Get ready to rethink what you know about binge eating and food addiction in this eye-opening conversation with health coach, occupational therapist, body image and binge eating coach, Stefanie Michele. With her decades-long journey with binge eating, Stefanie shares insights to help break the stigma around it. You'll learn why binge eating is often more about emotional suppression and dietary restriction than willpower alone.

Stefanie and I unpack common myths from wellness culture, like labeling food—especially sugar—as addictive, and how rigid diet rules can worsen our relationship with food. This episode encourages self-compassion and guilt-free eating as steps toward recovery, while also exploring the deeper psychological factors at play. 

Join us to challenge food addiction myths, let go of restrictive eating cycles, and move toward a balanced, fulfilling approach to food and well-being.

Links Mentioned:

Episode #117: How to Decode Your Cravings in Menopause

To learn more about Stefanie and her work, connect with her on her website at https://[email protected], or follow her on Instagram @iamstefaniemichele.

TRANSCRIPT

Jenn Salib Huber: 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I'm your host, Dr Jenn Salib-Huber. I'm an intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor and I help women manage menopause without dieting and food rules. Come to my table, listen and learn from me trusted guest experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you.

Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife. And if you're looking for more information about menopause, nutrition and intuitive eating, check out the midlife feast community, my monthly membership that combines my no nonsense approach that you all love to nutrition with community, so that you can learn from me and others who can relate to the cheers and challenges of midlife.

Jenn Salib Huber: 0:49

Have you ever found yourself elbow deep in a bag of chips or chocolate chips standing in your kitchen and then wondered is this a problem? Do I have a problem? Is this binge eating? Do I need to worry about this? Or maybe you know the guilt and the shame that comes with that all too well.

Jenn Salib Huber: 1:06

If you recognize yourself in that situation, you will definitely want to tune in to this week's episode with Stephanie Michelle, who's a health coach, an occupational therapist and a binge eating and body recovery coach specifically, and I knew that she was the perfect person to talk to about some of the challenges that we face at any stage, but especially in midlife, around emotional eating, emotional hunger.

Jenn Salib Huber: 1:28

We define what binge eating is, what binge eating behaviors are versus binge eating disorder, and we talk about why it's not about the food, and I think it's a really important conversation to have, because we so often hear that binges are caused by something in the food or the foods themselves, or that there's something wrong with us, that there's something that is broken inside of us.

So I know that you're going to love this conversation and I'd love to hear if any parts of it really kind of resonate with you and help you to maybe move towards a more peaceful relationship with food. You can leave your comments in the comment section on YouTube or you can send me a text. Wherever you listen to podcasts, I would love to hear what you think. Hi, stephanie, welcome to the Midlife Feast.

Stefanie Michele: 2:13

Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's good to see you.

Jenn Salib Huber: 2:16

It is great to see you. You were a guest in the Midlife Feast community back in December, which was great, talking about emotional regulation and stress and body image and how that all plays together. And we're going to be talking about a related topic today which I think I know the audience and listeners will be very keen to listen to, because there's a lot of misconceptions. There's a lot of, I think you think, limiting beliefs around what binge eating is.

So we're talking about binge eating and I always just love how you describe, how you normalize so many of the things that we've been taught to pathologize about emotional eating, binge eating, and I think it takes so much of the fear out of it, so let's dig in. So what is binge eating? Do you have a definition? Can we define it? So much of the fear out of it, so let's dig in. So what is binge eating? Do you have a definition? Can we, like, define it right out of the gate?

Defining Binge Eating Disorder vs. Binge Eating Behaviors

Stefanie Michele: 3:10

Yes, I mean there's a clinical definition of what it is right. So it's, you know, eating. You know and this is subjective too, but large quantities of food, more than a person would quote unquote normally eat in a sitting in a short amount of time, and there's a certain number of times per week or per month that that might take place. I find this definition, though really it's the clinical definition, and that it's also one of the one of the mainstays of the binge eating specifically, is that it's followed by of binge eating specifically, is that it's followed by feelings of guilt and shame like that.

That's part of the package. It's not just simply overeating, it's not like having an extra portion or two or, like you know, sort of overfilling on Thanksgiving dinner. That it's these discrete periods of time where a lot of food is being consumed, and that this is happening on a somewhat regular basis and followed by these periods of guilt and shame. That's how it's outlined, at least in the DSM.

Jenn Salib Huber: 4:09

So, just to be clear and if I can clarify, we're talking about binge eating disorder. We're not talking about binge eating behaviors, which can happen separately from the disorder, may be related, may not be. Is there is a clinical disorder? Binge eating disorder? That is as you describe, um, and I think it's. I think it's important to clarify that for people too, that, um, you know, a lot of people think that it's just a bad habit and they don't actually realize that this, you know, ties into to mental health, emotional health, and that there there are criteria there. So that's binge eating disorder. Yeah, um, keep going, tell us more there.

Stefanie Michele: 4:47

So that's binge eating disorder. Yeah, keep going, tell us more. Talking about binge eating, I'm someone who struggled with that for 25 years roughly. I mean I had all manner of disordered eating and eating disorder behaviors within that, but binge eating was the one I identified with the most and the one I feel like I struggled with the hardest. And it's as I've worked with people over time and as I recovered. I start I think about binge eating in so many different ways because it's not just this like one thing that comes from one source and there's one mode of recovery.

Why Binge Eating is Often a Response to Restriction and Unmet Needs

Stefanie Michele: 5:17

It's like there's binge eating that comes from extreme hunger due to restriction.

Stefanie Michele: 5:21

There's binge eating that comes from guilt and shame and I don't want to say hiding, but like emotional restrictions of, like suppressing emotions and talking in very like self-bullying ways and kind of using food as what would be called self-sabotage or I don't really believe so much in self-sabotage, but it can feel like that or just sort of escaping, dissociating.

Stefanie Michele: 5:46

Sometimes it's a way of taking care of oneself and securing alone time in a world where we don't get a lot of that or we feel guilty for trying to reclaim that for ourselves. There's so many different ways that binges present the food piece looks the same in terms of eating a lot of food in a short amount of time, or sometimes that can look like eating a lot of food over the course of a day and not really ever getting to any level of hunger because we're just consistently like grazing or chronically.

But that, where it comes from, is so nuanced and the way of thinking about it for oneself is really nuanced and that's why you know, sometimes I'll get questions like can you give me some tips for being for reducing binge eating? And it's like I couldn't possibly give you a tip, like it's, it's too complicated, you know it's it's very individual about where your binges are coming from. So I think there's so much more under the surface of these, of what's going on here in that behavior that's driving, what's driving that behavior, than meets notes.

Jenn Salib Huber: 6:48

I did an episode on emotional hunger and emotional eating and recognizing that you know that close relationship that we have with not just the types of food but, like you were describing, the circumstances in which we crave them, and often by ourselves, often as a reward, often to take care of ourselves. You know, we have to acknowledge the purpose that it has served in a self-compassionate way, before we even think about changing it. Just like you can't hate yourself into a body that you love, you can't change your eating behaviors from a place of self-loathing. It's just never going to work.

Stefanie Michele: 7:48

Yeah, and this is the hardest part, because binge eating inherently has a lot of shame attached to it, a lot of cultural disapproval. We live in a world in which restriction is normalized and admired. I mean, it's cool to eat as little as possible, so binge eating looks like it's polar opposite. It looks like I hear a lot of times people will describe it as selfish, greedy, gluttonous, lazy. Comes into play a lot for people who binge eat, even though it's the separate issue. But it's associated with a lot of not pretty characteristics and traits, and so having self-compassion, having any kind of inroad to understanding or even wanting to understand the purpose of it, is hard won.

Stefanie Michele: 8:38

I plan to one day write a book and what I'd like to title it is the Wisdom of Binge Eating, because I believe that it has purpose and that if we can get through the resistance and through the judgment of what this disorder has been made to look like in our society, that we can learn from it.

Stefanie Michele: 8:57

And then it's really there to tell us something, whether that has to do with physiological needs that are going on in the body due to lots of times, restriction and dysregulation in the nervous system, or changing belief systems, or calling attention to belief systems that aren't serving us anymore, or calling attention to emotions that need expression, because sometimes binging can be a way of talking, of saying I'm angry, I'm frustrated, I need something, something is not available to me and I'm just collecting. Scarcity is a big part of binging, even though it feels like it should be the opposite.

There's messaging in there and personally I didn't want to know about that for a long time. I didn't have the patience for that, I didn't have the compassion for that, because all I thought about myself was that I was weak and that binge eating was just the evidence of that, and I could not see any more than that. And I don't know that I wanted to really until I approached 40. I don't know if that's coincidental or not.

Jenn Salib Huber: 10:03

Probably not At a certain point?

Stefanie Michele: 10:04

probably not. No, I don't think so, and we can talk about that. But you know, when I was younger, I just wanted to beat the system and I didn't want to have to consider it any other way than culture had taught me to think about it and just get rid of it.

Jenn Salib Huber: 10:19

Yeah. So let's dive into a couple of the myths, because you brought up a couple that I wanted to touch on, and one is that binge eating is a symptom or a result of a lack of willpower, and you've heard this probably more than I have, but I hear it all the time People saying I just need more willpower. Or if we're working on intuitive eating and working to try and maybe release some of the food rules that people have, they'll say I get what you're saying, but I can't have these foods in my house because I don't have the willpower to resist them. So let's talk a little bit about willpower.

Common Myths About Binge Eating and Willpower

Stefanie Michele: 11:00

Okay, well, I'm in full agreement with you that this is not an issue of willpower, and I don't know how you see it, but a lot of the people I work with have lots of discipline, lots of drive, lots of quote unquote, you know successful in other areas of life. In fact, I work with many people who sort of present that as like the conundrum. They're like you know, I'm successful here, there and here. I show up really fully in my life in all these ways, except for food, and it's like that's just the area where I'm so weak and I, you know, it's kind of like is that, is it? Or, you know, is that, is there something else going on?

Stefanie Michele: 11:36

And typically binge eating is actually bad. It can be in one of the ways it presents is a rebellion against the expectation and the perfectionism and the extreme discipline that we're using in other areas of life or even around food, including the expectations of how we're supposed to eat. Even if you're not eating that way, there's an expectation a lot of times that you should be and that that's really like a strong sort of shoulding, shoulding, shooting, shooting, happening relentlessly in a very disciplined way in your brain. And I say disciplined, you know, in air quotes, but it's, it's the, it's the response to that.

The binge eating can often be where it's saying we actually need to look at the ways in which we are putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to show up not only as a certain body size and we can also go into the ways in which biology is rebelling but also the expectations of what kind of person I'm supposed to be, how I'm supposed to eat in a certain way, how I'm supposed to be pleasing other people. Boundaries come into this a lot. There's a lot of rigidity or porous boundaries that might have to do with the binge eating saying we need we actually need more flexibility or we need more self-advocacy, Like that. It's not willpower, is just this. I think it's what fitness culture and diet culture and wellness culture have presented as the problem and I think we've all like bought into that hook line and sinker, sinker, and I think that's a very misleading way to approach binge eating, because typically there's a softening that actually needs to be occurring and understandably we're afraid to soften because we feel like we're so weak to begin with and that if we take away the last shred of willpower that we're holding onto, then everything is going to fall apart.

Navigating the Food Pendulum in Binge Eating Recovery

Stefanie Michele: 13:27

I'd also say, in response to your question about food in the house, that typically, when binge eating is at play and we're working on recovering from that there is in fact a period of time where you are bringing this food into your surroundings and your environment and you are eating a lot of it because, like any pendulum swing, you know, when you've been restricting something for a very long time or you've been very, you know, sort of like, disciplined around something for a very long time, when you finally allow it to be around or you allow yourself to have something, you do move towards it.

Stefanie Michele: 14:01

I mean that's a classic psychological response. But at that point the people usually get scared and they're like, nevermind, this is exactly why I can't do it Like. This is the evidence right here and it's getting through. That part is why I coach, because we need a lot of help and reassurance and handholding and support getting through that part. But that that's just a part of the process. That's not the end of it. That's not how we land, and if trauma is involved in things like that, there's other ways of talking about that.

Jenn Salib Huber: 14:28

But um, that typically that's just a response to being caged for a long time can't trust a toddler to make rational decisions, and very much like your brain when you're putting it in this situation where it can feel, and has been, a caged animal with these very tight rules and boundaries and no choice and no autonomy, and all of a sudden you're like go for it, do whatever you want.

Jenn Salib Huber: 14:59

You know, of course, that pendulum is going to swing the other way but that, like you say, that doesn't mean it's where you land. We had someone in in the midlife feast community the other week was that was describing how, you know, she never kept snacks in the house, she never kept chips and things like that in the house, and so, as part of the process of food permission and trying to release those rules, she brought in all the food and definitely ate a lot of it. Initially, she said, and now her counter just looks like a snack bar because there are bags of like half-eaten chips that have been there for a month. You know, because it really does take away the reward when you are practicing permission, and permission really has to come from a place of unconditional permission which isn't earned, which isn't, you know, accounted for. It's just you have the choice, um, but that's so hard.

How to Build Trust in the Process of Food Recovery

Stefanie Michele: 15:49

It's so hard and there's a lot of trust in the process that I think we have to have. And for me, when I went through that, I went through this through a recovery period uh, about it was five years ago was literally the day I turned 40, was the day that I was like you know what I? I mean there was some lead up to it but I, on my 40th birthday, my mom made me, makes me a cake, this coconut, like five layer cake, and I was like, uh, I'm not going to. Usually I would compensate or restrict or not, you know and I said I'm going to eat my birthday cake and I'm from then on, from that day on, I'm not going to compensate anymore, I'm not going to, I'm just going to kind of go full on.

Stefanie Michele: 16:29

I did like an all in kind of recovery process and so that was the last day, or the day before my birthday, I guess was the last day I ever restricted and for that, for about six months, I ate a lot of food. I had ice cream was one of the things cereal, granola, peanut butter, these kinds of foods were the kinds of foods that I couldn't have around, so to speak. You know, that's what I thought I didn't have them around. They were like, when I would have them in the house, I would sort of tell my husband to hide it from me to watch me in the kitchen. I mean, these were the sort of the modes, that's, the lengths I was going to to, you know, to make sure that I you know that cause I just didn't trust myself. And when I I allowed that food, I had ice cream bars in my house and I would eat boxes of them at a time and I, even in recovery in the beginning, like had a lot of ice cream bars at a time. It wasn't like I'm allowing all foods so I'll just eat one.

It was like I needed to have three, four or five of them, if not more. And now I have, I think I just threw away a box of ice cream bars that just freezer burnt because I don't the energy around them. Yeah, it got. It was like, yeah, you know, after a while, that's the classic, I think, way that we talk about habituating foods in order to recover, and there are cases in which I think there's some offshoots of how that might look for someone.

Stefanie Michele: 17:54

I have worked with clients who say I've been giving myself permission to eat these things and it's not going away. Like I just continue to binge and I've been doing this for years and that can happen too. And I think that to binge and I've been doing this for years and that can happen too, and I think that's a common myth around like this doesn't work for me. Typically, what I see going on there is that there's sort of this idea that we're giving ourselves permission and there's the mechanical, behavioral okay, I'll have it in the house, but the mental restriction is still really high. So that's like, yes, in theory you've given yourself permission, but there's a lot of judgment, there's a lot of fear, there's a lot of shame about the fact that they're eating it, and that's not quite the same as true permission. So that's an area that sometimes I find people need support around.

Jenn Salib Huber: 18:44

Permission. Sometimes, too, I think, gets confused with testing boundaries, so I often see people who will have this oh yeah, I'm all in, but I'm testing this by getting on the scale in a week. They're not saying that, but that's what happens.

Jenn Salib Huber: 19:00

And then they get on the scale and they're like, well, it didn't work, so that's not permission. And then they get on the scale and they're like, well, it didn't work, so that's not her mission. With curiosity and compassion, that is a test, and you know there's no way to go into that feeling peaceful, because you're already expecting the outcome. So you're just trying to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that is a completely different mindset than I just want to normalize this food. I just want to have food neutrality and not feel this reward, not feel this craving, this urge, this compulsion. Yeah, I hear that a lot from people too, and I think that's an important one to call out. So thanks for bringing that up too.

Stefanie Michele: 19:45

You're speaking also to like a readiness, because I tried to stop binge eating, obviously for all the all the while I was binge eating and I have this journal entry somewhere that I recently came across. It wasn't a journal entry, I'm sorry. It was an email to my therapist at the time and I read it recently. I was like, oh my goodness, I you know this was in 2016. So this was years before I actually recovered, a couple few years, and I was trying this method. I don't even really remember it, but I was trying and I wrote to her and I said I've been doing the. You know, I've been allowing myself to eat all these foods for three weeks now and I haven't lost any weight. I can't keep doing this. This doesn't. And it was like I could he. I knew that. I could remember at that time that the, the goal was just still weight loss and the goal was still like control. It wasn't coming from this place that ended up.

Stefanie Michele: 20:38

I ended up arriving at, several years later, of of like what I can describe only as like this readiness and real, just desire to, to be, to, to have this normal relationship with food. It wasn't about what I would get out of that it wasn't about. I want to have a normal relationship with food so that I can be thinner or so that I don't gain weight. You know it was, it was a pure. I don't want to enter the second part of my life. I will end up doing this for the rest of my life, like I just knew that.

Stefanie Michele: 21:10

You know and again, maybe it was the 40 year mark, that was sort of like here I'm going to enter a new decade and if I don't, if I do this the same way, I'm going to keep doing that. I'm going to be my grandmother, who is 92 and still dieting. That will be my grandmother, who is 92 and still dieting. That will be my life, and I could see that. And then it became something more about. I think my desire to feel healthy quote unquote normal around food, or feel regulated, even just internally, to not be on that rollercoaster all the time, was stronger than my desire to control my body. And that was the first time that that one eclipsed the other Cause, prior to that point it was like no, the control is more important, the body is more important, and I'm not judging that. I couldn't get there until I got there, um, but there was this level of exhaustion that kind of came with the ability to really move into this process in a way that worked.

Jenn Salib Huber: 22:03

Yeah, oh, my gosh, that's really powerful. Can we talk a little bit about the food? Because the other myth that I think gets too much attention is that it's the food that creates the craving and that there's something in sugar and high palatability foods. It's the salt, it's the fat, it's the sugar, it's all the things that is creating this craving and driving this binge eating, because you can never feel satisfied with these hyper palatable foods. Yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Is Sugar Addiction Real? A Closer Look at Food Cravings and Fear

Stefanie Michele: 22:36

So I don't believe in food addiction. I do believe that there are certain behaviors that we can come to rely on really strongly and that there are go-to and there are default network, you know, and that they can feel very much like addiction, but I don't believe in the actual addictive property of food. Um, I was treated under an addiction model for a very long time. Um, property of food, I was treated under an addiction model for a very long time. That was the approach that my therapist and I was in treatment for this and that was the approach. And there was an overeaters, anonymous kind of vibe, you know where. It's just like you abstain from the white flour and the white sugar and these things and you'll be good and it does work for a period of time. But that's a willpower thing that's still using this like it's not getting to the root of the problem.

Stefanie Michele: 23:20

And the way that I really feel this to be true is that I used to binge on sugar and carbohydrates relentlessly. I would have absolutely told you five plus years, six years ago at this point I'm addicted. I'm addicted to those things, a hundred percent. That's exact. I would rustle through garbages, I would steal food and even money to get you know from. I remember stealing money out of my parents' wallet to get money to, to, to sneak food. I mean, these are the behaviors of an addict. And so how could I? This is what I thought you know, like I just this is what this is.

Stefanie Michele: 23:54

And now I have sugar in my home and in my diet and it's not a thing, it's completely fine, there's no energy around it, and I see this with clients as well. And so I think that there's a lot of belief out there. And I see it with clients who come to me saying I'm a sugar addict, can you please help me, you know. And then we come to you know, at the end of it it's like, oh, I wasn't actually a sugar addict. I'm not actually a sugar addict. There's sugar in my home. But when we have the fear built up, that's all absolutely reinforced in the, in wellness culture. There is an energy then around those foods and it's a high stakes food, and when there's, that's a psychological setup for using that food in a way that looks like we're addicted to it. I mean, it's the. It's a classic scenario and I find this to be the one that people really resist the most as far as believing that it's not an addict issue Um.

Debunking Food Addiction: The Science Behind Binge Eating

Jenn Salib Huber: 24:54

I like to talk about the science of it because I mean, you and I know in our practices we know this not to be true. We see this all the time people who come in really feeling and having struggled with what feels like or believe what they believe to be an addiction to a particular food or substance usually sugar, but sometimes just food in general. And when we go over the science and the evidence that we have to date, there's quite a bit of evidence that it does not exist, in the same way that a substance use disorder with drugs or alcohol or even, you know, medications can, because those substances hijack the brain's reward system and create levels of dopamine that are above and beyond physiologically normal levels. So of course, when we stop that response, we stop the drug, we stop the substance and the levels plummet. It creates a situation where strong, intense cravings are experienced, but also symptoms of withdrawal.

Jenn Salib Huber: 25:57

And those are two important criteria to meet the substance use disorder definition. We don't see that with food of any kind and we conflate reward and the reward cycle with addiction and they're not the same thing. We can experience pleasure and reward and not become addicted to it, because we're human beings and we're wired for pleasure and reward, and that's what happens with food. We enjoy foods, we experience pleasure as part of the reward cycle, but we don't become addicted to food because we cannot achieve those super physiological levels of dopamine that are created with substances. And we also don't ever see the withdrawal symptoms.

And people aren't losing their jobs, their homes and their families when they stop eating sugar. They might experience discomfort because they no longer have the coping mechanism or they're choosing not to use that coping mechanism, but they don't have to be hospitalized for symptoms for DTs. So I think understanding the science also helps to just maybe take some of the fear out of it, because that whole addiction conversation just drives fear and panic where people like don't even want it in their circle of friends.

The Role of Restriction in Binge Eating: Why Permission Matters

Jenn Salib Huber: 27:20

Like I've had people say that they had to like get new friends because their friends wouldn't stop bringing sugary desserts to potlucks. Yeah, oh gosh. Yeah, Heartbreaking right. So just to kind of tack on one more thing. The other interesting thing about addiction research that I'm sure you know is that you know it's the behavior, the behavior of restriction, that creates the craving which really ties into everything. We've been talking about that. When we don't allow ourselves access to something that we enjoy, we will want more of it.

Jenn Salib Huber: 27:51

Yeah, right so coming back to permission right.

Stefanie Michele: 27:56

And the physiology too. Um, and this won't apply to everybody who binge eats, but a good number of people who binge eat also restrict and so their weight may be suppressed, even by just a little bit. And again, that doesn't have to mean that you're underweight, absolutely not. It just might mean that you're less than your, your body wants to be, that you're, you're might be. I mean, I was of an average weight, for In fact, I was probably overweight according to the BMI, but I was restricting and I was under my body's set point.

Stefanie Michele: 28:26

That was enough to drive what felt like. It was a primal drive for food that would come over me when I would open a floodgate. That I would call it like opening the floodgates, but that was a physiological like my body was hungry. My body was chronically hungry and pointing me towards food. In the same way that we were not addicted to going to the bathroom, we just need to you know what I mean Like that will just show up and hunger that comes from that. I need food, kind of survival place feels addictive. But it's really just a biological drive.

Stefanie Michele: 28:59

When I reached a certain point in my you know my body, when my body reached a certain weight range. A lot of that really quieted. I mean, there were still the psychological pieces, but there was something in my body I could feel like that urgency. If anyone listening binge eats there's that you know. I couldn't even wait for bread to toast in a toaster. Like 30 seconds was too much to wait. I could not wait. That primal urgency of food was hunger, you know, and that's different than food addiction.

Jenn Salib Huber: 29:30

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So what would be one other thing that you would love people to know about binge eating? That can be a fact, factoid, bit of info, myth, but just kind of what do you feel like is something that's really important, that isn't talked about enough or needs to be said more?

Stefanie Michele: 29:53

All of it, all of what we just said, but that, first of all, I think that a lot of people with binge eating think they're broken and they think that that's just the way that they are.

Healing from Binge Eating: A Holistic Approach to Recovery 

Stefanie Michele: 30:02

They relate to food and I.

Stefanie Michele: 30:04

This is why I do what I do, because I felt like that too and that was just my belief about myself and my body, even like it was like me against my body, um, and is something that it can't, you're not, broken and that this can be worked with and that that might require like some kind of looking at physiology.

Stefanie Michele: 30:24

I have like a three-pronged approach to it, like physiology, cognition and, you know, the mental constructs and nervous system, and emotional regulation, and that any one of those three things in a dysreg three things where it lands in a dysregulated way, might show up as binge eating, and that these underlying factors are the place to go, more so than how do I reduce the amount of food I'm eating? I think the typical way of thinking about binge eating is how do I eat less? And that's the surface goal, and as long as we stay focused on that, I don't think we recover, going deeper into the emotional dysregulation, the mental and the physical dysregulations and everything that goes along with that, which usually has to do with like a whole web of factors, is the area to focus on, and that these are the things that need more attention than the food actually.

Jenn Salib Huber: 31:19

I think that's a great reminder. So thank you for sharing that. Thank you so much for joining me today. I know that this this is going to be really helpful to a lot of people, because so much of the binge eating conversations aren't aren't really talking about it other than just like what is the fix, like what do I need to do to fix this, instead of really getting into a little bit more of like what are the, what are the things that are around the binge eating, and not just the binge eating itself. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us Thanks for having me.

Jenn Salib Huber: 31:50

So what do you think is the missing ingredient in midlife?

Stefanie Michele: 31:55

I don't know if you get this one a lot, but I just turned 45 in June and more and more like I feel like I'm just getting more messaging around connection and it's like I've studied for. So even even you know, in my own quest to recover, it's like all right, what do I need to know? What new training do I have to do? What do I have to read about, what do I have to research? And it's like, and it's like sometimes the most simple truth of feeling regulated inside of myself is like connecting with other human beings that make me feel safe.

That is the most powerful antidote and it's the simplest. And so I'm in an active process right now of like remembering how to have that balance between work and passion and intellect, with being in my body and being with safe people and being in my life, like being in that first person living experience, which I think that anxiety and pressure can corrupt a bit. So there's this body and connection and social connection piece that I'm really into right now.

Jenn Salib Huber: 32:59

Awesome, that's great. I love that. So where can people find you?

Stefanie Michele: 33:03

I am on Instagram and I will be on YouTube hopefully the next couple of weeks that I am Stephanie Michelle and I'm also. I have a website at. I am stephaniemichellecom.

Jenn Salib Huber: 33:13

Perfect, and we're going to have those links in the show notes as well, and so this is coming out in September, october, so we'll have all your links, including YouTube and everything up. But thank you so much for joining me today, thanks for having me, thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Midlife Feast For more non diet, health, hormone and general midlife support. Click the link in the show notes to learn how you can work and learn from me, and if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, please consider leaving a review or subscribing, because it helps other women just like you find us and feel supported in midlife.