Join Dr. Marianne Pinkston and guest Amber Abila, an adult binge eating coach and expert, for a deep dive into Binge Eating Disorder (BED). Dr. Pinkston shares her personal journey of gaining over 300 pounds, losing weight, and realizing she was struggling with an eating disorder later in life. Amber, who also overcame bulimia and binge eating, discusses how this disorder—only recognized in the DSM-5 in 2013—is often misunderstood as a “willpower problem.” They explore the origins of the binge-restrict cycle, the power of mindset and habit change, and practical strategies to dismantle the shame, fear, and addictive patterns surrounding food. Learn the six pillars of Amber’s coaching program, including how to sit with urges, develop an abundance mindset, and use celebration to rewire your brain for lasting change.
————————————————————–
Introduction: The Better Life with Dr. Marianne Pinkston
[Music]
Hey everybody, this is Dr. Maryann Kingston, the better life with Dr. Kingston. And as uh usual, I want to
bring you some information that I hope is represents uh what’s going on in your world and and bring a little extra
knowledge to your plate uh to try to help you in and many of your endeavors from an integrative uh medicine kind of
functional medicine point of view. And uh today we’ll go along the lines of something that is near and dear to my
Introducing Guest Amber Abila: Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and its History
heart. Um, I’ve got a a fantastic lady here who is going to tell us her story
and uh I think she and I have a lot in common. Uh, you well most of my audience knows that I was 300 lb at one point,
lost a lot of weight and had to face an eating disorder. And I’m a doctor. I’m a I’m an educated person. I I uh have done
a lot but didn’t realize till I was 47 years old that I might have an eating disorder. And that was why I gained up
Dr. Pinkston’s Personal Story: Realizing an Eating Disorder at 47
uh to the weight that I did. But I have Amber Abia here. Abila here. See, I told
you. And so I have Amber Abila here and she is an eating a binge eating and
overeating coach. Uh does a lot of great work and I welcome you. Thank you for
coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Kingston. I’m so excited to be here and
talk about my story, how I also struggled with binge eating and ultimately how I overcame it because
Amber’s Story: The Dieting Origin of Binge Eating and Bulimia
there’s a lot of different information out there. What I find is so interesting is that binge eating wasn’t even
recognized as an eating disorder until 2013. Wow. So that was only about 12 years ago. So
there’s a lot of different advice approaches um out there. Of course, binge eating has been
around longer than that. It was only recognized in the DSM5 at that time. So I’m super excited to be
here today with you. Well, thank you. I I think this is very important topic because I think you know
we have a lot of uh DSM disorders which is the you know psychiatric disorders
and and eating disorders is I think has been kind of brushed under the rug. I I don’t I think there’s a lot of people
who don’t realize that they have a disorder and I’m absolutely blown away at your statistic there of u of you know
being recognized in 2013. If I look backwards, that is about the time I started waking up to things and uh and
understanding. So that sounds about right. No doctor brought it up to me. I I’ve seen many do I know many doctors.
I’ve seen many doctors. I I approach many about uh about issues. Nobody brought that up to me. So dive in. Tell
us your story and and how you came to uh do all this. Yeah. You know, with doctors sometimes
it’s looked at as a personal willpower problem of something we harder with, but that’s really not the case. So for me
and so many others, our journey started when we started dieting. So back in 2015, I went on my first diet, but I
The Shift from Therapy to Habit Research: Understanding Binge as a Habit
didn’t think it was a diet because it was calorie counting, right? So I had decided I wanted to lose about
10 pounds. Like I didn’t have a ton of weight to lose, but I just thought I wanted to trim up. Some of my friends were talking about how they had lost
some weight, so I was like, you know what? Let’s do this. So I Googled how you lose weight. It’s like calories in, calories out. Seems so simple. So I
downloaded My Fitness Pal. I opened the app and I got my perfect calorie count for how much I needed to eat.
Now, I followed that pretty strictly um for a couple months and then I decided I could use a little more weight loss. So,
I just lowered it a little bit more and I just thought, well, if I want to lose weight faster, let’s just keep lowering it. Yes. Now, what I know now that I didn’t know
then is to our body, it does not know the difference between uh low calorie count
and a famine happening from the face of the planet Earth. So then I started getting these really strong cravings for
food. And the f the first time I binged, I remember it so clearly. I walked downstairs to my kitchen. It was around
Christmas time and we had a Christmas tin of cookies. I opened it up and I thought, “Okay, I’m just going to have one cookie. I’ve been so good.” I had
one cookie and I was flooded with this desire for more. I felt like I became a ghost in my body and I just had another
and another and another until I had seven cookies and then I was filled with so much shame. I was like, “I can’t
The First Binge and Purge: The Shame and Desperation of the Cycle
believe I just did this.” And that was also the first time that I ever purged and threw up. So I did struggle with
bulimia for a time period as well because I was just so desperate to keep the weight off. I didn’t want anything
to deter me in this weight loss goal. Understood. Now after a few months of that, I
realized I can’t do this anymore. That this is becoming unsustainable. I’m gaining weight rapidly now. I’m also
throwing up almost every day. I knew all the negative health consequences of that. And I was like, it’s not getting
any better on my own. In fact, it’s always just getting worse every day. So, I’m going to go seek out help. I went to
therapy, as is the first place most people go if they want to take this more psychological approach to healing. And
while therapy did really help me with my bulimia, it didn’t help me so much with my binge eating. And that’s when I
really started to feel broken was I’ve been in therapy for all these months now and I’ve tried a couple different therapists and none of them seem to be
quite working for me where I feel like I’m not stopping binge eating. and we just kept going to my past and where
this might have formed and looking at my emotions, which aren’t bad things and I’m sure I gained a lot of awareness
through that that helped me later down the line. But I just felt like I wasn’t really I was still binge eating and so I
was like this isn’t really working for me. So that’s when I uh decided to go do my own research and figure out what the
heck was going on here. And I started learning about habits and how our brain
forms habits and how there’s a trick or cue and then we do the thing, we get a
reward and then it gets reinforced. And I had a light bulb moment where I realized my binge eating has kind of been like this where I have all of these
The “Aha!” Moment: Changing the Reaction to Triggers and Urges
triggers and these cues that make me want to binge and then I um get this desire, I get
this strong urge to do it. I do it and then my brain gets the reward and then I keep doing it. And what I realized too
was that a lot of people think that they need to change their triggers. Like, okay, I’m not going to go out to eat.
I’m not going to have this food in the house. I’m going to eliminate X, Y, and Z. And that can work, but it makes your
life very small and doesn’t feel sustainable. So, what I did instead was
I started to learn, well, how do I change my reaction to these triggers, which were my urges? So, I started to
learn, well, how do I sit with these urges? What are urges? Where are they coming from? How can I view them in a
new light where they don’t feel so powerful? And that was ultimately I mean there was a few other things down the
line that we can continue to talk about, but that was really my biggest aha moment that I had that was, oh my gosh,
I get it. Nothing’s wrong with me. It’s just my brain has gotten in this really strong habit around food. And all I need
to do essentially is in order to stop binge eating, we stop binge eating because then that deconditions the habit
pathway and makes it so we no longer want to do it anymore. Excellent. And so I think there are
times where I I you know when I talk with patients and I open their eyes and their their mind to the idea that u this
you know may be occurring. Uh you mentioned the shame that uh that is
Defining BED and Taking the First Step: Unshaming the Behavior
there. It’s very difficult for patients to open up to me and talk about it. And while we’re in a small, you know, a very
short uh appointment, uh getting to the basis of that and how that habit formed
and then, you know, facing that shame of it and how they begin to reverse that, I found that sending them to counseling is
very helpful if if the counselor does know kind of where that’s coming from. But I think their understanding might
improve if they understand how to approach it. I mean some of the first
steps of how to approach it. So how does someone you know I think identifying it
and admitting to it is you know more than half of the problem certainly. Um so maybe we should define it uh first.
Um and then uh and then you know how did they take some of those first steps to
uh begin to change that habit. Yeah. So the first thing you mentioned here is the shame around it. Right. And
I think that is actually the first step is to unshame oursel from this because if we feel shame around it, we are
putting this in a deep dark closet of our mind that we don’t want to look at. And when we binge, we just pretend it
doesn’t happen. I would do it in secret um away from everyone else. And then I couldn’t build any awareness. I didn’t
have any acknowledgement of it. Um and in order to do that, we have to like let go of the shame because if we think that
there’s something wrong with us and there’s something broken about us, of course we don’t want to acknowledge it. Like no one wants to say like there’s
something just broken with me in my brain. So what I like to remind people of is that
all you’re doing is eating food. That is the truth of what binge eating is is you’re eating food. Yes, it’s more
food than your body needs. It is overeating on the food. But if we just like take away all the drama from
it, you’re eating food and everyone eats food. There’s nothing weird or wrong about that. And in fact, when we
actually look at how binge eating forms, it makes a lot of sense. Like this is
actually a sign that your brain is functioning very properly because if your brain did not respond with that
strong binge behavior 100 years ago, you would have been dead and you wouldn’t have survived. So, a
lot of people tend to like think they’re crazy or weird. But almost all behaviors in any area, if you
look at it as how could this be trying to help me survive, it makes a lot more sense. And that can kind of take away
the shame from it that this is was helping me in some way at some point in time and I’m just eating food. Once you
get rid of like the shame bubble and you’re like, okay, I can breathe a little now. I can see what I’m doing and why I might be doing it. Then I think
yes, awareness is important to start to see where when and where am I doing this?
Tools for Awareness: The Simple Food Diary and Changing Mindset
Like when does this happen? when does it show up for me? Um, I always recommend doing just a simple food diary for that.
This is not a counting calories or macros, but just like writing down what you eat and when you eat and any notes
that you have or why you ate it, just to sort of get like some clear insights of, oh, I’m noticing at this time it happens
or is in this situation or I get this thought and this happens.
And then from there, one of the key skills is you so you start to build some awareness around your thoughts. looking
at what thoughts are creating desire for binge eating and for food.
Because I’ll give you an example here. If I sat here with this glass of water and I told myself that this is going to
be the last glass of water I get all day long. And it’s really, really good. In
fact, it’s the best water I’ve ever tasted in my life. And I don’t know when I’m going to get it again. But I just know that once I start drinking this, I
can’t stop. Right. I now have created desire for this water. Yeah. Like I want to drink it now. I’m really
How Thoughts Create Desire: The “Last Glass of Water” Analogy
thirsty because not just because of the water. The water is just existing, but because of the way my thoughts and my mindset
perceived that water. Sure. And so we do this with food a lot of times where we say, “I don’t want to get
this food again or it’s off limits.” And then we put it on a pedestal, but it’s really good and I really want it. This is the last time I’m going to do
this. This is it. No more after this. Right? And every time we do that and create
desire for it, it’s going to make it harder to change. Um, so we can do that around the food, but we can also do this
around the binge eating behavior in general. So we can say things like, I need this to cope,
but binge eating is kind of pleasurable. It’s kind of fun. It’s exciting for a bit. Any of those thoughts also make it so we
don’t want to get rid of binge eating. Who wants to get rid of something that’s kind of fun and enjoyable? And so a lot of the work that I do through coaching
and why coaching is so important and having someone with you in this journey is because they can help you start to
see and shift your mindset around why these foods aren’t desirable and also
why you don’t want to have the binge eating habit and can kind of connect your brain to the negative consequences of it.
Yeah, that I think negativity is 80% of our thoughts on a a daily basis and tied to survival. If you look back at the
cavemen, they had to get up every day, run from the bear, go hunt for food that
Dr. Pinkston’s Secret Binge: Stress, Pleasure, Guilt, and the Need for Support
was scarce. They had to, you know, probably watch their neighbor to make sure they weren’t, you know, going to be killed off from the food sources because
they were scarce, etc. I mean, that is a fight-or-flight response. And you know just to just to be a little bit uh
transparent in the shame department uh you know as a 47y old woman who owns a medical clinic who you know has three
children and and you know is a leader and and you know does all these these things has podcast uh radio show and
whatnot. You know there would be times I would you know people would tell me I don’t know why you’re so overweight Dr.
Kingston. never see you eat, but I’d wait until everybody went to bed. And
then I would pull out the little the little uh uh plastic bin, you know, from under the bed or go to the back of the
pantry where I had everything hid and then take a nose dive and it could be 3,500 calories. And and this would
happen uh usually from triggers of of excess stressors somewhere down the road. And and that’s a deep dark thing,
too. But but you know that did create a pleasure that that was but the foods that I chose are very specific and very
pleasurable. But then afterwards there was that hit of oh gosh I can’t I can’t
do this. This isn’t right. I’m going to gain more weight. I’ll never do it again. You know and the guilt uh that
came uh came with it and and all that is that was extremely powerful. That was
very very powerful. And I felt it very difficult. So what what I did was like I
say after 13 years of going back and forth like this, I had finally engaged
somebody to help me understand it and help me through it. And that is another point I think you’re trying to make too
is that we need support. We can’t there’s a lot of these things we shouldn’t do alone. I won’t say can’t do
alone, but shouldn’t do alone. And the the woman that helped me, Sandy, was uh
was uh still is still in my life, you know, 10 years later. Um, and you know, she she brought it to my attention of
what I was actually doing and why I was doing that is so important. And so I feel like the support behind that is is
uh crucial. Absolutely. So, do you agree? Yeah, I do. And they can help you see
things from a whole another lens. A lot of times when we’re struggling, I like to compare it to like if you’re inside a
The Crucial Role of Objective Support and Coaching
glass bottle and you try to read the label from the inside. you can kind of make it out a little bit, but you’re so
deep in it that you can’t really make out the words as much as someone who’s on the outside is like, “Oh, I can tell
you exactly what this says. I can show you exactly what this means.” And so, they can just see it in a little more
clearer light because we’re very biased in our brain. We believe everything we think a lot of the times because our brain likes to be right about things. It
wants to prove itself true. And so, it is helpful to have someone say like,
“Oh, you know what? If we viewed it this way, what if we thought about it this And then that can start to shift some of our beliefs which changes our actions
around food. Right. Absolutely. That that’s very very well put. Uh that objective view can be
true in anything that we are are facing and trying to to handle the support is very very important. And so with with
all that what is your approach then? How do you approach people who who you know
Amber’s Six Pillars of Freedom: Mindset, Moderation, and Urges
um in your coaching and and how do you approach people who are just beginning to uncover this and and want help? Mhm.
So, I go through six pillars in my program that I can go over briefly on each one. And the first one is the
mindset piece. So, this is a lot of times that awareness building, that having someone else come in and see it. Um, having you see it for yourself,
which we’ve already kind of touched on. My second pillar is moderation. So, this is learning how to eat anything in
Pillar 2: Moderation & The Scarcity Mindset (“Enough is a Decision”)
moderation. And this has a lot to do with desire and our abundance versus scarcity mindset. So, we talked about
the water and how we can create desire for it. But another big thing I see with
people who have dieted is this scarcity mindset around food where we feel like it’s never enough. That no matter how
much we eat, we always need more. And what I like to tell people is that
enough is always a decision. It is a thought that we’re having is not a fact.
Because someone can be making a million dollars a year and decide, I’m not making enough. I don’t have enough. I
need more, more, more. And someone could be making 50,000 a year and saying, I have plenty. I get all my needs met.
It’s perfect. I’m happy. You know, because it’s a mindset around it. So, of course, there’s like a certain amount of food that we truly do need in order to
survive on Earth. But then beyond that, there’s a decision that we can make around food on deciding what’s enough.
Pillar 3: Processing Urges by Grounding in Body Sensations
Then third, I go into our urges. So, our urges are that strong feeling of desire
right before we go into the habit. Now, with our urges, I find it really
important to go into our body and start to notice what sensations they’re creating. Because a lot of times when
we’re getting these cravings around food, we get very in our head with a lot of thoughts. Should I do it? Should I
not do it? I’m going to be bad. I’m going to be good. Oh my gosh, I was already bad yesterday. Well, maybe this food’s just a little to have it. You know, it’s just like these frantic
thoughts. And so, when we could go into our body and say, “What am I noticing right now about this sensation?” And
what I mean by that is like really labeling what this craving feels like.
So does it feel like for most people it’s not probably not going to feel soft and fluffy. It might feel like hard and
fast and red and I feel it in my chest in my throat. And just doing that brings our energy down and just be like okay
where are these sensation and grounds us a little bit and that helps us process this urge a bit. Um, and it can also
just help us calm us down so we’re not in this fight orflight state. Because when we’re in the fight orflight state,
we’re not able to use our higher brain that knows, oh, this isn’t something I want to do. Right. Right. Very primitive.
Yeah. And then fifth, we go into your confidence and body image. So, healing like this kind of desire that’s been
taught to us, the always needing to lose more weight. That’s like kind of my I always need to lose weight story that like no matter if I got to, you know, 50
Pillar 5 & 6: Confidence, Body Image, and Shifting Identity
pounds, my brain would probably tell me I need to lose more weight. Absolutely. Yeah. And then finally, we learn how to
maintain progress um by shifting our identity. So that’s just kind of an overview of the steps that I take people
through and kind of some of the actionable things we look at during each one of those. Gotcha. Yeah. Well, why is the urge so
what makes it occur again? Why explain for everybody why it’s so strong?
Because it is it’s tough. So every time we do something, it’s like
The Power of the Urge: Intermittent Reinforcement and Rewiring the Brain
taking a check mark vote in our brain. So we do this every single day with brushing our teeth. Every day we’re
taking the check mark in our brain. So then we don’t brush our teeth. We are like just feel gross today. Feel like I
haven’t brush my teeth. That’s where that desire is coming from. So every single time that you’ve binged, you’ve
been ingraining this habit that this is something I want to do. When your brain stops getting the reward of food, then
it deconditions that brain pathway. So when we don’t eat, when we get the urge to binge and we sit with it. We get
through that and we don’t eat, our brain doesn’t get the reward and then starts to rewire. Now you might be thinking, well that sounds horrible. I want the
reward though. I don’t want to sit with not having the reward. But we’re going to give our brain a new reward instead.
And what that reward is going to be is celebration. Celebration is like neural superglue in
our brain where it cements in any habit that we want to have. So anytime we get
The New Reward: Using Celebration as Neural Superglue
proud of oursel, excited, our brain pays attention because it pays attention to strong emotions. Um strong emotions
again historically if we look at from a survival perspective strong emotion means something is going on that we need to pay pay attention to. Either
something is bringing us a positive survival benefit. We’re falling in love. We’re feeling really strong emotion. We better pay attention to this and
remember this. Or something really bad is happening. um our best friend from the tribe is leaving us and that means
we better pay attention and remember this so it doesn’t happen again. So if we use that to our advantage, we can
celebrate ourel and we’re saying I’m so proud of you for changing our brain in this moment for not acting on this old
habit. And that celebration is what’s going to make it so your brain remembers next time, hey, remember when we got the
urge yesterday and we felt really excited and proud of oursel and we said, “Go me. You’ve got this. You’re doing amazing.” Your brain says, “Oh, that was
really fun. let’s do that again now. But a big mistake I see people making is they get through the urge and they’re just like, “Thank god I got through
that.” Like I hope that never happens again and it probably will happen again because you’ve trained it in for many
different years to eat like this. And so it’s probably come again, but if we can make it something that’s fun and enjoyable to
sit through, then it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Yeah. And I find it’s really part of the
addictive cycle. So, you know, we get those dopamine surges. Dopamine is the happy hormone. That is the one that
Binge Eating and the Addictive Cycle (Dopamine Surge)
makes you feel momentarily because it is a momentary response, you know, very very very strongly happy and and uh uh
and overjoyed. And so I find that the binging is much uh like an addiction,
giving into an addiction, maybe smoking, even things like gambling, porn, there’s many many different areas where people
shopping, you know, there’s many different people uh ways that people get that dopamine urge. Do you find the same
uh that they may have other addictive habits too? Yeah, because behind any addictive habit
is this concept of intermittent reinforcement reinforcement where sometimes we get the reward and sometimes we don’t. So our brain is
perceiving well the food is kind of pleasurable but it’s also giving me a lot of pain and so it’s trying to figure out it hasn’t made a reliable
distinction between the two ideas of is binge eating fun or is it not fun and this is often the idea in all other
addictions. you drink alcohol, it’s like, wow, sometimes it’s fun, I’m having a good time, I’m relaxed, but then I wake up and I’m hung over and it
feels like this 50/50 split of is it fun, is it not fun? Um, with again with any other thing, too,
smoking, okay, it’s fun, it feels good, it’s relaxing, but I’m also spending a lot of money on it. I know the long-term consequences of it. So, the key comes
from when we can differentiate and change this proportion that our brain is
viewing the habit as positive and negative. So for people who don’t struggle with alcohol, I don’t really
Showing Yourself the Whole Story: Chapter One vs. Chapters Two Through Ten
I’ve had times in my life where I’ve definitely overdrink and it’s because I’m perceiving it as more pleasurable than not. But now I don’t really drink
that much anymore. I don’t have a problem with it anymore because I am focusing more on the negative
consequences of it and I’m not telling myself the story about how it’s going to be fun. When I decide I’m going to drink
now, all I’m thinking about is I’m probably not going to sleep well tonight. I’m going to be tired tomorrow.
I’m adding on extra calories today. I don’t really need I’m probably going to be hard for me to work out in the morning and get up out of bed.
Is it worth it? Yeah. Is it worth it? Really worth it? And because of that, I’m like, you know
what? I don’t really want it. Or if I do have it, I definitely don’t want anymore because I I keeping those things in mind. And so I call this like showing
ourselves the whole story because a lot of ourselves tell ourselves chapter one.
Chapter one, I eat the food, it tastes good. The end, it’s great. But there’s chapters 2 through 10 which is the rest
of the experience that is very miserable and negative that creates a lot of pain in our life.
And so yes, while there is some things going on in our brain where we might get this dopamine hit from the drive to go
get these foods, what matters is not so much like the reality of what’s going on, but is it
helpful to tell yourself about that reality? So if you are telling yourself all day long, well, but binge eating is
fun, it’s pleasurable, and I get this hit. it’s not helpful because then that’s going to make you want to do it. So instead, you just need to be telling
yourself the story of all of the negative consequences and searching out for as many of those as you can find.
One thing that I’ve noticed about certain foods um that I encourage people to like really slow down when you’re
eating and see if you notice any of these for yourself. For me, anytime I have gummy candy, I don’t like to have gummy candy because I
get this sugar feeling coating on my teeth that I think is disgusting. I hate
Slowing Down: Mindful Binging and Noticing Negative Food Consequences
it. It makes me want to brush my teeth immediately, but then I know it’s bad to brush your teeth right after you have sugar and the acids are getting brushed
into it more. So, I just don’t really want to eat gummy candy because of that one little thing that I paid attention
to. Mhm. Same thing with me for ice cream. Ice cream makes me extremely thirsty. And
I’m sure, you know, it’s partially the sugar in it, the carbs, maybe it’s something else. But all I know is I eat ice cream and I feel like I am like
needing to chug water the rest of the day. I can’t sleep well that night. I wake up in the middle of night and I feel thirsty then or I need to pee all
night. So for me, because I’m remembering that, I’m like, I don’t really want ice cream right now. Now, I
didn’t notice those things until I started to slow down around the food. Right?
If you are binge eating, it tends to happen very, very, very quickly. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, one thing I encourage people to do
is even if you still binge the same amount of food, I want you to sit down and try to do a mindful binge. Now, most
of the times you’ll try to do this. You’ll actually eat a lot less because you’re paying attention to it and you’re like finally actually getting the
pleasure and satisfaction you want, but at the very least you will notice something different about that experience that you might have not
noticed before. So, literally giving yourself permission to binge like you can binge right now, but let’s do it
sitting down with the food all plated out and just me and the food just paying attention eating it slowly and just see
what happens and what you can notice differently. Yep. Mindful eating, right? And so, you know, the one thing we didn’t do, and
we’re probably going to uh step into a break here shortly, but uh one thing we didn’t do was really define the difference between just overeating,
Distinguishing Overeating, Emotional Eating, and Binge Eating
emotional eating, and binge eating. There is a difference. You can do both at the same time even, right?
Absolutely. So, there is like a true medical definition for binge eating, which is eating a larger amount of food
than most people would consider normal within a 2-hour time span. So, that
alone is pretty like like what does that mean, a larger food than most? But I think we can we can kind of distinguish
between like, oh, I had three cookies versus I had the whole box of cookies. Like that’s kind of the difference
between overeating and binge eating. Um, but both can feel like out of control. Both can feel frantic. The biggest
difference I see between someone who like overeats at times and someone who like truly binges is the difference in
the level of hunger they experience or are currently experiencing in their history with food.
Interesting. So, the stronger the restriction or deprivation that someone had in the past, usually the bigger the
binges are, and if they’re still currently restricting, that of course also makes the binges larger right now
versus I’ve had people who like haven’t really dieted before. Um, or maybe they dieted, but they it only lasts them like
three days and then they overeat so much food that it made up for it anyways. And so, those people tend to be more like
the overeating side, I find, where it’s more like we’re just eating a little extra. And that’s because their body has
been properly nourished and fed. So it doesn’t quite send the same level of desire for large amounts of food.
The Role of Trauma in Eating Issues and When to Seek a Specialist
Yeah. Gotcha. And so what about, you know, people who do have significant trauma in their past? Do you find that
that they tend to have more of these issues than than not?
You know, it definitely can be a factor. And I think that this is actually like a bigger question than most people realize
where it’s pretty unknown the role of trauma in our eating issues. It can
definitely be a factor for sure and it’s hard to define like what is a trauma right like we have like bigger tea
traumas that we’re like yes this for sure could count as um something you know sexual assault abuse all of these
things we can count but then sometimes people have like these micro traumas that happen and what happens if you have 10 little micro traumas that happen you
know all in a year maybe that makes up one bigger one. So I think for most people unfortunately we have something
in our life that we could categorize as trauma but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll
develop binge eating disorder or another eating disorder. It tends to be how
people move forward from that trauma. And so if during that time, you know, let’s say they had some sort of sexual
abuse or just abusive in general happening um and then they also started cons um eating these highly processed
foods during that time that can start to connect in, you know, some of these
molecular things that happen underneath of it does feel good and it starts to ingrain in this habit of like we need
these processed feel-good foods to survive. And so I think get to cope and
survive through them. And so those things can get connected and later reoccur later in life. So if someone has
trauma, I always recommend them to work with a therapist first to like work through some of those things. Um
but if you find that you’re working through your trauma and that doesn’t automatically change your binge eating
a lot of pe that’s common for a lot of people and that’s people often then come to a coach or specialist to work
specifically with binge eating. Yeah. Well said. So I think on that note we will take a very short break but I
Resources and Next Steps: Amber’s Free Guided Urge Audio
want people to know where can they find you and more information on you. I think you’ve got uh an offer too.
Yes. So I have a free guided audio. Um if you go to the confineeater.orgge
urge geurge um you’ll be able to find my guided urge audio or you can just go to the confine eater.org it’ll be up there
and that’s where I’d recommend starting. This is going to be a guided audio that will walk you through what to do when
you get these strong um urges and cravings. So, it’ll walk you through how to stop a binge in the moment before it
starts. And then you can find more about me on my website as well. Excellent. Confidenteater.org. And that
will all be on my website, of course, uh where you can find the show and other shows at drpetlife.com.
I will have more information on Miss Amber here. And uh so please take a look. We are going to take a short
break. What I would like to do is come back and talk a little bit about approaching treatment, what you do for treatment. And so we’ll uh take just a
short break with Magna Pharmaceuticals and be right back. Depression, anxiety, low energy,
weakness. These are just some symptoms of low B12 levels and the absorbable B12 folate supplement that’s helping people
declare victory over depression symptoms is Denovo Plus B12 by Magna Pharmaceuticals. Patients with symptoms
of depression often exhibit low levels of folate and vitamin B12. The human body needs sufficient folate intake to
produce the essential neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These neurotransmitters alleviate
feelings of sadness, anxiety, and gloom. What makes Denovo Plus B12 so successful? Denovo Plus B12 contains
readily absorbable folate, and B12. That means it’s more successful at correcting
the root cause of your deficiency, not just the symptoms. Whether you are suffering with low energy, depression,
fatigue, or anxiety, you owe it to yourself to learn more at magnb.com.
That’s magnb.com. Please let us know at checkout that you heard about Denovo Plus B12 on the
better life with Dr. Kingston. I appreciate Magna so much. Uh Warren
and Mary Leser have been very very good to me and uh I’m very thankful for that. But I have today somebody that this has
been a great conversation. So um Amber Abila is here with me and the
confineeater.org is where you can find more information and we are talking about overeating and binge eating and
how to approach that. I know you have some great approaches with therapy. How do treatment how do uh how do you
approach your patients? Yeah. So before the break, I mentioned the guided urge audio that I give people
and the stop a binge audio. And in that I’m going to kind of go through what I go through in that audio because it’s it is really indicative of how I help
people through this. Um so first is like looking at how our higher and lower
brains are different. So having this fundamental understanding that we have these parts of our brain that can think
ahead and plan ahead and have our best goals in mind and then we also have these parts of our brain, these lower
parts, these more anim animalistic parts that are in charge of our survival. And we go through a fight with both of these
parts of our brain throughout our day in so many different areas. You know, procrastination. Oh, one parts of me wants to lay on the couch and do nothing
all day and the other part of me wants to work hard and get this done. One part of me wants to go to the gym. the other
part of me just wants to watch Netflix. And the same thing can happen with food where one parts of us, we know that we
want to stop binging, but the other part of us just wants to keep things the same as they’ve always been. And same to our
brain means safe. Even if it’s not where we want to be, it’s what it knows. And so it wants to stay in binge eating land
because it feels like, okay, I’ve known this for so long. I don’t know what’s out here where it could be. Comfortable, right? Comfortable. It’s
comfortable. Familiar, maybe. Yeah. So something I do a with a lot of people in my practice is aspects of hypnosis.
So when you hear hypnosis, a lot of people think of you know like the little watch going around and you know people
like dancing like a chicken on stage that is like stage hypnosis. That’s not really the therapeutic use of what
hypnosis will be in a session with someone. Um, and all hypnosis is is
essentially relaxing our conscious mind enough to get to these deeper layers of our unconscious.
So, I noticed that when I first started coaching, I was running into a lot of people who were saying like, “Yeah, yeah, I know what to do, but I don’t I’m
not doing it.” And I know so many of us have said that before, like, “Yeah, I know I should eat healthy. I know this this isn’t good for me, but I keep doing
it.” And why is that? That’s because we have these lower parts of your brain, these unconscious parts of our brain
that are trying to help keep us safe and the same and doing things as easy as
possible. So, in hypnosis, we’ll often do some relaxation technique to just help us go a little bit deeper and turn
off our blah blah blah blah blah brain all day long. And then we can start to access some more insights and wisdom
around what might be keeping us stuck. So, in this audio that um I mentioned, I
have people imagine a path in the road where we’re imagining path A and path B
and the different options we have when we’re deciding should I binge or should I not binge? Should I eat this food or should I not eat this food?
Now, something that’s really important to note about anytime we visualize something is our brain does not know the
difference between an indepth imagined experience and something that happens in reality. So, how many of us have like
had an argument with our partner in our brain and thought about how mad we are at them and how they didn’t do the dishes this morning and d and then we
get home and we like yell at them and they’re like, “What’s going on?” Like, “I didn’t we never talked about this.” It was just because we created a really
imagined experience in our brain that it literally created physical reactions in our body and then actions from that
place. They’ve done studies where they take people who played practiced playing piano for a month and then people who
imagined playing piano for a month and they had the same results in the improvement of piano playing.
So we know that our brain is a super powerful tool. So how we can use this then to help us
stop binge eating is we can first imagine let’s say we do eat the food. Now we’re not imagining like
ah it’s going to be rainbows and unicorns and butterflies. this is going to be so delicious and I’m going to love the experience because you know that’s
not really what happens. But we’re going to play out that whole story. So we’re going to imagine okay we sit
down, we start eating the food, maybe it tastes good for a little, but then all of a sudden we’re eating more frantically. And that experience alone
isn’t fun. Like if you actually look at your experience of binge eating, it’s not enjoyable.
Like you are so ashamed. You’re filled with so much guilt. You’re not even tasting the food. You’re eating it so quickly. You’re not even chewing the
food. It’s just like chunks of ice cream arriving in your stomach. absolutely barely even noticing them. So that
experience is even fun. So if you’re like showing yourself like let’s slow down that experience in your mind.
Really see what’s going on there. What you can notice about what you don’t like about this experience about the taste about all of it going through and then
you’re noticing the rappers around you. You feel all the shame come down on what you just did. You feel like the rest of
the day you can’t focus well. You’re thinking about the food and what you just ate. You’re not showing up for work well. You skip your workouts. You try to
go to bed that night and sleep, but you can’t sleep because you’re either thinking about all the food that you just ate or you’re like physically have
some symptoms going on. You don’t sleep well at night, you’re tired the next day. You get the point. Like we’re seeing this goes back to playing out the
whole story idea. What’s going on? But then we can also give ourselves, okay, let’s try it path
B. Let’s imagine walking down that road where path B is we take a moment to breathe, do a couple deep breaths to
calm our nervous system. We come back to the present moment. We notice the sensations in our body. We get out of
our head into our body. And then we start to give oursel these reminders of
this urge is not going to hurt me. It is just thoughts creating sensations in my body. I can handle this. I’ve handled
sensations of desire before. Remember that time I went to Target the other day and I didn’t buy that shirt. That was me doing this already. So, you’re giving
yourself like these awesome reminders and getting through it and breathing through it. Reminding yourself that this is temporary. No one has ever come to me
and said, “Amber, I’ve binged every single day or sorry, I’ve had an urge every single day for the last 10 years and it’s never went away.” No, it es and
flows. Like we feel something and then it goes away. We want something and then we don’t. So like it changes if we give
it the opportunity to change. So most of us just eat so quickly that we don’t even get the chance for the urge to go
away because we make it go away by eating. So it’s like what if we just gave this a couple more seconds and just see how it ebbed and flowed and changed
and maybe started to leave my body a little bit and lessened through it. So you’re imagining that and then you’re
imagining all the positive benefits after. So it’s like, okay, we get through it. We’re imagining walking out of that kitchen, there’s no wrappers,
the food is still in the pantry and we get excited and proud of oursel and then we notice like how much better we can
focus at work that day and how much better we sleep that night and how we do do our morning workout because we have
the energy to do it. So that just created a very positive future memory
for your brain. And then when an urge actually happens. So whether you use this um I call it the stop sub stop stop
a binge urge audio. I’ve called it a few different things but this audio to stop a binge. You can use it in the moment
when you’re actually wanting to binge or you can listen to it ahead of time to give your brain the blueprint of what to
do when it happens because now your brain knows, oh here’s the exact steps I’m going to go through and here’s how
it’s going to happen and then I’m going to feel really proud after. So now all your brain has to do is go on autopilot in a good way and have you do that
positive new habit. Yes. Yeah. That’s great. And it takes some time. People need to understand it’s a process, right? It’s like I think
we always look for quick fixes. Um I think we look for quick fixes and we mentioned this kind of before we started
the program that uh you know the latest injections that people are using are great at at stifling food noise and
appetite. That is very difficult to deal with. Even 10 years later, I still I still deal with that uh that feeling of
uh food noise. And I think a lot of that is is um thankfully we got that a lot from the industry and the types of foods
the high fructose corn syrups and things like that that um you know induce some dopamine rushes and whatnot but looking
for quick fixes to stop that doesn’t change the behavior underneath. Correct. So, we have to focus on really not only
when you start a weight loss program, which I do with patients all the time. Uh, you know, we do have some tools, you
know, to help bridge or stop some actions or whatnot, but what I want people to understand, there’s a process
underneath that you have to undo and rebuild a new brain and a new thinking
pattern and to stop looking. Or maybe they come to you and think that just one session is going to do it. you know, I
two or three sessions, maybe couple weeks, gonna take care of it all and then I’ll be done. That’s not true, right? It’s it’s a process,
right? These habits did not form in just one or two weeks. No, ma’am. These are like lifelong habits
that most people have. So, it’s it doesn’t not going to take a lifetime to solve them, but you do need to give yourself a little time and patience,
especially when you’re doing the deep brain work. Yes, we live in a pill obsessed society.
People love their pills, their medications where they can just pop something, inject something, have
something, and just not having to worry about it. But our body doesn’t work like that. Our body doesn’t work with just having like something come into it and
then it fixes everything. We have to keep doing those things then in order for it to last. It’s not solving
anything then. So yes, you know, with the GLP1s, I think that really shows us though as a
society how desperate we are to change these things and how much we want to
change it. People are very motivated to change this. People do not lack like
a desire to change their eating habits. That is not the problem. It’s not that people are lazy or they’re just like, I
just want to eat and overeat and be fat. Like no one wants that for themselves. But we live in a society that’s created
that from um diet culture, from our food system, for all these other factors. We’re not moving anymore. We’re just
like stuck inside all day. And so it’s really not your fault. Um but you know, it is our responsibility. We do have to
decide that we live in this day and age where all of these things are a factor and how do we want to change it? But I
want to encourage people to not give up because there are so many different solutions out there. Everyone will work.
everything’s there’s different things that will work for different people and sometimes starting on a GLP1 I’m not
fully against them I think sometimes there’s like a time and place that we absolutely need that as the first step
and another beautiful part about that is it gives people hope oh my gosh you know I hear from people it’s like
I just feel like I can live my normal life again yeah I don’t have to think about food
all day if you can have that experience that can like really remotivate you and we give you that hope of like this is
possible for me, I can get out of that. And so, even if you’re not on the GLP1 forever, which
research has started to show that you kind of have to be in order to maintain it. That’s right. That’s right. You know, if you’re not on it forever,
then then at least, you know, there is a bit of hope here and I can change. And maybe that’s with a GLP1. Maybe that’s I
search out um someone like me or Dr. Pinkson or someone who can help you address your mindset and your psychology
behind it, too. but not allowing yourself to give up and say, you know what, it’s just me that’s broken. It’s
it’s really not right. That is very very well said. Thank you. I think that is the most
important piece right there. Looking for looking for the the support that’s needed. Um and you know, you can use
your tools, but there is something else going on underneath. It just has to be addressed and it takes time like
anything. So, uh that is great. You you are such a bright light. I I love your passion. I think that shows very very
well that you are very passionate about that and and that this and uh thank you for your transparency too. Uh you’re
doing some great work. So keep it up out there. Tell us where folks can find you.
Yes, so you can find me at my website the confident eater.org. That’s where you can also find my guided urge audio to help you stop a binge. Um I also have
a podcast of my own called Become a Confident Eater. So this is where I have a podcast every Thursday giving you tips
on how to stop binge eating. Um so you can find me there. I have Instagram, Facebook, um, look up the confident
eater and you should be able to find me there as well. Absolutely. And this will all be on my
website drp betterlife.com when this airs and we will have everything listed there so people can gain access and uh,
start their journey cuz it’s worth it. I will absolutely say and I’m sure you will say too. It’s tough. It really was
not an easy thing to do. So don’t anticipate it to be. But once you truly have the desire that you want to do
things differently and you don’t want to go back to those old habits, there is help and you are not alone in that
struggle. There are many many fantastic people out there, very intelligent, do a lot of great things in this world who
have struggled with it too. So you definitely are not alone. So don’t don’t approach it that way. But thank you
Amber for being on today. Any last thoughts? Any anything else uh you that we missed that you would like to add?
You know, one thing I’ll say that often holds people from getting help is this idea of like, oh, I don’t want to spend money on myself. I think especially as
women, it’s like, we’ll we’ll spend money on everyone else. But I want to remind you that eating is something that
we have to do every single day, multiple times a day for the rest of our life
and I was just getting over a cold this week and it was my reminder, too, that if we don’t have our health, we truly
don’t have anything. We can’t show up to work. We can’t show up for our hobbies. We can’t really do anything if we’re not healthy. So, I know sometimes it’s scary
to like ask for help and to invest in yourself and no one wants to spend more money on anything, you know, like I get
that. But I truly believe that spending the time and energy and money on this is one of the best investments that you can
make. And I am so glad that I solved this while I am still young because I have clients who
are in their 60s, their 70s, and I’m so proud of them for believing in themselves and taking the leap. But
their biggest wish is that they did the program sooner, that they got started with help sooner. So, you know, spending
a couple thousand dollars on yourself now might seem like a lot, but you are going to save yourself hundreds of
thousands of dollars in your lifetime. I even did a calculation once of like how much binge eating is costing you.
And it was something like if you binge for the next 60 years, it’s going to cost you a million dollars
on all of the extra food you’re doing, all of the extra therapy that maybe isn’t working or not addressing the
right things. If you’re spending money on GLP1s and you’re having to be on them for a life, you know, like there’s so overeating on the food, spending money
on groceries, having to buy all the extra clothes that you buy, not showing up to work productively and like not
getting raises because you’re so worried about your body and food all day. Like there’s so many little factors that we don’t consider that are so costly to
ourselves. So, I just want to leave you with in a little bit of encouragement to, you know, whether it’s with me or
someone else to really reach out and get support because you will be so thankful that you have this solved and um under
control. an exclamation point on the end of that, not just one. Absolutely. Thank you. And
that’s true for anything you’re facing in your health right now. Uh the weight loss, the everything else, uh you know,
uh trying to prevent heart disease and things like that. I try to get people to walk that walk early in life and I’m so
proud of you for doing that. Thank you. That’s a great message. So everybody, thank you. Please go to dp betterlife.com and you will find all of
her information. We’ll get you hooked up and I appreciate you, Amber, for being on today. Thank you so much everybody.
Have a great week. Please take care of each other out there. [Music]
