Breaking Up With Binge Eating

In this episode, we’re looking at restriction urges: the urges that say, “Get it while you can.” These urges are often not just about hunger or cravings. They are scarcity alarms. Sometimes the scarcity is physical, like not eating enough or going too long without food. Sometimes it is psychological, like food rules, guilt, or the feeling that you are technically allowed to eat something but still shouldn’t want it. Sometimes it comes from the threat of future restriction: “Tomorrow I’ll be good,” “After this weekend I’m stopping,” “I need to drop a few pounds before vacation,” or “This is the last time.”
The main question from this episode is: “What am I afraid there is not enough of?” Maybe the answer is food, satisfaction, dessert, time, pleasure, freedom, permission, comfort, choice, or rest. Once you can hear the scarcity signal, you can respond with reliable permission instead of more control.

New to the show? Start Here: https://breakingupwithbingeeating.transistor.fm/start-here
Pick the listening path that fits what you’re dealing with right now.

Bingeing can be painful and costly, but it often persists because it is doing a job.
Not working because it is harmless or because you want to keep doing it, but because it may have been doing something important for you. Bingeing may provide relief, comfort, rest, numbness, pleasure, rebellion, privacy, or a way to get through moments that feel impossible.
In this episode, we look at bingeing as a coping strategy that may have helped you survive, especially if it began when you were young and had fewer choices. The goal is not to romanticize bingeing, but to understand what need it has been meeting so you can begin meeting that need earlier, more directly, and with less harm.

New to the show? Start Here: https://breakingupwithbingeeating.transistor.fm/start-here
Pick the listening path that fits what you’re dealing with right now.

The First 60 Seconds: Don’t Let the Urge Become a Story (The Urge Proof Life — Episode 4)
There’s a tiny moment when an urge first appears—before the binge, before the “might as well,” before the story starts writing itself. In this episode, Georgie explains why the first danger often isn’t the urge itself, but the meaning we attach to it: I can’t handle this, I already know how this ends, I’m going to binge.
You’ll learn the “two waves” of an urge: the first wave is sensation, and the second wave is interpretation. The skill in the first 60 seconds isn’t to make the urge disappear or diagnose it perfectly, it’s to meet it with boring neutrality: “This is an urge. That’s all. It’ll be here for a while, and then it will leave.” From there, you can choose one small support, and later use the Urge Map if needed.
Try this week: Practice the boring sentence three times when an urge appears. You don’t have to stop eating, solve the urge, or do anything perfectly. Just notice what happens when you decline the story.

New to the show? Start Here: https://breakingupwithbingeeating.transistor.fm/start-here
Pick the listening path that fits what you’re dealing with right now.

Stop Arguing With Your Cravings: A Conversation with Dr. Glenn Livingston

This episode is a rare guest conversation on Breaking Up With Binge Eating. Georgie is joined by Dr. Glenn Livingston, psychologist, author, and creator of Defeat Your Cravings, for a wide-ranging conversation about binge eating, cravings, food rules, self-trust, and why insight alone often isn’t enough to change an eating pattern.
Glenn shares his own history with compulsive overeating, including how years of therapy and self-understanding helped him become kinder to himself, but did not automatically stop the binge eating. Together, Georgie and Glenn explore why emotional pain can be part of the picture without being the whole cause, how the brain can use old wounds as justification for continuing a pattern, and why clear lines or “guardrails” can sometimes reduce the mental negotiation that keeps cravings alive.
They also talk about the modern food environment, hyper-palatable foods, intermittent fasting, perfectionism, self-forgiveness, and why it is often easier to prevent cravings upstream than to fight them once they are roaring. Glenn offers practical tools for identifying the thoughts that try to talk you into eating against your own best judgment, while Georgie brings in her perspective on under-eating, over-productivity, emotional needs, and the importance of responding to both hunger and fullness cues with care.
A key theme in this conversation is that recovery does not have to be built on shame. You can aim clearly without attacking yourself when you miss. You can protect your recovery without making your life smaller. And you can become someone who takes your own needs seriously, even when that means being a little “weird” in public, packing food, skipping the dessert you don’t want, or refusing to harm yourself with food for someone else’s comfort.
Try this week: Notice one craving or urge and write down the thought that tries to justify it. Is it futility? Permission? “I deserve this”? “I’ll start tomorrow”? Then ask: what would actually support me here?
You can learn more about Dr. Glenn Livingston and access his free resources at DefeatYourCravings.com.

New to the show? Start Here: https://breakingupwithbingeeating.transistor.fm/start-here
Pick the listening path that fits what you’re dealing with right now.

New to the show? Start Here: https://breakingupwithbingeeating.transistor.fm/start-here Pick the listening path that fits what you’re dealing with right now.
Show Notes:
Have you ever thought, “I don’t even like this that much… so why do I still want more?” In this episode, Georgie explains the difference between wanting and liking—and why urges can stay loud even when pleasure is fading.
You’ll learn how wanting and liking are supported by partly different brain systems: dopamine-heavy motivation circuits help generate the “go get it” drive, while pleasure is more tied to hedonic circuits involving opioid and endocannabinoid signaling. The takeaway: drive and pleasure can decouple. That’s why food can feel magnetic even when it’s not actually delivering much satisfaction.
Georgie also walks through three common reasons wanting can run hotter than liking: cues and habit loops, scarcity, and stress or depletion. You’ll learn how to use a not worth it list, a pleasure check, and the concept of diminishing returns to interrupt the trance of “more will fix it.”
Try this week: Pick one risk food or one risk time when wanting tends to get loud. If you eat, pause partway through and ask: “Am I actually liking this, or am I chasing relief?” If liking is low, try one re-route action from your urge map: nourishment, soft landing, soothing, permission with structure, or breaking a cue chain.
Coming next: What to do in the first 60 seconds of an urge—before it escalates and before you start negotiating with yourself.