your own true needs, how to, you're you're drilling it in to. Ignore and silence those cues. And I think that that's a really difficult cycle for people to break.

• 11:34Abbey Sharp?

  But I want to bring in your psychology background here because this is so, so valuable. You know, in my experience, that restrict binge repeat cycle is so reinforcing because of the nagging guilt and the negative self beliefs that often come with it that just kind of drive you further into restriction. That's what kind of starts the next cycle. I'm a failure. I have no willpower. I'm lazy. I'm worthless. In the book, you talk a lot about cognitive distortions and you mentioned it just a moment ago, that you see come up in your practice for folks who are struggling typically with their relationship with food and body. What are some very common cognitive distortions with this population?

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Well, the first one, as I mentioned before, is this black and white thinking.

• 12:22Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  And I think that's probably the most common thinking that I see along with some catastrophic thinking like, you know, everything is terrible and the world is awful. And also personalization. Everything is a result of my wrongdoing. People who don't like me, I don't like me, my body doesn't like me because there's something inherently wrong with me. So I think I get a combination of those three in particular. And the black and white thinking usually comes from people who are, you know, trying to achieve perfection, which is completely

• 13:03Speaker 02

  an illusion. No one ever reaches perfection, but they have, you know, kind of contained this belief that they can. And I think that that really does come from diet culture. If you're just, you know, you have enough willpower, if you can stay mentally strong, if you can suffer for this period of time, you can reap perfection like we see with the celebrities who are getting fit for their movies. So that is like the perfection part. And then really, the personalization, I think, is is the deepest level because it comes usually from childhood dynamics, such as what was my relationship with my caregiver? And what type of attachment style did I develop?

• 13:46Speaker 02

  And most of the people that I see in my practice have either anxious attachment, most often avoidant attachment, kind of trying to like, you know, dissociate and not quite be there. Or even disorganized attachment when you see people who are coming from, you know, abusive backgrounds, most especially.

• 14:06Abbey Sharp?

  Right. Yeah, I mean, I can speak to the perfection piece for sure, this black and white. You know, I always tell people when trying to recover, like, you want to find the gray. You want to look for the gray because the gray is where we can grow. And but the perfection piece really rings true to me because of my history with orthorexia, which was very much grounded in a need for perfection. And we obviously have so much data suggesting that the, there is, you know, tons of co-morbidities between eating disorders and anxiety, OCD, OCPD. And a lot of the treatments for these disorders are gold standard cognitive behavioral therapy.

• 14:49Abbey Sharp?

  So I would love to hear from you as, as a psychologist, how you use CBT to help people reprogram their disordered relationship with food?

• 14:58Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I think first it comes from gaining levels of self-awareness. What did I pick up from my childhood? Everybody has something, even if it's not as severe as abuse. It's, did I watch my parents dieting? Did they tell me that I have to finish everything on my plate? Or starving children in China will suffer. You have to eat everything so you can earn dessert. There's so many things we pick up from childhood that are really disordered eating patterns of our caregivers. Then we're also looking at social media. We're comparing ourselves, most especially during the pandemic. We saw such a rise in eating disorders because everyone was online.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Everyone was on social media all the time. So I help people gain the self-awareness first. And then help them identify, because a lot of people have these automatic thoughts. They're not thinking these things in their conscious mind. They may have it running in the back of their mind and their subconscious, or even in their unconscious. We bring those thoughts to the forefront, such as my, one of the most common one is I'm worthless. We bring that thought to the forefront. And so when you look at CBT itself, if you go to break it down into the most simplest way to describe it. It's your thoughts influence your feelings, influence your behaviors. So we've picked this thought, I am, I am worthless. Well, how does that make you feel?

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Obviously, it's going to make you feel terrible, depressed, anxious, sad, unworthy, all of these things. Um, and what do you do? I diet. I diet and I binge, or I just binge, or you know, however it plays out in your eating behaviors. We take the thought and then we examine it for evidence. Okay. Name every time in your life when you have been told that you're worthless. Usually it's one or two. Usually that's about it, or it's just, I tell myself this all the time. We examine that. Well, how is this thought true? And when we really do this in a kind of scientific and objective way, people can see that the evidence against the thought is actually overwhelming.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  And they just haven't been focusing on that. They've only been focusing on the one or two ways that they feel worthless, but they have copious amounts of ways that they are worthwhile and loved. Then we say, okay, this thought cannot be true. How do we change that? And what, what can we change it into? And so we find another thought, which of course leads to better feelings and leads to better behaviors. But it's not just about identifying the thought. It's actually about how to systematically change that thought. So I have them incorporate thought stopping, which is just a technique where you catch yourself when you're thinking and you tell yourself, oh, no, stop.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  And then replace it. And what I love to replace negative thoughts with is mantras. They're so powerful and beautiful. It's a form of meditation.

• 17:59Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  That's designed to elicit this calm, relaxed state. And you're repeating it over and over again, but you're not doing it all day because you can't. I pick have them pick it a very short period of time. And I have them attach it to a behavior that they always do. And do it for that short period of time every single day. And when you think about it, if you've thought this horrible thought forever, you've been saying it for a very, very long time. You don't have to say it for the exact length of time to reprogram uh your neural pathways, but the repetition of it. Say it's only two minutes, you might repeat it sixty to ninety times.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  And that is how you start to create this new neural pathway that supports this new thought. And you actually are changing your brain chemistry. And I've seen it with my clients. It's so incredibly powerful.

• 18:57Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people, when they hear, oh, a mantra or a positive affirmation, they see it as, oh, that's so silly. That's so self indulgent. Like, how could that possibly possibly work? Because it's, it seems too simple to be powerful, but it does.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:13Abbey Sharp?

  And I, I, one of my favorite mantras is um I am who I am and I am enough. And again, I feel that that's worked well for me because a lot of my struggles throughout my life has kind of come down to this belief, like you said, that I'm not worthy. There's something wrong with me. And, you know, as a side note, I, I was actually diagnosed with ADHD about a year ago. After, you know, always kind of feeling like there was something was amiss. And it has really transformed how I speak to myself and think about myself. And I can't even tell you how much this has improved my own self confidence and self love. Because I can now explain so many childhood experiences that in the past I assumed was just because I was stupid or bad.

• 19:58Abbey Sharp?

  I was rude, whatever, whatever kind of, you know, people, the, the messages that I, that I was receiving about myself. Um, and it really did help like foster some good self empathy. So I love mantras. I think they're very, very powerful.

• 20:28Abbey Sharp?

  Another great concept that you talk about in the book is anchoring behaviors or habit stacking. And I like loved this as an ADHD girly because my whole life is habit stacked. Like if I drink my coffee at a slightly different time or in a slightly different place, like I absolutely will forget to take my morning medication and supplements. So this definitely spoke to me, but can you give me some examples of habits worth stacking for folks who are trying to quit diet culture?

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I think the mantra work is very important. That's like at the core of the habit stacking is how can you incorporate that in? So you're actually like consciously practicing this. When you do that and you do it at a specific time of day, I always recommend people do it right when they wake up. That's the anchoring behavior. You're hopefully always going to wake up in the morning. So when you wake up, you set your timer, you don't go on your phone and doom scroll. You just close your eyes, you relax your body and you set your mind and your subconscious and your body up for success for the day by starting a calming mantra.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  You can also have it, I mean, you could have it stack anything. You can have it stack exercise. Say that, you know, you really wanted to incorporate exercise. I'd like to also note that exercise is not an effective weight loss, you know, method. It is wonderful for increasing your cardiovascular health and your strength, but it is not as helpful as people think in terms of reducing your weight. But I really recommend that people exercise because of how makes your body feel and how, how, how much it helps you with your posture and, and just self-confidence and everything. So exercise is amazing and you can turn that actually into a tiny behavior that you stack with something.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  So for me, and I talk about this in the book, I wake up, I say my mantras, use the restroom, drink some coffee, drink some water, all of that stuff. And then, right after I, you know, use the restroom, I use that as my, as my behavior uh that I anchor to, my uh that I anchor exercise to. So I exercise right after that. I set it for a duration that I can do, you know, almost every day or every day if I choose. Uh so maybe that's not crazy, it's like for me, it's thirty minutes. For other people, it might be twenty minutes, it might be fifteen minutes, it doesn't necessarily matter. Because what you're doing is you are setting yourself up with a reminder, like you said,

• 23:09Speaker 02

  your coffee is your reminder to take your supplements and medications. And then you attach that behavior, so it's stuck with that already ingrained behavior. And then it just becomes an effortless habit after a period of time. I also recommend that when people are doing this, that they're taking a very self-compassionate and loving view of these behaviors. I just had a client the other day who grew up taking care of uh their parents. They, they were parentified as a child. And never really got the care and nurturing that they wanted and needed as a child.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  And so neglected their health throughout their entire adult life. And then suddenly kind of woke up from that dissociation and now is really addressing uh all their health. And they described the knowledge that they needed to add exercise is yet another thing I have to take care of. Right. And we identified that this was coming out of resentment from childhood. Right. Then I, I proposed, what if it's now I get to take care of myself? And then big giant light bulbs went off and giant smile came on their face. And they were like.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  I never thought of that this way. And that's what I want people to think of when they're thinking of adding behaviors is that they get to do this, they get to care for themselves, they get to change these old ingrained beliefs. And they get to improve their health. And once they do, it's wow, it's so amazing.

• 24:54Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, and I think that we we do that with food too. Um, and I think a lot of this comes down to that black and white thinking. Um, and that kind of that punishing mentality that we have where for a lot of folks growing up, exercise was a punishment for eating

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:14Abbey Sharp?

  or eating the pizza, something that they had to do to burn it off or work it off. So of course, when you have that attitude of exercise being a punishment, uh, you're gonna, you're not gonna be excited to do it. Um, and I think so that's kind of the step one is getting rid of that, those associations of I need to be punished or rewarded for certain food behaviors.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:40Abbey Sharp?

  And I think that's really a really important first step for a lot of people in order so that they can make that huge mindset shift. That exercise should be enjoyable, it can feel good to my body, it's an act of self-care, not self-love. No difference with, you know, salad for people who've been trapped in diet culture for so long, they see a salad as something that is they gotta drag themselves through because they had, you know, they had a very indulgent night the night before. But when you have a neutral, a relationship with food and your body and exercise, you know, a salad could be something that you crave, you inherently crave because of the crunch and the color and the different textures and you know, so, you know, I always say diet culture doesn't own salad. And so

• 26:26Abbey Sharp?

  we, we can reclaim salad as an act of self-care and an enjoyable one.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes, I think people have a very um, mathematical view of the body. And it's this magical mathematical view. If I reduce these calories and then I burn off these calories and I do it, you know, the old dietitian, oh, thirty five hundred calories in the week. And you have to to reduce it by five hundred to lose a pound per week. And let's, let's make our body into a math equation. It really doesn't work. And it doesn't work because of those physiological reasons and it doesn't work because of the psychological reasons. And that's why going into the gray area actually gets you where your body is then working with you.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  If you do want to lose weight, but I also encourage people to look at their bodies beyond the scale. What does your body do? What can you do with it? Can you lift your child? That's an amazing thing. Can you squat down in the garden? Can you walk down the stairs? Like, this is all amazing, especially when you look at people who've lost those abilities. How can you find appreciation for that beyond this mathematical? You know, I, I can only eat salads and, and, and reduce my calories by this much. We don't have to live in that world. We can actually live in a very fluid world where we're just listening to ourselves.

• 27:56Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, that's, I mean, and I, and I know you work with so many people and you've got a very impressive track record for helping people recover from their eating disorder and kind of stay in remission. But when you send a client out into the scary diet culture world, what do you leave them with that is like the most important tip or tool to prevent relapse?

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Yes, I like to tell everyone two things when they come into my office. And the first one is, do you think it's possible to eat whatever you want, whenever you want, and stay healthy and at your natural weight? And everyone's like, no, that's the first thing. And the other thing I say to them is, by the time you're done with treatment with me, I want you and only you to be your own best expert. Only you is going to tell you exactly what you need, when you need it, and how much of what you need.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  And that's because I encourage everyone to go on a journey of self-awareness. And self-awareness is inherently a mindful activity. It's when you're actually fully tuning in to every single part of your body and your mind. And not checking out, not dissociating, not going into a mindless state or an emotional state. But to really be objective and loving and nonjudgmental. When you hear and see these things arise, because then you can listen to your deepest inner voice. And your deepest inner voice is always the most loving voice. I, I tell people, listen for that soft voice, not the meanest.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Listen for the soft voice that loves you and listen to what it's saying. Because it does talk to you. It does say, I need sleep. It does say, I'm feeling sad, saying, I need someone to hug me. It's saying, I really am low on vitamins and minerals. That salad looks amazing. Or it's, I haven't had enough fat today and I think I want mac and cheese. And actually allowing that for yourself and paying attention. And eating until you're satisfied with it, which is, you know, not something we're necessarily trained to do. But when you get really good at that, you can go out and be in the world.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  And I've had clients come back to me years later and tell me, thank you, thank you, thank you. I went home for Thanksgiving and I enjoyed every second of it. It did not bring up all the old patterns and the thoughts and the self-loathing. I listened to myself, I ate what I want, I handled my family in the most, you know, loving way that I could. Thank you for that. And to me, that's like amazing. There's no better thing to hear, ever.

• 31:03Abbey Sharp?

  Oh yeah, that is the ultimate goal, isn't it? And I, I think people get stuck in these patterns. You know, you talked a lot about kind of the, the binge restrict cycle. I often talk about the satisfaction hunt or eating around a craving. Where you want the chips, but so, you know, that's bad. So then you get the, you get the rice cakes and then you get the, the kale chips. And then you eat a bag of grapes and then you eat some low calorie ice cream. And then you just end up eating the family sized bag of chips, right? So teaching people that it's okay to honor your cravings straight up the first time. And, and just, and be kind to your body and that judgment free.

• 31:50Abbey Sharp?

  More times than not, you're going to eat fewer calories than had you kind of chased that craving around until you finally give it.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  Totally. Because I mean, think about it, when you have potato chips, there's a moment and there's a moment for everyone. Their mouth goes, mm, okay, mm, mm, that's, I don't think I can take that much salt anymore. There's always that moment, but we, because we have so much going on up here. And we're not paying attention to what our body's telling us. And we're like, okay, this is taboo, so we're going to eat as much as possible. You don't pay attention to that moment. And this was big for everyone that I've had come in for binge eating. I'm like, eat it, eat it and listen. Listen for the moment when your body tells you, I don't want that anymore.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  And they all report back to me like, oh my gosh, I ate only that much of it. When I normally would have eaten all of it because I was paying attention to how my tongue felt. I was taking, paying attention to how my belly felt and just how kind of lethargic I felt afterward.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  And I stopped. And so it's the most freeing thing in the world when they realize, and that's the point when they they realize they can eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and maintain or go to the most natural, healthy weight for them, whatever that may be, if they are looking to lose any weight. And that is like, complete joy and freedom.

• 33:29Abbey Sharp?

  Right. The ultimate freedom. And and and and really the only way to reach these goals long term.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. I think it's so important that we don't assign rules around eating.

• 33:42Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  That we only just listen to ourselves, because that way we avoid so many of these pitfalls.

• 33:49Abbey Sharp?

  Hundred percent. I love this. Amazing advice. Thank you so, so much, Dr. Tovar, for joining us. I've got so many great tips here, and there are so many more in the book, Deprogram Diet Culture. So I, of course, will leave information and links in the show notes for where people can order their own copy. So thank you again for joining me. This is so great.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Thank you so much, Abbey. It's such a pleasure to be here.

• 34:19Abbey Sharp?

  Oh, that was so fascinating and also so important, because we know that healthy eating or losing weight is about so much more than just the food. The brain can and does play such an integral role. So I want to close off by pulling together some of the tools that Dr. Tovar and I spoke about, that she goes into far more detail in her book on, and give you an example of how to reprogram some of the cognitive distortions that may be getting in your way from healing your relationship with food.

• 34:56Abbey Sharp?

  So we're going to address a food fear or problematic belief with a positive mantra. Step one, and then anchor in some healthy behaviors. And then we're going to finish with some positive reinforcement to help encourage us to repeat that behavior long term. So in this example, the belief may be that you must intermittent fast until noon because eating breakfast will make you fat. Scientifically, we actually know this is not true. Research clearly shows that intermittent fasting is not some kind of magic weight loss secret. If it works, it's simply because you've skipped a meal and created a calorie deficit.

• 35:38Abbey Sharp?

  But for many people, this deficit can be made up for by overeating or even binging at subsequent meals, especially when you are living in this scarcity mindset. So your mantra might be, "I trust my body and eat breakfast if I'm hungry. It prevents me from binging and doesn't inherently make me gain weight." So you're going to start your day reciting those words for about two minutes. Then you might have some water or some coffee, get yourself dressed, get yourself ready for the day, the kids out the door. And if hunger strikes, I want you to go to the kitchen and begin to recite the mantra

• 36:19Abbey Sharp?

  again while you scramble an egg or make some toast. "I trust my body and eat breakfast if I'm hungry. It prevents me from binging and doesn't inherently make me gain weight." Now you've anchored the nourishing breakfast with the supportive and positive belief about breakfast for you. So now, of course, you're going to eat and enjoy the breakfast. And I want you to notice how much more calm your mind and body feels when those needs have been honored. So the final step here is you want to give yourself a little positive reinforcement, which really just does help to encourage repeat breakfast. So maybe you tell yourself, "Great job," or you give yourself a big smile in the mirror before starting the day.

• 37:05Abbey Sharp?

  And I know it almost seems too simple and silly to have a meaningful effect. But the research on self-affirmations definitely suggests otherwise. So studies have found that reciting positive mantras and affirmations can help to reduce stress and rumination while also increasing positive behaviors, particularly those related to healthy eating and exercise. The more consistently you do this, the sooner the diet culture messages get phased out and the new health-promoting beliefs can get hardwired in. I would love to hear some of your mantras for beliefs that you are working on reprogramming. So definitely share them with me on social media.

• 37:49Abbey Sharp?

  And I hope you found this episode as enlightening as I did. Please do not forget to share this episode with friends and leave us a review for the podcast. It really, really does help us get the word out as a new podcast so that we can continue to bring together the best guests and the most informative content to help you bite back against diet culture. I'm Abbey Sharp. Thank you for listening.

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• 41:54Speaker 01

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